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[00:02]
A
Bulls think that bitcoin is setting up for a move above $70,000. But the Fed and Kevin Warsh could ruin it all today. Shame on you, Kevin. Actually, nobody thinks that's going to happen. Probably going to get a dovish Fed and could potentially be good for bitcoin. But Citadel does think there's a chance that the Fed could hike rates today. I want to smoke whatever they're smoking because I don't think that's happening. But we're going to talk about that and more today with the badass from Bloomberg, James, a dope.
[00:47]
B
Let's do.
[00:48]
A
What is up, everybody? Good morning, happy day, and welcome to the beach. I hope that you're all having a wonderful Wednesday. It's Wednesday, right? Wednesday. Happy Wednesday. To all the Wednesday celebrators out there. It's hump day. And on hump day, we get a very important Fed decision today. The most important Fed decision since the last decision. And until the next decision, we're going to break that all down. But I'm going to bring on James right now. Good morning, sir. How are you?
[01:15]
B
Good morning. How are you?
[01:17]
A
I'm great. I'm better than our friends in South Korea.
[01:23]
B
They're all liquidated. They have to sell their homes to cover their positions, I think.
[01:26]
A
I mean, so, like, this is great. So it starts, you know, the headline Bitcoin rises towards 64K as Korea's record chip crash leaves crypto untouched. For those who haven't been following along, I mean, what. Wait, is this fucking real? Cosby Composite Index gets a circuit breaker every day. Right. So for people who haven't been tracking, this is worse in South Korea than the COVID crash was everywhere else. Right. So this is like the worst stock market meltdown that we've seen in years. And it's. Yes, it's just happening over there, but still, absolute insanity.
[01:54]
B
Well, part of it is like the whole, in almost the whole index is two stocks. Like, right? And also you take, they were already two massive parts of the index and then they went on this meteoric, absolutely insane run for semiconductor chip stocks, whatever you want to call it, and they launched a bunch of single stock levered ETFs to those stocks. It's funny, I, as somebody who covers the ETF world, this is big in the ETF world because you have the regulators there saying like, we never should have launched these things. They caused this problem.
[02:21]
A
Yeah, I've covered this, like at length on the Daily Wolf. My favorite. So we actually just look back on like May 19th or 18th I did a whole segment that I. This launched my how not to invest segment because I saw that article that said, you know, retirees are selling their insurance and their savings to buy SK Hynix and Samsung leverage ETFs. And I literally said, we know how this ends. Then three weeks later, I didn't update the first time at Circuit Breaker and they all got liquidated. And that was like six weeks ago. Right. And I did a whole story on this. The miniature minister apologizes, said, we shouldn't have done that. By the way, I create. I, as I often do, I created a meme three seconds before the show to, to explain this to everybody. This is it. Right? And yesterday, if you were. If you watch my Yahoo show, which you probably don't because you hate me, I actually said, I. I said, this is. I took a picture of the floor of the Korean stock exchange and it was just all of them sitting there in squid game waiting to be murdered.
[03:21]
B
Dude, it's. It's crazy. I mean, the numbers are just absolutely insane. It's unlike anything that would ever happen in the us. We are way too diversified to have this sort of situation. But, I mean, we are, we're gamblers too. But South Korea is. They just love to gamble, dude. They love it.
[03:37]
A
I mean, if you look at crypto volumes in South Korea, and so by the way, that has diminished dramatically since they got access to leverage ETFs on AI, which is kind of the same trend we've seen across all markets. Right. And we'll get into that actually how crypto exchanges have seen no volumes because maybe ETFs broadly, but certainly because of AI trade and leverage just kind of taking the shine off the crypto casino. And we've seen that even on the exchanges in South Korea, which often you'll see an exchange you've never heard of in South Korea do like three times coinbase volume in a day.
[04:10]
B
Yep. Yeah, it's just, it's just random stuff. Like you go on these websites and I try to track like, where all the volume is, and I'm like, are these numbers right? They can't be right. And it's usually, it's usually right.
[04:21]
A
You're like, what? How did they do 40 billion in volume on Ethereum today? Or it'll be like, the best story is it's always like a random day. It's like, xrp. XRP does like four times the volume of bitcoin at a day on some Korean exchange. I think that happened with Shiba Inu this Week it was up like 29. I think it was South Koreans who were buying it.
[04:40]
B
Yeah, I mean we, it's South Korean, Taiwanese, they love to like game. There's like these areas of the Chinese markets, the financial markets, and we have analysts obviously in Hong Kong who cover this. They get like fixated on these things and they really love to gamble and like some of them actually really love income more so than even Americans. But yeah, they get really fixated on these one things and obviously crypto is one of them and they have like, they're, they're all siloed. There's all these issues with cross change, cross border flows and things like that. But you look at it and they have like a whole different world over there for, for what they're trading and what they're interested in.
[05:13]
A
I went to Prague for Millennium New Year's and our casino and our hotel had like a two table casino. And the whole week it was just all Asian people like gambling with like us three white dudes. And they had this thing that I've adopted every time I go to a blackjack table. This has nothing to do with the show, by the way, where anytime they want like to like, they double down or something, they hit the table as hard as they could. They scream monkey. Monkey. Now anytime I'm in a casino, I scream monkey when I need like a 10 on a double down or something. You needed to know. So let's talk about the Fed. Sorry, I'm in a funny mood today, I guess. I don't know. So Citadel bets on a Fed rate hike Wednesday as bitcoin analysts call a hold. Someone will be wrong. I'm going to tell you who's going to be wrong is Citadel. Right. I mean right now we have Kalsi, 77% chance. Fed maintains interest rates tomorrow. Right. And, and they have a history of being wrong like everybody else, which maybe isn't the biggest story here. But like we just had Trump literally say, I don't have the quote in front of me. Didn't he say yesterday or two days ago he was like, heaven knows what to do.
[06:22]
B
Yeah, he knows what he wants to do and he knows what. Yeah, something along those lines. I mean, that's the, I mean right now, yeah, we, we obviously price off of what's going on. I think we're somewhere around 35% chance of a hike. But I think all this like, no forward guidance and all this stuff, it just creates more volatility in the market. Because even if like they would have given guidance and Pushed it down a little bit more. It doesn't matter. Like, now we're going to be a lot closer to 5050 for pretty much every rate hike if Kevin Warsh gets the exact way that he wants it. I'm not, I don't really have a strong opinion if that's a better way to do things or a worse way to do things. Obviously, there are much smarter people than me, but, yeah, I mean, no matter how you slice it, he, I think he wants, if he were like himself five years ago, he'd want to hike maybe. But obviously Trump doesn't want that.
[07:04]
A
So, like, I don't know, man. I feel like that was all misdirection. Like, this dude was in the room for all of 2008 as a Fed governor. It's not like he was, he was Mr. Bailout, right? So, like, I think the, the Hawkish thing was a way to like, sell him to the public when he's just a quiet dove.
[07:21]
C
Right.
[07:21]
A
And I mean, here's the other narrative, right? Anything remotely dovish from Fed could be good for bitcoin, says analysts. That's probably true. Right. Like now it's like, if he's not hawkish, he's dovish. So we're good to go. I think we're just going to probably trade at 64,000 purgatory for the rest all time, but we'll see.
[07:37]
B
58k. 58k, gang, we're going to go back there. That's. Bitcoin is now a stable coin.
[07:42]
A
58 is fine with me. I'd rather buy 58. Some more than 64. Bought some in the 63s with, you know, I have the automated thing. It bought 63. 5 the other day.
[07:51]
B
So there you go. Hopefully that pays off for you after the Fed starts cutting rates. But yeah, it doesn't look like cuts are coming.
[07:59]
A
No, I, I don't think cuts are coming yet, but I think the fact that the market is pricing in two rate hikes, like by next April is just not going to happen. Like, Boris was not given this job to make things worse for the midterms.
[08:12]
B
No. Yeah. I mean, we're, we're pricing. I mean, the market is still pricing a hike by September. So, so by the September rate, by the September meeting, it's. The market is expecting a hike or. I mean, obviously, I'm sure you've had, you've talked about this. Like, it's not necessarily that it's going to happen on that date. It's just there's, there's These tales of distributions. And right now the odds are that there's likely to be a hike by September for a whole host of reasons.
[08:35]
A
Yeah, ain't happening. Okay, let's talk about etf, since you and this handsome gentleman are already. Look at them. Right there in all his glory. That's. He's just living in Philly. He's got.
[08:46]
B
Bloomberg Badass is a new one. I've never heard that before in, right out.
[08:50]
A
That was not planned, just happened. You guys are the Bloomberg badasses. I'm naming it here. Better than being like balding Bloomberg badasses. If we wanted to get more alliterative because you guys both have great hair today. Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchuna says crypto ETFs are squeezing out exchanges, letting traders buy coins for 1 to 3 bips instead of paying high margin trading fees. So this kind of aligns with what we were just talking about in South Korea. Like, not necessarily. Obviously this is the fee side. And maybe it's. He's saying it's kind of a better product that's more interesting, and I have heard that. But I think it also just like removes money from exchanges and is allowing people to trade with leverage in other places.
[09:33]
B
Yeah, I mean, no matter how you slice it, if you look at any of these exchanges, wherever you bought that 635, you might have paid like if you were really good, if you have a really good account that you can get a cheap access, you probably paid 40 bips maybe to make that trade. I mean, ETFs trade free. And the spread is pretty much zero that he's talking about. The spread there, that's 1 to 3 bips. So the fees are really low. How much is that impacting what's going on crypto right now? I don't, I think it A lot more has to do with like the idea of like momentum is an AI and you know, momentum begets momentum and that's where all the interest is. And bitcoin is an attention asset and it's just not getting a ton of attention right now. So, you know, when inflation comes back or printing tons of money or you know, what, whatever have you, then maybe bitcoin and even gold will become back on the front center stage and then we'll get there. But no matter how you slice it, people are trading these ETFs and it's a better vehicle for the vast majority of people for getting exposure. Obviously that's not, you know, not your keys, not your coins, what have you. But like if you're just trading pure exposure, the ETFs are probably better for the vast majority of retail consumers.
[10:33]
A
Yeah. And I think that the, the other side of that, and I think you're 100% correct, is that, like, once you, if you're a crypto guy and you left kind of the crypto world and went into the ETF world, you're like one toe already into just flipping into other markets, right. Like now your money is out in your Schwab account, and all of a sudden you see NAT and Nvidia going crazy or leverage AI ETFs. And then the other side is that also on the actual crypto exchanges outside of etf, it used to be that you could just speculate on Altcoins and on Bitcoin, and then all of a sudden you're on hyper liquid and you can trade oil and silver and pre I SpaceX. So, like, the crypto money either went to the other market and then found greener pastures or stayed in crypto and found greener pastures.
[11:19]
B
Yeah, I mean, and also part of it is like, a lot of these young kids, like, so I'm in my mid-30s now. A lot of people who started this, you know, 10 years ago, they were in their early mid-20s. They didn't have a ton of obligations they could. I mean, obviously there are still people my age yoloing into, you know, random
[11:34]
A
meme coins and stuff, having kids. But yes, that's.
[11:38]
B
Well, that's where I was going. Like, they're having kids now they're getting married. Like, I have never been somebody that's like, you should have 100% of your money in Bitcoin or some of the bitcoin maxis think, like, they don't really truly believe in capitalism. Like, no, no, you should have exposure to the dynamism of the US Capital markets. Like, you should have exposure to the s and P500 and the greatest companies in the world, too. And I think a lot of people who were, like, only got into investing through crypto have realized that they should have exposure to these AI names, to these space names, or Apple, Microsoft. It kind of makes sense to have exposure to these things that are growing and making bets on those types of markets. It's not just. It's crypto or nothing.
[12:14]
A
Yeah, I agree. I mean, I can't say that it's, you know, the reason for all of this. I mean, we have Andrew, who's on here every Tuesday. Crypto exchanges are shutting down for one simple reason. No volume. There'll be more casualties. We had Bitmex, we had bitmart. He was speculating he knows of another Asian exchange that's going to shut down. I've heard the same, but I don't talk and pander. And rumors.
[12:36]
B
Probably one of the South Korean exchanges
[12:38]
A
we never heard of percent. Right. I mean you just look at any of these metrics and there's just no volume. There's nobody here. But interestingly, we still have flows. ETFs are still getting flows, right? So the exchanges volume down, down, down, down, down. ETFs growing still.
[12:55]
B
Well, also the ETF volume are also down. So the ETF volumes, they had like a stellar 2025, like off the charts type volume. And then it kind of slowed down into like the early parts of 2026. It was still elevated. Now it's in the doldrums in the summer. So far in 3Q, it's been real low.
[13:17]
A
Yeah, no surprise. So you got to break this down for me because I've seen this everywhere. And it just kind of speaks to the popularity of ETFs. Corgi ETF disrupting an entire industry. What is it with dogs, man? Now we got like ETF issuing dog memes. But Corgi just filed for every single country ETF imaginable. What is a country etf? What do we, what are we doing here?
[13:42]
B
I mean, so like every, like every big issuer has like, you know, you want to invest in Greece, we have a Greece stock market etf. Right? So that's all it is. But really what it comes down to is so these guys launched their first etf. I don't want to say the exact month because I'm not sure, but it was like late fall, 2025.
[13:56]
A
Right.
[13:57]
B
They now have like 180, 200 ETFs on the market. They have filed for over 500 ETFs to launch that would be ready to launch this year, which is just absolutely insane. Some of it is crypto related. They're launching single stock leverage etf. They're launching broad based exposure. They're launching themes, leverage themes, space, you name it. They're filing for everything under the sun and just launching. And they're actually kind of undercutting everybody. The costs are, the fees are really low. But the main takeaway here is like BlackRock has just under 500 ETFs, 480 something, I think in the US if these guys launch like, I don't know, 90 of the things they file, they're going to be the Largest ETF issuer by number of products in the us which is unheard of. It's cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to, to launch and operate these things on an annual basis. So these guys are just running at a burn rate and they're just lighting money on fire. And it's a, it's a VC playbook. They have VC money there. This is not their primary business, mainly an AI insurance thing. And they're spraying and praying. Yeah, so if you get, they have one product that's pretty damn successful. It's a like a photonics type ETF related to AI and semis. Who knew? And they're praying that they get, you know, 10, 15 of these, 500 other ones that get are very successful and basically earn enough money to offset the cost of launching and operating all these other products. It's, we've never seen anything like it. I mean for people listening this, they're probably falling asleep, but it's just, it's mind boggling to see somebody do this.
[15:17]
A
I want to hit that Ireland. That feels good. Joe Eisenthal had this one right. There's an Ireland traded 3x leverage SK Hynix ETP, like that's such a mouthful that's down 96% since mid June. So this goes back to that South Korean trade. But this is an Ireland ETF that's being offered somewhere that's down 96% because it basically launched at the dead top right and is 3x levered on SK Hynix. I mean what isn't this just like rampant speculation everywhere and now it's like seeped into the stock market beyond even like the crazy leverage crypto corners. And now it like it's just in the ETF world too.
