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Bitcoin To Reach 200k in 2025? | Crypto Town Hall
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Bitcoin To Reach 200k in 2025? | Crypto Town Hall
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- [00:00]
Scott
Good morning.
- [00:01]
Dan
Happy Tuesday. Yesterday we were celebrating Bitcoin back above $100,000. Peaked around 102, then between 102 and 103. And of course, now we launch and here we are back below $100,000, chopping around. Hard to figure out exactly what's going on with the price action these days. Yeah, I mean, Dan, we were celebrating yesterday. What happened? Is it all over now? Last time we ever see Bitcoin above 100. It's all.
- [00:31]
Mike
It's all over. I'm afraid that I just. Thank you. I stole everything. It's all over, guys. Pack it up.
- [00:37]
Dan
Yeah, that's what I was thinking, too. Unfortunately, guys, I don't know if sarcasm translates to everyone everywhere.
- [00:44]
Mike
Let's be clear. I was joking. I don't know. I don't know. Yesterday was the first kind of like real business day back after the massive, like holiday, Christmas New Year period. So I think there's some buying there. I think one thing that we have seen is that I don't know if you guys noticed this as well. The market tends to sell off in the first hour after New York open and then tends to pick up again later in the day. Normally like 10:30 it picks up. So I don't know, it might be about the time that it picks up again. It's just something I've noticed recently.
- [01:12]
Dan
Yeah, we'll see if we bounce here. It is something that definitely seems to happen. You have to wonder why that happens. Could have something to do with ETF buying and selling and settling, but hard to know. Mike, how you have you in the market today. We obviously chatted yesterday and you kind of take the wider view, but do you think that bitcoin isn't reacting to something potentially in the macro that maybe I'm not paying attention to at the moment?
- [01:40]
Dave
I like to use the quote that I earned a little bit in crude oil the hard way is notable bear. And that was on the way up to the run, up to the peak in 130. I just saw what it would do. Make markets have more supply, more demand. And I'd like to earn that reputation now as a notable bear. I think 100,000 in Bitcoin was a tremendous threshold that should be. Most participants should be considered profit taking. I look at the whole space. I deliberately produced, provocatively produced that headline Yesterday. Bitcoin and 2.4 million wannabes point out that when people point at limited supply, increasing demand and adoption, which I do and agree with, in bitcoin, there is an unlimited supply of bitcoin wannabes and, and competitors which you don't have in things like precious metals and gold. And they're just silly, stupid, expensive. This is 1929 ish. 1999, 192007 ish. And yeah, sometimes I'm the curse of being a contrarian, but I point out Dogecoin 54 billion, Shiba Inu 13 billion. That's just silly stuff. I virtually guarantee we're going to look back from the future, say that was kind of dumb that we had valuations that high and now we're having a punt and people talking about the bond vigilantes. What's really kicking in just the last half hour as we saw that all the data come in a bit strong respect in the ism services jolts and inflation a little bit higher. So bond yields are picking up and people are selling equities. And the thing is also I look over my equity analyst, Chita Martin Adams, and for the first time in a couple of years, she's very bearish. Equity, she's. The market's just too high. Markets, it's priced for perfection. Earnings have to go, you know, markets is priced and turning. So I think overall, everything. And then we have this complete serious optimism about our new president, which I think we look back to the future and say, yeah, it might not make that much difference. Sure, if we get a strategic bitcoin reserve, that, that's quite bullish. But you look over to ETFs, it's not a good reason to be long. Bitcoin, it's a very small portion of the market and it's. My lesson in commodities, I pointed out, is typically for the retail people to buy these type of things, you need to have earnings which we don't have in cryptos with the exception of Ethereum. So overall, I'm looking at the big picture spaces. We're way overdue for some back and field risk assets. Bitcoin is the best leading indicator on the planet and it just. You should be selling when you're yelling. And I'll stick with that theme until proven wrong.
- [04:07]
Dan
N Do I dare let you respond as. As is tradition. I don't know if Dave can hear me. He just, he just jumped down. I'm sure there are people who disagree with that view. Go ahead, Andre.
- [04:22]
Andre
I. I don't necessarily disagree with that view, but I think, I mean, yesterday we were so back, right? We just said we're so back. Today it's like it's all over again, right? And I think we're currently Balancing on chain tailwinds.
- [04:38]
Matthew
Right.
- [04:39]
Andre
Which are very strong with macro headwinds at the moment. So I think one day we see like BTC pumping because of potential SBR in Canada.
- [04:48]
Matthew
Right.
- [04:49]
Andre
Further corporate treasury adoption of Bitcoin. And the other day it's being held back by bad macro news.
- [04:56]
Matthew
Right.
- [04:56]
Andre
Such as rising yields and strong dollar.
- [04:59]
Matthew
Right.
- [05:00]
Andre
And I think this kind of price action that we're seeing right now is quite emblematic for a deterioration in the macro picture.
- [05:09]
Matthew
Right.
- [05:09]
Andre
And I think I said it the last time I joined crypto town hall. I'm still of the opinion that financial conditions have been tightening because of the rise in yields, treasury yields, bond yields in general, the appreciation of the dollar.
- [05:25]
Matthew
Right.
- [05:26]
Andre
Which is now feeding through global growth expectations.
