← The Wolf Of All Streets
The Wolf Of All Streets
“Bitcoin’s REAL Bull Run Begins When THIS Happens & Nobody’s Ready!” | Austin Arnold
00:55:12
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- [00:00]
A
Will 2026 be the biggest year bitcoin and crypto have ever seen? Because that's exactly what we said about 2025. And instead of breaking out, it broke people. Regulation flipped, institutions showed up, governments embraced blockchain, and somehow prices went nowhere while most altcoins got absolutely destroyed.
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B
So what actually went wrong?
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A
And more importantly, what happens next?
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B
In this episode, I sit down with.
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A
Austin Arnold from Altcoin Daily to break down why Bitcoin quietly became a macro asset.
- [00:31]
C
Bitcoin's a macro that my audience I see in the comments section. I try and read all of them. They say, why don't you change the name to Bitcoin Daily?
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B
Why Narratives died.
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C
The majority of my friends outside crypto, they're still not really even paying attention to crypto. If they have any extra spending money, it's going towards something else. They're not putting it into crypto. Bitcoin isn't that sexy to the average person.
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B
Why liquidity, not Headlines control everything when.
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C
Global liquidity picks up. Cause right now liquidity is being sucked dry. When it gets picked up, the next trend that really hits is going to be when global liquidity really hits and not the other way around.
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A
And why 2026 could be the real.
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B
Turning point for crypto.
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C
2025 and now into 2026 because the clarity act has been pushed to early. 2026 is our 1996 moment for crypto.
- [01:21]
A
If you've been questioning your conviction, ignoring price noise, or wondering whether this cycle is in fact broken, this conversation might change how you see.
- [01:32]
C
That'S dope.
- [01:47]
A
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- [03:11]
B
So 2025 has been a trying year for the crypto market. I think that we got a lot of the fundamental catalyst that we expected and price just didn't follow. You know, I watch your videos obviously on a very regular basis, but would love to hear you sort of frame how you're looking at the past 12 months now that we have the benefit of hindsight.
- [03:33]
C
Yeah. Scott, thank you for having me on. Love your channel. I think 2025 for crypto at least, price action wise has been underwhelming. Fundamentally it's been really great. Like fundamentally, the SEC Full Pro Crypto, the CFTC Full Pro crypto, regulatorily, regulation wise, we're at such a better place than just one year ago, yet price is up like 25% from all time highs of 2021. So I think for me personally, Altcoin Daily speaks to an audience of 3.5 million across global all social platforms. A lot of us are here for the long term and to me 2025 has just been a sideways year.
- [04:17]
B
Yeah, I mean the name's Altcoin Daily but you couldn't talk about Altcoins Daily if you had to at this point in 2025.
- [04:23]
C
Right.
- [04:23]
B
All of our narratives now we don't get to talk about crypto anymore. Now we have to be macro economists. We have to talk about the bank of Japan and inflation and the Fed and what the government's doing. It's really a wild departure from the conversations we would have had in the past.
- [04:39]
C
Bitcoin's a macro asset. My audience I see in the comment section, I try and read all of them, comment as many as I can. They say, why don't you change the name to Bitcoin Daily? To me this is obviously we wouldn't do that for branding wise, but to me this is what it all comes down to. Bitcoin did underperform for a lot of people's expectations in 2025. For me personally and what I try and educate my audience Is it's always been a multi year timeframe. Like the investing thesis that I made in 2018 when I went full time into cryptocurrency has not changed. And I try and check in every year has not changed now that we're in the year 2025. And to me there's three big factors that I look for when I'm setting my investors thesis for crypto. Number one, big picture, macro wise, do we think that people in the United States and just globally are going to keep losing trust in their government, losing trust in big centralized entities like we saw the last 10, 20 years, or are we going to suddenly gain trust for these big corporations, these big governments? No, we're losing trust. The debasement trade, that word became very popular this year. But inflation, debasement of the currency, that's something you and me were talking about. Bitcoiners were talking about since 2018, since well before that. Do I believe that the US government and Central banks around the world, globally are going to suddenly get fiscally responsible or are they going to continue? The lawmakers prioritize short term gains to get reelected and debase the currency in the short term and kick the can down the road for the long term. I think the last 10 years inflation and debasement has only gotten worse. I think that's going to continue at least for the next 10 years. I'm not seeing that changing yet. And the third thing, Scott, do I think the world is going to get more digital in the next 10 years just like it's gotten more digital since the 90s, which is less 20 years or less digital? No, the world is obviously going to keep getting more digital and in this digital world we're going to need an asset that's hard capped limited supply insurance policy against those central banks globally, anywhere. So to me, bitcoin has not gotten less relevant. Bitcoin has gotten more relevant. And in that long term timeframe I'm more bullish on bitcoin. It's just what's going to happen in the short term, Anybody's guess.
- [06:59]
B
Yeah, I agree. So what does that mean for the rest of the market? Because I think you just made a great case for bitcoin and I think we know that there will be massive adoption of blockchain technology. We've seen that across the board, right? I mean BTC talking about tokenize everything, the SEC talking about tokenize everything. But will that value be captured by the tokens that we already hold and love or is it basically just going to be Co opted by Wall street and these institutions. And once again the little guy who was so passionate about this sort of gets left out.