[15:56]
B
Yeah, Part of it in the ETF world is like most of these they charge a lot of money. They charge 1%, 1.5% on an annualized basis. Most ETFs, like you look at SP 500 ETF, it's 0.03%. So like all these issuers just need one ETF to be a hit. And sometimes it's like you just take in a little bit of flows and that takes off like the people who launched the Nvidia Lever 2X single stock ETFs a few years ago. They're sitting on billions earning one and a half percent a year on that. And it just pays for everything else they could possibly want to do. But the other thing is these things are taking off across the board. We're seeing Leverage Index ETFs single stock and then also the options volume on daily resetting leverage ETFs is also going through the roof. So for people who like 3x isn't enough, the crypto crowds is using 100x perps. They're trading just barely out of the money options on 2x single stock ETFs. It's crazy the amount of like gambling that is coming to the ETF market.
[16:53]
A
It feels like the size, it's like end times. I mean I talk about this a lot. Like the level of speculation does not usually come when people feel stable and secure in their lives and their finances. Right? It's like Weimar Republic. It was like we might as well gamble because we have to, you know, take a wheelbarrow of cash to go get bread. So, you know, and that was like the height of speculation is usually before some major crash. I mean when you put this together with prediction markets and you know, now we're adding leverage to prediction markets and are obviously also offering perpetual swaps. Like why is there so much appetite for rampant speculation and gambling?
[17:35]
B
I don't know. I mean I think this is always going to be here. I mean obviously right now it's dialed up to a 10. But like I remember during COVID when the Fed started hiking rates, people were saying this is the end of gambling and speculation. All these Robin Hood traders are going to go away. And I vehemently took the other side of that. Like I was like no way. People are always going to gamble. I don't know if I necessarily thought it was going to go to this extent, but like this is always going to be here. And I will say, like we're talking about this and like one of the things we get to see with ETFs that you don't get to see with some of the other stuff is like, are they behaving properly? Like the people trading these things and for the most part in the aggregate, like the people trading these things are using them as design. They're not like holding them long term. They are trading them and they're selling them on rips and buying them on dips. So they're like trying to call bottoms sell tops. And for the most part like they've created more wealth and they've destroyed they. People have taken money out of these things. They use them like an atm. So kudos to all the investors out there who are trading these types of products. We're talking about and like being smart about it. Like I have a big hit. It went up 10x. I'm going to take some of my money off the table. Like that's what these things are built to be used for. They're trading vehicles, not long term buy and hold type of thing. Vehicles.
[18:37]
A
Yeah, I gotta find it. You've saw this guy, I'm sure. I'm just pulling it from my other chat. One second. The, the guy was trading options on oh down 27.
[18:49]
B
I, I might actually kill myself but I don't have that kind of money.
[18:53]
A
The thing is he's, he's got a 3X. Yeah, I think he put 1.2 million in. He said he ran it up to 27 5amonth ago. Now you know, he's just doing the crypto thing, watching it go down but you know he's got 3.9. He's just sell. That's the thing. It's like so obvious dude, take your almost $4 million in like 7 months and call it a day. But I think he was trading like he like his premise was like micron at 300. So it's like semiconductor options or chip. I mean but isn't this it? I mean this is what we're going to see everywhere.
[19:30]
B
Yeah, I mean people are going to learn their lessons. I, I thought a lot of people, like I said, people thought everyone's going to learn their lesson during you know, 2021 meme stock mania and all the that happened then people, we were learned the same lessons over and over and over again. It's like crypto is relearning the lessons of tradfi over the last like century. Like I feel like every time something happens it's like that's why we have separated custodians and exchanges in TRADFI markets and like so like that just came blows up in crypto and I don't know people are going to learn. And honestly I just hope that people who are like gambling and doing this stuff, the people listening, they, it's with money they can afford to lose, which I think most people do do that. Obviously there's anecdotes of people who are losing money they can't afford to lose. And it's sad but it's just like gambling. Like I could, you could go up the street right now or I don't know, actually I don't know exactly where you live but like you could take, go on a flight to Vegas and put you know, half your net worth on a roulette wheel if you really wanted to or put it down at a, at a blackjack table and invest.
[20:28]
A
Can't invest unless you're accredited though. Yeah.
[20:32]
B
If you want to go pe. Going to get me started in the PE hedge fund. AI SL accredited investor First Qualified purchaser requirements. So stupid. But here we are.
[20:44]
A
I, I mean this, this guy is so good, but I, I mean he's got three. He turned it into 3.9, you know, memory, memory options. I think this guy's a winner right now. He's just got to exit and he shouldn't have put it on social media. He had the fallacy where he's like, it's anything above 1.2 million is the house's money. Which is like my favorite cope there is, you know, house is money. Wasn't mine in the first place. Could have been.
[21:08]
B
I would have taken some of it. I could have used it to buy a house.
[21:11]
A
I've learned this lesson, man. I've round tripped accounts, whatever.
[21:15]
B
And we've all been there, we've all done like this. Particularly anybody who's been investing in crypto since 2017, you just, you just watch it go up and round trip all the way back. But hopefully over the long term that trend line is pointing upwards. And obviously it's not pointing upwards right
[21:28]
A
now, but is that James Wind guy still around or is he like finally.
[21:33]
B
I haven't heard anything about him forever. He became a mean. He never become the main character on crypto Twitter?
[21:38]
A
No, no. Well, we do have one more very large story here in the ETF world that we need to unpack. Morgan Stanley launches cheapest ether and salon ETFs at 14 basis. So, you know, they kind of made a splash when they came in with the Bitcoin spot ETF a few months ago, also undercutting the market. There was also 14 bips, right? Is that correct?
[21:56]
B
Yes, correct.
[21:58]
A
And so they had filed, so we kind of knew these were coming, but now they're hitting the market. I actually talked to Amy Oldenberg, which who's the head of, you know, who runs all this at Morgan Stanley, last week when I was at the Audi Summit, and I was like, yeah, of course you guys launch ETFs. You have like 15,000 salespeople out there that can push this instead of BlackRock. And she was like, actually find that. We haven't really kicked that in so heavily yet. And most of this was just our clients seeing it launched and buying it. It was very organic and it wasn't like actively sold to them. So I wonder if we'll see that on the Ethereum Salon ETFs as well.
[22:31]
B
Yeah, I would, that would be my base case. I think like right now they're going to wait a little while before they start actively selling these things. And honestly this, if you're in crypto, right, and you're, you follow, I mean anyone in crypto has to somewhat follow what's going on with the four year cycle, right? Like you have to be somewhat aware of what's going on. And launching these things when they did, you know, they launched into a bear market, it shows like at least some conviction. Obviously they started this years ago, but launching at 14 bips, I mean you're going to get people who are looking for long term exposure. Robo advisors, like one of the big things they tend to look for obviously is like the fund is operating as planned, but also the cheapest fee imaginable. And at 14 bips, these are all the cheapest products on the market. So you might see robo advisors putting money in there. And then also for these advisors it's just way easier argument, right? Like so you want to put them in a client account and you want to put them in your own account. Like it's just, there's no debate. Like it's functionally the same thing as every other product in the market and it's ours and it's the cheapest and all of a sudden you can just do it. So eventually when they, I've been saying this for years, I feel like usually I would say the three year mark is usually a good year mark for like when these things like really start taking off. A lot of people, investors wait for three years of history things along those lines. So once we see those three year marks pick up, it could be important. But yeah, advisors still, they're one of the biggest holders but they haven't put tons of money into this thing. And I'm, I'm pretty bullish on the fact that Morgan Stanley is still launching these things in the bear market. And you know, right now might be a good time to be dipping your toe in these, into these things. I remember when these first, these ETS first launched I was talking to advisors when bitcoin is around 100k, they're like, I'm not putting my clients into this thing after it's, you know, 4x or whatever. And so they have no interest. Maybe I'll think about buying it on the diploma. The data is showing that they're not even buying the dip. But maybe at some point when this thing starts ripping, they'll get it in before it takes off or if it Takes off.
[24:18]
A
And I'm just hitting these Korean market tweets right now.
[24:25]
B
The memes are so good too.
[24:27]
A
80% down under two months. Somebody bought this 3K levered ETF with mortgage loans. Then we have idiots like this. South Korea's finance minister apologized on Wednesday after single stock leverage ETFs were introduced without careful consideration. I mean, it's just. My God. That, like, this is like a most classic chart I've ever seen. Look at that thing in all its glory.
[24:50]
B
It's crazy. Whoever's trading this thing is having a lot of fun. I. I mean, those things reset daily. I mean, the market is crazy. But again, I go back to the fact that, like, SK Hynix and Samsung is something like 40 or 50 of that entire index. So, like, you're trading that, and it's like, oh, I'm trading an entire country's index. And it's like, I'm diversified. And it's like, you. You are not. You're trading one thing, and it's all AI and it's all related to itself. It's all chips and memory, and that's it.
[25:12]
A
I want to know if James Wynn is still around. He's a mark on your name. James is.
[25:19]
B
Is James Wynn trading leverage perps on Korean stocks?
[25:23]
C
He.
[25:23]
A
He once came in to a Twitter space as I was hosting, as you know I did, and he kind of started to, like, dominate it and go crazy. And he called me a.
[25:34]
B
Well, you should be honored.
[25:35]
A
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, it was fine. I was like, I've been called a. By better people than you.
[25:40]
B
We've all been there.
[25:42]
A
All right, well, James, that's all I. All we got for that. I appreciate you taking the time. Bloomberg Badass. If you got. You guys should make T shirts or hats or.
[25:51]
B
All right, I'm gonna put that on the back of our book. I'm just gonna name. I'm gonna say the Bloomberg Badasses.
[25:55]
A
Thongs. Banana Hammocks. One of you in a. Bloomberg. One of you in Badass. Just. Just Griffin here.
[26:03]
B
Yeah, that's.
[26:04]
A
That's.
[26:04]
B
That's too much for 9:30 in the morning, at least on the East Coast.
[26:08]
A
Well, imagine it for the west coast people who watch this. I just literally exploded. All right, James, thank you so much. Everybody give. James follow. Have a good one, bro. All right, guys, I've cut that off super awkwardly. Terrible at this. Ah, so listen, before we go, want to talk to you guys about interview I did a week ago Sunday with CJ Constantinos from People's Reserve. I'm sure that you all watched it. You know that I've been working with them now. Well, I mean, they're back well over a year. But I just want to, you know, briefly take the opportunity since they're so awesome, to talk about what they've been building at People's Reserve that is launching very, very, very soon. You guys have seen it because I've talked about it so many times. But I want to show you my favorite feature. So obviously, first of all, CJ tells a story I believe is about how he sold 100 bitcoin to buy a house that's now worth like 4 or 5 bitcoin or something, right? And that was what sort of sparked his interest in building something where you didn't have to sell your bitcoin to buy a house. I wish I'd known about this because there's been times when I had to actually sell bitcoin. I was forced to to purchase real estate. Very, very long story. But so they've built this incredible suite of products like bitcoin backed, excuse me, self repaying mortgages, Bitcoin mortgages, the bitcoin bonds, which I love. But while I was on the interview with him, if you watched it, I found this calculator which you click on right here. It should work. Come on. Oh yeah, this one. Let's do bitcoin bond, for example. This is my favorite new toy and I think you guys should go do it. So look, their bitcoin bond. Let's say you buy a million dollar bitcoin bond with a 4% interest rate right? At five years, okay? Bitcoin CAGR 40% is high, right? This is the Michael Saylor 30, 40%. Let's put it at 20%. Conservatively, if you believe in five years on average Bitcoin will go up 20%. I happen to believe that you'll turn a million into 1.4 million. Now put that on 10 years if you buy this bond. 2.7 million. Now let's ratchet it up just in case we believe it goes to 40, which I do. You're $1 million worth 9.264. And I think what's really even maybe more incredible, you take a look at like the Bitcoin mortgage 500. Let's, let's make a million dollar house.
[28:32]
B
Let's get interesting.
[28:33]
A
Is that a million million dollar house for, for round numbers, you put down 20%. So you got to put down three Bitcoin, right? Basically $200,000. If the CAGR is 30% you pay
[28:45]
C
off your 30 year mortgage in eight years.
[28:48]
A
Right. Even we go down to 20%. 11 years go down to. If Bitcoin only goes up 10%, you'll pay it off in year 18 instead of year 30 with a $4,000 payment. Is absolutely bananas. Right? This is the future of how people are going to use bitcoin instead of selling it. And I highly encourage you to check them out. And so obviously this is great. If you're looking for a mortgage, you could also claim a house that if you own it outright, which is something I'm doing with them and using their bonus points, you can basically get paid for having your, your mortgage and you can buy the bond, you can get a self repaying mortgage, you get a bitcoin mortgage. It's literally endless and I think it's incredible and I want to tell you guys about it. So I hope that you check it out. Let me find. I'm gonna, I have this interview somewhere, I'm sure. One second. I'm gonna show it to you here on screen. Look, see when I'm looking down, you all think I'm checking my phone. I've got a screen here. I've got a screen. I'm literally, because I'm so boomerish, I'm googling myself. I'm on YouTube like Scott Melker podcast. Wait, we're gonna get it. It's gonna come, don't worry. Here it comes, right here. That's actually playing. You can watch it. But there it is. Bitcoin mortgage hack that changes everything. So I asked you guys please to check that out because they're awesome, you know that I don't share many things like this, but I've been friends with C.J. and these guys for a very, very long time now and I really, really believe in what they're building and I'm using it myself. So you can check that out. It's. I'm assuming the links in the description. People's Reserve. Yeah. Just to make sure it is peoples reserve.com peopleserve.com play with the calculator. Do the thing. I will be back for a Daily Wolf today and of course I'll be back tomorrow at 9am we got an awesome guest tomorrow. Ophelia Snyder from 21 shares. She's kind of like the brains behind the Cathie Wood ETF push. She's amazing. So that's going to be a great show and thanks to the James that I like for joining today. And just before we go, I just want to show you this. I think it's funny. How can you not think that's funny? Hilarious. I made that. I'm smart. See you guys later.
[31:11]
C
Today's video is sponsored by Securitize. You've heard the word tokenization. Putting assets like funds, bonds, treasuries and stocks on chain. Securitize the regulated infrastructure the biggest names in finance build on. They're the tokenization partner for BlackRock's on chain. Treasury Fund bidl working with new York Stock Exchange, Vaneck, Hamilton Lane and Apollo sec regulated entities nearly nine years running. Most money still moves through slow decades old systems. Securitize puts the real asset on chain itself. Not a synthetic or wrapped token standing in for it. And regulated in the United States. It's the institutional grade bridge between traditional finance and crypto. They didn't just build it, they just proved it. Listing their own stock on the New York Stock Exchange and simultaneously tokenizing it on chain. On Solana and Avalanche. The first and only public company built entirely for this. Their mission, Tokenize the world. Learn more@securitizeio this is a paid partnership, not investment advice.

