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Everyone's watching crypto charts, but the real bitcoin indicator right now isn't price, it's Donald Trump. Tariffs, regulation, macro chaos. Politics has officially hijacked the crypto cycle. So what happens to bitcoin when the 4 year cycle breaks? ETFs front run the market and the US suddenly goes all in on crypto. Today I am sitting down with George to break down why this cycle feels completely different.
B
This traditional cycle that we have followed for so many years. You have two and a half years of crypto winter and then you have slow recovery and then you have a very parabolic rise at the end. I think that cycle that we're all used to is probably gone.
A
Why most traders are mentally checked out.
B
The choppiness and these scam wicks that we're seeing, it's just liquidating people left and right. Who benefits from these liquidations? It's not the traders, the, not the crypto people, it's the exchanges that offer leverage.
A
And why George isn't even watching price anymore, he's watching Trump.
B
The market, it's really driven by geopolitical macro stuff. Right now we're really moving away from the four year cycle. From all the metrics that we see seems like we have really moved away from that and now all eyes are like, what's going on with world events with the US Economy and bitcoin's kind of like moving with it.
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We get into macro leverage, prediction markets, and why bitcoin might be entering a totally new era driven by geopolitics. Instead of having hype, watch the full episode to understand what actually matters for bitcoin right now and how serious players are positioning for what's next.
B
That's dope.
A
George. It's been a while since we've had the chance to catch up. I wanted to sort of gauge where you're at with the market in general. It's been exceptionally boring and I think a lot of people have just mentally timed out.
B
Yeah, well, thanks for having me back, Scott. The, the market, you know, it's, it's really driven by geopolitical macro stuff right now. Right. We're really moving away from the four year cycle. From all the metrics that we see, it seems like we have really moved away from that. And now all eyes are like, what's going on with world events with the US economy and bitcoin's kind of like moving with it. Right? We're all kind of trying to navigate through what we're seeing right now. But yeah, I mean it's an interesting time. I think both of us, we've lived through a couple of these cycles and. And this cycle has been very, very different to say the least.
A
Yeah, I did not sign up to become a macro economist who has a master's in warfare and tariffs. It's really very, very different. I see definitely why a lot of the early people have exited and sold. I think they're just disillusioned or confused or they don't know how to gauge the market anymore. As you said, it's just been a very strange cycle. Right. But as you mentioned, we moved away from the four year cycle. So you think it's apt to even call it a cycle anymore?
B
I don't know. I mean, we'll always have some sort of cycle because of the halving event that still happens every four years. So the next one I think is 2028. So we'll always have some sort of cycle. But this traditional cycle that we have followed for what, so many years, traditionally you have what, two and a half years of crypto winter and then you have slow recovery and then you have a very parabolic rise at the end. I think that cycle that we're all used to is probably gone. Right. And I think 2025 kind of proved that because 2025 obviously was the last year of the four year cycle and we're supposed to go parabolic up. Instead we did slow and steady stair step upwards movement and then we kind of topped out in October because of all the geopolitical macro stuff that started happening again. But now we're in 2026, it's still early, but January is almost over and we're still seeing bitcoin hold. We haven't started crypto winter. We didn't go down like drastically like previous, you know, previous cycles. So I do think in a sense, yes, the four year cycle is over. But also we have to consider that there is a having event that still happens every four years. So there's still something to that. But I think it's more like, I think most people agree we're now following like the business cycle. Yeah, that's the liquidity and I agree with that.
A
Yeah. And there's high confidence from a lot of analysts that the business cycle ramps up this year. But if it doesn't, maybe we just chop sideways for a very, very long time. There's so many hallmarks of the previous four year cycles that didn't happen. I mean, I guess you can argue, yeah, we topped in October. If you believe that's the Macro top of the cycle. But everything else looked different. There was no alt season. Bitcoin made an all time high way early in the cycle because of the ETFs. It just didn't feel the same. I also then I guess the second silver lining is I don't expect 80% retrace.
