← The Wolf Of All Streets
The Wolf Of All Streets
Bitcoin Treasury Stocks Are A Scam - Ran Neuner Warns Of A Massive Collapse!
01:04:00
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- [00:00]
Rand Nooner
Yeah, I mean, as I say, you listen to me, I listen to you. So. And I listen to your guests. I can call you, you can call me, I can call Amy, Amy can call me, and Amy can call you, and you can call me. But don't worry, I'm not going to call Amy. Okay? So. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. I'm completely the tortoise. But sometimes you also have to follow the money.
- [00:18]
Scott Melker
You just described how it's somewhat of a scam.
- [00:20]
Rand Nooner
The best way to make money on eth is to buy Coinbase. We're in a world where you can literally, on a crypto exchange, trade meme coins into stocks. And when people do, I'm like, oh, you're such a newbie.
- [00:34]
Scott Melker
Everybody needs a good friend to bounce their ideas off of. For me, when it comes to markets, that person is the founder of crypto banter, Rand Nooner. Now, it's been a long time since we've sat down for a proper podcast, but we have a lot of private conversations, dinners and meetups at conferences where we bounce around ideas about where the market's at and where it's likely headed. This conversation is no different. We sat down for over an hour here and discussed all of our thoughts on what's likely coming with the market, where we're at now, where the money is going to be made and where the money is going to be lost. If you want all of the alpha on crypto markets and what this cycle is likely to look like, listen to this conversation with the amazing Rand Nooner.
- [01:15]
Rand Nooner
That's dope.
- [01:30]
Scott Melker
You and I have probably done a thousand shows together at this point. Maybe, yeah, give or take between Twitter spaces and video. But the last time we did, I think a long form podcast was not long after Luna. So maybe you can retell very briefly for those who didn't watch it. It was one of my most popular podcasts ever, by the way. I think people just related with the pain and the loss that came with that part of the market and the cycle. But quickly tell us what happened because I don't want to talk about how you built back bigger, so to speak.
- [02:02]
Rand Nooner
I mean, it's a, it's a highly publicized story. I think that the podcast that I did with you a couple of years ago was the first one that actually did where actually opened up about it. But the long story short is that I, you know, I built a very big crypto portfolio. The only problem is that over 50% of my portfolio was in one token and one token ecosystem which was Luna. And I think, as everybody in crypto knows, that ecosystem collapsed in a matter of 48 hours. And I pretty much lost half of my portfolio. Big numbers. I mean, over $100 million. Not only did I lose half, but you recall that the other half also got cut in half because the whole market went down when doing it collapsed. And so it was a very black period in my life, One of the times in my life where I was faced with a decision, give up and just be okay with having failed, or pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and really fight back to live another day. Now, I know a lot of people say, oh, you know, like, yes, we pick yourself up. But there's also something when you lose such a big amount of money, which is more money than I ever thought I'd ever make in my life, to try and get up after that is devastating. It's devastating. And I mean, I'm glad to say that here we are a couple of years later, and I've rebuilt. I rebuild much bigger and I rebuilt with much better foundations. When I say with much better foundations. That house that I built was a great house, but it was made of straw or it was made of wood, you know, like the three little pigs. So I made a lot of money, but it was money that was made quickly and it was money that was made without foundations, and it was money that was made through, you know, just investing in one token. And, you know, I keep saying, when the big bad wolf came, he blew the house down. And then when I was forced to rebuild, I rebuilt the same wealth, but I built it in a business, and I built it in a very, very, very solid, diversified portfolio versus a highly concentrated, high risk portfolio. And to be honest, I sleep way better at night now because I have much stronger foundations around me. I know it sounds crazy, but the best story that I can think of, the first analogy, is the three little Pigs. I lived in a house of straw, a house of wood, and now I sleep in a house of concrete and bricks. And I'm not that scared of the wolf anymore, you know. So it's that simple.
- [04:26]
Scott Melker
Yeah, I mean, the fact that you've built. Built it all back and more obviously implies that you've done it largely through the business and not necessarily through the market, because we all know that altcoins haven't exactly returned to the grandeur of that part of that cycle.
- [04:44]
Rand Nooner
So it's actually a combination. The business, definitely the business is much more valuable than my stake in Luna ever was. I mean, you can't Even compare. And, you know, the business is a very big business and a very successful business, but also the portfolio. One thing that you recall happened after Luna is that Solana got absolutely smashed because Solana had a double whammy. Solana got killed with Luna, but also got killed with FTX later that year. So later in that cycle and I quite publicly went, I basically took whatever I had left and it was a combination of now Bitcoin eth. And then I just said, look, the rest of it I must just put down on Solana. And at that time I posted a Twitter screenshot actually buying it. At that time solana was at 13. And so a lot of it had to do with the recovery in Solana where, you know, a big part of my bags was nine Solana and Soul recovered from that 13. And it's, you know, at some point got to 200, but I think it's back at like 150 now. And so that was also a big part of my, of my. You want to call it a comeback? A comeback. So, you know, I built a very big business before I got into crypto and there was a great sense of achievement. There was also a little bit of a sense of arrogance, I'll be honest. Like, you know, when you build the biggest marketing business on a continent, give you like, you have like great pride in what you've built. And pride can kind of lead to no one's arrogance. But maybe overconfidence, building a very big portfolio very quickly about that can give you a false sense of confidence. And I think a lot of people in crypto actually suffer from this because historically and in any other industry, well, historically, in any other industry, to make, to make money, you have to work really hard. And in crypto, specifically in 2017 and 2021, and anyone who got into bitcoin in the old days landed up making money, but the truth is they didn't really work very hard, right? So it's like, it's kind of weird because you land up making exponential money and lots of money and money that you never, ever dreamt of, but you didn't do the work to get there. Like, it's kind of weird. And then that becomes your new paradigm of like, this is how easy it must be to make money. And when I got knocked down, I was forced to really work hard to rebuild. And what it did to my, to me as a, as a human is it gave me an unbelievable sense of confidence to say, you know what if I do get knocked down? I know I can get myself up because I've just shown the world that I took a big knock and I managed to build myself up again. So I don't know how to say it. Like, I hate saying that maybe good came out of it, but I think I was kind of complacent before. And I think when I got knocked down and I was forced to work harder than I've ever worked ever in my life, and I actually managed to rebuild it, it gives me, like, a great sense of achievement and a great sense of confidence and a great sense of calm to know that, you know what, no matter what the world throws at me, I've proven multiple times that I can rebuild and rebuild bigger and rebuild better. And that's like a really cool. It's a cool feeling. I don't know how to explain it to it.
- [07:56]
Scott Melker
Yeah. Think of how many people we lost in those cycles that were huge personalities and that everybody looked to for advice. And who are these legends that nobody even talks about anymore? Because I think every single one of us who was there experienced something similar. I went through Voyager and all the other things and the collapses of my bags. I lost the bulk of my net worth the same way everybody else did. And to your point, you either get back up and continue going or you just quit and find something else to do. But it's funny because we were all more lottery winners than, like, successful business owners. And you looked at stats on the lottery. I'm looking. I looked it up. National Endowment of Financial Education reported that 70% of people who suddenly receive a large sum of money, including lottery winners and inheritance recipients, go broke within a few years, usually in one to three years, and most lose all of their winnings in 12 months or less.
