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- [00:00]
A
Good morning everybody. Welcome to Crypto town hall. Every other day here on X at 10:15am Eastern Standard Time, Bitcoin once again took a shot at $80,000 and was rejected. I think no surprise here. If you take a look though, there's a lot happening under the surface. Yet another near record breaking week for bitcoin. Spot ETF inflows now have to my knowledge, I haven't looked at this morning, but nine days of sustained inflows being heavily led by BlackRock. Actually BlackRock options now have once again surpassed deribit options in open interest, which is I think pretty telling of the institutional involvement in the space. Of course we had the Trump meme coin gala on Saturday which I know is very exciting for everybody here because you probably all attended and man, just a lot to, lot to unpack here. But I guess we could talk about sort of how bitcoin has found a home here in the high 70,000. I think that makes sense. Funding is flat. I think whatever technical move and shorts there were to be squeezed have largely been squeezed. And now we find ourselves sort of at that make or break point where 74 to 76 area below is support. That was previous major resistance. Now we're kind of eyeing 80. So anybody on the panel jump in? Thoughts? Let's, let's get it going. Somebody save me or I'm just going to give a monologue.
- [01:33]
B
Hey, dude, man. Yeah, I was looking at earlier today, you know, it still looks like we're in that bear flag going up. I see some liquidity above. You know, we kind of talked about this before. We've hit over a couple of areas that we discussed in the previous shows. You know. Yeah, I could see it going as high as like maybe 87, you know, 86, 87 area. If it's stretching for that liquidity and then we're still in that range and I, and I still see a lot of liquidity building up below, you know, 65 area. And even if, you know, you want to look at the lower possibility areas, you know, 50 is some more liquidity down there as well if there's some kind of capitulation event or that people want to consider. So that's kind of like the ranges I'm looking at. I see Both of the 65 and 87s being the 78 to 87 is the range, but I see that being possible for being touched on both sides.
- [02:34]
A
Tomer, I know you were jumping in there.
- [02:35]
C
Oh, I was gonna say, you know, we're, we're grinding up slowly. Occasionally a setback, sometimes going sideways. But that dip from January it wicked all the way down to 60 and then kind of stabilized at 66 is now $11,000 in the rearview mirror. And for me the real question is when are we going to start seeing the movements that take us back north of 100k and is that going to be this summer, is it going to be this year? And I think the positive and encouraging sign, like there's two fronts that are driving people's decision making who aren't just high frequency momentum traders who, who I don't think impact the long term price which is on the one hand you've got things like strategies stretch, generating a lot of money that probably wasn't going to come into bitcoin, into bitcoin. So that's, that's upon the positive side and it really is a, like a freight train running or a rocket ship heading, you know, into launching its second stage booster. So it's very significant. And on the downside you have all this fud, you have the quantum fud, you have the, and you have the exploits in defi that are getting people to question, to be confused about the distinction between bitcoin and crypto or to look at the whole space and say, you know this, this is none of the, none of the self sovereignty with all of the scamminess. So there's, there's a tug of war and I guess there's always a tug of war. But in this case, to me it's one of secondary considerations to bitcoin.
- [04:20]
A
Right.
- [04:20]
C
It's not people buying bitcoin directly. It's Michael Saylor has invented a product that's getting people to give them money to buy bitcoin indirectly. And it's also all sorts of speculative stuff that's driven by incentives that aren't the incentives to pump the price or dump the price of bitcoin, but it's a, get a, get an exit on a, on VC thing or raise capital on a VC thing. So it's a, it's a noisy time and but I think the one that seems more fundamental between those two forces that I described would be Michael Saylor buying bitcoin. And indeed what, what he can cause to catch fire is if his buying of bitcoin is driving up the price of bitcoin, that's going to drive a lot more people to be interested in bitcoin. The secondary stuff around crypto I'm not an expert in, I don't pretend to be and I don't really I don't really comment on.
- [05:12]
A
And you're the perfect person to ask about a Meme Coin gala.
- [05:17]
C
Yeah, I wouldn't go to one of those things even if they were safe to go to.