B
Yeah. I think we take the good with the bad. Right. I guess the bad was we didn't get that blow off top. But the good is we don't get that 80% retracement. Like you said something else that, that's very interesting that happened in 2025 and I'm sure you know in your audience probably have asked you about is the rise of gold and silver.
A
Yeah.
B
And I mean if you look at a chart since October, since September, I would say gold has gone up at least 50% and silver has gone up like 200% or something like that.
A
Alt season.
B
Yeah. This is like this is what we wanted from the alts but instead it went to silver. But it's just really strange and I think that also played into it because obviously gold and sort of silver has always been seen as store values but also flight to safety for, you know, during uncertain times. But we have never really seen them climb up this much this fast. And that's pulling liquidity away from everything. Right. Including crypto. And that kind of sucks. So that's also something we haven't ever seen before. I mean, yes, we have seen gold go up, but not, not to this extent, not. And still certainly not silver. So. Yeah, that's also very strange too.
A
Yeah. I have another part of sort of a theory I've been working through on where all the crypto liquidity went because everything else has gone up. Right. So it's not like we didn't have market conditions where all coins could have risen. I mean stocks are at all time high, silver's at all time high, gold's at all time high, as you said or rounding error away.
B
Right.
A
Nixon markets. I think that when you now look and look back, honestly, you say, well, most of the reason this stuff went up wasn't because of their gas fees or their utility. Right. It was people speculating and gambling. So whatever trading, gambling, speculating. Use every word you want. And now you can just go gamble on, you know, the weather, whether Donald Trump's going to tie his left or right shoe first tomorrow. Why do you need to gamble on coin number 43 on coin market cap?
B
That that's part of it. I mean also leverage too. I mean as it relates to crypto. I think leverage sort of like ruined altcoin season in a way, because rather than buy and hold something that could go up a thousand percent, why not throw a 50x and 100x and do that with even Bitcoin. Right. I think leverage really kind of like halted things. I think maybe more so than prediction market, but I do want to talk about that. But I think leverage in a way has kind of like taken over and market makers now utilize it within their arsenal to really kind of control things. That's why we always hear, like just the last few days, like a billion dollars of longs liquidated. Right. Like, you think about it, who benefits from these liquidations? It's not the traders, it's not the crypto people, it's the exchanges that offer leverage. Right. Because regardless if you win or lose, they collect their fees. And of course, some of them are the largest market makers and they work with market makers. So it's like, are they all cahoots? But that's also a big thing.
A
I think the only slight caveat there is that that works until there's no one left and those traders can't reload their accounts. Right. So they don't want everybody to blow up at once. Like October 10th.
B
Yes.
A
That wasn't on purpose.
B
Yes. I mean, I don't know if that. October 10th, I think the biggest liquidation.
A
Event, 19.2 billion, whatever it was.
B
Yeah, yeah. Whether that was on purpose. I mean, in a way, maybe it was not on purpose, but the results probably was way worse than they wanted. But yeah, I think that has a lot to do with it too, because again, people are spectating or speculating less because now they think, okay, I could just throw a leverage, a 20x leverage on either solar or whatever and try to make that instantly. But the problem is most people don't. And, and the choppiness and these scam wicks that we're seeing, it's just liquidating people left and right.
A
Yeah, it's really, really unfortunate. So you said you want to talk more about prediction markets. I would love your view on that.
B
Yeah, well, I'm personally invested in it that I want to share. But I mean, overall, the explosion of Poly Market and then now Kalshi, which is arguably bigger if you look at volume, and there's another one called opinion. That's huge. I mean, this is satisfying. Like, like the, the primal needs of people to really. To kind of like to, to bet, to predict or to like feed their egos. Like, I'm right Like all these guys on X, right? All these analysts are just normal random people. They all want to prove they're right. They, you know, they, they stomp their feet and say, no, I'm right. Right? This is a way for them to prove it. And I think that's why, because all these reasons, they have been blowing up. And you go beyond sports, traditionally it's just like sports, right? But now you, like you said, you can predict anything. You can predict the weather, you could predict what Trump is going to say or do next, right? Like anything can be predicted. And I don't know if that actually, probably, partially, probably, it took a little liquidity out of crypto and like say altcoin season, but I think that's just like it's pulling money from somewhere into it and, and they're all exploding. So it's a very interesting, I guess, market.