- [08:52]
Rand Nooner
Yeah. And I think, to be honest, like, Scott, I've known you for multiple cycles, and you've known me for multiple cycles. And we have a crew of people around us that have been around for multiple cycles. And I think we've all won the lottery, lost all of our lottery winnings, but decided to stay in this industry and landed at building very, very, very successful businesses. And now it's not around lottery anymore. Now we've actually got good foundations, good businesses, and to be honest, it's a much bigger sense of achievement. One is making money and the other one is making money and having a sense of having built something. And the latter feels much more, much more real, much more like they can't take it away from you.
- [09:31]
Scott Melker
You know, it's interesting is that you can also see it in the Content that we all made or continue to make. I remember going on your shows at the very beginning, and it was the most degen of degen things there was. Right? You were just aggressively flipping all coins, going crazy. Now, we're all political and ETF experts, right? I mean, I think it's a reflection of how the market has changed, but I think we also became oversensitive to the things that might actually be scams or get people wrecked that we might be talking about. And you have this sort of PTSD about what kind of content you're going to create.
- [10:07]
Rand Nooner
So, Scott, you know, I hate bringing this back to kids stories, but I'm going to bring it back to another kid's story. I think in 2017 and 2021, in the, in the race of the tortoise and the hare, we were both the hare. We were both. We were out the gate chasing shiny objects, running around like crazy people looking for the next 100x, 550x 20x, celebrating when on the screen the price was 20x. And what we realized is that when the race ended, none of those shiny objects actually, actually survived. And who did survive was the tortoise. And those, you know, at the time, the analogy is the people that were holding diversified portfolios, they weren't chasing ico, they weren't chasing meme coins, they weren't chasing AI agents, they were just buying Bitcoin E Soul and building diversified solid portfolios. Now, look, 2017, I was the hair. I ended up making money, but I was the hair and I ended up losing a lot of money. And 2021, you know, I was the hair and I chased shiny objects. But lucky I did, I did learn from some of my mistakes. And I built a very good portfolio, barring the fact that 50% of it was in was in one ecosystem, which is a mistake I'll never make again. 2024, 25, this cycle, I'm completely the tortoise. And what I mean, I'm not chasing shiny objects anymore because I realized that in crypto, the game is not how much money you can make, but how much money you can keep. And what I've realized is that crypto is actually very dangerous. And the reason why it's very dangerous is because it's like walking through the Vegas, Vegas casino. You walk in, the lights are flashing, the coins are falling. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. And there's meme coins and it's ding, ding. And it's 100 x's and it's Twitter and it's screenshots on Twitter. And the thing is that in 2017 and 2021, those things distracted me. I saw people posting their 100x's and I also wanted the 100x's I saw people posting their gains. To be honest, now when I look at it, I'm like, you're going to get so wrecked, but you just keep posting screenshots, but you're going to get so rigged. So I don't do it anymore. And when people do do it, I'm like, oh, you're such a newbie. What I've realized is that, that investing in crypto is very much the race of the tortoise and the hare and the hare loses every single time. And the best thing that you can do in a cycle is you can have a thesis, you can review a thesis once a month, once a quarter, you can trade, you can invest based on that thesis. And everything else is noise, everything else is distractions. It really is that simple. And that's really how I've been investing this cycle. Now what's the upside and what's the downside? The upside is my portfolio is in a much better place. The downside is that I don't give as many dopamine shots to my viewers anymore. And so I've lost a certain class of viewer because, you know, I don't, I don't have the 100x altcoins because I'm not playing.
- [13:03]
Scott Melker
That was literally like, I mean, sorry to interrupt, but at the very beginning I was known for trading. I was posting charts, I was doing all those things. Now I'm the guy who like interviews bitcoiners.
- [13:13]
Rand Nooner
Right.
- [13:13]
Scott Melker
It's just a natural, I think conversion. Everybody is somewhere on the path towards bitcoin maxi whether you need to get there all the way or not. But you just become more boring because it's who you are. The way you view the market is the way you're going to present it to the people that are following you.
- [13:28]
Rand Nooner
Exactly. So look, I'm not bitcoin maxi. I think at this stage of the cycle it's always very, very easy to become bitcoin maxi. You've seen it all, you've seen all the scams, you've seen bitcoin run, you've seen a serum not run, you've seen Solana not run. But then I keep reminding myself what happens in Q3 and Q4 of the post halving year to altcoins. I kind of hope that this time will be in a way similar, but it's going to obviously be slightly different. But also my thesis around blockchain is, look, I'm a big bitcoin guy. The majority of my portfolio is in bitcoin, which is not something that I would have said two years ago. The majority of my portfolio is and remains in bitcoin. But I also have a thesis for blockchain. And I execute and build a portfolio around my thesis around blockchain. And I'm happy to share the thesis with you because I think it might help your viewers. So I've broken down blockchain into its core principles and the core principles of a blockchain. For me, a blockchain is a way, is a method to create digital value. That's what it is. Whether you're migrating real world value to the digital realm or whether you're creating new value that didn't exist. That is what a blockchain is. That's all it is. And when you have value, there's a few things that you can do with value. You can store it, you can trade it, or you can leverage it. That's pretty much all you can do with value. There's not nothing else you can do with value. Or you can say you can, you can, you can hold it, you can send it to someone else, you can, you can trade it, or you can leverage it. And so if that's the thesis, then my, my thesis for holding a blockchain portfolio is very simple. Hold the L ones because that's where the value that is being created is going to be created. I hold probably 3 or 4 L ones total. I hold, other than bitcoin.
- [15:23]
Scott Melker
I hold my premise, by the way, since last cycle, so it hasn't gone great yet.
- [15:27]
Rand Nooner
Yeah. So I hold, hold eth. I hold more Solana than eth. We can talk about that later. I hold a couple of speculative L ones like sui. I hold a Phantom Sonic. Phantom Sonic is my, my punt L1. That's my riskiest L1. And then once you own the L1s, the next layer is to just own the trading terminals. And it's anything to do with trading, whether it's a centralized exchange, whether it's a decentralized exchange, whether it's a perpetuals exchange. You kind of know that the perpetuals exchanges are going to make most of money, whether they centralized or decentralized. And so my thesis is to say hold the L1, hold the trading platforms, hold the lending and borrowing platforms, because once a person has value, they're going to want to borrow against it or Lend it, leverage it is what I call it. And kind of hold no projects, like very few projects. And the reason for that is the minute you hold projects, specific projects that are not trading or L1 related or, or lending and borrowing related, then you're starting to play in the realm of will this vertical and this project in this vertical actually succeed. And the truth is, once you hold the exchanges and the L ones, the risk, the risk return on holding the actual individual projects that are not trading in nature, L1 nature becomes so high or so skewed that probably about 10% or 15% of my portfolio lies in those things. And the rest lies in the trading protocols, the L ones and the, and the defi protocol.
- [17:07]
Scott Melker
So you still punt 10 to 15% on something that could be 100 or a thousand X. Right? Because most of these L ones you're looking for a 5 to 10 and a really strong cycle, which is spectacular, but not the days of you invest in a private sale for something and ten days later it's a thousand X like you put in. There were days people don't realize that. And you were never liquid, by the way. So this was paper gains, it was the casino. But you know, you'd throw 10,000 bucks into something and then it would launch two weeks later. And on paper you would not be vested, so you could never benefit from it. But you'd have like a $2 million investment on 10 grand, right? Of course you rode that back down to 2,000. But hey, those days feels over.
- [17:49]
Rand Nooner
Sometimes we made money, sometimes we didn't. Those days, in my mind, if you want that, go to the Meme Coin Casino and you can do it in.
- [17:57]
Scott Melker
A day or an hour.