- [05:29]
Matthew
Right.
- [05:30]
Andre
So there's like repricing of global growth expectations to the downsides, which poses these kind of macro risks.
- [05:37]
Matthew
Right.
- [05:38]
Andre
For bitcoin as well and other crypto assets. And at the same time we have these bullish on chain factors.
- [05:44]
Matthew
Right.
- [05:44]
Andre
I mean, exchange balances continue to drift lower.
- [05:48]
Matthew
Right.
- [05:49]
Andre
Despite high profit taking.
- [05:51]
Matthew
Right.
- [05:52]
Andre
And a new supply coming online because it's being absorbed.
- [05:58]
Matthew
Right.
- [05:58]
Andre
By corporates buying bitcoin, by ETP flows and so on. And I think this kind of divergence between macro and onchain is causing this volatility that, that we're seeing right now.
- [06:12]
Dan
Explain to me this, Andre or, or anyone. We have this strange sort of situation. Talk about the strength of the dollar here and then we'll go to the other guests, have their hands up. But it's basically been up only since September, I believe. Right. I think dxy, of course, is a dollar relative to other currencies for people who don't understand dxy. Right. So it's not in a vacuum, but basically from think, you know, last week it topped 109. We're now at 108, so up 8%. All these risk assets that Mike talks about and stops being so high. How did that happen? How can Bitcoin have gone over 100,000 when the dollar has absolutely ripped? And they're supposed to be generally inversely correlated.
- [06:53]
Andre
Yes. I mean the, the doom chart, the macro doom chart that Raoul has been posting, I don't know, since probably a couple of months ago.
- [07:02]
Matthew
Right.
- [07:02]
Andre
Is the one with global money supply leading by, I think 12 weeks or so, three months and Bitcoin.
- [07:10]
Matthew
Right.
- [07:11]
Andre
And I think that's still a risk because dollar appreciation usually leads to contraction in global money supply.
- [07:18]
Matthew
Right.
- [07:19]
Andre
And therefore, I think. And even if you listen to guys like Michael Hull from Cross Border Capital. He's also been saying, okay, liquidity conditions have deteriorated in Q4, right. Despite Bitcoin rallying to new all time highs and so on. So I think that's still a risk. But I think there's a disconnect between liquidity conditions, right. Macro conditions in general and on chain.
- [07:43]
Matthew
Right.
- [07:44]
Andre
That's why bitcoin has been rallying. It's because it's influenced more by these on chain factors than these macro factors.
- [07:53]
Dan
Agree. Which lends to the next natural question, which is if we get the back and fill Mike's talking about the normal reversion, the recession, the market crash, any of those things, can bitcoin detach and continue up because of the strength of its own fundamentals? Were you guys able to hear me? Yeah, I don't know if my mic is working. It's glitching. I'll repeat again, in case you didn't hear me, I said then I think that it begs the question that if we get the downturn that Mike is talking about back and fill crash 1929 or even just a normal reversion, can those on chain factors outweigh that? And can bitcoin trade on its own and not follow the market's doubt?
- [08:44]
Andre
I think the jury's still out there because the correlation between The S&P 500 and Bitcoin has been relatively high. I think it's 0.5 on the past three months. So the risk is of course if we have a repricing of global growth expectations and decline and cross risk appetite in traditional financial markets, it could weigh on BTC as well. And which I think we've been seeing this since, yeah, December essentially since the, the, the Fed telegraph that it will cut rates less than expected.
- [09:18]
Matthew
Right.
- [09:18]
Andre
They will only cut, will do two cuts in 2025 and was, I think was five expected initially.
- [09:26]
Matthew
Right.
- [09:27]
Andre
And so I think that's weighing on bitcoin as well. And so that's definitely a risk. But in my view it's still up some kind of a coiled spring thesis from an on chain perspective. Because the supply deficit will most likely continue to increase until at least mid-2025 because of these long leads.
- [09:49]
Matthew
Right.
- [09:50]
Andre
Between the halving effect, right. The supply shock and the price performance, the subsequent price performance historically at least.
- [09:58]
Matthew
Right.
- [09:58]
Andre
If history is any guide, the bitcoin halving should, this positive effect emanating from bitcoin halving which happened in April, right. Last year, should still last at least until mid-2025.
- [10:11]
Matthew
Right.
- [10:12]
Andre
And so I think there's definitely some kind of scenario where you have some kind of repricing of global gross expectations to downside S&P 500 risk. Traditional financial assets selling off.
- [10:25]
Matthew
Right.
- [10:25]
Andre
Because of this repricing. But at the same time, bitcoin and other crypto assets continue rallying because on chain factors continue to be very supportive.
- [10:39]
Dan
Matthew?
- [10:42]
Matthew
Yeah, Hi there. I think what Andre says makes a lot of sense. I love. I've not heard it before actually about talking about on chain in contrast to the macro. So. Sorry, I just got somebody just opposed come at the door. But I'll try and speak quickly. I think it's. That's absolutely true on chain, obviously we've got diminishing supply with the halving. I think that's a known effect well in advance anyway. So I'm not sure whether that's actually a factor in itself. But bitcoin has evolved from being a purely speculative asset from the beginning. Now it's more of a store of value and that's linked with the, you know, with on chain. I'm sorry, I'm gonna have to come back later because I just got to take this. I'm sorry.