- [05:21]
A
Okay, so here's the thing, Tomer. So this is what I find interesting. And actually I can use you guys as research for my daily Wolf show at noon, because I was looking at this and I wrote a newsletter about it actually this morning. That's kind of the angle that I find interesting. Is that. So first of all, it was a meme coin gal on Saturday. I think it's the 297 top holders of Trump Meme Coin are invited. But you had Cathie Wood there and Pomp and Grant Cardone and Tony Robbins and Mike Tyson. Right. I mean, which is like a pretty eclectic cast of characters. Paolo Arduino from Tether was there, so I think I understand they had the World Liberty Financial Conference at Mar a Lago a couple months ago and everybody was there, Right? Nobody, I don't think, was afraid. Richard, were you there? You were there, right? I was indeed. Okay. So I definitely see why everyone's like, I would go to that. That was also before all the World Liberty Financial sort of controversy we have now. But like Cathie Wood showing up at a meme Coin gala feels disjointed to me. So it's just like they'll go to anything Trump because there's access and, you know, to kiss the ring or there's
- [06:29]
C
some people who can't avoid a party and there are some people who can't avoid a, you know, who, who believe that they can't avoid this is not because of their egos but because of their professions. They think it's really important to show up to some place where there's a big network and political connections and you don't want to snub someone who can cause you irrational harm. So some people might. Sorry. I would agree. I would agree with that. Yeah, I. So I think that there are many reasons to drive people to come to these things. Not necessarily because they think Meme Coins are a great investment platform and should be promoted. It's like, well, the opportunity.
- [07:10]
A
I was invited, so I guess I should show up. Or else they're going to.
- [07:14]
C
Unless you have a really good excuse. Because this is, you know, the President of the United States holding the wood was doing.
- [07:20]
A
She's doing her hair. I was doing my hair. My dog ate my homework. Good quality old school excuses to miss it because, you know, the Optics of this one obviously are politically charged. Right. I mean, this comes in the same weeks that we're talking about ethics clauses with the Clarity Act. And you know, the Meme COIN gala is certainly not going to help get the Clarity act passed. And this is one of. I think, actually what is even more interesting is we're giving, I think for the first time some legitimate fodder to the anti crypto army. Right. I mean, I think we had four years of the anti crypto army and it was all irrational, Right? It was just endless attacks on the industry, regulation by enforcement, Operation Trove 2.0, literally trying to kill it. But this time I think plenty of people are going to, even though the intentions are wrong, going to see the Elizabeth Warrens and all them saying, hey, Trump shouldn't be profiting from meme coin galas on something he's trying to legislate on. And maybe people are going to actually start to align with the anti crypto army here, which I think is sad.
- [08:23]
C
But I guess there's a part of it which is. Which is the better outcome or maybe the inevitable outcome. Either way, is it an outcome where meme coins, which are scams, get a green light and that advances everything, But a lot of people get burned and remain very confused about the nature of what the technology here is and capability. Or on the other hand, everything gets slowed down but. And some of these things get stopped dead in their tracks. But bitcoin, of course, marches on because it's decentralized and autonomous and unstoppable. I know which outcome I prefer on a pragmatic level, but on a principled level, it's like, no, this industry needs to be attacked as hard as it can be attacked, and the antifragile indestructible parts of it need to survive and the rest of it can go. That would be my view. So I don't mind if some of this bad stuff happens. I think people need to be informed. But if you're betting on something that's worthless and hoping that for regulatory support because there's conflicts of interest that will pump the thing, you know what game you're playing and you know what the long term outcome is going to be.
- [09:40]
A
You do now. Like, even if you didn't at the beginning, you certainly do now.
- [09:44]
C
Yeah. So you do now, right?
- [09:45]
A
Yeah,
- [09:47]
D
yeah.
- [09:48]
A
And listen, I mean, there's an irony to the fact that meme coins partially rose so dramatically during the last administration because they were the one thing that kind of had regulatory clarity. Because you could say they had no utility and were not a security. So everybody bet on those. Right. So there was sort of a focused funnel towards meme coins, which is an interesting nuance. Amateo, go ahead.