- [17:59]
Rand Nooner
You can, you have to be, you really have to work hard. Just like we really had to work hard to source the ICOs and the IDOS. That was like, that was hard work. You had to find the source. You had to, you know, you had to pitch yourself why you should get an allocation, blah, blah, blah, blah blah. You can go to the Meme Coin Casino, spend some time in the Meme Coin trenches, and then, you know, you can buy these coins that start off at a $300,000 market cap and probably land up at a 3 million or 30 million or even 300 million dollar market cap. That's where the casinos and you know, if you want to take 1 or 2% of your money and go and play at the casino, good luck. Unfortunately for me, I don't have the time. I don't have the time to go and Find that. You know, I don't have the time to be trading the $300,000 meme coin and to try and find it. What I do know, though, is no matter what the Meme coin is, they're going to be trading it on one of the trading platforms that I own. And that's really all I need to know.
- [18:54]
Scott Melker
I've said it a thousand times. You don't want to be playing at the blackjack table. You want to own the casino. It's very obvious. The house always wins. You can buy the house in crypto. It's a very rare advantage you have in this market.
- [19:06]
Rand Nooner
Exactly. L1 Trading Dexes and lending and borrowing. That's pretty much where it is. And then, yeah, I got a couple of one or two bits in AI, one or two bets in one or two other kind of projects, but otherwise, really just think about how many new ways of trading blockchain is going to create. I mean, essentially even the perpetual future, which is. It's quite unique to crypto. Right. Like that future perps decentralized is quite unique to crypto. And so hyper liquid. Yeah. So you've got great. You got great opportunities to invest in things like that. What are you looking for again? Like, just invest in that. There's 5 and 10 X's in that and that. For me, like, it's. I know this, I know this. The shiny objects that promise you the 100x, just like the ICOs promised us 100x and they gave us 100x on paper. And by the time we could actually withdraw our tokens, it was based at 1. Back at 1x, if we were lucky. And the same thing with memes, just like they promised us the 100x, you know, by the time we got out of them, we were lucky if we got our money back.
- [20:10]
Scott Melker
Yeah. Because you not only need to be. You not only need to be right about your choice, you have to have impeccable timing and skill to actually exit it. Give up on the conviction that gave you the power to buy it in the first place. It's basically impossible. There's. Everybody knows how hard trading is. I don't think it's even worth beating that dead horse. There's a couple things we kind of just talked about that I want to dig into. First, you mentioned that Q3, Q4, generally very bullish for alts. So I think that that means you still at least generally believe in the cycle. So I think maybe we could talk about whether you generally believe in the cycle, but more importantly, if that's what you believe. What's your exit plan from that portfolio? What do you plan to do when that cycle ends? Is it back to dollars? Is it back to Bitcoin? Is it just shaving exposure in certain areas? Because that's been the hardest part for everyone, keeping the gains, as you said.
- [21:03]
Rand Nooner
Yeah. The things that I'm playing, I don't think I need an exit plan for. And let me tell you why, why I think that. So let's just talk about what, what crypto tokens are. Crypto tokens are effectively, the successful ones are pretty much networks, right? So, like, yeah. And literally, if you think about what a network is, it's the most powerful effect in the world, right? So, like, you know, when I, when I, I studied networks, and the way that I studied networks is I Learned about the WhatsApp network, the WhatsApp telecommunications network. And the one thing I learned about networks is that networks grow and continue to. And once the network starts growing, it continues to grow exponentially. And there's no way to stop it because it's actually based on two laws. Right? So we'll use the WhatsApp network as an example. Right? WhatsApp for is the ultimate network. Why? Because every user adds value to that network exponentially. Example, if it's only me and you on WhatsApp, I can call you and you can call me, and that's two calls, right? If your wife is on there, if Emmy's on there, who's one of my favorite people in the world, I can call you, you can call me, I can call Amy, Amy can call me, and Amy can call you, and you can call me. But don't worry, I'm not going to call Amy. Okay? So that increases.
- [22:17]
Scott Melker
You're on the very short list, by the way, but you can call it.
- [22:20]
Rand Nooner
So adding one user to the network added five, grew the value of the network from two calls to six calls. So every user that joined the network added value to the network exponentially. Now, that just shows you the value of networks. Now, the thing is, when you land in a new country and you need to find a platform to use to make calls, naturally you're going to go to WhatsApp, because everybody's there. And as you join WhatsApp, you're going to grow the network even more. And networks can't be stopped. The only way networks can be stopped is through government intervention. And the governments aren't intervening anymore in crypto. We know that. Now, crypto networks are the ultimate networks. Bitcoin is a Money network. ETH is a supercomputing network. Solana is a super computing network. Trading exchanges are also they liquidity networks. Right? So when you hold networks, providing that the network's get network effectively, ultimately the networks continue to grow. So like, we're at a point in Bitcoin's life where for now, for the foreseeable future, Bitcoin is going to continue to grow and continue to grow.
- [23:25]
Scott Melker
Why?
- [23:26]
Rand Nooner
Make it very simple. The more people that use Bitcoin, the more merchants accept it. The more merchants accept it, the more people that, the more accepted it becomes, the more people tend to hold it, it becomes much, much more accepted. Right. So I always use this example. When will we know if the Bitcoin network has reached its ultimate value? And that is when you go out with 10 of your Normie friends and you say to them, how many of you have WhatsApp? And 10 out of 10 will tell you that they have WhatsApp. Right? You'll agree, like if you go out of the dinner and there's 10 people at the dinner, nine out of 10. 10 out of 10 will have WhatsApp, right?
- [24:00]
Scott Melker
Yes, of course.
- [24:01]
Rand Nooner
Go to, go to the same dinner and ask them how many of you have have Bitcoin. What do you think the number is? Two?
- [24:07]
Scott Melker
Maybe. Maybe one if you're lucky.
- [24:09]
Rand Nooner
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, I've made the point. We're in the early stages of a network and we're so early that 2, 3, 4 out of 10, depending on your friend circle, have it. And terminal point is when 10 out of 10 have it. Just like 10 out of 10 have WhatsApp. That's, that's a network. And networks are the same. The rules for network and the mathematics behind network is exactly the same.
- [24:31]
Scott Melker
Metcalfe's law.
- [24:32]
Rand Nooner
Metcalfe's law.
- [24:33]
Scott Melker
Same thing with Uber squared. Yeah, it's, it's value equals the number of people squared.
- [24:38]
Rand Nooner
Exactly. So let's talk about Uber. When you go out with your friends, Uber is a transport network. When you go out with your friends and you say to them, how many of you have Uber? 10 out of 10 have got Uber on their phone. Right. It's simple. So we're in the very early stages of, of networks, which makes me comfortable to say that there's no need for me to exit my Bitcoin. There's no need for me to exit my Solana. Yes, there's going to be market fluctuations, but ultimately it's still safer for me to hold these assets than to hold the dollar. Right. Like If I'm going to exit what I'm going to exit into $, the notion of exiting bitcoin into dollars, knowing what I know about US money printing US increasing the debt ceiling by another $5 trillion, the US is inability to pay the high rates in the United States, which effectively mean that the US has to pay $1.9 trillion in interest payments. I don't know if I like on good conscience. I don't know if I can swap a bitcoin for a dollar.
- [25:38]
Scott Melker
Right, I agree. But if you deeply believe, let's say that there will be another massive bear market, Bitcoin will draw down okay, even if it's shallow 30 to 40 or 50% of 70 or 80. We know what altcoins will do in that situation. If it's a repeat of the cycle, would you consider doing the very dangerous thing to be clear of, I'm going to sell some Solana into bitcoin and buy it when it's much more wrecked first bitcoin.