Summary6 min read

Podcast Summary: "Bitcoin Is Setting Up for $70K – But The Fed Could RUIN It"

Show: The Wolf Of All Streets
Host: Scott Melker
Guest: James (Bloomberg ETF Analyst)
Date: July 29, 2026

EPISODE OVERVIEW

In this engaging and energetic episode, Scott Melker dives into the current state of Bitcoin, the impact of global financial events (especially in South Korea), and the looming U.S. Federal Reserve decision, joined by Bloomberg ETF expert James. The discussion covers rampant speculation, ETF dominance, crypto trading trends, and market sentiment, all wrapped in Melker’s signature irreverent tone.

MAIN THEMES & DISCUSSION POINTS

1. Bitcoin Price Outlook and the Fed’s Influence

Bitcoin poised for $70K: Bulls are hopeful, but concerns linger about the Fed’s rate decisions, specifically involving Kevin Warsh.
Market skepticism: Scott pokes fun at Citadel’s belief in a possible rate hike.

“I want to smoke whatever they’re smoking because I don’t think that’s happening.” – Scott [00:24]
Fed decisions drive volatility: Both hosts agree that even the possibility of a rate hike creates market uncertainty.

Key Quote:

“The most important Fed decision since the last decision. And until the next decision.” – Scott [00:52]

2. South Korea’s Market Meltdown and Global Crypto Volumes

KOSPI crash dominates headlines: South Korea’s semiconductor-driven crash is worse than the COVID meltdown locally, driving home issues with concentration and leverage.
Leveraged ETFs as a catalyst: The launch of highly-leveraged single-stock ETFs concentrated in SK Hynix and Samsung created a dangerous environment.

“Retirees are selling their insurance and their savings to buy SK Hynix and Samsung leveraged ETFs. …We know how this ends.” – Scott [02:23]
Cultural obsession with speculation: The panel discusses how South Korean and other Asian markets are prone to large, risky bets and how this spills into crypto volumes across local exchanges.

Memorable Analogy:
Scott recalls a meme of Korean stock traders awaiting doom, likening it to "Squid Game." [03:10]

3. Shifts in Exchange Volume and Rise of ETFs

Declining crypto exchange volumes: Melker and James note the sharp drop in trading on traditional crypto exchanges, especially in Asia.
- Notable stat: Some Korean exchanges briefly trade 3x Coinbase’s daily volume, often on a single altcoin.
Crypto ETFs outpace direct trading:

“ETFs are squeezing out exchanges, letting traders buy coins for 1 to 3 bips instead of paying high margin trading fees.” – Scott quoting Eric Balchunas [08:49]
Better product for most traders:
- Lower cost, and easier access lead to mainstream adoption.
- ETFs attract even crypto-native traders seeking efficient exposure without “not your keys, not your coins” control.
ETF fatigue in summer: Even ETF volumes have entered “the doldrums,” but inflows remain steady.

4. Demographics & Diversification: The Evolution of Crypto Investors

Changing investor habits: Many early crypto investors (now older and with families) seek more diversified portfolios and “real” market exposure (AI, tech stocks, etc.).

“They’re having kids now… You should have exposure to the dynamism of the US capital markets.” – James [11:38]
Bitmex and Bitmart shutdowns: Market attrition for small exchanges due to low volume is accelerating.

5. Proliferation and Speculative Craze in ETFs

Corgi ETFs and the ‘Spray and Pray’ model:
- A new issuer filed for over 500 ETFs, trying everything from country-level funds to niche themes, outpacing even BlackRock's US offerings.
  
  “They are just lighting money on fire. It’s a VC playbook.” – James [13:57]
Speculative 3x Leverage Products:
- Discussion of Ireland’s 3x leveraged SK Hynix ETP, down 96% since June, exemplifies how ETF speculation is mimicking crypto’s wildest corners.

6. Rising Appetite for Gambling and Risk

Gambling is ‘always here’:

“I vehemently took the other side… People are always going to gamble.” – James [17:35]
Cycle of hard lessons:
- Crypto is repeating the risk-excess lessons learned in TradFi for decades, but people keep rushing in, often ‘with money they can afford to lose.’

Notable Example:
Scott tells the story of a trader turning $1.2 million into $27 million with chip stock options, then riding it down to $3.9 million, referencing the “house money” fallacy.

“It’s like so obvious dude, take your almost $4 million and call it a day.” – Scott [18:53]

7. Morgan Stanley’s Ultra-Cheap Crypto ETFs

Launch of 14 basis point Ether and Solana ETFs:
- Morgan Stanley follows up its cheap Bitcoin spot ETF with the lowest-fee altcoin ETFs on the market.
- Rollout is “organic” rather than sales-driven, but future advisor-driven inflows are likely.
“Launching at 14 bips, you’re going to get people who are looking for long-term exposure…these are the cheapest products on the market.” – James [22:31]
- Robo-advisors and financial planners may move assets here as track record builds.

