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Dave Weisberger
That's dope. Let's go. What's up everybody? I'm Dave Weisberger filling in for Scott Melker, talking with Eden Iago about everything going on after the fomc. Trump talking at Dos, xrp, Bitcoin, etc, Iago, how are you this morning?
Eden Iago
I am very well, how are you? Good to see your face.
Dave Weisberger
Yeah, it's, it's, it's, you know, it's been a while since we've been face to face. I guess we met in, in Las Vegas at a conference a long time ago and I always follow you to understand what's going on in the bitcoin ecosystem. You know, what do you make of, of, of all the promotion, you know, and the President of the United States being speaking to Digital Asset Conference?
Eden Iago
Well, I'm, I'm excited to see whether or not he'll be able to do less than two hours. Look, I've been hearing from people who are at DAs that it's a great conference, that it's like very high signal to noise, great people. So I feel like I'm missing out and now that Trump's speaking even more.
Dave Weisberger
So yeah, I'm sitting here in beautiful Miami, decided not to go up to New York this week. So, you know, I kind of feel the same way. The, the most interesting topics that have been talking about, I mean, look, you know, we can talk about trading, but I don't think either one of us wants to talk about the short term price unless you have something specific you want to talk about. But the notion of what's happening in bitcoin and what's happening vis a vis alts. So the two topics that keep coming up, one is bitcoin dominance as a whole is increasing and plumbing its highs. And the other is XRP's outperformance of Bitcoin and of course the XRP army's constant jibing that it should be the be all and end all. Now I'm sure you have thoughts on both. Just curious because you spend most of your life, as far as I understand it, figuring out how to bring bitcoin to the mainstream. In addition to just being a pure.
Eden Iago
Store of value, is XRP outperforming Bitcoin on what time frame is that true?
Dave Weisberger
Yeah, they always pick it. You know, look, since the case was just, was initially looked like it was going to get dismissed. Yeah, you know, it, it jumped from like 50, 60 cents to $2 and 50 cents or where, where is it right now? It is, yeah, almost exactly 250, 249. So yeah, so they're cherry picking that time frame. If you go back to 17, of course it's getting crushed. So you know, it really, it always depends, but it doesn't really matter. I mean the point is is they'll make the argument the same as the Solana people that bitcoin's too slow, etc. And yes, I know you opinions on this topic, so you know, that's why I'm trying to tee you up here.
Eden Iago
Well, look, I think, I think there's a really interesting thing happening with XRP which is that it is highly valued protocol, primarily owned by one company. That company is raising capital at much, much less than the implied value of its holdings. So I've been looking at the secondary markets for xrp, sorry for Ripple stock. Ripple stock on the secondary market is trading at about 9 billion market cap even though it owns 40% or 50% of a $140 billion asset. Right. So that's a write down of 90%. So I think that's interesting. The other interesting thing is like why are people still holding xrp? So I've been trying to find people who are holding XRP to try and get their thesis because the big thing that Ripple was promising and has been promising over the last decade is that Ripple XRP is going to be the institutional chain. And what is very, very obvious is that Bitcoin has become the institutional chain. Bitcoin is the chain which is being touted by the institutional players, everyone from BlackRock to Fidelity, and it is the chain which is being adopted by governments, everyone from the United States to Bahrain. So, so what then remains as XRP's sort of claim to fame? And it's unclear to me, so I think the fact that it's such a highly valued asset without to me sort of clear fundamentals is in and of itself very interesting.
Dave Weisberger
Well, I think that probably the most important nuance here is to separate the, the asset from the chain, right? So Bitcoin as an asset has been adopted by Bahrain, is certainly being adopted by the United States. In fact, it's being called a strategic reserve asset. Excuse me, xrp, the, the, the token as an asset is whatever it is and as you're right, its value, see, is dependent on what people will buy and sell it for. The fact that XRP stock is trading at that level is amusing. I say it's amusing because I've seen this before, right. You know, and it could last for years. I mean my first expl exposure to that was Polygon and Phillips. You know, you know, and it was an arbitrage when I was trading in London back a long, long time ago. And it lasted for a while. It eventually will come together. A phenomen trade for people who can do it. If you have the ability to do a long term short on XRP would be to buy Ripple and short xrp. But you know, to be blunt, you know, it's impossible, right, because you can't borrow it for long term. And what you would pay for that borrow would wipe away as, as crazy as it sounds, it over the long term would probably wipe away a lot of the potential profits. So people don't do those sorts of things, they just kind of look at it. But in any case, Bitcoin, the asset is undeniably being adopted. XRP the asset, the price is high. But one has to ask oneself the question, is that because people, you know, the people in the community, you know, making calls, Patrick, Ben, David, making what I call lunatic call of $1,000 per XRP. Because if you think about what that value would be, it's an insane number. Oh, seriously. I mean it's an insane number. That could only happen in the case of hyperinflation. But if XRP is a thousand dollars, Bitcoin I think would be beyond Michael Saylor's most wild expectation. So it's, it is what it is. It's all, you know, whatever. And you're laughing because you can do.