- [07:28]
C
I go back to two things. Number one, I don't think last, I don't think last cycles altcoins will be this cycles altcoins. I don't think the winners have been chosen yet. I think we do see some separating themselves from the pack. For example, my biggest holding is Bitcoin. My second biggest holding is Ethereum. It has the most liquidity, it has the most on chain activity. And in these times of risk, off behavior uncertainty we see the activity going back to these stronger chains like Ethereum. To me, I mean I didn't sell any. To me, Ethereum still in play. We're about, I just checked, I think we're about 40% around there from all time highs from four months ago for Ethereum. For Solana we're down 57%. To me it is a no brainer that Ethereum at least can return to its all time highs. A 40% game just based on fundamentals. Are the fundamentals getting worse or getting better? No, the fundamentals I think are double, triple as good as they were just two years ago, a year and a half ago. Yet price is down 40% from all time highs. Now the big question is when and can it go higher after that? I think it can, but just in terms of how much better the asset is now compared to a year ago price I don't think has matched up yet.
- [08:49]
B
I agree with all of that. And those are my two largest holdings as well. And my third is Solana. I've become the most boring, predictable crypto investor of all time. Which I feel like is just consensus across the board. A lot of that is just my portfolio has naturally rebalanced itself by the over performance of those few assets and the just utter disgrace the rest of the market.
- [09:13]
C
Right.
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B
I mean it didn't start that way. A lot of these things just kind of trended towards zero. I'm not saying they're going to zero, but it's just been an absolute slaughterhouse. I mean it's been really, really brutal.
- [09:23]
C
In a quote unquote bull market, 100%. And I still, the majority of my friends outside crypto, they're still not really even paying attention to crypto. If they have, you know, any extra spending money, it's going towards something else. They're not putting it into crypto. And those that are, I still have friends and I try and tell them otherwise, they're still putting it into Shib or other coins.
- [09:45]
B
So still.
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C
So in that sense, we are early.
- [09:49]
B
Yeah, I guess. I mean, I believe that. I mean, maybe there's a lot of reasons altcoin season hasn't happened. I think obviously the institutionalization is one part of it because money from ETFs doesn't flow down to coin number 96 on CoinMarketCap. Right. It's just captured in a different vehicle. But I also think the meme coin trend and the Trump token really just destroyed retail interest in altcoins. And I think there was this conflation of all altcoins being one thing. So Trump to many people was the same as Ethereum or the same as Solana, which obviously isn't true. But how are you going to get a higher ceiling for any token not named Bitcoin than the President launching one?
- [10:32]
C
Can I give you my biggest fear, Scott? On top of that, like what you just said, I think that some of the biggest catalysts we had in 2025 were institutions buying through the ETFs or just Wall street buying through the ETFs. Digital asset treasuries buying. Now digital asset treasuries have vastly slowed down and stopped buying assets. Michael Saylor has slowed down, although he's not stopping. And then just this pro regulation, all those three things very bullish for crypto. I think the biggest, my biggest fear is if they not that there's been any illegal behavior like the meme coin, there's really no rules, stuff like that, but just the visibility or if people think there's nefarious behavior, then they're going to just put, oh, crypto is a Republican thing, crypto is a Trump thing. We have to take them down because he is using that illegally. So the whole thing must be illegal. That combined with obviously Trump wants a very positive economy going into the midterms in 2026. A lot of people think the President usually gets it because he's so divisive. There's a lot of people thinking, hey, in order to win the midterms, we're going to have to slow this economy up. The fact that cryptocurrency is becoming so political, to me that's the only short term headwind that I think can really affect price.
- [11:55]
B
Yeah, I think it's a mixed bag obviously with the Trump administration. Right. Because it's undoubtedly a huge pendulum swing in the right direction from the contentious relationship with Gary Gensler and the Biden administration and Elizabeth Warren and like the anti crypto army was soundly beaten in the Last election. But then you get the personal side, so you get all the policy and regulation legislation in the right direction. But then you get him, obviously, and his family being spokespeople for the industry and taking advantage of the opportunity to make money. And so if the anti crypto army had been dead right at election time and it was really unpalatable to be anti crypto, well, now I feel like they're just like keeping a list and checking it twice of all the bad things they're going to use if they ever get back in power. And we do know that, like it never stays one color forever in politics.
- [12:45]
C
100%. And if I had to pick anything, policy is most important policy. The crypto. I think this is almost dreamlike, you know, a golden age of pro regulation we're getting. I'm not the first guy to say this, but I think really 2025 and now into 2026, because the clarity act has been pushed to early. 2026 is our 1996 moment for crypto versus the Internet. Because back in 1996, a piece of legislation passed, it was called the Telecommunications act, that really deregulated and offered just basic guidelines to allow the Internet to thrive in 1996. And a lot of people back then thought, okay, 1996, we've had a good run. The Internet is not going away, but it's probably peaking out right now. No, it's being constrained by the lack of regulation, just holding it back. And once the Telecommunications act happened, obviously that ushered in years more of innovation and upside for the Internet. I think that's where we are with crypto today. And the Clarity act passing in to 2026 hopefully is going to be that catalyst.
- [13:55]
B
Yeah, we obviously, we thought that was going to happen in August. Right. That we had this president making statements in the spring that he expect that on his desk and to be signed by August. Obviously that didn't happen. Then we got the government shutdown, another one coming.
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C
Yeah.
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B
And now it's December with another government shutdown potentially looming and then midterm. So our Goldilocks window here to get this done is closing. I'm not saying it won't happen. I'm just if we have to be realistic when it comes to the government at their speed at which they do things and how quickly their priorities change. And man, if that doesn't get done, then none of this stuff is codified. It can just be erased again by another administration that doesn't like the industry 100%.
- [14:41]
C
And I have heard Sec Chair Paul Atkins comment on this, that they don't need the Clarity Act. It would sure help and make it bipartisan and make this the stickiest thing ever. But he is already, you know, saying his main goal with the SEC is to tokenize traditional finance. That will happen without the Clarity act, although that does get the. There is the fear that once the new SEC chair is elected, years from now, could that be reversed? We need that Clarity act to make it sticky.