- [26:02]
Rand Nooner
So do you think that altcoins will still drop 80 and 90%? Do you think that the risk variable of ethanol still is the same as it was when governments, when it didn't have network effect, when governments didn't approve it, when there were no ETFs?
- [26:18]
Scott Melker
I don't think it'll be as bad, but I do. Yeah, but I do think they'll underperform Bitcoin because bitcoin has a unique situation. But I also don't. By the way, I think it's very dangerous to sell something with the notion that you'll have the opportunity to buy lower because even when it goes lower you probably won't buy. And then you'll try to go to the bottom and you'll always think it's going to go lower and then you end up buying it back higher and never buying it back again. Regardless of the assets. Non specific.
- [26:41]
Rand Nooner
I'm invested in networks and by virtue of the fact that I'm invested, I'm not investing in lower altcoins. When we're talking about the lower altcoins, yes, I'm going to start exiting those and getting into much safer for bits at some point. But I'm invested in networks and the thing behind networks is networks keep growing and I'm not investing for one cycle. Like I've been here for three already or four. Like I'm not investing for one cycle. And so, you know, like I could have sold my bitcoin at, I don't know, $20,000 at the end of the first cycle. And I, maybe if I was lucky, I could have bought it back, but I didn't. I just held it. And today it's $100,000 a network, no question. So. So, yeah, I mean, I can weather the drawdowns. And as for, and to be honest, for as long as I can weather the drawdowns, there's no incentive for me to sell the networks. It just, you know, maybe, you know, like, I'm not a trader. I don't trade in and out of things. I'm investing in things that I think are going to get network effects.
- [27:35]
Scott Melker
So funny that all of us former traders are no longer traders, though. It shows that maturity and learning curve that we've been on.
- [27:42]
Rand Nooner
I mean, true, but look, I was never, I was never a chart. I was never an. In our trader, I was a. I was definitely a shitcoin investor. Like, I won't deny that I love.
- [27:50]
Scott Melker
Watching you flip shitcoins live, though. I mean, it's the thing that you did. For sure.
- [27:54]
Rand Nooner
Yeah.
- [27:54]
Scott Melker
You're even in the meme coin trenches to some degree. Right. But at the end of the day, people need to realize that that should be a negligible part of your portfolio that you're flipping around for fun and you're just going to the casino.
- [28:06]
Rand Nooner
Meme coins for me were never more than 1% of my portfolio. It was 1%, and that's probably the same amount of money I'd take to a casino if I went to play at a casino and just did it for shits and giggles and had fun with my friends.
- [28:17]
Scott Melker
Yeah, it was pretty fun to watch you guys at that point, I have to say. But now everybody's seemingly moved on. So I want to talk about maybe what's different this cycle? What could defeat that premise? I don't think anything, by the way, defeats the network premise that you gave, but perhaps the premise that we don't get the drawdowns or that we will actually get the huge moves on altcoins that we're expecting. Obviously, to me, the clearest is that a lot of the new money that's come into crypto has come into Bitcoin ETFs and Bitcoin ETF money as of right now can't really trickle down into altcoins. And so my premise is that all of the money that would have trickled down into altcoins at this part of the cycle has now found a new home in crypto adjacent stocks. And that really got kicked off after the ETFs by Circle's IPO. So now we're seeing the wildest thing in the markets. I know this will come out in a couple days. I'm watching Bit Mine Immersion Technologies right now. Okay, this is the Ethereum treasury company that Tom Lee is behind. So Tom Lee is our new kol, right? He's on TV pumping. This thing is up currently since Friday. I have no idea where it'll be by Sunday, but it's up, let's call it 3,000% since Friday.
- [29:31]
Rand Nooner
Okay, so it started. With respect, it started at like almost a zero base.
- [29:37]
Scott Melker
Right, so that's fair. I'm just saying a company that is simply buying Ethereum as an asset is getting a 3,000% pump on the stock market. I think we can all agree that none of us expect Ethereum to get an overnight 3,000% pump, much less maybe ever get a 3,000% pump. So there is a massive disconnect here. And these are the shitcoins right now.
- [30:00]
Rand Nooner
Scott, Scott, you just defined who the new buyers are for our altcoins, right? Because what you're noticing is that the treasury company started on Bitcoin, they trickled down to eth. There's the Solana one, there's Hyper Liquid ones. I've seen some TAO or Bittensa ones. I've seen some for a company called sqd, which is a very small protocol. And so you've just defined who the buyer for the new altcoins is. It's these treasury companies, listed treasury companies that land up buying utility tokens. That's. I mean, you just described it, that you have to understand that that's the pattern of what's happening. You've got a start off with Bitcoin and everyone's trying to emulate that same project, that same product with multiple other tokens. And they're going to work their way down the hierarchy. It's going to go Bitcoin, it's going to go eth, it's going to go sol, and they're going to work their way down and they're going to start treasury companies. It's. You've just described it. Why? Because that's the ICO hype of, of the cycle. I think. I think the hype is. If you want to define what the hype is in the cycle, the hype is crypto exposure. No matter how you get it. Right, and why? Because people saw the returns of Microstrategy. People then saw the returns of Circle, people saw the returns of Robinhood. But I mean, I just want to show. I Just want to show. Yeah, let me just put up some charts first. Let me just put up some charts.
- [31:24]
Scott Melker
I'm showing your conservative recovery portfolio at the moment.
- [31:27]
Rand Nooner
We can talk that. Yeah, we can talk about that. I just want to show you something like, if you're an investor and you say, what's the best way to get crypto exposure? Should I go into this company called Robinhood, which is a. It's a stock on the NASDAQ, which from a. From April went from $30 all the way up to today, $94, 215. Or should I go into the risky world of Solana, which is risky. And I have to open this crypto wallet thing, and I have to open this account on this, which, by the way, from April gave me 56%. I'm gonna go and do the Robinhood thing because that's the easiest way to get crypto exposure. Let me just do it again and go to Coinbase and say, should I just go to the stock that gives me crypto exposure? Yes. And if I did buy it in April, then I've doubled the. Tripled my 150% returns. I haven't been able to make that money anywhere in buying the tokens. I don't need to buy the tokens. I can just go and get crypto exposure. So the narrative of this cycle is crypto exposure. Crypto exposure equals leveraged listed companies, which are taking leverage bets on crypto tokens. That's one of the ways that you can actually get leverage. The other way to do it is getting the ETFs. The other way to do it is to buy the. The. The trading companies. Remember I said to trading is the biggest trading companies, but the ones that are listed on the nasdaq, which is Coinbase, it is Etoro, it is. It is Robinhood, it is going to be Gemini, it's going to be Kraken soon. Kraken's got a great OTC market at the moment. Kraken seems to be coming onto the market at a $10 billion valuation. And I think by the time it comes onto the market, Kraken is going to be at a 20 to $25 billion valuation.
- [33:17]
Scott Melker
Circle. Circle was trading privately the day before IPO, and Robinhood users gained exposure at like 24 to 26 bucks. Went over 200.
- [33:27]
Rand Nooner
Yeah. So I know Circle was offered to me at 6 billion, and I tried to take it and the paperwork was too complicated.
- [33:34]
Scott Melker
And now it's 60ish, right? I'm guessing it's about 60.
- [33:37]
Rand Nooner
I think not. I think it's back down to like 40ish. I mean I'll quickly check for us now.