Eden Iago
I'm just looking, I'm just looking at the chart now as you're saying that. Right. And so I think XRP right now is trading at what like $2 and 40 cents. So yeah, from there to a thousand is very close to a thousand X.
Dave Weisberger
Yeah, well, you know, it's what, whatever. I mean, you know, you're talking about the, the world's most valuable asset. It would have to be by a lot actually. And that's just, you know, look, it's, it's insanity. But you know, there are people who believe that the demand for XRP will go up as they gain adoption into significant payment systems. So between their stablecoin and the ecosystem they're building, use Ripple's network to either replace Swift augmented or out compete it, that there's value there. I mean personally I've gone through this with Mickel, you know, and come to the conclusion that if one makes certain assumptions about crypto market cap, that its market cap could triple. Now do I think, what do I think about bitcoin? Well, you know, I think bitcoin is at a minimum a 90% discount to where it should be. So obviously my portfolio is sized accordingly. But the difference is the chain adoption of xrp, if you believe them, is high or becoming high in terms of bank partnerships, et cetera. But what's most interesting to me is when you talk about adoption of the Bitcoin chain, the question is, other than a store of value, what else is Bitcoin being used for? Because it really isn't being used in payments. And there are lots of people who are saying lightning, which was the hope that it was going to be the big chain for doing, you know, for using it really still doesn't have big takeout, you know, take up. So when you talk about the Bitcoin chain, what do you mean?
Eden Iago
Well, actually I don't think chains matter that much. The reality is that we're seeing more and more activity happening offchain. The vast majority of activity happens offchain and always has in crypto. So you know, the old way of doing it would be that you would have assets in exchanges and then the vast majority of crypto trades and transactions actually happen on centralized platforms. Now what we're starting to see is more decentralized but off chain activity. So you know, Ethereum, it's has basically placed all of its eggs in the off chain transaction basket. Lightning Network is an example of that. But what ZK is doing for us now is, is it's allowing us to basically perform transactions at super speed, low cost, off chain, and then just settle two chains. And so I think the, the, the, the fact that we use these, this term, blockchain is extremely misleading. What a blockchain is there to do is to provide ledger. You don't do transactions on ledgers, you settled transactions on ledgers. And so ultimately the, the real question is like where are all of these transactions? Where are high value transactions, which is basically aggregated small value transactions, where are they going to settle? And if governments, large corporations and financial institutions have their assets on a, on a ledger, then they implicitly and ultimately explicitly trust that ledger. And when you're talking to large institutions, large organizations, the idea that nobody gets fired for buying IBM, that is the most important idea. Everyone is just trying not to get fired. And so nobody is going to get fired for putting assets on the world's best ledger. People will get fired for putting assets on an experimental ledger, which is basically all of the other ledgers and certainly the ripple ledger. And so I started a remittance company back in 2013, integrating into banks. We had among our customers six of the 10 largest banks in the world. Santander, BBVA, Barclays bank, spare bank. And you know, we were, we were integrating traditional systems that allowed them to do settlement on, on btc. That actually was a pretty profitable company. But I remember at the same time, sort of on the other side of the pond there was this Ripple company that kept on coming out with announcements also with Santander and bbva and those were proofs of concept which never went anywhere. And that process has continued. And so, you know, Ripple as a company, if I'm totally honest, I think has perfected a system where they will pay huge amounts of capital to innovation centers at large corporations to get a press release and they have been rinsing and repeating that method for the last decade plus.