- [15:09]
B
Yeah. He was talking about future proofing regulation, I think was the term that he used. So a lot of credit to them for understanding that this is a moment in time and that it needs to really be solidified. So.
- [15:21]
C
And it's so obvious. Yeah, it's so obvious that we're using an archaic system. Why should the traditional markets close at 4pm in this digital world? All these rules, a lot of these rules were in existence before the Internet or just when the Internet was turning on. The technology's gotten so much better, and thus finance. Finance and technology so intertwined now should get better to match.
- [15:46]
B
I was having a conversation with a Wall street friend, a hedge fund guy, the other day, and I was mocking him that the NASDAQ was announcing they were going to go 23 hours a day, seven days a week, take one hour off. And he. He was like, markets are going to crash. He's like, we can't do it. You know, And I was like, yeah, you can. We do it. But his point was, you know, like, Wall street is built for fixed hours. What happens on a Saturday when all these guys are, like, with their kids at a soccer game and markets crash?
- [16:14]
C
What happens when President Trump has to announce some big macro bad news, like tariffs, like he's been doing all year in 2025, he usually waited till after hours on a Friday or during a weekend when the stock market couldn't crash. Thank you for getting traditional finance practically to the same standards as crypto.
- [16:32]
B
Yeah, but they're not going to be able to handle it. It's going to be a complete disaster. But I'm here for it. Don't get me wrong. I mean, Trump even launched his meme coin on Friday night at 9:30pm or something. Right?
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C
Exactly.
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A
During the crypto ball.
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C
Talk about a fever dream. I didn't think that was real. I was literally watching Severance the show with my friends, a big severance party. And I'm like, guys, the president to be just launched a meme coin. And I just kind of sort of just like, let it go. As if, like, it didn't register. Yet, like, is this real? He must have been hacked. And little did I know that was the start.
- [17:04]
B
I was at a dinner with a couple friends as well and they. One of my friends checked Twitter, not a crypto guy, but owns bitcoin, and said the Trump just launched a mean coin. I said, no way. There's really no way three days before he's inaugurated or whatever it was that he's like, that there's legitimate. Just like you said, it has to be a hack. He was saying, should we buy it? You know it's going to go up. We probably should have at that moment, to be quite honest. But that was pretty unbelievable. I really do think that that was highly problematic. I mean, I know we've already talked about that, but I think that the hangover from that just never goes away.
- [17:36]
C
I think he should have done it after the Clarity act passes because he did it in. There's nothing wrong with doing it if there's clear rules. And obviously meme coins are not going away. But the fact that it has been done without the Clarity act passing, will this fit into the frame that Congress lawmakers on both sides are trying to pass? That's the big issue. And it would have just been seen as just so much more compliant as the president if he was a private citizen. Do whatever you want. But as a public figure that's working in the government for the United States, it would have been nice to do it after the Clarity Act. But either way it happened, right?
- [18:13]
B
So the Clarity act, let's in our minds just say that it's happening. Okay, Say we get the Clarity act in January or February. David Sachs just said this week he thinks January markup, it's a very real reality. We're hearing that from the industry as well. So I'm going to go ahead and trust him on this one. Do you think that that is a significant short term market catalyst? Can that help altcoins shake off the malaise that we've been in when you can literally look at them and say, this is not a security. I can trade this thing, no questions asked, into perpetuity.
- [18:46]
C
I think the Clarity act coming in 2026 will be the biggest crypto catalyst we've seen in the last few years. Good. Now what that means for price, I think it'll be a catalyst akin to what we saw with the bitcoin having in 2024 the ETFs getting launched and even more closely to the Genius act stablecoin bill that got passed earlier this year. Catalyst that we saw every Single time with those big ones, price run up into it, chop solidation on it and a little after it and then price decline and people yelling up. It was just a fake out. There wasn't anything a big deal here. I think we'll see something similar to that again. But again, what this does for crypto in the next five years, 10 years, this is a revolution. This totally changes the game and brings crypto, which was a scourge on traditional finance. Bitcoin grew hundreds of x higher in the last 15 years in spite being a scourge on traditional finance. Now crypto is finally accepted in the limelight, Regulated. Big money can finally feel comfortable getting in. And what the Clarity act, how the Clarity act will do that is just so simple. Right now it's unclear whether something is a commodity or a security. Is it sufficiently decentralized us in crypto we could probably name it pretty accurately. But until it's written down in the law books, big money does not feel comfortable entering Ethereum, let alone other altcoins. Even though Ethereum ETFs are out, they are allowed. I think the Clarity act is going to open up so many pools of capital that finally feel it's compliant, it's regulated. We're not going to get in trouble for suggesting this at the company meeting.
- [20:34]
B
So it seems like we've lost the excitement in the industry around a lot of the narratives that we've had over the past few years. We've seen sort of temporary bubbles. The defi summer metaverse fall NFT is like most of those things have effectively trended towards zero. Right? But a few things in each sort of bucket have still continue to live and show some promise.
- [20:56]
A
But this whole year, which should have.
- [20:58]
B
Been the fourth year of the bull cycle, the four year cycle when all coin should have gone nuts, as we said, it really hasn't. So I understand why there's no excitement around these narratives and things. But is there anything on your radar that still gets you really going that you believe will be a major use case investable for retail into the future?