- [33:41]
Scott Melker
So yeah, that's aligns if people were buying it 24, 26 bucks a share and it. Yeah. And it was up, you know, 200 bucks is an 8.9x right at the top. So in a week.
- [33:53]
Rand Nooner
In a week.
- [33:54]
Scott Melker
Right. So I'm trying to understand how that money finds its way to the actual token. So I definitely understand in your theory, which is correct, that if these treasury companies have to buy these assets, then that is the buyer. But this price of these treasury companies is not commensurate to the amount they're buying or the rise. It's the hype. Right.
- [34:13]
Rand Nooner
So like 95% of these treasury companies are a scam. And I'm going to explain to you how that, that's.
- [34:18]
Scott Melker
I was trying to go.
- [34:19]
Rand Nooner
Okay, so let me explain to you, and I know this, and I can only tell you this because I've been approached by a few of these companies to actually become a seed Investor.
- [34:27]
Scott Melker
I had 30, probably 30 of them pitched to me in Vegas, by the way.
- [34:31]
Rand Nooner
Okay, so let me explain to you the model and how it works. Joe Lubin announced the, the announcement of the fact that he was going to start. This is called Shoplink Gaming or whatever it is. Right?
- [34:42]
Scott Melker
Yeah.
- [34:43]
Rand Nooner
And they made it. Let me, let me try and find this announcement for you because I think Sharplink ETH announcement. I just want to, I want to try this because I want to show you where the scam is because I think it'll really protect your community. Right.
- [34:56]
Scott Melker
I was just having a conversation with someone today who's pretty well known Bitcoin maxi, who said, and I know nothing about this, who said. His belief was that Joe Lubin at least was kind of behind all of the Ethereum treasury companies. I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing anyway.
- [35:10]
Rand Nooner
No, that's right. So you, you've got it. You've nailed it. Spot on. Okay, so let's just read this announcement and it says, it basically says sharply announcements, announces a 425 million private placement to initiate an ETH treasury strategy. And you read further down the line here and you say consensus software acted as lead investor. And, and the offering included participation from Parafi Capital, Electric Capital, Pantera Capital, Arrington Capital, Galaxy Digital, Ondo blah, blah blah, blah. What do all these companies have in common? They all had ETH before the treasury company. So what do they do? They go to Scott Melker who has a Million dollars worth of ease. And they say, Scott, listen, we're going to start this treasury company. You give us a million dollars worth of ETH and you get, you get a million dollars worth of our shares. But as soon as we make the announcement, the market's going to give us such a premium to net asset value that your original million dollars worth of ETH is going to be worth $10 million. And you go, hold on. So are you saying that I put a million dollars worth of eth, I get shares worth a million dollars at net asset value, but this company is going to trade above net asset value and therefore I'm going to be 10xing my, my original investor. So now just let's understand the logic here. Consensus has a ton of ease. What do they do? They put the ETH into this, into this thing at a one to one ratio at nav. And as soon as I made the announcement, the thing spiked above nav and therefore they do, they multiply. They took something that they had and they multiplied it by 12. I know for a fact that every single one of these companies held huge ETH on their balance sheets. It's not a coincidence that these guys all funded this thing. They just found a way to take. Let's talk about Tether. Do you remember the deal that was announced with Tether?
- [37:00]
Scott Melker
Right, yeah. With SoftBank, Canto Fitzgerald, of course, and Jack Muller from strike as the CEO.
- [37:07]
Rand Nooner
First announcement was they raised 3 or 4 billion dollars worth. They're coming onto the market with 3 or 4 billion dollars worth of Bitcoin. Couple of weeks later, Tether, who's already holding bitcoin, transfers the Bitcoin into 21. So of course they raised it. They took it from the initial investors. Initially, investors got in at net asset value. Every other investor got in at a premium to net asset value. It's a simple thing. Take your bitcoin, Give it to 21 in the beginning and you'll get X times your bitcoin back multiples on your bitcoin back in shares which you can sell immediately and buy. No brainer. Yeah, brainer. It's a way for you to leverage.
- [37:44]
Scott Melker
It in the pitches you saw. What were the vesting terms for a lot of it? Because a few of them, as you point, you're immediately liquid.
- [37:52]
Rand Nooner
Zero. Zero. Vesting immediately liquid. You can sell on day one.
- [37:55]
Scott Melker
How's this? Okay.
- [37:56]
Rand Nooner
It's got something to do. It's got something to do with the way they come to market because it's not an ipo, it's a reverse merger.
- [38:02]
Scott Melker
So the shares are liquid. Taking shares from an existing company. So it's not like the shares have to be created there.
- [38:09]
Rand Nooner
So be careful, Be careful just to the audience, be super careful. If you're buying these listed treasury companies, you're the product that's buying all the insiders who are putting in their money at net asset value and you're paying the premium and they taking the money that you're, they taking the pre. The money and they, they're buying back the original ETH and still being left with a 10x premium. You get it? It's like, it's, it's, it's crazy what's going on. I'm sorry to call these people out.
- [38:39]
Scott Melker
But that's, but there's nothing illegal about it. People just need to know what they're. People just need to know what they're buying. This is, But I keep saying that this is the ICOs of this cycle. And that's. You've just described it perfectly. I mean, I know people, I know somebody who put, you know, 2 million bucks into one of these. I won't say the person's name or whatever. And a week later had $56 million.
- [39:02]
Rand Nooner
Yeah. It's the simple, simple thing. Just seed. If you can see the vehicle, which is what everybody's doing with your original money. As soon as the vehicle, you literally, you have to put your money in like a week before, 10 days before, and then as soon as they make the announcement, you can sell your shares and you can, if you can take out 10% of your money and it does a 10x, you take out 10% of your money, you're in money.
- [39:23]
Scott Melker
Playing with the house is money. Yeah.
- [39:24]
Rand Nooner
And you've got your money and you've got your original. Ethan, your original bitcoin back. It's so simple. It's like the simplest thing in the world.
- [39:32]
Scott Melker
I was pitched, as I said so many of these in Vegas. I reached out to one of the people who pitched me maybe a week ago. So, you know, a three week gap or something. And it went from one to one. And I didn't participate because I just, I don't know, I see these for what they are to some degree. I don't think it's, you know, I think some of them will do very well. And that just, I don't know. I've been down this road before, but then I reach back out, they're like, oh, now it's 3x to nav. We're raising at, you know, it's like doing your series A, B, C, D, E, F, G. In two weeks.
- [40:00]
Rand Nooner
Yeah, in two weeks. Yeah, exactly, exactly. But look, at least we know how the game's played. Like, if you know how to play the game, then you can get involved if you want, or you can just avoid the game completely, which is, I guess that's part of what we're highlighting here.
- [40:14]
Scott Melker
But interestingly, it captures the moment perfectly because all of that money is already sitting in ETFs and in the stock market, where it can't trickle down to the altcoins necessarily. So we've basically just taken the ICO game and put it into a much, much bigger playing field with much more liquidity, much more volume, much more money, and found a way for the same people who used to play the altcoin washing machine cycle to play a stock washing machine cycle at a much higher.
- [40:46]
Rand Nooner
Whenever, Whenever I see these announcements, the first thing I think to stuff, okay, let's. Let's follow the money. Who put in the Bitcoin or who put in the eth? Oh, wow, you had those ETH sitting on your wallet for so long and you finally found something to do. Then you finally find your exit plan. Just sell it to retail, leverage it and sell it to retail.
- [41:03]
Scott Melker
Okay, so how does that end? And why would someone buy any of these instead of just buying Bitcoin?