A
Let's just, I mean, so how do you look at all of that? All the places that kind of consensus was wrong in 2025, right. And project that forward into how you're going to interact with this market in 2026?
B
I kind of changed my, I had to change my thesis for obvious reasons because the cycle has changed. And for me I'm just sticking with Bitcoin and, and a few big caps. That's it. Like Eth Soul, mostly those two. And then a little bit of like XRP or something like, like the big caps, mid caps and small caps. Okay. It's obvious they're, they have no momentum, no traction at all. Retail lost all confidence in them. And that's why if you look at the charts, unfortunately they're just making lower highs and lower lows. And it really sucks because some of these projects have come a long way. There are a lot of things still being done on them like RWA or AI or even gaming. I mean, it's just that right now with uncertainty, retail just doesn't trust anything. And plus we mentioned all these liquidity events with leverage and stuff that liquidates all these people and bring the markets down. A lot of retail, unfortunately, is just scared and they still are.
A
Everyone I talk to says I'm focused on Bitcoin, Salana, Ethereum, myself included. Right. They've got ETFs, treasury companies out there. They obviously have the stamp of approval. They're not going anywhere, it's easier. But it means even the people who've been here the longest and have experienced the most and actually got a taste of the 100x gains and 500x gains have basically given up on that being a part of their strategy.
B
Yeah, I mean, that reminds me, Scott, like, remember like a few months ago, and I think some publications still cover it, we had this one Satoshi era wallet OG bitcoiner decided to sell like a billion dollars worth of bitcoin and then started shorting the market with it. Like, when has that ever happened, you know?
A
Right.
B
They, they threw a 10x short on ETH and like a 10x short on Bitcoin. So again, kind of proves our point. Like some of the OGs are fed up with what's going on. But also leverage is such a thing now in crypto that even billionaire OG bitcoiners are playing leverage. It's like that shouldn't be the case.
A
That guy doesn't have to do that.
B
Right? Like, like, I, I, I, I just don't get it. I, I, I, I don't get it. It's just such a weird, weird thing to happen, you know.
A
Now I think that leverage is going to only increase because it's going to come to all the US exchanges that's going to come to actual stock market. Probably had perps on the stock market, it seems like in 24, 7, 365. Feels like the entire world is being gamified by the crypto structure without crypto actually gaining the value from it.
B
It's, you know, it's a weird situation because for so long, us in the US and everywhere, really, all the regulatory bodies have been suppressing crypto.
A
Right?
B
And now we're starting to see countries worldwide starting to embrace it, but especially us because Trump has now made it like 100% pro crypto in every facet that you could think of. Every lawsuit from SEC have been dropped. Now we have a very pro SEC that basically allows anything to go on declared all previous things. Securities, non securities, memes are non securities, staking, non security, staking, rewards, non securities. And soon, like you said, leverage trading, which was once declared too risky or, you know, I don't know what the reason was, but they're gonna bring that back. You know, Coinbase and Gemini I think have derivative trading already for a little.
A
Bit, but they're gonna bring all that did. I don't know if they still did. They'd had 5x forever, but yeah, yeah, yeah.
B
Like they're just allowing everything, which for us, like in crypto, in the crypto sphere, I think most people are like, yes, this is all good, let's just allow all of it. But the fear is you allow too much and then we're going to have another FTX moment. Right. There's just too much freedom and then there's going to be some huge catastrophic failure and that's going to bring down entire thing. And hopefully that's not the case. I mean, even CZ. CZ's pardon. And then, you know, World Liberty Financials working with Binance. So, you know, Binance is coming back to the US for sure. So it's like, it almost seems like there's no rules anymore. And it's a little scary if you think about it.