- [21:21]
C
I think a number one, the debasement trade. Bitcoin isn't that sexy to the average person. But we saw how retail flocked to gold. It went up, I think 10 trillion or maybe 9 trillion in a couple days. It was crazy. People thought gold was dead. No, they were just waiting for the narrative to hook. It had sort of bullish consolidation for months and months and months and months and finally FOMO into it. If that can happen to gold, Bitcoin's price could double overnight. That's just 2 trillion. I think it's very realistic that bitcoin, which I believe is a better gold, it's more scarce, it's more transferable, it transcends time and space. I think that can it at least get to one third of gold? Yeah. And with gold being 29, $30 trillion, that would bring Bitcoin to around 9, $10 trillion. That's Bitcoin between 300,000 per coin to 500,000 per coin. Very realistic given enough time. So I think that's not going away. I think that AI is not going away. Obviously 2025 was the year of AI. Maybe it has a little lull, but this, but you know, we're still in heavy competition against these other big governments, China, whatever. So AI is not going away. I think projects like I'm much more of an infrastructure guy so my little bets could go to zero. High risk. You know, I know Tao Bittensor, Tao doing big things where it's just seed investing all these AI startups and just Tao is just investing in the infrastructure of that. And then I honestly think this cycle's altcoins are not going to be next cycle's altcoins. Maybe we get their robotics trend, maybe we get deci decentralized science. I know Brian Armstrong has a coin around that and I think one of the most valuable things that you and I do, we're in the trenches, we're on the ground and then we're watching these things come to fruition. So when it happens, I'm ready, but I'm not sure yet.
- [23:30]
B
Yeah, the one that I guess surprised this year was ecash by the way. See I've so removed now from the altcoin market which is crazy because listen, you're altcoin daily. My first audience was me doing charting streams and just going through chart, chart, chart, chart, chart and altcoin, altcoin, altcoin, altcoin. It's just not that exciting.
- [23:54]
C
Right.
- [23:54]
B
But I mean zcash came out of nowhere and even as the market corrected, zcash was still flat. So maybe it's worth unpacking. Whether in your mind privacy is a real narrative, does that have legs or is it another one of these sort of defi summer, metaverse, fall, NFT summer type things. I think privacy is exceptionally important. I'm not sure that I've dug in deep enough to know if zcash is the answer to that or if that's the reason that it's actually pumped or sort of the narrative justifying sort of a coordinated fomo.
- [24:30]
C
Yeah. Privacy is not going away. Zcash was sort of the canary in the coal mine telling us that whether it's defi SEM or not, privacy will be a trend in 2026 and beyond. If nothing else, because I think stablecoins, you and I, the audience can all agree on that. Stablecoins are not going away. And do we want those stablecoins to be totally public when we're actually paying for goods and services every day? Do we want the merchants to be able to see our wallets? No. So Ethereum is a public blockchain. So whether or not it's zcash or not, privacy is not going away. I think that will be a major trend for 2026. And while Zcash did a almost a 20x in just a few months, while the rest of the market was going to crap, I don't think zcash is the answer. I personally think it's too much in between. It's neither, as they say, as the olden time people say, it's neither fish nor foul, meaning it's not one or the other. It's volatile like Bitcoin and it appreciates, presumably like Bitcoin. And I don't want to spend my Bitcoin. That's a store value. I think the Stable coins will be used for privacy and I think we're going to see that with Ethereum layer 2s. I know protocols like Aleo, they're focusing on stablecoins, so I think that's coming out of other protocols.
- [25:53]
B
Yeah, the stablecoin conversation is really just interesting. Maybe it's constructive to look at the genius act and kind of project forward what would happen after the Clarity act.
- [26:02]
C
Right.
- [26:02]
B
So we, although stable coins are boring, that's not really that investable. I wish I could have like gone long Tether's market cap or something. Right. As a trade, 100%. Because buying a stablecoin isn't really an investment. But we've seen this explosion of different ways that institutions and individuals will approach stablecoins. Right. So you've got obviously the big two, Tether and Circle and they're rushing to do partnerships and to basically become the infrastructure for all of these new stablecoin issuers. But now you have down to Coinbase this week announcing that you can do your own white label stablecoin on Coinbase Altcoin Daily SD and it'll be backed by their custody and you have your own stablecoin. Right. So now it's everybody gets a stablecoin.
- [26:50]
C
Just like the meme coins. Stablecoins, the new meme coins. To ME that says 2025 was the year of institutions. Wall street regulation 2026 doubling down, going harder. And, and I think what we're seeing and what I've been seeing, I study the altcoin market every single day, try and look at the data and Ethereum which was already the dominant layer one for stablecoins is increasing its market share. Tron which is number two, their market share for stablecoins is decreasing. And then we're seeing Solana and maybe Binance smart chain coming up a little bit as that third and fourth option. But Stablecoins are being built on Ethereum. Tom Lee was right. I don't know if Ethereum is the answer in 10 years but right now Ethereum today, this year, next year has the liquidity, has the market share and we're seeing the actual activity on the Ethereum blockchain.
- [27:41]
B
Yeah, it's interesting because there was a moment I haven't looked of late but there was more tether on Tron than Ethereum for a while. Right. Last year. But I don't think USDC is on Tron at all. Right. So as like the, I think the grander stablecoin market grows and tether becomes even a smaller percentage of it. Just naturally Ethereum really starts to heavily.
- [28:05]
C
Win more and we're seeing two worlds form in crypto now because crypto five years ago was a wild wild west. Crypto today has made it, it's being institutionalized for better or for worse. That's what's happening. And I don't think these non compliant chains or offshore chains like Tron, that's not in America, that's offshore, are not going away. But the big money now is in the institutions. It's from Wall street and they're going to go what's most compliant, what's safest, what the largest financial market in the world the United States deems acceptable. All that's coming through the Clarity Act. But we can already see Ethereum and Solana are clearly the one that has the most mind share. They're being talked about and it's not that Tron and other, not just about Tron, it's not like these other chains aren't going away, but the largest financial market in the world is pushing you, pushing big pools of capital towards these more accepted, more regulated, more American or western chains. And that's why I think we're seeing.