Dave Weisberger
So rather than spending more time on Ripple, because I'd love to, I think I asked you actually we should get you and Mickle or maybe a couple other people and actually have a specific debate. I think that that is, that is interesting. I don't know what to make of it. I'm not going to make accusations of, you know, to Brad Garlinghouse that that is that he is a multi level market, but which is effectively what you're saying.
Eden Iago
But I think there's one level.
Dave Weisberger
Okay, well yeah, but you get my point. But there is a really important point that people don't get. So I had a debate with Justin Bonds who also goes on about Bitcoin, about how Solana is going to eat the world. And I tried explaining to him that bitcoin as an asset is one thing. And I also tried explaining to him that the better analog for Bitcoin, which it's faster than is Fedwire. So what the average human being doesn't understand is that when you send an ACH or you do a Zell or you do any of the things you think you're doing, sending funds instantly, you don't. The banks give you credit ish after a few days, but that things ultimately settle on much slower systems in the back end, in batch and for good reason.
Eden Iago
Nobody wants real time settlement. People want real time clearing. And I think maybe a lot of people don't understand the difference between clearing and settlement. Settlement.
Dave Weisberger
Please explain.
Eden Iago
So when you perform a transaction through Visa, through you know, Revolut, whatever is the revenue of the United States, I forget its name. And through banks, right? As well as going and doing a stock trade through your broker, what is actually happening is that on the back end nothing is changing. So all of these different brokers, these different banks, these different nodes in that network, they're collecting lists of transactions that they're doing basically with whoever their peer is, another bank, another broker. And then at the end of the day or at the end of the week or at the end of a three day period, whatever the settlement process happens to be, they will aggregate all of that, net out the differences, right? So maybe you've done a hundred transactions or a hundred thousand transactions, but you're up $1,000. That's the important thing, that you're up $1,000. And then they will settle differences. And the reason that you don't want. There's lots of reasons why people don't want real time settlement. But the main reason is for the same reason that Bitcoin has 10 minute blocks which is that you need to give enough time for that information to fully propagate so that everyone is sure that they're settling to exactly the same thing. And real time introduces either throughput limits which you can't have for settlement, right. You can't have a moment where there's going to be a bottleneck or conflicts. Right. Which you also can't have. And so you know, 10 minute settlement or even hour long settlement or day long settlement is plenty and very, very fast.
Dave Weisberger
I think very few people appreciate between, you know, in that because they don't understand what is actually necessary. Building a network that could settle $3 transactions at light speed is interesting, but is that really what is necessary for the asset on the back end in technology? And you ran a company and you're a technologist. I've run multiple broker dealers and have been building high frequency systems or running or managing from the trading side high frequency systems since high frequency before we called them high frequency systems. Our first program trading system was, I, I hope I ran it was, you know, built in the 80s and we were really excited that we could get an entire S&P 500 basket done in five minutes. Yeah, that was a massive, massive uptick in, in speed. So I, I, I understand that there's a trade off, there is always a trade off between speed and guarantee of delivery which is, you know, if you look at even you go back to the old Technicron days if you, if that, if that means anything to you. Which became tibco for information buses. There was always two methods of propagating information. Guaranteed delivery and you know, put it out there and pub sub and you can always request retransmissions. I don't think that anybody understands just how revolutionary bitcoin was at the time. Able to propagate globally to a literal infinite number. It's obviously not infinite, but it's, it's, there's no cap on it number of nodes and have it, and have it all be synced up and having never gone down in 15 years. Yeah, you know, that is a very big deal.
Eden Iago
That is, that is so the, the funny thing here is that in finance, in high value transactions, most innovative or first mover or all of that stuff is not really that valuable. In fact, in many cases it's, it's the exact opposite of valuable. Nobody wants to use the most cutting edge stuff. What they want is the most reliable. And so it's, there's, you know, in business we sometimes talk about time to market, but in high value transaction world, what matters is time in market. Right. And so Bitcoin just has a track record of operating flawlessly that is longer than any other system. And Bitcoin itself as a system is simpler than any other system and hasn't changed for longer than any other system. Ethereum or Solana, they'll change every six months and so their clock restarts every six months. Bitcoin's clock has been running basically for 15 years.
Dave Weisberger
Yeah, well, you know, look, but there was the taproot, you know, there have been upgrades. So that's, that's a bit unfair. But, but I want to bring it back because, you know.