- [11:25]
Dan
No problem. Dave Weisberger, you had your hand up before as well.
- [11:29]
Dave Weisberger
Yeah, I mean, look, I don't want to rehash everything, but I do think that, you know, it. It's funny listening to your show this morning with. With Matt Hogan and the guys from Arch and listening to some of the stuff here is actually, I'm glad to hear the stuff here because I always hate it when everybody agrees with me. But I think that the market is doing what it did during the Internet bubble or any other major bull period, which is Monday sets the trend, Tuesday has mild reversion, and then we see where the real trend is going to happen on Wednesday. And I think that we'll let that play out in terms of the short term trend. The. In the long term, I mean, there are three things that are just not priced into bitcoin. So your question about Canada D link is the answer to that, as I've said repeatedly, is it depends on how if the S P crashes, you know, 15 in a day and, you know, hitting circuit breakers and the plunge protection team gets involved, they start talking about banning short sales and financial markets on the Treasuries and the corporate debt side seize up like they did in the great financial crisis, everything's going to fall because in a crash, people sell what they can sell, not what they want to sell. And if you've been saving money in bitcoin and you need to raise cash, you're going to sell it and it's 24 7, it's liquid, it's easy and that will happen. But if the S P tops out and grinds lower, yeah, I could delink, could absolutely delink. I mean a 50% correlation in the past three months, which is higher than it's been, is basically nonsense. And if you look at, if you're running a risk book, you know, and I just, for those who don't know, I ran market making operations for a decade. If you're running a risk book, you're going to have multiple factors that you're going to be cross hedge. When you have 50% short term correlations and well less than that in the long term, you're pretty, you're, you're going to be hedged but it's not going to be nearly as much as you think and it can actually flip negative. And bitcoin has been negatively correlated to equities many, many times over the last several years. So, you know, I don't care about that. But I do agree completely with what's going on in the bond market being a flashing red indicator. Right. You know, as long term yields start, continue to back up.
- [13:43]
Dan
Yields are 4.683 today after rate cuts. And that makes.
- [13:49]
Dave Weisberger
Yeah, well what that means is that means mortgages are more expensive. The market that I would be most concerned about frankly is real estate. And everything that underlies real estate, which by the way, while not the companies are not as leveraged to real estate as they were in 2007, is still the market that led that crisis and it's the one market that led the Great Depression. So let's understand that there are risks in the economy. Now when I hear risks and other bitcoiners hear risks, we think, well, that means they're going to back up the truck and start printing money and do quantitative easing again because that's their only tool on the long end and they've shown no hesitancy to using it. And this administration, to be blunt, where Mike and I probably agree is they will certainly be more willing to engage in quantitative easing type things because to them there's no issue with manipulation. They don't really care about what it's doing. So honestly, you know, if you really think that the financial market seizing up is a possibility, you may get a better entry point to buy into bitcoin. You may not because people see this, but it could be very, very well, very, very bullish. The flip side to all of that is the demand side. And, and anyone who wants to, to hear this, rewatch Scott's YouTube show this morning. Matt Hogan does a phenomenal job of going through the drivers from the corporate side and the sovereign side and the investor side, et cetera. Drivers are there and there just isn't enough supply. This market isn't playing with any of that. This is just people taking profits, playing around, doing what Mike is saying. And that's fine. I mean, that's what happens, you know, as you get to establish new ranges that, that happens all the time. So this action, unless you're over leveraged, is no big deal.
- [15:33]
Dan
Matthew, had your hand back up? Are you back?
- [15:35]
Matthew
Yeah, thank you. Thanks for having me back. Yeah, I just thought it was interesting somebody mentioned about the inverse correlation between the US Dollar and Bitcoin. Well, it doesn't appear to carry through longer term. If you look at when Bitcoin was launched, the US dollar index was about 80 at the time and it's now of course 108. So if you look at the chart, dollar has been strengthening considerably against this basket of currencies. At the same time, Bitcoin has risen from nothing to 108,000. And we're there or thereabouts right now. So the big question is where is the dollar going next? And I think we're actually at a pivot point because we are beginning to see the US Scaling back. Yes, we had some strong figures out today, but even so, there's a lot of warning signs out there with the bond market, as you said, and lots of other indicators as well. So I think that we may be looking at a relatively long term potential turn in the US dollar. And if that's the case, I actually think there's a correlation, a direct correlation between dollar index and Bitcoin. So if we see a turn in dollar and we see basically lower highs and lower lows long term, long, long term when you look at the dollar index. So I think we're actually near a pivot point right now. We've got some bearish divergence in place as well. So I think we can expect there's fundamental reasons behind it, there's technical reasons behind it. So I think that we're going to see a turn in US dollar. So that means we're fairly near a peak. I don't mean absolutely imminently because we've had all this bullish news with Trump, but I think there's going to be some disappointment over that. I don't think he's going to be able to deliver on everything. And again, it actually comes to the bigger picture. What is the macroeconomic situation and can he do anything about that? So, yeah, Matthew, a lot of people.