8. Reflections, Memes & Market Psychology

Memes as market commentary: Scott’s self-deprecating humor threads through the episode, especially in referencing “Squid Game” trader memes and ironic market turns.
Scott’s take on speculation:

“The level of speculation does not usually come when people feel stable and secure in their lives and finances… This is like Weimar Republic.” – Scott [16:52]
Cautionary wisdom: Both hosts remind listeners not to over-leverage and to diversify, lest history repeat hard lessons.

TIMESTAMPS FOR IMPORTANT SEGMENTS

Fed & Bitcoin Setup – 00:00–07:20
Discussion on Bitcoin’s near-term prospects and Fed rate decision impact.
South Korea Stock Crash & Leverage ETFs – 01:14–04:39
Deep dive into the Korean market meltdown, meme culture, and trading psychology.
Crypto Volumes & ETF Migration – 04:39–10:33
Why exchange volumes are dropping and how ETFs are changing crypto access.
Global ETF Proliferation & Speculation – 13:16–16:52
Surge in thematic/leverage ETFs, speculation stories, and VC issuance strategies.
Gambling Culture & Cautionary Tales – 17:35–21:07
Stories of high-stakes winners/losers, repeated market lessons, and economic psychology.
Morgan Stanley’s New Crypto ETFs – 21:37–24:17
Launch of cheapest Ether and Solana ETFs, path to mainstream adoption.

MEMORABLE QUOTES

Scott (sarcastically on rate hike fear):

“Shame on you, Kevin. Actually, nobody thinks that’s going to happen.” [00:02]
Scott (on South Korea’s ETF apocalypse):

“I took a picture of the floor of the Korean stock exchange and it was just all of them sitting there in Squid Game waiting to be murdered.” [03:10]
James (on ETF speculation):

“The amount of gambling that is coming to the ETF market is crazy.” [15:55]
Scott (on meme stocks and lessons):

“People thought everyone’s going to learn their lesson during meme stock mania… We relearn these lessons over and over.” [19:30]
James (on diversification and maturing investors):

“They’re having kids now… You should have exposure to the dynamism of the US capital markets.” [11:38]

TONE & STYLE

Lively, irreverent, and peppered with industry and cultural references (“Squid Game,” “Weimar Republic”).
Blunt and honest—both hosts mix humor with clear-eyed market realism.
Banter and slight self-mockery make the episode accessible even as it drills deep into finance.

FINAL NOTES

This episode provides a rich, sometimes hilarious, always insightful tour of the current crypto landscape. Deep-dive analysis of global crazes, the ETF revolution, and evolving retail attitudes is balanced with frank warnings about speculation and market cycles. Packed with memes, analogies, and candid banter, the episode is a must-listen for anyone tracking where Bitcoin, global capital markets, and retail investing are heading.

For more episode details, check the timestamps above for focused listening.