- [29:09]
B
Them grow and sort of why you See Tether obviously making a major push to create a more compliant stablecoin in the United States. They have Bohain now running the US side. Whether it will be Tether itself that becomes basically approved in the United States or they create some other version of it, they obviously see exactly what you're saying and want to make sure that they don't lose that piece of the pie.
- [29:34]
C
Well, what's that one saying? It's like if I borrow a million dollars from the bank, I'm calling them every day, whatever. But if I borrow 500 million, they're calling me, they're inviting me out for lunch, whatever that saying is. That's Tether. They have so much treasuries, they're so intertwined with the US dollar that it's the United States best interest. And I think we're seeing that that they're accepting Tether because Tether is so entwined with the US dollar and treasuries now.
- [30:03]
B
So what about gaming and NFTs and metaverses and all the things that we were so excited about in the past? I'm not saying that the tokens that we bought because of that should come back, but do you think that a better version or that narrative can return? Do you think those things are coming back around? I personally was really excited about Gunzilla. It was a literal AAA game. It was at the top of the streamers, it was the top of the store. Really, really popular, built on Avax, a real crypto blockchain within in game assets. And maybe it was the market, but just the token at least didn't perform. I'm sure the game is still doing well, but I thought that might be a breakthrough. Right. There was a game shrapnel that looked like that too. Not really my core competency, but still.
- [30:54]
A
Seems like rationally in game assets that.
- [30:58]
B
Are transferable and have monetary value is a really good idea.
- [31:02]
C
Yeah, to me that's the most obvious1. In 2021 the big talking point was it's the most or gamers spend hundreds of millions, maybe billions of dollars in in game assets they don't own putting them on the blockchain. They have digital ownership for the first time ever. So it's a no brainer. It didn't really catch on to me. Scott. I'm almost, I'm thinking more and more that the trend that catches on isn't necessarily going to be because that's because people see it and then put money in it. I think the money will be there first and then Whatever trend is popping off, that's where it'll go. If that's not clear, I mean when global liquidity picks up. Because right now in the United States and globally, liquidity is being sucked dry when it gets picked up, whether it's defi, whether it's robotics, whether it's a DSI. I think in 2021 NFTs got the most benefits because global liquidity was popping off from all the stuff they printed in 2020 and the liquidity got sucked into those. Gaming is not going away. The question is how valuable should it be? Hopefully GTA 6 comes out and they have some component to jumpstart to that revolution. But I think the next trend that really hits is going to be when global liquidity really hits and not the other way around.
- [32:23]
B
So crazy that we've just dumbed down our entire asset class price action to one huge macro factor. But it really is just pretty obvious.
- [32:34]
C
It's crazy. And it's also crazy to me that other people, I don't like to psych myself out too much. But if it's so obvious then what am I not seeing? If it's so obvious? Doesn't everybody see this?
- [32:47]
B
Yeah, but we still expected 2025 that everything would go.
- [32:51]
C
That's true. Markets are inefficient.
- [32:52]
B
But maybe the liquidity that we were expecting just didn't come in the same regard. Like we didn't necessarily expect a 60 day or more government shut down when nothing was happening. And I think a lot of people thought that the Fed would start cutting earlier and that the treasury would behave differently. So maybe we're just on a delay. To me though, if we are on a delay, that means that 2026, four year cycle be damned, could be exceptionally good 100%.
- [33:19]
C
And I think speaking of delay, one of the biggest gifts Gary Gensler ever gave us was suppressing crypto markets for so long that I got to accumulate more bitcoin, I got to accumulate more Ethereum. And I know that sounds lame for somebody who just wants price to go up tomorrow, which I do too. It's nice to see portfolio go up. Based on my investors thesis that I talked about before. Bitcoin is not going away. It will be one third of gold one day, half of gold. I think it can compete with gold and taking that long term time frame, you know, gives it presents the opportunity now when prices can do anything tomorrow.
- [33:54]
B
I mean the gold move, if you frame it that way is so exceptionally.
- [33:59]
A
Bullish because when gold was at like.
- [34:01]
B
12 billion and crypto trillion. A trillion. Excuse me. And crypto was one or two, whatever it was. And we used to say, listen, if we get to even half of gold, we're talking about 5, 6, $7 trillion market cap. Well, now, if we're talking about half of gold, and I don't think any of us think that thesis has changed if bitcoin fulfills its promise. Now we're talking about 14, 15, 16 trillion, right? So gold's rise, even though bitcoin didn't really participate, actually just increases the upside potential. If you still believe in that narrative.
- [34:35]
C
Scott, here's my prediction for 2026. And gold investors are going to hate this. But I think what we'll find out in 2026 is because the gold price has gone parabolic, some people are saying it's going to hit 5,000 and at least hit 4,000. We're going to find six months, eight months later, that they invested heavily into mining more gold, AKA inflating the supply. If you put double the gold miners in they mine, double the gold, inflate that supply higher, which devalues the actual purchasing power of gold for you or me, whoever holds gold, you can't do that with bitcoin. That could be the catalyst at the end of 2026 that lets people be reminded why bitcoin is fundamentally better. But honestly, I think that is so much of a learning curve that could not be till 2030 that's coming. But I think 2026 will find the gold thing out.
- [35:31]
B
So it's not exactly the same, but we saw bitcoin miners do the exact same thing at the top of the last bull market. Right. They invested massively in ASICs and miners because they thought that the bull market was going to never end. And they were buying machines at 15, 20 thousand dollars that six months later were two or three thousand dollars. And there's a massive delay to getting them online. So by the time they got those machines online, we were at the depths of a bear market where it wasn't even profitable for them to plug them in. This is reflective of human behavior at the top of a bull market, regardless, even the smartest money and the smartest people. So, yeah, I would imagine that there's a hell of a lot more people out there prospecting for gold right now that weren't thinking about it at all. When it actually look at it, 4400, wherever it is, it kind of looks like it could double top and you could just see kind of consolidation on gold for a long time. And listen, even to add to that, gold and silver are kind of bitcoin, Bitcoin and ethereum. Right.