Eden Iago
Sure, but I mean like taproot itself was five years ago.
Dave Weisberger
Right. No, I get it. I, I, I'm actually, I agree. I mean, look, I am pretty well known to be a bitcoin bull. I still think that we're going to see somewhere between 250 and 300 in this cycle. I told you, I started off the show saying I think Bitcoin is 90% undervalued at a minimum. And we could go through the math. But what's fascinating is when you talk and I talk to people in financial markets all the time. I am, look, I can see the gray beard. I go to financial conferences, I'm on the board, I think I'm the treasurer of the Security Traders association of New York. I'm in noip, which is an organization, national organization of investment professionals where the median age is probably around mine. And when I talk to people, here are two sentences that I will tell you that happen every time when I talk in short conversations with older financial types. They're only interested in Bitcoin for the most part is how can they make money from it? They don't really want to care about it. They don't. It doesn't really matter to them. When I talk to CTOs or technologists for any length of time and mention its track record, how it works, why it works, they get very excited. Orange pilling a technologist is almost a slam dunk. Now understand how important the CIOs, the technology organ, the technologists are and people who understand technologists are to pools of capital. And you start to understand why it is easier to orange pill than people think. So Michael Saylor talking to a bunch of CFOs who are the most conservative members of the company and he's getting traction. There's no doubt. I mean you're seeing some of it is some. But talk to CTOs and talk to technology oriented funds and fund managers, officers and all of a sudden you start to see a very different thing. And that's why Larry Fink and that's, you know, at blackrock, that's why Fidelity, that's why when you talk with Matt Hogan from Bitwise, he tells you these conversations are going great because when you explain to someone that a settlement layer that clicks every 10 minutes has not gone down in 15 years, propagates globally within that 10 minutes such that it's instantly verifiable, you get people very.
Eden Iago
Yeah, I think again people misunderstand that difference between clearing and settlement. Clearing is instantaneous transactions. The closer you can get to that, the better. And so I think one way that we should be thinking about things like Solana, right? And this is something I hope to maybe explain to Justin one day is that Solana is a clearing system. And actually Solana could be much more successful if it just said, okay, we're a clearing system hyper fast, but we settled to Bitcoin and then. Because then Solana can sell to the people who actually matter, the best of both worlds. Whereas now trying to come to a CIO or a CTO of a significant financial firm and you know, say guys, we should back, we should turn Solana into our engine. I think that is basically impossible sell.
Dave Weisberger
I mean I think that's probably true. Although I keep, I. There are people who in the bitcoin world are like well you know, look, we the dog meme coin on Bitcoin as opposed to, you know, pump fun on Solana and know about you but I look at the size, actual value being created in the crypto world and what's going on and the valid transaction volume and I look at all of it as something you said before. It's all proof of concept. Don't you think? I mean, because certainly the values don't justify the market caps in terms of what I think.
Eden Iago
I mean, look, they're, they're more egregious examples. Examples of that. I think we started the conversation with one of the most egregious examples. But I, I think, look, yes, I think there are very clearly some things which have graduated beyond proof of concept. Bitcoin has definitely graduated beyond proof of concept at this point. Stablecoins, I think, have graduated significantly beyond proof of concept at this point. Some aspects of Defy, I think, are close, but I think the big thing that is holding crypto back is just a fundamental misunderstanding. They're not, they think they're building, you know, the entire Internet, right? We're going. Ethereum's supposed to be the Internet of Tomorrow. Solana is supposed to be Internet tomorrow. Sue is supposed to be Internet of Tomorrow. They're trying to do everything. They're trying to declaring and settlement. And, and I think the, the shift that is likely to happen is we're going to see more activity, move off chain. We're going to start seeing a clearer distinction between clearing and settlement, where Bitcoin is going to be the settlement mechanism basically for the entire industry. And we're going to see less talk about blockchains and more talk about assets ledgers, intense clearing and settlement. Those are really the terms that we should be using just so that we can educate ourselves as an industry. Right now, I think we're the industry that understands itself the worst out of all the industries in the world.
Dave Weisberger
You think really think the worst?