- [41:11]
Rand Nooner
How has every other crypto cycle ended? Leverage. The first crypto cycle ended when the ICO boom collapsed. What is the ICO boom? It was the creation of quick money without any product to support it. That is leverage. Right. The second crypto cycle got destroyed when Luna, which was money that didn't really exist. There's money that was being printed out of thin air, collapsed, and that with it took down all the other leverage in the market. Because everyone had leveraged the leverage. Right. Because everyone took their luna, deposited their LUNA and all these providers.
- [41:49]
Scott Melker
Yeah. FTT was being used as collateral.
- [41:54]
Rand Nooner
The first crypto cycle ended because of leverage. The second crypto cycle ended because of leverage. And the third crypto cycle will end because of leverage. And the leverage this time will be the treasury companies. It's that simple.
- [42:07]
Scott Melker
I've been saying this for. I've been saying this for months, but I hate it because a lot of the people doing it, obviously I have deep respect for, and they're Bitcoin maxis. And I think it's just the only thing.
- [42:18]
Rand Nooner
I'll tell you what's going to happen.
- [42:19]
Scott Melker
The power of free money is very hard to pass on. And I think A lot of them are actually legitimately convinced that this is good for.
- [42:25]
Rand Nooner
Let me, let me explain to you what's going to happen. Let me explain to you what's going to happen. There's going to be all of these leverage, these, these treasury companies. There's going to be a whole lot of these treasury companies. And these treasury companies are all going to be traded at a multiple to their net asset value. Right. Like you take the net asset value multiple to net asset value. Net asset value multiple to net asset value. Right. And that the difference between the net asset value and the multiple and the multiple is the leverage. And that leverage bubble is going to.
- [42:54]
Scott Melker
Pop and when it does, right back to nav. Yep.
- [42:57]
Rand Nooner
And you're going to go back, you're going to go back under nav and those people that have money are going to be able to, to buy the thing, but most people are going to get destroyed when that bubble pops.
- [43:08]
Scott Melker
So very similar to GBTC when it was trading at a premium and went to a massive discount and you were able to. Yeah, this time much bigger. This time it's not locked for six months.
- [43:19]
Rand Nooner
And it's much bigger. And it's much bigger. It's much. Because now you've touc into, now you've tapped into Tradfire's money.
- [43:25]
Scott Melker
Right, Right.
- [43:25]
Rand Nooner
Before you were dealing with, before you were dealing with, with crypto money. And it was a very small amount of money in the big scheme of things. Now you're raising money from Tradfi and that's a, that's, that's a much bigger part of money.
- [43:37]
Scott Melker
Okay, so let me ask you this question then. You just described how it's somewhat of a scam, whether we decide to call it that or not, but the mechanics of how people are making free money on this, but still they have to buy Bitcoin. Right. So all these entities sending in their eth, sending in their Bitcoin that seeds the basic fund. But you still need to raise money to actually buy the Bitcoin and Ethereum on top of that. Right. So who's doing that and what is their reason and how does that end? Because the microstrategy convertible node at 0% and the coupons and the financialization and the engineering, like to me, the 90th and hundredth companies who do this are going to end up being, I'm not saying they're scams like Voyager and Celsius and blockfi, but it's going to be like, oh shit, you give 9% on USDC, I need to get further out of the risk curve, to give 10% on USDC. Oh, 10. I can do 12. Right. And that just. They take bigger, wilder bets.
- [44:36]
Rand Nooner
You got it.
- [44:36]
Scott Melker
Who's going to buy those? Like, who doesn't get that? Now? Who wants the coupon on Bitcoin? Treasury company 74. Who bought the ICO?
- [44:45]
Rand Nooner
It's, it's who. Who bought, who bought the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the ico. The idea. Who bought it? Who bought it? It's the person that thinks that they can make incremental quick money because everybody else around them is making incremental quick money. You know, Scott, the. When the bubble pops, what's going to get removed is the difference between nav and what people are paying and the premium. That premium is going to be the bubble that pops.
- [45:08]
Scott Melker
Right. So it's like the bag holders in the stock of the company that get wrecked. My first concern was that it wrecks bitcoin. But I've kind of come off that ledge. I think it's the classic thing. It's like whoever was holding that altcoin.
- [45:20]
Rand Nooner
That they bought, but then there's going to be no demand and then people are going to want to. And then treasury companies aren't going to make money. And not everyone is. Michael Saylor with Michael Saylor's, you know, Michael Saylor's first. He's built, he's built a big base, et cetera, et cetera. But then what's going to happen is these companies are going to start folding like dominoes, and then they're going to start selling the assets and it's going to be like a fire sale. Right? Because yeah, it's not. There's a whole lot of cost running these companies. The, the, the, the bubble is going to pop. They're going to say, hold on, but it's not actually viable or valuable for me to continue running this. And then they're going to start selling and they're going to start liquidating the assets or shareholders or boards are going to put pressure on their people to say, look, there's no returning the shit. You've, you've, you've caused us reputational risk and dam. Just get this crypto thing off the balance sheet and then there's going to be a fire sale where everyone just starts selling their fire sale off the balance sheet.
- [46:12]
Scott Melker
Exactly. So this was my premise when I saw the first, second one of these maybe launched after Saylor. I said, this is what takes what would have been a shallow bitcoin correction to a Deeper Bitcoin correction. So I don't think it's the bubble that makes. That puts in the top, but I think when the top comes and Bitcoin drops 20%, we get a 40% retracement instead. Because all of these people are puking their assets who got in at the very.
- [46:36]
Rand Nooner
That's how this bul. That's how the cycle ends. That's how the cycle ends. And this time it destroys stock market value and it destroys crypto value. Stock markets get destroyed. The difference between nav and what they paid. Right. And crypto markets get destroyed when this. Then the companies start to say, oh, well, it was a great. It was a good grift, it was a good strategy, but actually, now no one wants it anymore. I'm out. And they sell the eth, sell the e, Sell the e, sell the bitcoin. And that's when the whole thing cascades. And that's the end of the cycle. And that is the end of this crypto cycle.
- [47:10]
Scott Melker
And at the end of the day, all you had to do throughout that entire process was buy bitcoin and go about your life.
- [47:16]
Rand Nooner
Yeah, I mean, look, right now, right now, your best. Now, right now, the best trade is to try and if you can, to put your bitcoin or your ETH into these treasury companies when they're raising money and to sell on day one, when they go to the. When they get to the stock market. If you. If you can. That's the easiest money in the world at the moment. There's 10x20x and on Tom Lee's one, I think there's 100x at the moment.
- [47:37]
Scott Melker
Yeah.
- [47:38]
Rand Nooner
Thing hasn't even raised money. Sorry, what's the ticker? Let's just quickly just. What's the ticker of that stock?
- [47:43]
Scott Melker
It's B. I've got it right here. It's BMNR. It's up more now, 3740%. It's been a long conversation, so we had to add a couple hundred percent while we were talking. It's trading $34. It was four bucks.
- [48:02]
Rand Nooner
The market cap of this stock is 3,360 million. The assets are zero. Let's just call a spade a spade, bro.
- [48:16]
Scott Melker
Well, we've removed the veil on all of it. All the fundamentalism and all the maximalism. I'm not saying even bitcoin specific. At the end of the day, free money is very alluring to most people in this space, no matter what they say publicly.
- [48:32]
Rand Nooner
Look, again, if I get the opportunity to participate in these races, I probably will participate.
- [48:37]
Scott Melker
I should have. I was pitched so many of these, I would have made so much money already.