- [36:26]
A
Gold topped. And then silver went absolutely nuts.
- [36:29]
C
100%.
- [36:29]
B
Bitcoin topped. Ethereum goes nuts.
- [36:31]
C
And let's remind the new subscribers about the difference between gold and bitcoin. When. When people did mine all that bitcoin at the top of the cycle or invest more in miners, the same amount of bitcoin was being produced every 10 minutes, every blocks. It readjusted. So you'll only get this amount of bitcoin every day. Today it's around 450 gold. Totally different. You could double the amount of output you're getting.
- [36:55]
B
Yeah, it is completely different. It's just really reflective of the behavior, is that when you see those kind of things, it's usually a topic when they finally everybody decides to go out and just like you're, you know, everybody has a friend who's like the ultimate top signal.
- [37:10]
C
Everybody had that Uber driver in the last few months saying, hey, man, have you invested in gold? Yeah.
- [37:16]
B
Yeah, gold. Gold feels a little cooked to me. But. But I have no idea. And I think that would probably be pretty good for bitcoin just in a mean reversion trade, like a slight dip in gold and a slight rise in bitcoin and they start to close the gap pretty quickly. Yeah.
- [37:31]
C
And despite how I like to talk about the differences, I like gold. I like bitcoin. I think most gold investors, I think most bitcoiners like gold. And you can like them both. To me, I think gold used to be what they consider money for enemies. Meaning maybe you don't want to use America's money. Maybe you don't want to use China's money. You don't trust it. That was gold. Money for enemies. Now it's bitcoin because it's much more transferable globally. It's actually fixed.
- [38:00]
B
Yeah, I 100% agree with that. When looking at the market for 2026, I would say the only thing that I won't even say concerns me, but I think there's a lot of anticipation that the year will start and all of a sudden we'll see a bull run because liquidity will start coming in and we'll start to see stimulus and all these things. I have a sneaking suspicion that it's going to be really boring for the first half of the year. I could be totally wrong, by the way. And then when we really start ramping up into midterms, that's when you see stimulus checks and, and fed cuts and all of those things. Not that I'm such a skeptic of the government. That's just how it works, right? I mean, you appease the people ahead of elections. They can't have the stock market crash next September. They can have a crash in February, by the way, and recover by summer. And nobody remembers it even happened because we have lizard brains.
- [38:46]
C
That'd be healthy.
- [38:47]
B
Yeah, I think everybody knows that a correction should theoretically be due.
- [38:53]
C
Yeah.
- [38:53]
B
I guess I am saying as I think it through that maybe we're still in for a lot more of that chop solidation you love to talk about for a while.
- [39:01]
C
I think just looking at the technicals on Altcoin Daily we talk about fundamental analysis and of course technical analysis, as you do too. When we broke under that 50 week moving average that if history rhymes signals the start of the bear market and every single bear market in bitcoin's history, we have usually returned. If we broke under the 50, we may bounce back, get rejected and then go back down to the 200, which.
- [39:28]
B
Is at 56 right now and rising. But it's at 56.
- [39:32]
C
It's at 56. So if history rhymes, that's what we should see. I think in the short term people are just waiting for us to return to the 50 week and then see if we can break above it.
- [39:42]
B
Probably 102, 101, 103 somewhere in that ballpark right now.
- [39:47]
C
I think I would love to see in the short term bitcoin. I would like to see this bitcoin take one more leg down. I don't think all the sellers have been necessarily exhausted from the market yet. I know we have big resistance around $70,000 because that was last week, that was last cycle's all time high, 69,000. But I think what's going to the pain trade, you know, what's going to get. The market likes to take the most amount of money from the most amount of people is if we grind up for the next couple weeks, maybe two months up to that 101, 102, wherever that 50 week is, maybe even break above it. And then Everybody says, oh, October 10th was just a, you know, that was a one time thing, we're going much higher and then we break back down, you know, get the most amount of money from the most amount of people, break back down to 70 and then we'll see if you know, 55, 56 comes to fruition. I hope it doesn't. But the beauty of being a dollar cost averager, Scott, the beauty of thinking long term is it doesn't really matter because you know, it's what's bitcoin is going to be in five years, 10 years. But it is nice to see portfolio.
- [40:54]
B
I do. I'm actually like, I love high prices of course, because it makes our lives a lot easier. It makes our audience have a lot more fun, it makes more people watch, there's more interest. But I for one still have more money coming in in the future that I would like to get in the market. And I would prefer to buy Bitcoin at 70 to 125. I actually have no mental problem with it going down from here. Beyond the fact that we have to psychologically deal with that, especially as public figures in the space, we have to.
- [41:24]
C
Answer for it 100%. It's much nicer. The audience likes it much more when price is going up, which I do too. I like what Michael Saylor said. Michael Saylor, the biggest bitcoin bull out there. When bitcoin crashed down the first time back $100,000, he went on a Michael Saylor rant, which we all love him for saying how lucky, how lucky we are that the price isn't at $10 million yet we get to buy it 100x or I forget the math. But that much of a discount Because Michael Saylor and in Wall street in general and governments around the world, they're thinking in decades, they're thinking in multi year blackrock didn't open up all their bitcoin products in the last two years to sell. Today BlackRock opened up all these Bitcoin products. BlackRock is aggressively buying bitcoin for what it's going to be five and ten years from now.