A
Well, it does allow people to build and participate more. And I know that you've pivoted a lot of your focus to actually doing that. Right. So it's been actually, I think, an exciting time for you. I saw obviously Clash Royale. I haven't dug into it yet, so I'd love for you to break that down because I always find it really interesting when people have the, you know, the guts to really pivot and kind of back something themselves.
B
Yeah. So like around the September time frame and as a creator you would know that Pump Fund released their streaming platform at the time. And I think Alex Becker was the very first one to kind of like big influencer to try it. He came out like a streamer token and blew up. And other people tried it and it seemed like they were all making crazy rewards. So I at the time wanted to try it too. I just wanted to expand, you know, Cryptozeros reach. I was thinking, okay, maybe I could stream on it, just see what happens. But then I realized you have to create a token to do that. They won't allow you to do it without selecting a token and creating a token. So prior to that, my kids actually were very addicted to this mobile game called Clash Royale. It's a game that's been out for like nine years and it was very popular. Got, you know, got old. People forgot about it and then it got popular again. So my kids were playing it, they got me into it. So I want to try out Pump Fon. I'm like, okay, I don't want to come out to Cru Token, let's just try it. Right. I'm just going to try myself playing this game and streaming it. And so I created the Clash Token. And you know, it's very meme ish. That's why the project name is called George Plays Clash Royale. That's the project.
A
Pretty straightforward.
B
I also want to make sure that people know and you know, Clash Royale and Supercell knows that this is a meme project about Me, not about them, not representing them in any way. So did that for a couple weeks and people didn't know what to expect. And then all of a sudden it caught on. And then we started building upon that. So we started hosting tournaments because there's so many players, there's millions, millions of players that play every month. So we start hosting prize tournaments where we give out soul tokens rather than clash because I don't want to add to the inflation. And we've been doing that for four months and we've been getting more and more players in and it's going strong. But here's the difference. I don't even like to call it a meme project anymore because all the memes that you see, even recently there was a BFS that blew up and dumped White Whale blew up and dumped, all these blow up and dump because the devs or insiders or the creators, they're anonymous. You don't know how much they control. None of them are fair launched, right. And they can dump or exit a liquidity from LP at any time. And people are just purely, you know, gambling at this point. Right.
A
With.
B
With a Clash Token. It wasn't. That wasn't the case. It was fairly launch on Pump Fun. I know a lot of community members got in when it was like 30k market cap and now as right now, sitting at 42 million. So, yeah, I didn't realize it was that big.
A
That's incredible. Yeah, I didn't realize anything that came from Pump Fund, like sustained for that long and stayed that high.
B
We're like, seriously the only project that has probably come out of Pump Fund within the last four months that have sustained and have kept going. Because we're not just like a normal pump and dump. No insiders, no cabal, no kol pushes. I got no one involved with it at all. That's why it's. It's still relatively unknown to most people, and that's why it's different. But now it's interesting enough because we already talked about prediction markets. So I thought of, okay, how can we make our tournaments even better? How do we get people more vested into our tournaments? We give out prizes already, but how do we make it even more exciting? So I thought about, all right, let's come out with some kind of prediction market platform for our tournaments. So we started developing maybe a couple months ago, and we're near completion and we call it Clash Picks. So we're gonna make it focus around our tournaments, but expanding outside into basically anything, you know, politics, crypto sports, all that. But we're doing it differently because we have a free to play model and it's so much simpler. Anyone that had views, polymarket or Kalshi will tell you it's very complic. There's people that are like sophisticated traders that have all these sophisticated algorithms and stuff, kind of like just normal crypto trading. That's how people treat these prediction markets. But we have designed Clash Picks to be so much easier for the normies. Really easy to understand and get in. And we have a free to play predict model so anyone can get in and predict for free.
A
So there are literally people in your community who are just there when you started and are up 1000x.