Eden Iago
Yeah, I mean, look, the analogy that I use is that as an industry, imagine we were the diamond industry, right? Instead of calling ourselves the diamond industry, we would call ourselves the digging holes in the ground industry. We're completely focused on sort of the wrong part of the story, right? We would have huge conferences about, you know, how the throughput with which I can clear out the rubble. You know, there would be an entire subsection sector about people who are building bridges between the house, the tunnels or tunneling between the holes. But really what people want, nobody wants a blockchain. People want assets, they want settlement, they want security. We are the ownership industry. And we don't treat ourselves that way. We treat ourselves as.
Dave Weisberger
You know, it's funny, I go back. My favorite analogy to explain Bitcoin to people is Mark Yuskos, who. He talks about the Internet of value as opposed to the Internet of information. But notice Mark doesn't talk about rebuilding the Internet to be a New Internet. He just talks about the assets and the transport mechanism mechanisms and as you would call it, the settlement layers to make Bitcoin a trustless, disintermediated or no need for intermediation method of exchanging value.
Eden Iago
Yeah, exactly. I think we really need to figure out who our user is and what is the value that we're actually bringing. That is what real industries do and that is why we're a proof of concept industry at this point.
Dave Weisberger
So your answer to the idiots like Peter Schiff in the world who say Bitcoin has no value is to ask the simple question back at them. Well, what's the value of a perfect settlement layer that requires no intermediation from the banks, that takes no economic rent or very little economic rent in order to settle effectively all the daily transactions on the planet? What's the value of that? And if you come up with zero, then you better check your math. That's the way I would phrase it. How's that?
Eden Iago
No, I think that, I think that's, I think if we were talking in those terms we would be having a more intelligent conversation and we would be able to silence our critics more easily.
Dave Weisberger
So coin sitting at like, you know, 85,000. Right. You know, we're, we all kind of look at it. I don't know what your internal model is for valuation is, but so actually, you know, you could tell me that. And we're sitting here where we understand that most of the selling have been momentum sellers over the last few weeks who bought expecting it to continue to go higher. It didn't, it stalled and we have economic uncertainty. You know what, what is your expectation for through. I'm not asking for tomorrow, we're talking about like for the next year or so. And what's your long term view? What do you think its value really is?
Eden Iago
I'll break it up into three parts. I think my base case is that we see the Fed and the European Central bank both capitulating towards the middle of this year and starting to print. Which means that I think in the short term, which I say short term is the current year, the second half of this year is going to start seeing significant increase across tech assets in general and bitcoin and crypto specifically. Longer term, the. I have less confidence here, but I, I have the sense that the four year cycle has significantly weakened at this point. And we're very likely for the first time to see a 2026, which would be the third year of the cycle actually being a positive year or at least flat with not the kind of dramatic drawdown that we saw. And my longer term thesis and sort of my price target is that over the next 10 years on the outside, and by 2032 on the inside, bitcoin surpasses gold in market cap, which would put Bitcoin at roughly 21x where it is now.
Dave Weisberger
Right. So here's the funny part. When you talk to people in crypto, they think, oh, so I got to wait 10 years to 10x or 20x my money, that's not fast enough. I need to do better. When you talk to people in the financial industry, they hear numbers like that and they go, that's completely unreasonable. It's too aggressive.
Eden Iago
Yeah, well, look, I mean, it's only, it's only 30 or 40 annualized ROI, so you're only outperforming literally every single hedge fund in the world on a consistent basis. If you've been holding bitcoin, I'm fine with those returns.
Dave Weisberger
As would I. And I think, I think that's a great, a great stopping point for now. Although I, I am going to take you up on it and see if I can get together. I would love to have a Justin Bonds and XRP and, and you to debate, you know, debate bitcoin and go through this entire concept because it, it's entirely possible that they haven't really thought in the terms, in the mental model that you have. So I really appreciate it.
Eden Iago
Awesome. Well, I think we need to invite Dan.
Dave Weisberger
Yeah, I was about to say it's time, it's time for, for the truck. And Dan, why don't you take it away and go through what you think is going on in the markets.