- [10:09]
E
Yeah, interesting or very sad and disappointing. Right? I was like, who paid for this thing? Who paid for the Trump Meme Coin Gala? I mean, I'm assuming it's from the tickets, all the crazy expenses that all these ticket sales that they were using for these top spots to attend. And it was clearly a poster billboard style event for the who's who's to draw people in. But I agree here that a couple steps forward, many steps back, and we just tend to be on repeat. I just feel like,
- [10:47]
A
I mean, if
- [10:48]
E
you want to do another crypto event for the sake of clarity and you want to tie it to the stupid meme coin, that's fine. But to have this kind of invite only exclusive thing and then center it around what's also had terrible performance, dying, and in all practical purposes, in many ways disowned after launch. It just seems completely backwards. So it just seems more backwards on backwards. I'm pretty disheartened with the fact that this is the thing that's getting all the glaring attention when there's so much innovation happening and so much critical legislature that's hanging in the balance. And I think we should all feel that way in the industry.
- [11:37]
A
Yeah. The only way I can frame all of this right now is kind of this push and pull between institutional adoption and the legitimate side of the industry growing while the clown car on the other side is just as bad as ever. And it's like the own goals endlessly that we score on ourselves. The meme Coin Gala won. But I mean, even if you dig in, Tomer, maybe you have more perspective on this. But I saw the debate over a bitcoin fork coming in August literally at the exact same time as they're already talking about potentially freezing satoshi's coins, an E cash fork. And the developer says that the basically mirror of satoshi's coins should not go to the satoshi wallet, but should be used to fund the new fork. And all of this because of quantum resistance. I mean, these are just not. We have all of this infighting even in bitcoin right now. Tomer. Right. So I mean, that looks like a clown show to the world too, right?
- [12:31]
C
Yeah. So I think this is it. There's a lot of noise that's not related to the fundamentals of bitcoin. Like a hard fork of bitcoin is not Bitcoin. And different people will have different perspectives. Although most people have the same perspective about what it means to confiscate and seize Satoshi's coins in a hard fork, they're generally apoplectic about it.
- [12:55]
A
Right. But just to be clear, it's not his actual coins. It's the newly minted mirror of the coins. Oh, yeah. A lot of people say. A lot of people are very confused about that.
- [13:05]
C
Right. So even rather than calling them newly minted, it's like the copied coins in the non bitcoin blockchain that is a duplicate of the bitcoin blockchain, with the exception now hard coded in that those coins can be spent by the creator of this hard fork rather than by someone possessing the private keys, namely Satoshi. So it's kind of a violation of the very first promise of property rights in bitcoin that your coin, your keys, your coins. This is someone else's coins, no keys. But I'm overriding it. So I think. And this is attached to a controversial idea that bitcoiners and bitcoin generally rejected, called drive chains. So the individual behind it wants to launch his idea of drive chains, and he announced he's going to go ahead with it because he's tired of waiting for bitcoin to adopt it as a soft fork. So he's going to implement a hard fork which airdrops one of these new coins. He's calling it Ecash, which airdrops one of these coins to everyone who holds a bitcoin. So exact at the exact same address. He says he'll launch some kind of splitting mechanism eventually. But I don't. What.
- [14:16]
F
Why do you care so much? Is not obviously the first time that bitcoin has been forked. Yeah. I mean, it's just.
- [14:21]
A
I don't know what the. You're saying is. I'm just saying the opt. I'm talking about the optics. Yeah. Fundamental.
- [14:27]
C
It's the noise in the press. Right. Like on the margin.
- [14:30]
F
But there's always noise. I really don't. There is always noise and the focus is on the noise. When it's not going up, the noise is around when it's going up.
- [14:40]
C
That's a good point. That's a good point. I mean, I do feel like. And maybe I need to just check my memory because recency bias is what's affecting this, but I feel like bitcoin's getting hit left, right and center kind of in the way that it was when it was going up in 2017. Right there was blockchain 2.0 and ICOs and higher beta stocks or coins and Bitcoin cash. Yeah. And there were hard forks. So there was all this other stuff and it was all saying bitcoin is dead. Bitcoin has a security budget problem, this. And today we have people within Bitcoin who are saying if we don't soft fork to prevent spam, we've got a problem. We've got people saying quantum computing is going to destroy Bitcoin. We've got still people talking about us. Like there is a kind of noise that's getting press attention which is spooking new entrants that. But you're probably.
- [15:30]
F
I don't know, we seem to have an immense number of new entrants coming in. Who is selling. We just talked about all the money that was coming into the ETFs.
- [15:40]
A
Yeah.
- [15:40]
F
What is that?