B
Yeah, yeah.
A
Where have I been? I didn't know that happened in 2025.
B
We're doing things differently, Scott. That's why I'm so passionate about Clash. The community is so passionate and that's why I keep pushing forward. Really, like with all the stuff that's going on, Bitcoin's price, crypto price could be going up and down. For me, it doesn't really matter because I'm just holding. Right. I'm not really actively trading. I'm not getting liquidated left and right. I know we'll come back. So I'm just holding and decent when I can. But all my, all the spare time I have, I'm working on Clash Picks and making it the greatest prediction marketplace there is and also hosting these tournaments and making sure that the community stays strong and focused and don't become discouraged. And you know, it's, it's working.
A
Talk to me about how you actually start streaming and launch on Pump Fun. I'm such a boomer. I obviously saw all of it happening and heard about it and it was sort of just something that I deliberately ignored because I felt like we're launching millions of meme coins over here. This can't be a serious thing. Right. And obviously you identified an opportunity to do it the right way and that resonated with people. Yeah.
B
Here's a funny thing and I hate to call out one of the co founders. He goes by Anon on X. Before I did this, I reached out to him on X over dm. I'm like, hey, I'm thinking about doing this. I want to get your opinion. I don't know if you know who I am, but I run one of the largest crypto brands and I don't know if this is a good idea. And then he responded to me, he's like, you know what? You should do it. It's gonna make your brand even stronger. Your community's gonna love it. And he responded to me. So after I did it, I went back to him like, hey, this is pretty successful, right? Thanks for that. Hey, you wanna help market this? Because they have a trending section and I see them on Pump Fun, they're always covering craters and new coins that come out. I don't know why he has still not responded since then and has not made one post about Clash Token even though we are by far the most successful one within the last six months. I don't know why. It almost seems like he doesn't want to promote legit projects or the platform doesn't want to promote legit projects. It's so strange to me. So I hate to call them out, but I share that story because it's still surprising. All these new ones that come out that immediately die. And most people associate Pump Fun projects to basically pump and die. Immediately those get promoted, but a legit project still does not. And it sucks. But anyway, I know that.
A
How hard, like, how difficult is it to actually do this? You want to become a streamer. Obviously, as you said, there has to be a token attached to it. Like, actually somebody came to me was like, you should be streaming on Pump Fun. I was like, I'll stream my shows on another platform. And they're like, but you have to have a token.
B
It's very easy.
A
I. I don't want a Scott token. Right.
B
You just go. You just go on Pump Fun Create account and basically just attach a wallet or you could do email or you.
A
Have to provide the liquidity or the. I mean, how's that actually work?
B
Yeah, you. You basically provide a little bit of liquidity and that kind of like sets. Sets the tone, basically. And it gets put into the lp. So I think for me, I put in like Two Soul or something like that.
A
Really low.
B
Yeah. And I'll kick it off. And then the thing is, they have like this bonding thing, which I forgot, like, how much. But the token basically needs to get to some sort of market cap before it gets bonded.
A
I don't remember what it was, but I think it's 100,000.
B
Yeah, I think it's 100,000. And then once it gets bonded, they'll move it either to Raydium or they'll move it to their own swap, the pump swap thing, and then that's it. And it just lives there and it's tradable.
A
But do you ever have to add like more liquidity? To it. How do you prevent it from being rub pulled? How do you prevent one of those early people who got in super early from selling it off and selling it down? Because there's obviously some mechanic that's making them all look like a Christmas tree on the chart. Right? Straight up, straight down, yeah.