Dan
Sounds good. Appreciate you guys. So in terms of pulling up my chart, is that something I do on my end here? Thank you. All right. Hey, everybody, I'm Dan of the chart guys. I'm the captain of the ship now. Gonna say all kinds of controversial things. No. So we've got the response to the FOMC yesterday is what we're looking at. And I generally view, you know, you have the FOMC reaction the day that it comes out and you got the conference with Powell afterwards. But really in terms of significant money moving around in response, it's the following days. You know, you're not seeing everybody act in the first hour or two that we get that information. And so essentially what, what happened and is most meaningful is we had an initial bullish reaction and then we rejected really hard from resistance, at least on the NASDAQ and the NASDAQ Right now has a bounce high that we double topped at yesterday and we've now pulled back fairly significantly overnight. So you know, you look at this NASDAQ daily chart and you say okay, well that's a bear flag until proven otherwise. So we've got to get over that bounce high. And of course Bitcoin saw a leg up as well with that correlation and it's now back testing. And at the moment we can say that there's relative strength here comparative to the S P 500 and NASDAQ just in terms of the reaction where we haven't given it all back. Essentially we're back testing the previous resistance of 85, 000 and trying to hold it as support. So that's a little bit of progress, but essentially, you know, bigger picture depending what time frame we're looking at as we know the monthly. I keep saying if the EMA 12 was holding, there are no red flags. That's, that's where we based out last time before a leg up. That's what we're trying to hold this time around. Tom, we do have a weekly bounce underway because of the bull move yesterday, but we have to keep in mind that anything under 99.5 thousand is just a weekly lower high. So at this point still a clear weekly downtrend. But at least the bulls are giving themselves a little bit of breathing room off of the recent low in the upper 70,000 range. So in an ideal world, if you're bullish, you want to see the back test of 85,000 hold, establish that previous resistance as a support level and then obviously every leg up that we see from here will be beneficial for the, the longer term prognosis. So overall there are some altcoins we talked about last week actually on this show. The altcoins that were standing out stronger on their bounces like xrp, that was just being discussed and you know, perhaps people in the know knowing that the, the, the, the drop of the lawsuit was coming. Whatever the reason, it's had a very significant move off of its base of support. And again, not many altcoins right now have a long term base of support that they are holding. The vast majority are falling to lower lows. So any name that is holding a long term level is standing out. And so XRP right now has a confirmed daily uptrend with the leg up yesterday again, same thing. We're back testing the previous resistance, trying to hold it as support and just this is positive consolidation as far as I'm concerned. As long as that 190 to two dollar range continues to hold. So XRP is definitely in the grouping of bulls in the altcoin space. Binance is another one recently after its significant move off of its lows. And again same thing. We're holding these flush lows that many altcoins broke and seeing a solid weekly bounce from there. Again, same thing. We still have to eventually, you know, wherever we top out we have to confirm a weekly uptrend if we're going to see these bulls regain. But again I would suggest with, with so few bulls in the altcoin space right now, just you know, going through your list of all the names you're watching, it's a bit of a sea of red out there today but and, and compartmentalizing. These are the stronger ones. You know, if I have a bullish lean I want to be focusing on these ones. Xrp, you know, by default if XRP is going up, XLM is generally doing well as well. Binance is another one and again it's a pretty small list at this point so I'm going to continue focusing on those names. And there are other names. You know, Link has a or no it's soul that has a long term base of support. It's not nearly as strong as these others name other names but there is a clear support level that we are testing this range, you know 110 to 119 with how many times we've held this over the last year. Almost, you know, 11 months at this point. Held it again and again and again and again and we're trying to hold it again. So again if I am going to be looking long I want to be choosing names that have something to be going off of. Ens, the Ethereum naming service, definitely a little small name, low volume, but again just a long term base of support in the 15s that's trying to hold this test. So there are the stronger names, there are names that aren't quite as strong but are still holding a longer term support level at the moment. And those are the names that I'm keeping an eye on. And of course we keep watching the dominance chart which at this point is still bitcoin favored as long as the weekly higher lows keep forming. It's just my simple guide. And right now nothing changes from bitcoin dominance being in control of the bulls as long as this 60 level is holding. So that keeps the focus on bitcoin. But bigger picture again, you know the Nasdaq matters a lot to me. Looks like