- [17:29]
Dan
Have, yeah, a lot of people have sort of alluded to that same theory for bitcoin price action to some degree, at least early in the presidency. If we don't see all the things that everybody is so bullish about in the first hundred days, that maybe you would see some disappointment and retracement. Right. So not even just in markets in general and with the dollar, but also with like if we don't see a strategic reserve, if we don't see any legislation.
- [17:57]
Matthew
Yeah, I mean there's that factor. There's also, I mean there's geopolitical situation as well. I mean, I keep harping on about that, but there's no doubt there's massive, probably greater than we've had for a long time geopolitical risk with Trump coming in. There's a lot of things that people want to get out of the way before Trump comes to power. So I've only got a couple of weeks for that to happen. So there's a strong possibility we might see some things flare up. I went into it yesterday on a, on a podcast that I did talking about the massive risks there are at the moment. I don't know whether it's appropriate to go into it, but Israel are about to bring out this laser defense system. At the moment it takes them over $30,000 to bring down one missile using their Iron Dome. It's going to come down to as little as $13. So before they deploy that system, I think this is the, will be seen as the opportunity to take their pop at Israel, as it were. So I think there's a lot of geopolitical risk and we're seeing oil. I mean Russia, the supply of gas to Europe has been cut. So lots of risk there for oil prices. If oil spikes, we'll see inflation spiking again. So there's a lot of risk out there that people aren't factoring in. So I think we're going to see basically a bit of a turndown, a bit of a sell off. It's expected. But we will still see new all time highs before the big crash that people are talking about maybe later in the spring. But for now we'll see a bit short term pullback. We are going to see new all time highs, Bitcoin above 108,000. But then the, I believe the big correction is coming later at the End of the first quarter.
- [19:41]
Dan
A lot to unpack there. Mike, you want to take a shot?
- [19:45]
Scott
Yeah.
- [19:45]
Dave
I appreciate you asking because just a little pushback in the dollar. Lessons I've learned about the dollar, trading it and from my colleague Gina Martin Adams, our chief equity strategist, is the dollar has gone up since 2011. Almost tick for tick with the US stock market. Now we're in a potential. But if the dollar starts ticking down and sustains ticking down, it has to coincide very similar with US risk assets going down. And we all know the whole world is way overweight US risk assets as they have to be because it's been the only place really to be in the big macro for over 10 years. To me, that's the lose, lose I pointed out for commodities, broad commodities for a couple of years you need a weaker dollar, which typically is an oxymoron with a higher US stock market means they all go down. So I tilt over to beta and then we all know Dave likes to push back me. Beta is the US stock market. We need a 10% correction. Maybe we started it. Let's get that over with. Which means we'll probably get a 30% back and fill in Bitcoin. Now I'm not looking at this as something minor and macro. I mean I pulled out charts 100 years, going back 100 years with the US stock market cap to GDP. This is to me something when you make a prediction like I'm looking at now, this is epic historical mean reversion of very expensive risk assets. And at a point where we've had the US Fed has already said they can stop, they have to stop cutting because risk assets are too high, inflation's elevated, we have a new president who's very volatile and we have volatility in most measures on a 10, 20 year basis at multi decade lows. There's only one way for that to go up and the risk. I just point out the most volatile risk assets is cryptos. Bitcoin is just the number one. And I'll just again point out there's massive oversupply and massive speculation in cryptos. Bitcoin is just one of them. Yes, I get it's different, we all know that we pointed out, but it's not different when you see things like Doge or Shibuino drop 50%, which they should, they should drop 80, 90, maybe 99%. Then you still have some money left in them. But do they have practical value? That's to me the point of where we are now. We're Just at such an elevated level of optimism in risk assets and starting with the stock market and US bond market, starting to tell you this is a problem. And I'll end with this. We've basically taken out Fed easing until something tells them the ease. And we know what Dave mentioned what that could be.
- [22:13]
Dan
Dave, you said your name. That means you have to speak.
- [22:17]
Dave Weisberger
I mean, look, we've had this conversation many times. I think that a s piece falling 10%, Bitcoin dropping 30%. I will take the other side of that bet in ridiculous size, of course. I haven't been gotten my steak dinner yet from the last bet and the gold bet, I'm going to win that one too, so that's fine. But it is what it is. A 10% drop in the S P is unlikely to cause mass panic. A 10% drop in a day where people are afraid of what's going to happen. Sure. I mean, you know, you could see all the bids pulled in Bitcoin. I guess maybe, maybe you could see a drop in down to 85. I mean, but that's not, you're talking about a drop below, you know, at this point it dropped well below 70,000, you know, on the beam because of the S P dropping. Nah, that, that is just not true. I mean, the correlation is only 0.5. So why you would expect the beta to be to maximize at that? I mean, it's the fact that it's more volatile is a reflection of the fact that the people who own it think it's going to go. It's going to 5 to 10x. You can't have a low volatility asset that you expect to go up by five or 10 times. I mean, look at Nvidia's volatility, right? Nvidia's beta. Do you think that after anyone has been paying attention to what's going on at CES, does anybody think that the S&P drops 10%, Nvidia is going to drop 30% in those days? I mean, it could, I suppose. I think there are a lot of people out there that are saying, well, wait a minute, not likely, you know, and it's the, it's the same thing. And Nvidia has a reason because it's a major component of the S. And P is a far bigger reason to trade with the, you know, with that sort of volatility. So, you know, I, I don't want to get into the statistical games, but you know, Mike's point about value is really dependent upon which crypto assets are going to leverage new value, not just store of value like Bitcoin. So the real question and every one of the crypto assets that you're looking at is is there a monetization present potential? Is there a reason for it to exist? Is there something that is going to make sense? Will in fact there be community members in value? And that is a piece of analysis that should be done coin by coin by coin. Someone called me of the two, how many ever million coins? I mean, I think.