- [48:41]
Rand Nooner
Yeah, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it. I mean, I'm gonna do it. There's. I mean, there's an eth, one that's on my desk at the moment. I might even actually share it with you. And, you know, we can have a look at it. But I mean, right now the music's on. We should dance. And you know, like, the risk of it going under net asset value is so low because you can always just sell the assets on the market that your risk being a first.
- [49:01]
Scott Melker
You have assets.
- [49:02]
Rand Nooner
Yeah. Well, if you don't have assets, then you can't put it in. But if you have Bitcoin or eth.
- [49:07]
Scott Melker
That'S the best laughing at bmnr because as you said, it's basically no assets.
- [49:11]
Rand Nooner
And you got the 100%.
- [49:13]
Scott Melker
Okay, so Solana, you said Solana versus Ethereum. I remember you saying it. And I want to circle back on that because, man, do people hate Ethereum.
- [49:22]
Rand Nooner
Look, I'm not a big fan of Ethereum's technology at all. Solana is a lot better technology, but sometimes you also have to follow the money. And if you look at where the money's going, if you look at where Coinbase is and where Robinhood is and where blackrock is, they on east, they're not on Solana. Like, you have to follow the money. You know, BlackRock hasn't even applied for Salon ETF. They haven't even. They haven't even applied for Salon ETF. And so, you know, like, initially I was completely non eth, and now I'm like, well, you know, I kind of have to hold some ETH in my portfolio. And so I think so, yeah. So I'm Solana and Eth. Solana is a much better technology. You can't even compare. I'll show you a quick. A quick comparison just so you understand really what. What the real numbers are. It's not really a fair comparison. And I'll explain to you why this is a. A comparison between Sol and ETH in time to finality ethos. 360 seconds. Savannah has 0 comma 1. It's 100 milliseconds now after the new upgrade. Maximum TPS transactions per second. ETH can do 45. Solana can do 710,000 daily transactions as reported. Ether, on average, 1.2 million. Soland, 88 million daily active users, 387,003.35 million. But there's one caveat here, and the caveat is that this doesn't include the ETH layer twos. And it seems like the biggest onboarding vehicle for crypto is going to be Coinbase and Robinhood. And Coinbase and Robinhood have both chosen ETH L2s to bring to bring people into crypto. So where do you capture the value of that? Well, unfortunately you ain't going to capture the value of that on ETH because very the fact that Coinbase is running an ETH layer 2 and arbitrary and Robinhood is running an ETH layer too. Very little of the Fear Cruel actually goes to Ethereum. So where does the Fear Cruel actually go? To the shares Coinbase and Robinhood. And that's why I say the player of the cycle is to get crypto exposure, but not through investing in crypto. Does that make sense?
- [51:38]
Scott Melker
It makes 100% sense. Sad for our bags.
- [51:43]
Rand Nooner
Yeah, 100%. But it's true. The best way to make money on ETH is to buy Coinbase.
- [51:50]
Scott Melker
Yeah, but the best way. It's so true. And by the way, the best way to make money on stable coins is to buy Coinbase because they make more money than Circle on USD.
- [51:58]
Rand Nooner
Coinbase is my biggest bag. Well, Bitcoin is my biggest bag, but Coinbase is my biggest bag.
- [52:03]
Scott Melker
Yeah, I bought Coinbase the first day at 320. It was up in the 400. So I waited till the dip and bought all the way down to 30 bucks. And I would post these pictures of guys carrying bricks underwater and scuba suits two years ago saying, this is a live. Look at me accumulating more Coinbase. But here we are, all time highs. And the funny thing is, for crypto people that took forever. So you had to wait years, you know. But for Trad 5 people, man, if you doubled your bags or tripled in 10 years, doing pretty good.
- [52:38]
Rand Nooner
Yeah, well, yeah, look, my Coinbase entry price, my average entry price is about 70 bucks.
- [52:45]
Scott Melker
That's way lower than me because I bought all the way up and down. Yeah, yeah.
- [52:49]
Rand Nooner
And I mean, I'm trying. Now my next buy is I really want to get into circle and I'm just going to wait for like, I just can't get myself to buy it at these prices. I can't, I can't pay for anybody.
- [52:58]
Scott Melker
I can't pay for anything that's coming down. But what do I know? Yeah, I agree, but I should have done it day one at 80 bucks. But then you're like it was $25 yesterday. How is this trading at 90? Right?
- [53:10]
Rand Nooner
Yeah, yeah, I mean, this is, for me, this is what a model portfolio should look like today. And again, they say today, it really is today and not tomorrow, because tomorrow there could be, but like really it's like Bitcoin, Microstrategy, Coinbase Circle, Robinhood and Ethereum and Solana and Hyper Liquid and that together should make up, I would say 60, 70, 60, 70% of your portfolio. And then the other 30 can be trading platforms like Sui Sonic.
- [53:39]
Scott Melker
What about new stuff, though? Okay, so listen, we joked about private sales before. You're still getting pitched projects all the time that are coming online. I know you already said you don't want to hold them, but do you take a shot at any of these anymore?
- [53:52]
Rand Nooner
No.
- [53:52]
Scott Melker
What's hilarious, I love how you described that. You know, you used to have to like fight for an allocation. It was like, we'll give you four grand and you would have to write a thesis on why you deserved five grand. Now you get pitched these things, you're like, you want 200, you want the whole round. Nobody's putting money into these.
- [54:11]
Rand Nooner
Look, long story short, I don't invest in any of these private sales and there's a good reason for it. Why the hell should I lock up my money when there's such amazing opportunities on the free market when I can buy Tommy Lee stock today and sell it tomorrow at a thousand X? Why do I need to lock up my money with 6 months lockup investing schedules and you'll have a vesting schedule for 45 years and you'll get 2% up. I don't need that. Just can go on the open market and I can just buy on the open market.
- [54:37]
Scott Melker
What a crazy world we live in. The only difference now is that the Wall street guys are going to be one, two profit, not the degens.
- [54:47]
Rand Nooner
Well, no, I think we need to get into the Wall street game. I think, you know, like, Scott, you got to go where the music's on, bro, and the music's on on Wall Street. And so you need to make money on Wall Street. And you know, they've actually made it so easy for us because they've even launched these like Circle X and Hood X and Coinbase X stocks that you can actually buy with your crypto money. You can literally go into Jupiter. I want to show you something like. Absolutely, absolutely mind blowing, right? I just want to, I want to see that I can actually do it on this computer. Because it's a work computer. Yeah. I can. Let me show it to you. So this is Jupiter. It's the biggest exchange on Solana, the biggest Dex aggregator on Solana. Literally, I can swap fartcoin. I want to show you this because it's, like, mind boggling. So I can swap fartcoin for Coinbase.
- [55:32]
Scott Melker
That's wild.
- [55:33]
Rand Nooner
Wild. Like if I press the button and I had file fart coin in my wallet, I could literally swap it for coinbase stock. Not real stock, it's tokenized stock. But we're in a world where you can literally, on a crypto exchange, trade meme coins into stocks. That's where we're at. I can do microstrategy. I can trade fartcoin into microstrategy. Okay. I mean, this is the world, bro.
- [56:03]
Scott Melker
Yeah. I wonder at the end of the day if these MSTR X also have risk because you don't own that stock certificate and you might not know who does. And you might actually own exposure to nothing.
- [56:17]
Rand Nooner
So, look, we know who it is. It's highly reputable people. I think Kraken's also very much involved there. It's not a joke. You know what I mean? Look, again, it's not as safe as actually holding the stock yourself on the New York Stock Exchange with a custodian, but it's close enough.