- [42:16]
B
Do you think that there's any negative intent from these institutions or do you think they're just finding their way in? I mean a lot of people, like I kind of joke that I remember a time when JP Morgan was evil. Now we're reporting on JP Morgan's adoption every day. It's kind of like cognitive dissonance. I don't like Jamie Dimon. I really don't. The JP Morgan playing at our pool. But objectively, you know, them taking bitcoin as collateral is probably a necessary move if bitcoin's going to eat Wall street, right? So it's kind of a catch 22.
- [42:45]
C
I think JP Morgan finally realized crypto doesn't need them, but they need crypto to stay relevant with their clients. And I think of these big banks and blackrock as more mercenaries than missionaries Meaning they're not in it for the mission, for the lore, for the separating money and state. They're in it to make money. And they will sell in a double. They will flood the market, tell you we're going much lower as they encourage their clients to buy. They're not our friends, but we are aligned in the same team, understanding this technology is not going away. And just like the Internet, good people use it, bad people use it, corporations use it, individuals use it. Not going away. And adoption is just bringing in new users.
- [43:32]
B
It's funny, I mean, it's. You talked about gold being money for enemies, but crypto has a whole lot of that too, when you think about it in that way. Right. Like they can't destroy bitcoin. And if bitcoin is going to become the global reserve asset, our enemies have to adopt it as well. I'm not necessarily saying JP Morgan is.
- [43:49]
C
The enemy, but the idea is there 100%. And let's think about this, Scott. I used to use this example with Russia, but I think China in the last year has been heavily getting into gold. Let's just say to beat the debasement trade, any of these, let's not even put a name on it. You think of China, you think of Russia, whatever enemy government or other government, number one, they say to get our people straight, to do good by our people, we're going back to sound monetary policy. We're going to go back to a gold standard, and that's going to solve everything. If that enemy government said, announced we have this much gold in our safe, would we believe them? No. It's a big unknown.
- [44:36]
B
People don't even believe the United States has the gold in Fort Knox. Right.
- [44:38]
C
100%. Where's that audit?
- [44:40]
B
Anyone else? Right. Yeah.
- [44:42]
C
But bitcoin, verifiable, you know, money, money for enemies, transparent, verifiable, and changes the game monetarily.
- [44:50]
B
So what do you think about the strategic bitcoin reserve that was the other sort of big narrative of 20, 25 coming out of 24, was that we were going to likely get that on the Trump presidency. Now, they haven't started buying bitcoin, but they've been. I'm trying to think of a nice way to say it without saying stealing, but taking it from people all over the world, criminals and otherwise. Right. So, I mean, we've actually got a pretty big stack, although we still haven't even gotten an audit on that.
- [45:14]
C
Getting an audit would be a very easy thing to keep bitcoiners happy. I'm not sure why we haven't gotten that yet. I think it's a huge deal that they have officially announced. We're keeping the bitcoin we already have, that we confiscated. That means it's valuable. That's still a signal to other governments. I think it's very hard to announce we're using some of this tariff money to accumulate bitcoin. We're accumulating bitcoin and non taxable ways. It's very hard to do that when the economy for average people, even in this K shaped economy for stock investors, for regular people is not doing great. So it's very hard to say we're going to prioritize bitcoin when everybody's hurting more potentially than they were six months ago.
- [45:55]
B
Yeah. I mean, is that the vibe that you're getting, is that people just don't have money left to even think about this stuff? That's definitely the vibe that I'm getting.
- [46:01]
C
I think so. I think liquidity is being stretched. I do see that. I don't think it's the end of the world. I don't think we're going to have a 2008 style crash. And while, you know, maybe certain companies, if we're just talking about the traditional market, you can always make the argument that certain AI companies are overvalued. I don't know. You can make that argument. The AI revolution is not going away. It is still, I think this is a mega trend. You know, it's going to be relevant for the next decade, especially as we compete against these other governments. So point is, corrections will happen. You know, corrections are healthy, but people start screaming the end of the world. No, I think we're going up in the next multi year.
- [46:47]
B
Yeah. Which is all that matters. I think people are just so obsessed with the day to day and it's just really hard to detach. And listen, we don't, you know, we contribute to that. Right. We're out here talking about crypto every single day of the world and I'm making shows that are like price action and this and that.
- [47:03]
C
Every day is big news when you're tuning into Altcoin daily.
- [47:06]
A
The thing is. But the thing is that the news has been so big.
- [47:09]
C
Yeah, exactly.
- [47:10]
B
I mean it's sad that we can't talk about price action because the news.
- [47:14]
A
Has been so big.
- [47:15]
B
Like every one of these stories a few years ago would have sent price 10, 15% in an hour, 100%. So I just wonder why no news can move a market. I was laughing. I keep Laughing about it on my shows that like DTCC announced a partnership with Canton Network, which I had never dug into, and they move four quadrillion dollars in volume a year. Quadrillion, the DTCC. Right. They cost you 100 trillion assets. And you would have thought that even the mention of a cryptocurrency next to that would have doubled its price in an hour. And it went up like 3% and 7% or something and dropped back to 3%. That was it.
- [47:54]
A
It's like there's nothing if the largest financial institution in the world does four.
- [48:00]
B
Quadrillion in volume and they're mentioning your coin and that can't move the market. I just don't know I can right now.
- [48:05]
C
Well, I call that bullish divergence. If the fundamentals clearly getting better, but prices staying the same or going down, to me, that's a much better buying opportunity versus prices going up. But the news is getting worse. No, that's. That's when you sell. The bullish divergence is when you buy thinking long term.
- [48:22]
B
I like that. So do you think that at some point next year we look back and.
- [48:27]
A
We go, holy crap, all this stuff.
- [48:29]
B
That happened in 2025 was so important. As price catches up, like all these bullish narratives all of a sudden become these massive catalysts.