- [24:48]
Dan
I think we lost Dave. I don't know if that's on my end. Can you guys hear him?
- [24:53]
Mike
No, I think he's gone.
- [24:54]
Dan
Okay, Dave, towel. You haven't. Okay, Dave, are you back? You can try again.
- [25:00]
Dave Weisberger
Yeah, someone just called me and it wouldn't let me decline the call for some reason. Yeah, all I was saying just to complete the thought, Mike and I agree on one point, which is a vast majority of crypto assets are going to be valueless, but that is no different to a vast majority of Internet companies were valueless in the 2000s, yet most of the wealth that's created over the last 25 years came out of those companies. I think it's exactly the same analog, maybe on a bigger scale. And that's fine, you know, because this is global, not just the U.S. and you just need to understand that. But you know, that doesn't mean, because there were 10,000 companies that claim to be Internet companies back in the bubble and there were, that didn't mean that Google and meta and etc. Etc. Didn't emerge from the swamp of all this crap and become the most valuable companies in the world. So to understand assets, it's entirely possible that both could be true.
- [25:57]
Dan
David's Al, I would love your thoughts.
- [26:01]
David
I, I love how we ask existential questions on days that the market is down, but when days that it's up, there's we, we don't care about existential issues like is there really value here or is there a reason for such and such coin to go ahead and exist? Look, I, I, I, I will continue to be loud about the expectations from the upcoming presidential administration, not because necessarily even, you know, sentiments historically expressed by those in power, whether it be from the President to the Treasury Secretary to Commerce Secretary to Sec head to AI crypto czar, but also because they all have a lot of money to make personally from a successful crypto ecosystem. You know, I agree with Dave Weisberger in the sense that, you know, certainly, you know, there's only going to be a few projects that end up being the value drivers and end up sticking around and, you know, have the mantle. But at the end of the day, there's going to be a period of time, I believe the first half of this year from inauguration on, that the crypto world will get the greatest boost that it's ever gotten. And I don't think it's priced in. I don't think people understand, even the people that are in this, this ecosystem on a daily basis even understand yet how much of a boost, how much of a headline, how much of support, you know, in all forms it's going to go ahead and get. I see these days as being the ability, you know, giving people the opportunity to go ahead and prepare for that. I expect they're at points to be frenzied, buying over the first half of the year. And I continue to say first half of the year because I don't know how difficult things are going to be for Trump. In terms of numbers, I think the US Economy is doing great. Our unemployment rate is right where Fed wants to see it. Inflation has come down substantially, but the US Dollar is really strong. Rates are stubbornly high regardless of what the Fed does. So the 10 year, the 30 year mortgage and everybody else around the world is cutting rates out of weakness. And you know, we don't seem to be getting the same cooperation out of the long end of the curve in our country, rightfully so, because of the strength. And so there's going to be a time, I think after all of the fanfare of Doge cutting, which I'm sure will hear about, and then, you know, whatever Trump plans to do early on. And I can't imagine how full his plate is. I mean, I tried to write a list of things the other day and it just got too long at a certain point that I just gave up in terms of the things that he wants to do very early on. But the news cycle is going to be so fast, so furious. So I'm taking the opportunity to go ahead and breathe. But one thing that I can assure you is that it'll be all green all the way for crypto. And then I don't know if numbers start to catch up with Trump. That is there is no way to go ahead and get the long end of the curve down. And that presents real problems for people that want to go ahead and either finance long lived assets or they want to go ahead and buy long lived assets like a home or a car. And how that goes ahead and affects the US Economy, economy longer term. How is Trump going to go ahead and get to a better place for the US Balance sheet beyond what Doge can do from a window dressing perspective. So days like this don't mean much to me. Certainly I'd love to see an update and I really don't know why it would be that much down. Maybe we're just going ahead and oscillating between two, you know, ends of the spectrum. We, we've all been around, I could say everybody on stage probably has been around Wall street long enough to say some years you get a great Santa Claus rally and things follow. You know, the old adages like sell in May and some years they don't. And so, you know, what do I go ahead and chalk this up to? People coming back late from vacation, you know, not necessarily, you know, ready to go ahead and put money to work, people taking their time to go ahead and sharpen pencils and get ready. I'm not really sure, but it seems to me that we are in store for some really record stuff over the next couple of months.
- [31:25]
Dan
Yeah, totally agree with basically all of that. But the interesting thing is that we have this title, right, bitcoin to reach 200k in 2025. That's coming from Bernstein's predictions and something we talked about this Morning on my YouTube with Matt Hogan.
- [31:38]
David
Oh, by the way, Scott, I went on Fox Business before the close of the year and I put 250 as my price target for 2025.