Loading summary

Transcript83 lines

[00:02]
A
Bulls think that bitcoin is setting up for a move above $70,000. But the Fed and Kevin Warsh could ruin it all today. Shame on you, Kevin. Actually, nobody thinks that's going to happen. Probably going to get a dovish Fed and could potentially be good for bitcoin. But Citadel does think there's a chance that the Fed could hike rates today. I want to smoke whatever they're smoking because I don't think that's happening. But we're going to talk about that and more today with the badass from Bloomberg, James, a dope.
[00:47]
B
Let's do.
[00:48]
A
What is up, everybody? Good morning, happy day, and welcome to the beach. I hope that you're all having a wonderful Wednesday. It's Wednesday, right? Wednesday. Happy Wednesday. To all the Wednesday celebrators out there. It's hump day. And on hump day, we get a very important Fed decision today. The most important Fed decision since the last decision. And until the next decision, we're going to break that all down. But I'm going to bring on James right now. Good morning, sir. How are you?
[01:15]
B
Good morning. How are you?
[01:17]
A
I'm great. I'm better than our friends in South Korea.
[01:23]
B
They're all liquidated. They have to sell their homes to cover their positions, I think.
[01:26]
A
I mean, so, like, this is great. So it starts, you know, the headline Bitcoin rises towards 64K as Korea's record chip crash leaves crypto untouched. For those who haven't been following along, I mean, what. Wait, is this fucking real? Cosby Composite Index gets a circuit breaker every day. Right. So for people who haven't been tracking, this is worse in South Korea than the COVID crash was everywhere else. Right. So this is like the worst stock market meltdown that we've seen in years. And it's. Yes, it's just happening over there, but still, absolute insanity.
[01:54]
B
Well, part of it is like the whole, in almost the whole index is two stocks. Like, right? And also you take, they were already two massive parts of the index and then they went on this meteoric, absolutely insane run for semiconductor chip stocks, whatever you want to call it, and they launched a bunch of single stock levered ETFs to those stocks. It's funny, I, as somebody who covers the ETF world, this is big in the ETF world because you have the regulators there saying like, we never should have launched these things. They caused this problem.
[02:21]
A
Yeah, I've covered this, like at length on the Daily Wolf. My favorite. So we actually just look back on like May 19th or 18th I did a whole segment that I. This launched my how not to invest segment because I saw that article that said, you know, retirees are selling their insurance and their savings to buy SK Hynix and Samsung leverage ETFs. And I literally said, we know how this ends. Then three weeks later, I didn't update the first time at Circuit Breaker and they all got liquidated. And that was like six weeks ago. Right. And I did a whole story on this. The miniature minister apologizes, said, we shouldn't have done that. By the way, I create. I, as I often do, I created a meme three seconds before the show to, to explain this to everybody. This is it. Right? And yesterday, if you were. If you watch my Yahoo show, which you probably don't because you hate me, I actually said, I. I said, this is. I took a picture of the floor of the Korean stock exchange and it was just all of them sitting there in squid game waiting to be murdered.
[03:21]
B
Dude, it's. It's crazy. I mean, the numbers are just absolutely insane. It's unlike anything that would ever happen in the us. We are way too diversified to have this sort of situation. But, I mean, we are, we're gamblers too. But South Korea is. They just love to gamble, dude. They love it.
[03:37]
A
I mean, if you look at crypto volumes in South Korea, and so by the way, that has diminished dramatically since they got access to leverage ETFs on AI, which is kind of the same trend we've seen across all markets. Right. And we'll get into that actually how crypto exchanges have seen no volumes because maybe ETFs broadly, but certainly because of AI trade and leverage just kind of taking the shine off the crypto casino. And we've seen that even on the exchanges in South Korea, which often you'll see an exchange you've never heard of in South Korea do like three times coinbase volume in a day.
[04:10]
B
Yep. Yeah, it's just, it's just random stuff. Like you go on these websites and I try to track like, where all the volume is, and I'm like, are these numbers right? They can't be right. And it's usually, it's usually right.
[04:21]
A
You're like, what? How did they do 40 billion in volume on Ethereum today? Or it'll be like, the best story is it's always like a random day. It's like, xrp. XRP does like four times the volume of bitcoin at a day on some Korean exchange. I think that happened with Shiba Inu this Week it was up like 29. I think it was South Koreans who were buying it.
[04:40]
B
Yeah, I mean we, it's South Korean, Taiwanese, they love to like game. There's like these areas of the Chinese markets, the financial markets, and we have analysts obviously in Hong Kong who cover this. They get like fixated on these things and they really love to gamble and like some of them actually really love income more so than even Americans. But yeah, they get really fixated on these one things and obviously crypto is one of them and they have like, they're, they're all siloed. There's all these issues with cross change, cross border flows and things like that. But you look at it and they have like a whole different world over there for, for what they're trading and what they're interested in.
[05:13]
A
I went to Prague for Millennium New Year's and our casino and our hotel had like a two table casino. And the whole week it was just all Asian people like gambling with like us three white dudes. And they had this thing that I've adopted every time I go to a blackjack table. This has nothing to do with the show, by the way, where anytime they want like to like, they double down or something, they hit the table as hard as they could. They scream monkey. Monkey. Now anytime I'm in a casino, I scream monkey when I need like a 10 on a double down or something. You needed to know. So let's talk about the Fed. Sorry, I'm in a funny mood today, I guess. I don't know. So Citadel bets on a Fed rate hike Wednesday as bitcoin analysts call a hold. Someone will be wrong. I'm going to tell you who's going to be wrong is Citadel. Right. I mean right now we have Kalsi, 77% chance. Fed maintains interest rates tomorrow. Right. And, and they have a history of being wrong like everybody else, which maybe isn't the biggest story here. But like we just had Trump literally say, I don't have the quote in front of me. Didn't he say yesterday or two days ago he was like, heaven knows what to do.
[06:22]
B
Yeah, he knows what he wants to do and he knows what. Yeah, something along those lines. I mean, that's the, I mean right now, yeah, we, we obviously price off of what's going on. I think we're somewhere around 35% chance of a hike. But I think all this like, no forward guidance and all this stuff, it just creates more volatility in the market. Because even if like they would have given guidance and Pushed it down a little bit more. It doesn't matter. Like, now we're going to be a lot closer to 5050 for pretty much every rate hike if Kevin Warsh gets the exact way that he wants it. I'm not, I don't really have a strong opinion if that's a better way to do things or a worse way to do things. Obviously, there are much smarter people than me, but, yeah, I mean, no matter how you slice it, he, I think he wants, if he were like himself five years ago, he'd want to hike maybe. But obviously Trump doesn't want that.
[07:04]
A
So, like, I don't know, man. I feel like that was all misdirection. Like, this dude was in the room for all of 2008 as a Fed governor. It's not like he was, he was Mr. Bailout, right? So, like, I think the, the Hawkish thing was a way to like, sell him to the public when he's just a quiet dove.
[07:21]
C
Right.
[07:21]
A
And I mean, here's the other narrative, right? Anything remotely dovish from Fed could be good for bitcoin, says analysts. That's probably true. Right. Like now it's like, if he's not hawkish, he's dovish. So we're good to go. I think we're just going to probably trade at 64,000 purgatory for the rest all time, but we'll see.
[07:37]
B
58k. 58k, gang, we're going to go back there. That's. Bitcoin is now a stable coin.
[07:42]
A
58 is fine with me. I'd rather buy 58. Some more than 64. Bought some in the 63s with, you know, I have the automated thing. It bought 63. 5 the other day.
[07:51]
B
So there you go. Hopefully that pays off for you after the Fed starts cutting rates. But yeah, it doesn't look like cuts are coming.
[07:59]
A
No, I, I don't think cuts are coming yet, but I think the fact that the market is pricing in two rate hikes, like by next April is just not going to happen. Like, Boris was not given this job to make things worse for the midterms.
[08:12]
B
No. Yeah. I mean, we're, we're pricing. I mean, the market is still pricing a hike by September. So, so by the September rate, by the September meeting, it's. The market is expecting a hike or. I mean, obviously, I'm sure you've had, you've talked about this. Like, it's not necessarily that it's going to happen on that date. It's just there's, there's These tales of distributions. And right now the odds are that there's likely to be a hike by September for a whole host of reasons.
[08:35]
A
Yeah, ain't happening. Okay, let's talk about etf, since you and this handsome gentleman are already. Look at them. Right there in all his glory. That's. He's just living in Philly. He's got.
[08:46]
B
Bloomberg Badass is a new one. I've never heard that before in, right out.
[08:50]
A
That was not planned, just happened. You guys are the Bloomberg badasses. I'm naming it here. Better than being like balding Bloomberg badasses. If we wanted to get more alliterative because you guys both have great hair today. Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchuna says crypto ETFs are squeezing out exchanges, letting traders buy coins for 1 to 3 bips instead of paying high margin trading fees. So this kind of aligns with what we were just talking about in South Korea. Like, not necessarily. Obviously this is the fee side. And maybe it's. He's saying it's kind of a better product that's more interesting, and I have heard that. But I think it also just like removes money from exchanges and is allowing people to trade with leverage in other places.
[09:33]
B
Yeah, I mean, no matter how you slice it, if you look at any of these exchanges, wherever you bought that 635, you might have paid like if you were really good, if you have a really good account that you can get a cheap access, you probably paid 40 bips maybe to make that trade. I mean, ETFs trade free. And the spread is pretty much zero that he's talking about. The spread there, that's 1 to 3 bips. So the fees are really low. How much is that impacting what's going on crypto right now? I don't, I think it A lot more has to do with like the idea of like momentum is an AI and you know, momentum begets momentum and that's where all the interest is. And bitcoin is an attention asset and it's just not getting a ton of attention right now. So, you know, when inflation comes back or printing tons of money or you know, what, whatever have you, then maybe bitcoin and even gold will become back on the front center stage and then we'll get there. But no matter how you slice it, people are trading these ETFs and it's a better vehicle for the vast majority of people for getting exposure. Obviously that's not, you know, not your keys, not your coins, what have you. But like if you're just trading pure exposure, the ETFs are probably better for the vast majority of retail consumers.
[10:33]
A