we're getting a little bit of a bounce this morning on the Open but I've got to see, you know, you go to the 12 hour time frame and we're just tightening up in an equilibrium. Low, high, higher, low, double top, trying for another higher low here. If this breaks bull, I'll be looking at bitcoin to be in the upper 80,000 range and again just need that leg up, need that confidence in the broader market. Finding a fear bottom and getting a little bit of relief in order for that confidence to seep out elsewhere into other markets. Quick check in on the metal miners. We talked about them last week with Scott and we, I was talking about this cup and handle on the weekly that GDX has confirmed and getting to you know, 14 year highs with some really nice follow through in the short term. It's nothing crazy in terms of the percent gains and I, I enjoyed that comment of the the previous speakers talking about how you know, you got the crypto people not happy with 10x and the finance people very happy with that. It definitely is a thing in terms of expectations where you know, people that are crypto focused are used to thousand percent returns and it's not really the real world in terms of expectations but you get, you know, GDX here in just a two week span with a 13% move and then you got the leveraged ETFs like NUGT or JNUG which are two times leveraged and again it's very worthwhile trades. In two weeks we're up 35% and we're trying to set these daily higher lows to keep this breakout constructive. So gold all time highs definitely keeping an eye on the miners and the gold. And as you know, for me, you know, being a full time trader, I don't care where I can get my returns from. There is no competition between gold and bitcoin for me. They both have their place. You know gold's outperformed bitcoin the last 52 weeks, that's just a fact. It is significantly underperformed the last decade, that's a fact. But they have their place in terms of focus and trading and gold and the miners have been a nice place to be the past couple of weeks while crypto is doing its consolidation. So that's what we're looking at in the short term. Got to see the NASDAQ break that resistance level to get some more bounce, follow through, try and negate a daily bear flag that is definitely still on the table. And bitcoin back testing 85% all checking in. I've got a webinar later today on my YouTube channel at the Chart guys, and we're going to be talking about volume profile analysis with one of my good friends and traders who has a very different style than me that it's been fun watching him have success with it over the last five plus years. And we're going to be talking about volume profile analysis and giving examples of how to use that and how I incorporate that into my style these days a little bit more. So hope to see you there and appreciate you all tuning in. And I'm sure Scott will be back next week. Thanks for sticking around with me.
Podcast Summary: The Wolf Of All Streets – "Bitcoin EXPLODING To $200,000 By The End Of 2025?! Crypto Bull Cycle Just Getting Started!"
Release Date: March 20, 2025
Host: Scott Melker (filled in by Dave Weisberger)
Guest: Eden Iago
Additional Speaker: Dan from The Chart Guys
In this episode of The Wolf Of All Streets, host Scott Melker entrusts Dave Weisberger to guide the conversation with Eden Iago, a prominent figure in the Bitcoin ecosystem. They delve into the aftermath of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, the influence of political figures like Donald Trump on cryptocurrency, and the ongoing debate between Bitcoin and XRP.
Dave Weisberger opens the discussion by addressing the recent FOMC meeting and President Trump's speech at the Digital Asset Conference.
"I'm Dave Weisberger filling in for Scott Melker, talking with Eden Iago about everything going on after the fomc. Trump talking at Dos, xrp, Bitcoin, etc."
[00:01]
Eden Iago responds with a mix of anticipation and skepticism regarding Trump's involvement:
"Well, I'm, I'm excited to see whether or not he'll be able to do less than two hours."
[00:56]
He highlights the high quality of the Digital Asset Conference, emphasizing the value he feels he might be missing by not attending in person.
The conversation shifts to the core comparison between Bitcoin and XRP, particularly focusing on XRP's recent outperformance.
Dave Weisberger points out the volatile nature of XRP's performance:
"So they're cherry picking that time frame. If you go back to 17, of course it's getting crushed. So you know, it really, it always depends..."
[02:18]
Eden Iago provides a deep dive into XRP's fundamentals, questioning its valuation and Ripple's role:
"I think that's interesting. The other interesting thing is like why are people still holding XRP?"
[03:08]
He critiques Ripple's strategy, noting that despite significant holdings, Ripple's stock is undervalued relative to its assets, suggesting a lack of clear fundamentals supporting XRP's high valuation.
A pivotal part of the discussion revolves around the technical distinctions between clearing and settlement in blockchain technology.
Eden Iago emphasizes the importance of understanding this difference:
"Nobody wants real time settlement. People want real time clearing."
[13:39]
He explains that while clearing (the notification and recording of a transaction) occurs instantaneously, settlement (the actual transfer of assets) operates on a slower, more secure timeframe to ensure consistency and prevent conflicts.