B
For I mean people that launch unfairly where they just launch by themselves, they can do a lot of tricks where they're holding, you know, even if it's not one wallet. So case in point, like White Whale when it was doing well I looked at it, the top six wallets held 90% of the supply. So obviously when that happens it's very easy to drive it up and it's very easy to dump it afterwards. And BFS recently some Mr. Beast knockoff coin, whatever kind of did that. And you look at bubble maps, it's like whole bunch like a thousand different wallets all connected to original wallet. So they were trying to do the same kind of thing. So there's a lot of things that people can do With Pump Fund the good thing is it is fairly launched, okay. Once it bonds and then it gets put, the liquidity is like there. You can't withdraw it, it's locked there forever. So you can't do any games with that. You can add liquidity but you can't just like rug and take out the liquidity and destroy everyone. You can't do it. You could of course buy your own coin. Other people can be sniping you and if they snipe you early so when you get big they could dump. There's nothing you could do about it. That's an open market, that's fair, you know, fair market. So for me really we have experienced that. The first like first month we shot up to like 82 million market cap and the last few months when it was got rough, we got, we slid out all the way to 15 million before now climbing back up to 43. The main thing is just you got to keep your, your holders, your community strong. That's it. You got to give them something to hope for. If you are purely coming out with a streamer coin, like a, you know, like a meme coin, let's say you do it Scott tomorrow you do it, you create a Scott coin and then you, you stream on pump that fun at the very beginning, a lot of your audience will probably go buy it because they want to support you. But if you're not going to do something with it, there's no reason for them to hold it other than they they speculate it's gonna go up, but in a rocky condition, when there's not a whole lot of people spending money on speculatory, you know, tokens, they're going to just sell it, right? So you got to give them something that they believe in and that will make them hold it and also buy more. That's really the secret. Unless you're playing all these like shady games that a lot of people do. But if you're trying to do it legit, you got to find a reason for them to want to hold it.
A
That makes a lot of sense. So that's where actually engaging, constantly, showing up on the streams, giving things away and yeah, you know, participating yourself is where you add the value.
B
Yeah, like the tournaments I was talking about. So we don't just give soul for the sake of giving soul. At the beginning we did, but like for these prizes, these tournaments that we hold, I require the players to hold 2000 Clash. So once they hold 2000 Clash, then they're eligible for prizes and giveaways. But if they don't hold it, they could play for free, but they're just not going to win any prizes and giveaways. Right. So that's a way for me to kind of get people and not sell. Right. But I also remind these guys that, hey, I'm not forcing you to buy it as like an entry fee or entry ticket because it is in your wallet. You control it, you could sell it any time. Right. But it's just a minimum requirement if you want to win our prizes. That's really it.
A
So having seen this success, it's just such an interesting use case for me. Do you think that there's potential for a resurgence of legitimate launched projects on the pump funds? Or do you think that it's just kind of tainted by the sheer amount of pump and dumps? You're literally a one in a million.
B
Yeah. Thank you. Literally.
A
I mean, by the numbers, right? I mean, I think in April, I don't remember if it was like 8 million coins launched this month or this week or whatever, but I mean, yeah.
B
Surprisingly Clash right now at 43 million is like a top 500 project in all of crypto. That's how crazy it is. But it trade now, it trades like.
A
On Femex and a number of real like Mexc, right?
B
Yeah, Mexc, femex, btcc, xt, a few others.
A
What's that look like? Do they come to you or you get to a certain size and you start to approach the exchanges to say hey, this thing's got enough liquidity and volume for you to list it.
B
Yeah, I mean, when it comes to all these have been free listings and they have just done it without us saying anything or doing anything. But they will play their games. They will all come to you and say, well, can we list it for $30,000 or $50,000? We're like, no. And then eventually they'll just do it. And it's the same deal with Coinbase, Kraken, Gemini, Robin, all these big ones, they have application processes, but speaking to some of these bigger memes that have that, that now are listed, they. They tell me the same thing, like, oh, we didn't know Coinbase just listed us. It all comes down to momentum, volume, because, you know, all the exchanges just want to make money from the fees. So, you know, I'm not really even worried if clash gets to 2,300 million, I'm pretty sure these big exchanges are just go pick it up, you know. So it's just really about, again, size and momentum.
A
And when you launch it is a certain percentage automatically in your wallet?