Yeah. And I think that the, the other side of that, and I think you're 100% correct, is that, like, once you, if you're a crypto guy and you left kind of the crypto world and went into the ETF world, you're like one toe already into just flipping into other markets, right. Like now your money is out in your Schwab account, and all of a sudden you see NAT and Nvidia going crazy or leverage AI ETFs. And then the other side is that also on the actual crypto exchanges outside of etf, it used to be that you could just speculate on Altcoins and on Bitcoin, and then all of a sudden you're on hyper liquid and you can trade oil and silver and pre I SpaceX. So, like, the crypto money either went to the other market and then found greener pastures or stayed in crypto and found greener pastures.
[11:19]
B
Yeah, I mean, and also part of it is like, a lot of these young kids, like, so I'm in my mid-30s now. A lot of people who started this, you know, 10 years ago, they were in their early mid-20s. They didn't have a ton of obligations they could. I mean, obviously there are still people my age yoloing into, you know, random
[11:34]
A
meme coins and stuff, having kids. But yes, that's.
[11:38]
B
Well, that's where I was going. Like, they're having kids now they're getting married. Like, I have never been somebody that's like, you should have 100% of your money in Bitcoin or some of the bitcoin maxis think, like, they don't really truly believe in capitalism. Like, no, no, you should have exposure to the dynamism of the US Capital markets. Like, you should have exposure to the s and P500 and the greatest companies in the world, too. And I think a lot of people who were, like, only got into investing through crypto have realized that they should have exposure to these AI names, to these space names, or Apple, Microsoft. It kind of makes sense to have exposure to these things that are growing and making bets on those types of markets. It's not just. It's crypto or nothing.
[12:14]
A
Yeah, I agree. I mean, I can't say that it's, you know, the reason for all of this. I mean, we have Andrew, who's on here every Tuesday. Crypto exchanges are shutting down for one simple reason. No volume. There'll be more casualties. We had Bitmex, we had bitmart. He was speculating he knows of another Asian exchange that's going to shut down. I've heard the same, but I don't talk and pander. And rumors.
[12:36]
B
Probably one of the South Korean exchanges
[12:38]
A
we never heard of percent. Right. I mean you just look at any of these metrics and there's just no volume. There's nobody here. But interestingly, we still have flows. ETFs are still getting flows, right? So the exchanges volume down, down, down, down, down. ETFs growing still.
[12:55]
B
Well, also the ETF volume are also down. So the ETF volumes, they had like a stellar 2025, like off the charts type volume. And then it kind of slowed down into like the early parts of 2026. It was still elevated. Now it's in the doldrums in the summer. So far in 3Q, it's been real low.
[13:17]
A
Yeah, no surprise. So you got to break this down for me because I've seen this everywhere. And it just kind of speaks to the popularity of ETFs. Corgi ETF disrupting an entire industry. What is it with dogs, man? Now we got like ETF issuing dog memes. But Corgi just filed for every single country ETF imaginable. What is a country etf? What do we, what are we doing here?
[13:42]
B
I mean, so like every, like every big issuer has like, you know, you want to invest in Greece, we have a Greece stock market etf. Right? So that's all it is. But really what it comes down to is so these guys launched their first etf. I don't want to say the exact month because I'm not sure, but it was like late fall, 2025.
[13:56]
A
Right.
[13:57]
B
They now have like 180, 200 ETFs on the market. They have filed for over 500 ETFs to launch that would be ready to launch this year, which is just absolutely insane. Some of it is crypto related. They're launching single stock leverage etf. They're launching broad based exposure. They're launching themes, leverage themes, space, you name it. They're filing for everything under the sun and just launching. And they're actually kind of undercutting everybody. The costs are, the fees are really low. But the main takeaway here is like BlackRock has just under 500 ETFs, 480 something, I think in the US if these guys launch like, I don't know, 90 of the things they file, they're going to be the Largest ETF issuer by number of products in the us which is unheard of. It's cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to, to launch and operate these things on an annual basis. So these guys are just running at a burn rate and they're just lighting money on fire. And it's a, it's a VC playbook. They have VC money there. This is not their primary business, mainly an AI insurance thing. And they're spraying and praying. Yeah, so if you get, they have one product that's pretty damn successful. It's a like a photonics type ETF related to AI and semis. Who knew? And they're praying that they get, you know, 10, 15 of these, 500 other ones that get are very successful and basically earn enough money to offset the cost of launching and operating all these other products. It's, we've never seen anything like it. I mean for people listening this, they're probably falling asleep, but it's just, it's mind boggling to see somebody do this.
[15:17]
A
I want to hit that Ireland. That feels good. Joe Eisenthal had this one right. There's an Ireland traded 3x leverage SK Hynix ETP, like that's such a mouthful that's down 96% since mid June. So this goes back to that South Korean trade. But this is an Ireland ETF that's being offered somewhere that's down 96% because it basically launched at the dead top right and is 3x levered on SK Hynix. I mean what isn't this just like rampant speculation everywhere and now it's like seeped into the stock market beyond even like the crazy leverage crypto corners. And now it like it's just in the ETF world too.
[15:56]
B
Yeah, Part of it in the ETF world is like most of these they charge a lot of money. They charge 1%, 1.5% on an annualized basis. Most ETFs, like you look at SP 500 ETF, it's 0.03%. So like all these issuers just need one ETF to be a hit. And sometimes it's like you just take in a little bit of flows and that takes off like the people who launched the Nvidia Lever 2X single stock ETFs a few years ago. They're sitting on billions earning one and a half percent a year on that. And it just pays for everything else they could possibly want to do. But the other thing is these things are taking off across the board. We're seeing Leverage Index ETFs single stock and then also the options volume on daily resetting leverage ETFs is also going through the roof. So for people who like 3x isn't enough, the crypto crowds is using 100x perps. They're trading just barely out of the money options on 2x single stock ETFs. It's crazy the amount of like gambling that is coming to the ETF market.
[16:53]
A
It feels like the size, it's like end times. I mean I talk about this a lot. Like the level of speculation does not usually come when people feel stable and secure in their lives and their finances. Right? It's like Weimar Republic. It was like we might as well gamble because we have to, you know, take a wheelbarrow of cash to go get bread. So, you know, and that was like the height of speculation is usually before some major crash. I mean when you put this together with prediction markets and you know, now we're adding leverage to prediction markets and are obviously also offering perpetual swaps. Like why is there so much appetite for rampant speculation and gambling?
[17:35]
B
I don't know. I mean I think this is always going to be here. I mean obviously right now it's dialed up to a 10. But like I remember during COVID when the Fed started hiking rates, people were saying this is the end of gambling and speculation. All these Robin Hood traders are going to go away. And I vehemently took the other side of that. Like I was like no way. People are always going to gamble. I don't know if I necessarily thought it was going to go to this extent, but like this is always going to be here. And I will say, like we're talking about this and like one of the things we get to see with ETFs that you don't get to see with some of the other stuff is like, are they behaving properly? Like the people trading these things and for the most part in the aggregate, like the people trading these things are using them as design. They're not like holding them long term. They are trading them and they're selling them on rips and buying them on dips. So they're like trying to call bottoms sell tops. And for the most part like they've created more wealth and they've destroyed they. People have taken money out of these things. They use them like an atm. So kudos to all the investors out there who are trading these types of products. We're talking about and like being smart about it. Like I have a big hit. It went up 10x. I'm going to take some of my money off the table. Like that's what these things are built to be used for. They're trading vehicles, not long term buy and hold type of thing. Vehicles.
[18:37]
A
Yeah, I gotta find it. You've saw this guy, I'm sure. I'm just pulling it from my other chat. One second. The, the guy was trading options on oh down 27.
[18:49]
B
I, I might actually kill myself but I don't have that kind of money.
[18:53]
A
The thing is he's, he's got a 3X. Yeah, I think he put 1.2 million in. He said he ran it up to 27 5amonth ago. Now you know, he's just doing the crypto thing, watching it go down but you know he's got 3.9. He's just sell. That's the thing. It's like so obvious dude, take your almost $4 million in like 7 months and call it a day. But I think he was trading like he like his premise was like micron at 300. So it's like semiconductor options or chip. I mean but isn't this it? I mean this is what we're going to see everywhere.
[19:30]
B
Yeah, I mean people are going to learn their lessons. I, I thought a lot of people, like I said, people thought everyone's going to learn their lesson during you know, 2021 meme stock mania and all the that happened then people, we were learned the same lessons over and over and over again. It's like crypto is relearning the lessons of tradfi over the last like century. Like I feel like every time something happens it's like that's why we have separated custodians and exchanges in TRADFI markets and like so like that just came blows up in crypto and I don't know people are going to learn. And honestly I just hope that people who are like gambling and doing this stuff, the people listening, they, it's with money they can afford to lose, which I think most people do do that. Obviously there's anecdotes of people who are losing money they can't afford to lose. And it's sad but it's just like gambling. Like I could, you could go up the street right now or I don't know, actually I don't know exactly where you live but like you could take, go on a flight to Vegas and put you know, half your net worth on a roulette wheel if you really wanted to or put it down at a, at a blackjack table and invest.
[20:28]
A
Can't invest unless you're accredited though. Yeah.
[20:32]
B
If you want to go pe. Going to get me started in the PE hedge fund. AI SL accredited investor First Qualified purchaser requirements. So stupid. But here we are.
[20:44]
A
I, I mean this, this guy is so good, but I, I mean he's got three. He turned it into 3.9, you know, memory, memory options. I think this guy's a winner right now. He's just got to exit and he shouldn't have put it on social media. He had the fallacy where he's like, it's anything above 1.2 million is the house's money. Which is like my favorite cope there is, you know, house is money. Wasn't mine in the first place. Could have been.
[21:08]
B
I would have taken some of it. I could have used it to buy a house.
[21:11]
A