Dave Weisberger concurs, highlighting Bitcoin's reliability:
"Bitcoin just has a track record of operating flawlessly that is longer than any other system."
[18:33]
This technical robustness, according to Iago and Weisberger, positions Bitcoin as a superior settlement layer compared to other blockchains like Solana and Ripple.
The duo explores Bitcoin's growing acceptance among institutions and its potential to surpass traditional assets like gold.
Dave Weisberger shares his bullish stance on Bitcoin's valuation:
"I think Bitcoin is at a minimum a 90% discount to where it should be."
[18:45]
Eden Iago outlines his price targets and long-term vision:
"My longer term thesis and sort of my price target is that over the next 10 years on the outside, and by 2032 on the inside, bitcoin surpasses gold in market cap, which would put Bitcoin at roughly 21x where it is now."
[26:55]
He anticipates significant growth driven by central banks' monetary policies, expecting Bitcoin to become a dominant store of value.
A notable segment discusses the different perspectives between crypto enthusiasts and traditional financial professionals.
Dave Weisberger observes the varying attitudes:
"When you talk to CTOs or technologists for any length of time and mention its track record, how it works, why it works, they get very excited. Orange pilling a technologist is almost a slam dunk."
[21:05]
Eden Iago adds that the crypto industry often misunderstands its own value proposition:
"We are the ownership industry. And we don't treat ourselves that way. We treat ourselves that."
[24:08]
Both agree that a clearer focus on assets, settlement layers, and security could enhance the industry's credibility and adoption.
Concluding the episode, Dan provides a comprehensive market update, touching on key indices, Bitcoin's support levels, and altcoin performance.
Dan summarizes the current market sentiment post-FOMC:
"Bitcoin is back testing the previous resistance of 85,000 and trying to hold it as support."
[29:26]
He highlights standout altcoins like XRP and Binance, noting their resilience and potential in a predominantly bearish altcoin market.
Additionally, Dan discusses the performance of metal miners and their correlation with traditional assets like gold, reinforcing the diversified strategies traders employ.
The episode wraps up with both hosts expressing optimism about Bitcoin's future while acknowledging the challenges and misconceptions facing the broader crypto market. They advocate for a more informed and technically precise discourse to drive adoption and investment.
Dave Weisberger leaves listeners with a thought-provoking challenge:
"What is the value of a perfect settlement layer that requires no intermediation from the banks, that takes no economic rent or very little economic rent in order to settle effectively all the daily transactions on the planet?"
[26:08]
Bitcoin's Strength: Recognized for its reliability and growing institutional adoption, positioning it as a superior settlement layer.
XRP's Challenge: Despite recent price surges, XRP's fundamentals and Ripple's strategies remain under scrutiny.
Technical Clarity: Emphasis on understanding clearing vs. settlement to appreciate blockchain's role accurately.
Market Outlook: Bullish sentiment on Bitcoin with long-term targets, while altcoins like XRP and Binance show resilience in a bearish landscape.
Industry Perspective: A call for the crypto industry to focus on asset ownership, settlement security, and reliable infrastructures to enhance credibility and adoption.
Notable Quotes with Timestamps:
"[00:56] Eden Iago: Well, I'm, I'm excited to see whether or not he'll be able to do less than two hours."
"[02:18] Dave Weisberger: So they're cherry picking that time frame...
"[03:08] Eden Iago: I think that's interesting. The other interesting thing is like why are people still holding XRP?"
"[13:39] Eden Iago: Nobody wants real time settlement. People want real time clearing."
"[18:33] Dave Weisberger: Bitcoin just has a track record of operating flawlessly that is longer than any other system."
"[21:05] Dave Weisberger: When you talk to CTOs or technologists... Orange pilling a technologist is almost a slam dunk."
"[24:08] Eden Iago: We are the ownership industry. And we don't treat ourselves that way."
"[26:08] Dave Weisberger: What is the value of a perfect settlement layer that requires no intermediation from the banks..."
This episode provides a deep dive into the current state of Bitcoin and XRP, technical nuances of blockchain technologies, and market dynamics. It offers valuable insights for both crypto enthusiasts and traditional finance professionals, emphasizing the importance of technical understanding and strategic focus in driving the future of cryptocurrency.