- [31:45]
Dan
Why so bearish? Why so bearish, David? You know, and, and you know, I think that we get these prediction lists constantly, you know, and we, we all give them and doesn't seem like outside of the, the macro picture, there's anyone who has bearish predictions when they actually look at the fundamental tailwinds sort of behind the industry right now. Right. And so it's an interesting sort of disconnect because if we go on here and believe that the dollar yields are going to rip and there's going to be all these problems, then you have to very clearly believe that bitcoin is going to become utterly and entirely detached. Go ahead, Dave.
- [32:27]
Dave Weisberger
Yeah, the reason for that is actually very important within the people who have done the work and are in the bitcoin community that understand that it's an option and looking for a 5 to 10, you know, times, you know, rally to become, to, you know, overtake or, or go parry pursuit with gold in terms of its monetary value are a very small percentage of the investing community. I'm going to repeat that because that's the important thing, a very, very small percentage are the ones who are in our little club, as it were. The vast majority of the people outside the club range from it's, you know, magic Internet money. We haven't really done any. I really thought about it. It's such a small percentage of a portfolio, I don't really care. It doesn't matter. Or if you're working on Wall Street, I can't make money selling it, so it doesn't matter to. And that, that features really, really prominently to the, the idiot skeptics and people, you know, the Stephen Hankies of the world or the Professor Allen's of the world. I mean various academics who quite literally look, study monetary history and they start their monetary history studies in 1972 and ignore a thousand years of monetary history and understanding why and just saying, well, the world of fiat is all we have. If you woke up on that date and you didn't look backwards, you wouldn't understand any of what bitcoiners understand in terms of why money matters. And so when you have the vast majority of the population not caring or outright deriding, you're going to get. It balances off. The fact that the people who have actually looked at it are bullish. And by the way, this isn't new. Anyone who thinks it's new, it's not new. If you talk to people in, in the technology space in 1996, 1997, you know, the Netscape moment started and then when that faded, you know, they were still ramp, they were still bullish and bearish. It moved it, chopped it, whatever. And then it took a couple of years until people started seeing real applications. And then all of a sudden it just went absolutely completely nuts. And we're still in the, but we're in the before absolutely completely nuts thing now. The difference is, the reason I want to go back to that one point is with the announcement of E Trade and with the change in administration. The one thing in the change of administration, I've said this almost every crypto town hall when people talk about macros is Wall street is going to be allowed to make money selling Bitcoin products. They have not been allowed, they've been actually excluded from it. We've seen the operation choke point stuff for the last five years. When that changes now, all of a sudden that calculus that I started the conversation with is going to flip. That's when you're going to see the massive rally. Everything until that starts to happen is, I'm not going to say noise. It might Be generally upward, but that's when you're going to see major action. Those are the catalysts.
- [35:20]
Dave
So I got, I gotta just push back on Dave a little bit. What you just said about bitcoin, I heard in gold for decades, oh, we gotta get off 1%. Everybody needs allocate the gold Bitcoin, ETF. So Wall Street's been able to make money on it for decades, and yet total ETF holdings in gold stuck around 220 billion in Bitcoin, it jumped up to 130 billion right away, which risk adjusted is above gold. So the difference is gold has plenty of other alternatives. I'm certain he's only has four other terms. And precious metals, bitcoin, you're going to see more and more of them, as you saw with theorem has 2.4 million. So I, I get it. I love bitcoin. But I'm just pointing out, Dave, some of us have heard this, those of us heard this in this space for you can't compare it to Nvidia. Nvidia has earnings and gold does bitcoin. And nothing and virtually no cryptos have earnings. And that's just the thing I've heard from Ria Ras, and RIA is my whole career. Maybe it's changed. I doubt it.
- [36:17]
Dave Weisberger
Wall street makes almost nothing from gold. ETFs are the lowest margin products out there. The products they care about are being able to look at coin. They look at Coinbase's margins and you know, they collectively look like Homer Simpson when someone mentions pork chops. ETFs are a hundredth of that, actually probably less in terms of margins that they would make. Right. So you need to, you need to follow the money. The most margin products they make are structured products and derivatives. And there are a lot of people out there. Talk to Larry Leopard to get him on one of these spaces and ask him about gold derivatives, and he will immediately start talking about it's a tool of manipulation and suppression of the price. But the truth is that there was an enormous demand for it. Right? So Wall street never made that much money yet. That said, look at what happened in the fiat as the FIAT era has moved on. And why is gold more expensive than platinum? So you talk about expense. Platinum is 30 times rarer than gold. Platinum for all of most of our life, up until the last 10 years was considered more valuable than gold. Platinum trades at half the price of gold. And you know, and the reason for that is because no one has ever used platinum as a monetary substitute. They've just Used it for jewelry. So if you want to understand just how vulnerable gold is because of its monetary, you know, value, that gives you a pretty good idea of where Bitcoin, of where there's room for bitcoin to run without anybody in the, in, you know, caring, you know, in the monetary authorities of the world, in the central banks or whatever of the world. So those are differences. And, and the reason I mentioned Nvidia is yeah, there's earnings, but it's a question of value. Like what's the value of those future earnings? And when you're talking about a store of value, that monetary component of gold is really what you're talking about. And I don't. You don't even go way any beyond that to talk about the denominator of finance.