- [56:32]
Scott Melker
That'll be our next topic of our conversation is how tokenized stocks blew up the next cycle. Right?
- [56:38]
Rand Nooner
Yeah. Yeah. Next time. Exactly. Exactly.
- [56:41]
Scott Melker
We're over time. Is there anything I missed that you're dying to talk about? Because I'll. I'll.
- [56:44]
Rand Nooner
I think it's. I think. I think, as usual, I had a lot of fun with you, man.
- [56:49]
Scott Melker
Dude, that's awesome. We just got like. It's almost like if we only almost. If we had a daily show, you know?
- [56:55]
Rand Nooner
Yeah. I would see.
- [56:58]
Scott Melker
The ghost of Random Times join us for Crypto Town Hall.
- [57:02]
Rand Nooner
Oh, yeah. I wish. I wish I had more time, bro.
- [57:04]
Scott Melker
If that's the worst timing for you ever, and I'm impressed you made it for as long as you did.
- [57:09]
Rand Nooner
It's kids, bro. You know, if it was anything else, like, if it was work, I'd definitely find a way. But I get two hours with my kids every single day between bath time, bedtime, and homework time. And I get two hours of them. And that. That crypto town hall used to use one of my hours.
- [57:24]
Scott Melker
Yeah.
- [57:25]
Rand Nooner
And then I was like, you know, in the beginning it was cool, but then watching your kids grow up and then realizing.
- [57:30]
Scott Melker
Also cool.
- [57:32]
Rand Nooner
Yeah. But also, like, just I felt like I was like, I was always arriving home when they were just about to go to bed, and then I was like, wow, is this, like, is this the father that you want to be? Like, you got him like one minute before they were gonna go to bed. And I was like, I can't do it. I just. I love you guys. I love Mario. I really love being on it with you. And you know, now actually in. In our winter, it actually works for me to sometimes join because it's like on the border of when I'm going home and when I'm not going home, but when the time zones change again, it's slap bang in the middle of bath time and bedtime. And that's like my best time with my kids.
- [58:05]
Scott Melker
In case it makes you feel better, you've been on a lot more than Mario. Although we still get his avatar, but I don't think we've heard his voice on that show now in over a year. Since he's the superstar Larry King of our time.
- [58:17]
Rand Nooner
Yeah, exactly. He's Larry King. That's it. He's Larry King.
- [58:20]
Scott Melker
Quickly, because you guys have a lot to offer and I'm assuming most of our audience is the same, but some of it might not be. So what can people expect when they watch banter? Because it's a lot more even than just what we just did.
- [58:35]
Rand Nooner
Yeah. So I think, look, Scott, as you know, I'm a fan of your channel. You use. You usually broadcast a little bit before me. It is.
- [58:42]
Scott Melker
I get like 15 or 20 minutes of freedom before you come steal my whole audience.
- [58:47]
Rand Nooner
No, I think, look the difference. So I really enjoy the shows and I really enjoy the guests on your shows. I find specifically that your shows are very bitcoin centric, very economic centric, very macro centric. I think what you'll get at banter is you'll get a little bit less of that and a little bit more crypto. Actual crypto technologies, tokens and stuff like that. Yeah. So I think it's. I think that's pretty much where we're at. Whereas I love the macro and I love the bitcoin. It's just I, for me, what I do every day is a reality show and I spend my whole day studying actual crypto. And what I can bring to, to the, to the people is I can take complicated concepts inside crypto, not necessarily bitcoin, and I can bring it to the audiences in the way that they're actually going to understand it.
- [59:38]
Scott Melker
And that works for me. Like, I watch your shows to understand stuff that flies way over my head or like some word. I saw an X that I'm like, what the hell is this thing? I thought I knew what was going on and I've never even heard of this. And you guys are always on top of it.
- [59:52]
Rand Nooner
We're on top of trends every single day. We're a little bit more in crypto than we are in bitcoin and macro. But like, at times like this where the macro cycle is pretty much driving everything, we do spend some time on macro, but I think we're much more a crypto channel as opposed to a macro and bitcoin channel. We do have coverage. Probably 30% of our coverage is macro and crypto, but macro and bitcoin, but the rest of it is very much crypto, whether it's altcoins or development in the crypto world and stuff like that. I think, yeah, I mean, as I say, you listen to me, I listen to you, so. And I listen to your guests. I think one thing that, that. That your style has changed. Used to be you used to be a very much a lone ranger where you used to do your own charts and used to, like, used to. And now you rely very much on the guests, like a big guest network around you. I mean, I must say, sometimes I want to see the old Scott.
- [60:42]
Scott Melker
At some point I want to see it's coming back. I've got some plans to reincorporate that.
- [60:47]
Rand Nooner
Yeah, yeah. I missed the days when you used to draw lines on charts in public.
- [60:52]
Scott Melker
Still fun. Now I'm hiding in the closet doing it.
- [60:55]
Rand Nooner
Yeah, exactly. I miss the days when you used. I mean, I remember that I used to get you onto my shows to actually draw lines and charts.
- [61:02]
Scott Melker
Yeah, it's fun.
- [61:03]
Rand Nooner
Yeah. Then you became the master interviewer. The master interview. Managed to get all the guests, all the big guests.
- [61:07]
Scott Melker
I really just enjoy talking to people. Like, for me, it's actually like, it's a, it's, you know, safer, I guess. But B, it's just a lot of fun for me to kind of learn from all these people. So really quickly, how many shows do you guys have now?
- [61:20]
Rand Nooner
So we have six hosts on Banter. We do six shows every day. I think a lot of them are trading shows and gaming shows and stuff like that. I run the general crypto show that happens at about 9:30 Eastern Daily. But if you're watching Scott's channel, then you should finish watching Scott's content and then just jump onto mine after Scott's content.
- [61:41]
Scott Melker
The beauty of YouTube is it records you know you can. You both. I watch your show like, you know, every, Every pretty much every day, so. Amazing, man. Well, thank you for doing this. It's always great to catch up, a lot of fun. And you actually gave me a lot to think about as far as how this cycle is likely to continue and where my money needs to be. I've been really kicking around the, like, you know, the bitcoin treasury and all of it. I've been just discussing it ad nauseam with guests and everybody's kind of got the same conclusion.
- [62:12]
Rand Nooner
You know, Scott, like, you gave me an idea here. I must say I've also learned a lot on this podcast because sometimes when you talk to someone who's been in the trenches for as long as you and has seen as many cycles as you, you actually, you actually get to voice things that are in your head, but you don't actually get someone who's prodding you to get them out. And I think for both of us in this, in this session, I think we came to a point where we unraveled what the cycle was going to look like. Maybe our thoughts before we went into the talk and I thought after talk were quite different. So maybe I suggest we do this like once a month and do it, it's. It's similar to like an all in, but really we'll do it like ourselves. Just me and I having a conversation about what we are doing and what we are seeing in the crypto world and I think it'll land up benefiting the audience quite a bit. So maybe let's make this a standing once a month. It's not too taxing on either of us and it's great for both of us to just share our opinions with each other.
- [63:05]
Scott Melker
Thousand percent down for that. I would love that. Literally, like I can look at the market and the charts all day, but you just, sometimes you need to bounce off the ideas and I need to hear the confirmation that I'm right about treasury companies. So you gave me that. That's all I really need.
- [63:19]
Rand Nooner
Scott, it's been so good, my friend. Thank you so much and thank you for having me on your channel.
- [63:22]
Scott Melker
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- [63:45]
Rand Nooner
That's dope.