I've learned this lesson, man. I've round tripped accounts, whatever.
[21:15]
B
And we've all been there, we've all done like this. Particularly anybody who's been investing in crypto since 2017, you just, you just watch it go up and round trip all the way back. But hopefully over the long term that trend line is pointing upwards. And obviously it's not pointing upwards right
[21:28]
A
now, but is that James Wind guy still around or is he like finally.
[21:33]
B
I haven't heard anything about him forever. He became a mean. He never become the main character on crypto Twitter?
[21:38]
A
No, no. Well, we do have one more very large story here in the ETF world that we need to unpack. Morgan Stanley launches cheapest ether and salon ETFs at 14 basis. So, you know, they kind of made a splash when they came in with the Bitcoin spot ETF a few months ago, also undercutting the market. There was also 14 bips, right? Is that correct?
[21:56]
B
Yes, correct.
[21:58]
A
And so they had filed, so we kind of knew these were coming, but now they're hitting the market. I actually talked to Amy Oldenberg, which who's the head of, you know, who runs all this at Morgan Stanley, last week when I was at the Audi Summit, and I was like, yeah, of course you guys launch ETFs. You have like 15,000 salespeople out there that can push this instead of BlackRock. And she was like, actually find that. We haven't really kicked that in so heavily yet. And most of this was just our clients seeing it launched and buying it. It was very organic and it wasn't like actively sold to them. So I wonder if we'll see that on the Ethereum Salon ETFs as well.
[22:31]
B
Yeah, I would, that would be my base case. I think like right now they're going to wait a little while before they start actively selling these things. And honestly this, if you're in crypto, right, and you're, you follow, I mean anyone in crypto has to somewhat follow what's going on with the four year cycle, right? Like you have to be somewhat aware of what's going on. And launching these things when they did, you know, they launched into a bear market, it shows like at least some conviction. Obviously they started this years ago, but launching at 14 bips, I mean you're going to get people who are looking for long term exposure. Robo advisors, like one of the big things they tend to look for obviously is like the fund is operating as planned, but also the cheapest fee imaginable. And at 14 bips, these are all the cheapest products on the market. So you might see robo advisors putting money in there. And then also for these advisors it's just way easier argument, right? Like so you want to put them in a client account and you want to put them in your own account. Like it's just, there's no debate. Like it's functionally the same thing as every other product in the market and it's ours and it's the cheapest and all of a sudden you can just do it. So eventually when they, I've been saying this for years, I feel like usually I would say the three year mark is usually a good year mark for like when these things like really start taking off. A lot of people, investors wait for three years of history things along those lines. So once we see those three year marks pick up, it could be important. But yeah, advisors still, they're one of the biggest holders but they haven't put tons of money into this thing. And I'm, I'm pretty bullish on the fact that Morgan Stanley is still launching these things in the bear market. And you know, right now might be a good time to be dipping your toe in these, into these things. I remember when these first, these ETS first launched I was talking to advisors when bitcoin is around 100k, they're like, I'm not putting my clients into this thing after it's, you know, 4x or whatever. And so they have no interest. Maybe I'll think about buying it on the diploma. The data is showing that they're not even buying the dip. But maybe at some point when this thing starts ripping, they'll get it in before it takes off or if it Takes off.
[24:18]
A
And I'm just hitting these Korean market tweets right now.
[24:25]
B
The memes are so good too.
[24:27]
A
80% down under two months. Somebody bought this 3K levered ETF with mortgage loans. Then we have idiots like this. South Korea's finance minister apologized on Wednesday after single stock leverage ETFs were introduced without careful consideration. I mean, it's just. My God. That, like, this is like a most classic chart I've ever seen. Look at that thing in all its glory.
[24:50]
B
It's crazy. Whoever's trading this thing is having a lot of fun. I. I mean, those things reset daily. I mean, the market is crazy. But again, I go back to the fact that, like, SK Hynix and Samsung is something like 40 or 50 of that entire index. So, like, you're trading that, and it's like, oh, I'm trading an entire country's index. And it's like, I'm diversified. And it's like, you. You are not. You're trading one thing, and it's all AI and it's all related to itself. It's all chips and memory, and that's it.
[25:12]
A
I want to know if James Wynn is still around. He's a mark on your name. James is.
[25:19]
B
Is James Wynn trading leverage perps on Korean stocks?
[25:23]
C
He.
[25:23]
A
He once came in to a Twitter space as I was hosting, as you know I did, and he kind of started to, like, dominate it and go crazy. And he called me a.
[25:34]
B
Well, you should be honored.
[25:35]
A
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, it was fine. I was like, I've been called a. By better people than you.
[25:40]
B
We've all been there.
[25:42]
A
All right, well, James, that's all I. All we got for that. I appreciate you taking the time. Bloomberg Badass. If you got. You guys should make T shirts or hats or.
[25:51]
B
All right, I'm gonna put that on the back of our book. I'm just gonna name. I'm gonna say the Bloomberg Badasses.
[25:55]
A
Thongs. Banana Hammocks. One of you in a. Bloomberg. One of you in Badass. Just. Just Griffin here.
[26:03]
B
Yeah, that's.
[26:04]
A
That's.
[26:04]
B
That's too much for 9:30 in the morning, at least on the East Coast.
[26:08]
A
Well, imagine it for the west coast people who watch this. I just literally exploded. All right, James, thank you so much. Everybody give. James follow. Have a good one, bro. All right, guys, I've cut that off super awkwardly. Terrible at this. Ah, so listen, before we go, want to talk to you guys about interview I did a week ago Sunday with CJ Constantinos from People's Reserve. I'm sure that you all watched it. You know that I've been working with them now. Well, I mean, they're back well over a year. But I just want to, you know, briefly take the opportunity since they're so awesome, to talk about what they've been building at People's Reserve that is launching very, very, very soon. You guys have seen it because I've talked about it so many times. But I want to show you my favorite feature. So obviously, first of all, CJ tells a story I believe is about how he sold 100 bitcoin to buy a house that's now worth like 4 or 5 bitcoin or something, right? And that was what sort of sparked his interest in building something where you didn't have to sell your bitcoin to buy a house. I wish I'd known about this because there's been times when I had to actually sell bitcoin. I was forced to to purchase real estate. Very, very long story. But so they've built this incredible suite of products like bitcoin backed, excuse me, self repaying mortgages, Bitcoin mortgages, the bitcoin bonds, which I love. But while I was on the interview with him, if you watched it, I found this calculator which you click on right here. It should work. Come on. Oh yeah, this one. Let's do bitcoin bond, for example. This is my favorite new toy and I think you guys should go do it. So look, their bitcoin bond. Let's say you buy a million dollar bitcoin bond with a 4% interest rate right? At five years, okay? Bitcoin CAGR 40% is high, right? This is the Michael Saylor 30, 40%. Let's put it at 20%. Conservatively, if you believe in five years on average Bitcoin will go up 20%. I happen to believe that you'll turn a million into 1.4 million. Now put that on 10 years if you buy this bond. 2.7 million. Now let's ratchet it up just in case we believe it goes to 40, which I do. You're $1 million worth 9.264. And I think what's really even maybe more incredible, you take a look at like the Bitcoin mortgage 500. Let's, let's make a million dollar house.
[28:32]
B
Let's get interesting.
[28:33]
A
Is that a million million dollar house for, for round numbers, you put down 20%. So you got to put down three Bitcoin, right? Basically $200,000. If the CAGR is 30% you pay
[28:45]
C
off your 30 year mortgage in eight years.
[28:48]
A
Right. Even we go down to 20%. 11 years go down to. If Bitcoin only goes up 10%, you'll pay it off in year 18 instead of year 30 with a $4,000 payment. Is absolutely bananas. Right? This is the future of how people are going to use bitcoin instead of selling it. And I highly encourage you to check them out. And so obviously this is great. If you're looking for a mortgage, you could also claim a house that if you own it outright, which is something I'm doing with them and using their bonus points, you can basically get paid for having your, your mortgage and you can buy the bond, you can get a self repaying mortgage, you get a bitcoin mortgage. It's literally endless and I think it's incredible and I want to tell you guys about it. So I hope that you check it out. Let me find. I'm gonna, I have this interview somewhere, I'm sure. One second. I'm gonna show it to you here on screen. Look, see when I'm looking down, you all think I'm checking my phone. I've got a screen here. I've got a screen. I'm literally, because I'm so boomerish, I'm googling myself. I'm on YouTube like Scott Melker podcast. Wait, we're gonna get it. It's gonna come, don't worry. Here it comes, right here. That's actually playing. You can watch it. But there it is. Bitcoin mortgage hack that changes everything. So I asked you guys please to check that out because they're awesome, you know that I don't share many things like this, but I've been friends with C.J. and these guys for a very, very long time now and I really, really believe in what they're building and I'm using it myself. So you can check that out. It's. I'm assuming the links in the description. People's Reserve. Yeah. Just to make sure it is peoples reserve.com peopleserve.com play with the calculator. Do the thing. I will be back for a Daily Wolf today and of course I'll be back tomorrow at 9am we got an awesome guest tomorrow. Ophelia Snyder from 21 shares. She's kind of like the brains behind the Cathie Wood ETF push. She's amazing. So that's going to be a great show and thanks to the James that I like for joining today. And just before we go, I just want to show you this. I think it's funny. How can you not think that's funny? Hilarious. I made that. I'm smart. See you guys later.
[31:11]
C
Today's video is sponsored by Securitize. You've heard the word tokenization. Putting assets like funds, bonds, treasuries and stocks on chain. Securitize the regulated infrastructure the biggest names in finance build on. They're the tokenization partner for BlackRock's on chain. Treasury Fund bidl working with new York Stock Exchange, Vaneck, Hamilton Lane and Apollo sec regulated entities nearly nine years running. Most money still moves through slow decades old systems. Securitize puts the real asset on chain itself. Not a synthetic or wrapped token standing in for it. And regulated in the United States. It's the institutional grade bridge between traditional finance and crypto. They didn't just build it, they just proved it. Listing their own stock on the New York Stock Exchange and simultaneously tokenizing it on chain. On Solana and Avalanche. The first and only public company built entirely for this. Their mission, Tokenize the world. Learn more@securitizeio this is a paid partnership, not investment advice.