- [38:14]
Thomas
It's a good point, Dave. I know yesterday when you and I were speaking, we were talking about it being the most bullish day of 2025, but here we are with a little bit of dip. And I always appreciate your optimism. We do have Thomas today as a sponsor with ewx. I see that, Thomas, you've got up here as well. So before we, we transition to a sponsor today, I just do have a disclaimer. Mario's company, IBC does marketing, incubation and investing. Sponsors on the show are sponsors working directly with ibc, not necessarily crypto, Town hall or Scott's specifically. And IBC is also hiring for writers, journalists and moderators. So if you're looking to join a great team or you're a project wanting to work with Mario or ibc, just DM Mario's account, who's up here in a speaker slot. So Thomas, I do see that you're up here. I just want to give you the opportunity to maybe give the elevator pitch to set the room about what exactly Ecowatt is.
- [39:10]
Dave Weisberger
Yeah.
- [39:11]
Scott
Hi. So Echo, what was actually created to bridge the gap between retail investors getting the possibility to get into renewable energy investments? As you probably know, when everything started solar energy in Europe especially about 20 years ago, renewable energy investment was just possible for investment funds, utility companies, or maybe in best case for so called high net worth individuals, but not for retail investors. So when tokenization came up with all this as the missing link between the investment possibility into renewable energy and getting retail investors into this and pushing the uptake of renewable energy to much higher levels when. When it is what we need actually.
- [40:09]
Thomas
So there's the EWX token associated with Ecowatt, which has a staking model. So I'd love for you to explain how users can benefit from that and how they're also supporting climate positive actions by using the product.
- [40:27]
Scott
It's actually very simple. So we are investing on the one hand in, in solar power plants, on the other hand also into reforestation projects which are creating carbon credits. So basically somebody who is buying the ewx, he has the possibility to stake his token in different projects and from these different projects he's getting the returns and the carbon credits.
- [40:57]
Thomas
Wonderful. I mean that is, I've seen other carbon credit platforms trying to launch in this space, but it's never been as simple as an explanation as what you just gave for the end consumer. And given that we have a lot of people in here who are crypto native audience, I do appreciate that simplicity.
- [41:21]
Scott
No, go ahead Thomas. Yeah, the problem, and we of course also realized this, that there are several companies who have tried to get on this. The problem always is that when you look at the team, none of these teams have ever been in renewable energy or even in carbon credits. So everybody was just thinking that oh, this is a new market where we can make some money out of it. But we didn't understand system what is behind it. Not, not understanding how you set up and what are the difficulties in setting up and getting the permits for a solar power plant and not understanding the, the carbon market, which actually just over the last few years, step by step is developing.
- [42:07]
Thomas
What, what, what is your and your team's experience in the traditional carbon market?
- [42:12]
Scott
No, first of all, I myself and most of my team is in renewable energy, specifically solar power power plant developments already for, for about 20 years. So we know how to set up and what are the problems with setting up a solar power plant. In addition, we have been of course looking at the development of the carbon credit market over the last few years and, and basically just in the last couple of years really it makes sense to get into the carbon credit market. But you have to be careful, very careful, as you probably also realized. And so in the news just a couple of months ago when it turned out that almost 95% of certain carbon credits are just fake and you see almost at least once a month you see in the news with whatever multinational company was buying for years fake carbon credits, where the project is even not existing behind these so called carbon credits. And basically that's also the reason why the price of carbon credits was almost nowhere around 1, 2, $3, which also reflects how can the carbon credit be have a value if nothing is behind it? Of course, when it's just a few Dollars and when it's just greenwashing nothing else.
- [43:42]
Thomas
So we, we do have about 4,000 people in the space right now. Typically when we have these spaces it's just due to the nature and the title of the show before here, which was Will Bitcoin reach 200k in 2025? It's a very crypto centric trick audience. People who are playing in meme coins thinking whether or not they want to buy more bitcoin, they likely hold more bitcoin. So, so what, what, what's sort of the pitch to them on why they should put their money or their crypto into something like EWX versus something like bitcoin?
- [44:16]
Scott
No, it's actually also very simple. I mean of course everybody should invest wherever they want in bitcoin or meme coins or, or whatever coins. But on the other hand you have also to look around and you will see how climate change is having more and more impact on our lives. In the last couple of years. There's almost no month where we don't have somewhere in the world some catastrophes because of climate change. And what is important is that at least more funding is getting, getting into climate action projects in order to avoid further catastrophes which would come up in the next few years. I don't know how probably not many followed the last cop 29 which was in Baku where the governments basically didn't manage to agree on a proper funding for climate action to avoid most of the problems which we will have in the future future. The UN is anticipating that we would need around $1 trillion a year just in order to implement enough to avoid more catastrophes in the next decades to come. At the end, 300 billion was agreed. On the other hand, you have what was for last year, 2024, the, the yearly volume in crypto trading was over 100 trillion. So the 1 trillion which is required for, for climate action, it would be just 1% of what everybody is spending on crypto trading. So even if somebody who is trading bitcoin or meme coins or what, whatever coin, if they would just spend even just half a co percent of that amount on climate action tokens, then this would have an immense effect on the climate which we will have in the years to come.