B
Yeah, it's what you put in like the beginning. Like I told you, I started the pool with like two Soul or something that gets. You get a certain amount of tokens for that and that's like in your dev wallet, basically. So that's what goes to you.
A
Really interesting. This is like such. It's like speaking a foreign language to me. And I've been in crypto for a really, really long time.
B
This is all new to me too. This is first time. And the platform you got to hand it to pump that fund, their platform works awesome. Like, if you want to launch a token, there's no easier. I think Bonk now has one. A lot of people talk about launching tokens on Bonk, but it's really, really simple. They have built a terrific platform. Anyone can do it. Unfortunately, most people that do it don't have a plan or does not care. They'll just do it for the sake of doing it, try to make some quick money and move on. But I think if creators or just people in general, they really wanted to, they could use it and build something great. It's just, you got to put time into it.
A
But I assume if you build it and it becomes huge for you to actually profit from it, at some point you have to sell something.
B
Yes, I'm waiting for it to get to a billion. And once we get on Coinbase, then I could exit at least some of it. Like right now, when it Comes to the, you know this like the valuations of crypto projects are way inflated. It's all based on liquidity pool and liquidity pool for most projects are very tiny. So even if you look at, I looked at the other day, like Pepe, you know, well established meme coin that has 3 billion in market cap, if you look at their liquidity pool on Uniswap, it's only about 40 million.
A
That's crazy.
B
So, yeah, so even if one of the founders wanted to cash out 20 million worth of Pepe on Uniswap, it would crash in half. Right. So that's the thing, because the way the market caps are calculated based on these AMMs is very different than a traditional company that's raising and they have PE ratios and stuff like that. With crypto it's very different. So I think if we continue our path and Clash Picks comes out and becomes hugely successful, 1 billion is really not gonna be hard.
A
And then you send it over to Coinbase and you do it on the order books and you don't crash the price anyways. It's not like you're dumping it into the liquidity pool. Right. So.
B
Right, right. But they have to get their liquidity somewhere. Right. So that, that's the unknown for me. I've heard that in, in certain cases they buy, in certain cases they just use a market maker that, and then that market maker needs to buy or you need to provide it to the market makers and then they use it. So I've heard different scenarios, different stories on how they get liquidity and stuff like that. So I don't know, when the time comes and it happens, then I'll know and then I'll tell you about it.
A
Yeah, but that's incredible how much work you're putting in on the idea that you'll still 20 something X, you know, just to be able to take some profit from it.
B
You're right, that's a lot. Luckily I'm in a position where I don't need to. Right. But unfortunately for a lot of people, they do.
A
So yeah, they see the number and it's just too much. Yeah, they have to take it. So for you then it seems like you kind of have a barbell approach. Right. You're just going to hold the big name assets, you're going to wait for the market to ramp up. I think we both believe that whether it's in the next six months or year, whatever it is, there will be another massive FOMO retail cycle. Right. So while you're waiting for that to happen, you can go over here and actually build something and participate and have a good time and you don't really need to mess with anything else in between that.
B
That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Like right now it's just kind of like a traditional company. Take that back. Traditional project. You know, like a lot of project. You could even say like Cardano, like Charles Hoskinson. Right. Like a lot of people, he gets a lot of hate. He gets very frustrated now because people keep saying, well, why is Ada not going up? Right? But you know, what can he do other than to build, right? You just build during the dark times and then in the good times, then that's how your project rises and continues forward. Right. I have that same mentality. Like right now, okay, with my crypto holdings, I'm just gonna hold now, I'm not gonna try to trade it, nothing like that because I do think the markets will come up. But I'm building as much as I can to clash because when the market conditions improve, people are go see it. That's when we can do another 10x20x50x from here. Right? So that's exactly the same thing, what I'm doing right now.
A
Yeah, it's very interesting. And on the YouTube side then, you know, you obviously still have your channel, you're still posting constantly. So do you find it, as I do, very hard to figure out what to talk about on a daily basis?