Bitcoin Is Setting Up for $70K - But The Fed Could RUIN It

Bitcoin Is Setting Up for $70K - But The Fed Could RUIN It

Podcast Summary: "Bitcoin Is Setting Up for $70K – But The Fed Could RUIN It"

EPISODE OVERVIEW

MAIN THEMES & DISCUSSION POINTS

1. Bitcoin Price Outlook and the Fed’s Influence

2. South Korea’s Market Meltdown and Global Crypto Volumes

3. Shifts in Exchange Volume and Rise of ETFs

4. Demographics & Diversification: The Evolution of Crypto Investors

5. Proliferation and Speculative Craze in ETFs

6. Rising Appetite for Gambling and Risk

7. Morgan Stanley’s Ultra-Cheap Crypto ETFs

8. Reflections, Memes & Market Psychology

TIMESTAMPS FOR IMPORTANT SEGMENTS

MEMORABLE QUOTES

TONE & STYLE

FINAL NOTES

Podcast Summary: "Bitcoin Is Setting Up for $70K – But The Fed Could RUIN It"

EPISODE OVERVIEW

MAIN THEMES & DISCUSSION POINTS

1. Bitcoin Price Outlook and the Fed’s Influence

2. South Korea’s Market Meltdown and Global Crypto Volumes

3. Shifts in Exchange Volume and Rise of ETFs

4. Demographics & Diversification: The Evolution of Crypto Investors

5. Proliferation and Speculative Craze in ETFs

6. Rising Appetite for Gambling and Risk

7. Morgan Stanley’s Ultra-Cheap Crypto ETFs

8. Reflections, Memes & Market Psychology

TIMESTAMPS FOR IMPORTANT SEGMENTS

MEMORABLE QUOTES

TONE & STYLE

FINAL NOTES