- [46:22]
Thomas
So is it like for the end consumer who may be listening in and not necessarily conscious of the environment as some of those typical investors are in the Web2 sector who are focusing on environment, is it more of a social justice sort of purpose built machine to get involved in or is there a profit oriented mechanism for them through staking as well.
- [46:53]
Scott
You have actually both sides of the profit. On the one side you have the profit which can get from the, from the staking, but also by time, also by the increase of the value of the EWX token. And in addition you are doing something good for the environment. And just as an example, in 2020 we had around 1.6 million deaths related with climate change. This is anticipated to increase to up to 10 million in the next 30, 40 years if we are not doing anything to avoid more climate change. And the only way to avoid more climate change is to get more renewable energy and to put more trees in the ground to get all the CO2 out of the.
- [47:53]
Thomas
So what are the biggest challenges for you and the Ecowatt team right now and trying to kind of facilitate this mission to help climate change?
- [48:03]
Scott
Yeah, it's mostly just to get everybody to understand that we already missed the 1.2 degrees temperature increase which was supposed to be only in 2, 3 years. Now last year was already 1.6 and in 2, 3 years we will probably already have 2 degrees, which means that we will have much more climate catastrophes coming up, if not more and more climate action is being done. And this influences everybody.
- [48:40]
Thomas
I know the focus of this panel today was really about trying to see or have a discussion rather on will Bitcoin hit 200k in 2025. So typically in crypto people are kind of thinking on a one year timeline as being like a long term timeline, which is, which is relatively funny at some times. But what is the longer term vision for ewx? Where do you see yourselves in three to five years? Which I think is a more reasonable long term vision time frame, three to.
- [49:14]
Scott
Five years to have echo what is the major global platform for climate action and to have millions of users who are realizing that really something has to be done. And actually nobody expects somebody to invest thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. If everybody just invests, invest a couple of hundred dollars, that's already enough. But of course it's always the messes that's the most important, probably also the most difficult part to make everybody understand that climate change will affect everybody. And specifically probably you in the US already see it in areas like, like Florida or North Carolina that most of the people have started moving their houses because we are getting flooded every year. And you can't afford to spend every year tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars just to fix your house because you get flooded again.
- [50:25]
Thomas
I know for listeners who are Tuning in. The EWX Ecowatt account is up here in a speaker slot and the first thing that I noticed on the account when I clicked on it and I encourage listeners to do the same is that there is an ongoing pre sale. I believe it's on coin or there's going to be a coin store listing after the pre sale. But did you want to kind of describe what the pre sale dynamics, the token economics and maybe how users may be able to get involved?
- [50:52]
Scott
Yeah, at the moment we have presale doing which is at 2020 P and we are planning now with coin store to to have the listing with end of January beginning February and listing price will be 50p. The prices also in in relation with the price of the carbon credits. So the token will be always relative related with the value we call it always like the social carbon credit price will be always connected to it which is every year it's going up and up and up. So therefore the tendency for the price increase is clear that definitely the next few decades carbon credit prices will go up. And we read also the price for the ewx.
- [51:52]
Thomas
How. How is the. The early days of the pre sale been going thus far?
- [51:58]
Scott
Yeah, it's very good. Of course now last two weeks because of holidays and probably for sure because of this bitcoin craze it was slowing down a bit but since yesterday it's picking up again.
- [52:13]
Dave Weisberger
Cool.
- [52:14]
Thomas
Well congratulations. I do encourage people who are in the audience to click the EWX profile. They are in a speaker slot here alongside Thomas and Thomas, as we close down here, is there any other call to action to the listeners in terms of how they could get involved or is the best place to send them to that pre sale site to get information on it?
- [52:38]
Scott
Yeah, the best is really just to go on our site where it's all the information and through the site you can register and login and very simply very easily by connecting your wallet you can purchase some EWX tokens and maybe just as for the future, every time when you buy something think Bitcoin or some other coin, always think to do something also for the environment and maybe at least just 1%, 2% of this also purchase some EWX so we can continue and increase climate action.
- [53:22]
Thomas
Well if somebody's in the audience, I know this time of year, it's a time of year where a lot of people have reflected at the end of last year, maybe some folks who have just been in crypto maybe have some New Year's resolutions to do, do some good or do some good for the environment. So I definitely encourage people to to check in there. And Thomas, I really appreciate you you joining and commend you guys for what you guys have been able to accomplish thus far and the mission that that EWX has. So I really want to thank you for coming today.
- [53:53]
Scott
Yeah, thank you for having me. And yeah, just as a last, if somebody has some questions or so you can without a problem through our site, through support, you can ask whatever you want to know. In addition.
- [54:09]
Thomas
Excellent. Well, I do encourage the listeners click on Thomas's profile, click on the EWX profile, give them a follow, check out their website. It's ecowatt IO and the pre sale is ecowatt IO. So Thomas, want to thank you again for coming today and the listeners for tuning in. Yesterday was the most bullish day of 2025 in the crypto markets where we're seeing a little bit of a dip today. But I still remain bullish long term. I resonate with the title, hoping that Bitcoin reaches 200k in 2025 might be a little bit too bullish in terms of where I'm thinking the market's going to go. But I think this is going to be a great year. And Thomas, I thank you again for joining. So with that, everybody, have a wonderful Tuesday. Have a great day.
- [55:00]
Scott
Thanks, buddy.