B
Yeah, that's why I talk so much about, you know, geopolitical macro stuff now. I mean, you can't, you can't have.
A
An opinion on Greenland now to run a bitcoin channel.
B
Right. Like, I know that it doesn't make any sense and new people coming in are probably confused, but, but it relates, right? Like I pivoted to covering like FOMC meetings a few years ago because obviously whatever the Fed does affects things and that was a good transition. And now I see like every crypto, you know, every crypto channel covered FOMC meetings and talk about rates and stuff like that. Because obviously now we all matured a little bit. We know that bitcoin isn't just magically going go up or down due to four year cycle. There's other things at play that kind of drive things up and down, especially with the liquidity. And now we're talking about business cycles and stuff like that. But now it's pretty obvious, obviously with Trump and his radical ideas, some have worked, some have not. Tariffs, when it first was introduced, man, it crashed Markets, Right. Like, I remember when he first introduced it, we went from December all the way to April, crash every day, like four months straight crash. And then one day people realized, okay, it may not be as bad as it looks. And then we start recovering again. And then that's when we went from April to October was one of the greatest recovery periods we have seen for stocks and crypto. And then now, you know, there's more things about tariffs, about Greenland, about, like, NATO, you know, all these things are, again, kind of scaring the markets. So we, we have seen this before. Right now, people are just selling because they're uncertain, they're fearful. But we'll get past it, People will get used to it, and we'll just move forward.
A
Right? Yeah, that makes sense.
B
Your point? You have to cover it. What else is there to talk about?
A
Nothing else to talk about. It's like clarity. Act experts. I mean, it's so funny. You kind of said right before we, I guess, started recording, I was like, well, what are you doing in the market? You're like, I just watched Trump.
B
Exactly.
A
Does that we've really been reduced to. It's sad, but true.
B
Yeah. I'm not saying it's all good. Obviously, there's a lot of crazy moves he's making that is really questionable. Like, you know, this, this Fed independence thing, that's supposed to be the case, but now he's going after Powell. And even though everyone hates Powell and thinks that he should cut rates faster, but, like, you know, hate to see him being pressured like this. So, yeah, I'm not saying, like, it's all good or all bad. It's just there.
A
You just have to pay attention to. And if you're not paying attention to it, you're probably going to lose money or make bad decisions, unfortunately.
B
Right.
A
Wow. What a world, what a market, man. There's a very different conversation than we've had in the past. I can't wait to see what the next one will bring. George, thank you so much. I think. Where can everybody, by the way, check out Clash Royale play with you?
B
Well, the website is called George plays clashroyale.com so they can just go to it, see everything about the project, tournaments and about Clash picks and about everything else that we're doing. Or just go to my channel, Cryptozeros, in the description. You'll see all the links, everything in there.
A
Really interesting, man. You give me hope that we can still build stuff that people will be excited about and that the token can go up as a result. It's been a while since we've seen much of that.
B
Thank you. And thanks for having me on.
A
Yeah, man. Awesome. Thank you.
B
That's dope.
Host: Scott Melker
Guest: George Tung
Date: January 24, 2026
This episode explores how the traditional Bitcoin four-year cycle appears to be broken, with new forces—especially politics, macroeconomics, and alternative speculative markets—now driving crypto movements. Scott Melker and George Tung dive into why 2026 looks and feels so different from every prior crypto cycle, unpack how leverage, prediction markets, and shifting regulation are changing the landscape, and discuss strategies for thriving in this new environment. George also details his pivot to building projects in crypto, such as his meme-turned-community project, Clash Token.
This episode captures the sense of dislocation felt by long-time crypto participants as traditional cycles break down and new, often unpredictable forces dominate. With liquidity splintered, speculation moving to new venues, and the regulatory environment swinging wildly, the podcast delivers frank reflection, cautious optimism, and clear-eyed advice: focus on building and community, pay close attention to macro events, and don’t expect the old playbook to work in 2026.
To learn more about George’s project, visit: georgeplaysclashroyale.com