- [48:37]
C
I think this is crypto's 1996 moments. I think it's going to be even more clear two years from now, three years from now. Especially as bitcoin and crypto are good. You can use it for mortgages as collateral as issued by the federal housing person Pulte of Trump. It's like all these pools of capital are opening up. Even the ETFs, you know, the huge pools of capital are finally open up. JP Morgan and Wells Fargo weren't able to suggest it to their clients until six months ago. So it went a full year. Clients were able to ask to get in, but the professionals weren't allowed to advise their clients to get in until six months ago. We're seeing all these pools of capital open up and it really. We might not even see results for that until two to three years.
- [49:23]
B
All these things just take a long time. But there's not a single one of these major institutional unlocks that should stop price from going up.
- [49:32]
A
Morgan Stanley's in Vanguard's in Vanguard said never. And now they're talking about letting these. I mean, you're talking about trillions and trillions of dollars of investable money.
- [49:42]
B
And I literally at this point feel like we just need price to go up because that's the best marketing for future price appreciation. We have all these narratives in the world but if bitcoin's all of a sudden 110,000 in a month, everybody's going to be talking about all time highs in fomoine.
- [49:56]
C
And it does in a sense that I always try and think of not just the bullish case because you and me can always. We want the bullish case to happen. We're invested. Is it a problem that crypto is no longer the anti consensus trade, it's now consensus we've arrived. Is that a problem for investing? But then I look back on Michael Saylor talking about the mobile wave in 2010, 2011, saying Amazon and Apple have been the best companies, they will continue to be the best for the next 10 years and to me that makes sense for quality crypto assets with product market fit as well.
- [50:35]
B
We keep mentioning Saylor. I think I would imagine you and I are both still bullish on microstrategy long term. I actually think it kind of looks like a glaring buy where it is right now. But what about the. Well first of all I don't want to put words in your mouth but what about the rest of the digital asset treasury space?
- [50:51]
C
They're suffering. I think yes, Saylor's going to be okay. I don't own any strategy just because I'm pure bitcoin. I'll take that volatility but I think strategy is good to invest in in a bull market it'll go up higher than Bitcoin and a bear market will go down lower. If you believe in bitcoin long term and strategy, MSDR is going to do great. I think we don't need five different digital asset treasuries in America or in one region for one protocol. I think it makes sense to have one to two Ethereum DATs, one to two Solana DATs. Obviously I think it marked the top the digital asset treasury is buying. Sui buying Bittensor buying these lower cap coins and Ethereum and Bitcoin that mark the top. I think it would be a clear bottom signal if this happens for Bitcoin. Clear bottom signal, the digital asset Treasuries are forced to sell where they're get acquired at a discount. That would help Mark start at the bottom or as well. And I think this would be the absolute bottom. And I don't think this is going, this is, I don't think this is going to happen in the next six months. But if Bitcoin has a horrible year in 2026 and maybe we go back to $55,000 Bitcoin and we even go lower. Dips under the 200 week moving average. And then Michael Saylor's shareholders start. Some of them start to form a lawsuit and they're suing him. Fiduciary duty. Sell the bitcoin. It's not good anymore. Clear bottom signal to me if that would ever happen.
- [52:22]
B
Yeah, I agree. Listen, Eddie, I know we've talked for a long time. Is there anything else that's on your radar, exciting that I might have missed in this conversation before I let you go?
- [52:31]
C
I think that 2026, for those people, staying in tune will be an awesome year. I think nobody really, this is the cliche, but nobody really tells you you're in the good old days until after they happen. I think cryptocurrency today is the good old days. I think you will never regret learning as much as you can staying in tune. Being the crypto guy or crypto girl in your friend group, it just like. Was it a bad move to be the mobile wave guy or the technology guy in 2010? No, it's not going away. And I think if I could give any piece of advice, which is my audience has heard this before, is take emotion out of investing. The lower bitcoin goes, the more fear there is. That's a great time to buy if you believe in the long term. Just like when euphoria happens, take some profits. DCA out. So that's the tried and true thing I stick to.
- [53:23]
B
Yeah, you're a DCA guy like me, so you're assuming that I don't need to ask you if you're just buying and buying and buying and buying and buying. But I am.
- [53:30]
C
I have weekly buys, every Monday, weekly buys.
- [53:32]
B
And I had a huge one at 88 and down to 80 that I set like last April and didn't know if it would ever hit. But I figured that was a really key level. If we ever did come back on a major retrace, we went deeper.
- [53:44]
C
But yeah, I've had those and I have some in the 70s too. If we get that flash crash or the extended crash, the buy orders are set.
- [53:51]
B
That was my last kind of big buy was in the mid-70s when we went down in April. The tariffs. Yeah, yeah, it's been interesting that we've kind of have hit all these key levels, you know, like 74. Was that previous all time high from last year? We went up at 100, but it just was this glaring hole in the chart. You know it has traded pretty technically.
- [54:10]
C
But If Bitcoin was 69, 70,000 in 2021, we hit 69 70,000 in 2024, 2025. If we get back down to $69,000, Bitcoin, to me, bitcoin and especially crypto, completely de risked. It was risky back in 2021. It was risky even as Trump was becoming president. Will he actually put in a pro crypto, SEC chair, CFTC chair, whatever. Completely de risked. If we are at those prices again. Yet fundamentally we are 10x100x better than where we were just a few years ago at that same price.
- [54:43]
B
I love that. Can't think of a better way to end. Austin, thank you so much for your time. I really, really appreciate it. I'm glad that we got to do this in longer form because every time we would do an interview on the street, it would be like five minutes for sure.
- [54:55]
C
Scott, I appreciate you. I encourage all my audience, much of them to do but subscribe to your channel. You're going to be on mine in the coming days, so get ready for that interview. But thank you, man.
- [55:04]
B
Awesome, man. Thanks so much.