- [15:41]
A
I think I was thinking about this this morning, actually. We were talking about it on macro Monday. I think that when you align the ET lows, which I do think are very bullish, obviously that is some new entrants. But I think, because if you look at the size of options on iBIT, which actually just surpassed open interest on Deribit, you have to imagine that the bulk of IBIT buying is a part of a trade and not a fundamental belief. It's the carry trade. Right? So they buy, you buy IBIT and then you short the futures and you earn a. Basically a fixed yield. And even so I think the question
- [16:16]
C
is the trade, who's buying with an intent to hold until at least 100 or maybe 200 or 300.
- [16:22]
A
Yeah, there you go.
- [16:23]
C
Right. And that, that's the question. Because people who are in and out and they're pretty sure Sailor is.
- [16:27]
A
Yes, yes, I think he's the best argument.
- [16:30]
C
Yeah, but who else is? Right? Because if it's only him, he just ends up buying at the margin and setting the price himself. And the price doesn't sustain. So that we need. We need for enough people at some point to realize I'm buying for anyone who cares. There we go. Okay. So problem solved.
- [16:48]
A
It's me. Hi, I'm the problem. It's me, lawyer. Go ahead.
- [16:53]
G
Yeah, I was gonna say, I mean, historically, FUD has been pretty. A pretty good time to buy. Like there's always been fud and it's always been pretty horrible. Like we, we usually have to think, okay, maybe it will go to zero. I think we don't have to worry about that now. But it is, you know, it is A time the price is going up and getting hammered. If you compare it to where it could be. And a lot of that is because of what we're seeing. Unfortunately we did, like you said, we got rid of the crypto, the anti crypto army, and then slowly sort of turned ourselves into it with, with what Trump and his family has done. So yeah, there's a lot, there's a lot of sentiment hammering it down, but there's also institutional interest which never used to be there, like actual holdings. So if you like bitcoin for the long term, FUD is great. FUDs when you can load up. If you were just holding and hoping it would keep going up, then I don't know in the foreseeable future when the sentiment is going to flip.
- [17:49]
C
I think in two to three years, when we know who the next president is and this whole thing has played through, there's going to be a lot of people with significant money who said, holy shit, that thing is going, that thing, bitcoin, which is part of this crypto thing, the whole thing's going to hell in a handbasket. It's going to be gone. I'm not touching it. Look at what Donald Trump is doing. Look at this, look at, you know, look at all these terrible things happening in the space. The exploits in defi, the unmasking of satoshi, the threat of quantified. And they'll look at it in a few years time. They'll say that thing's still around and it's, it's trading at or near all time highs. It's worth another look because I think that's what like the fud. The FUD scares people away, caused them to dismiss it, you know, without doing research. And the fact that it turned out to not be catastrophic or even harmful when they revisited a few years later seems to be a pattern with both small and large buyers who say, okay, I thought this thing was going away. Even Saylor himself dismissed Bitcoin in 2013 and said it's going the way of online poker. And then seven years later it's like it's still here. Let me have a closer look. And I mean, he's the poster child for having a closer look and changing your perspective.
- [18:59]
G
Yeah, and the fundamentals that got us looking at it in the first place are only growing, right? There's. It's not like that some Trump has not come in and ramped down in, you know, inflation and the destruction of the dollar. It's, or somehow made it so that you can print More bitcoins. All the fundamentals are there. People will become interested in it again for the same reason.
- [19:25]
A
So much noise. I think that's the best, best point. But I do think that this materially could impact the Clarity act, which I think is dead in the water anyway. So I guess how can you material impact something that's already dead? Anyone else, other thoughts on this topic? Did any of you attend the Meme Coin Gala?
- [19:48]
C
Was not invited, Richard.
- [19:49]
A
I mean, having attended a similar gala, I'm not the soft target.
- [19:54]
C
I didn't go.
- [19:54]
A
I'm still in Africa, baby. Feel like the one you went to was basically a Meme Coin Gala. I'm just kidding. Yeah, go ahead.
- [20:02]
B
We were, we were live with Mike Alford and Grant Cardone right after the incident that happened and they were just kind of describing what was going on and that, that was interesting.
- [20:14]
A
It was definitely at the correspondence dinner.
- [20:16]
B
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah.
- [20:20]
A
Crazy. We live in wild times that those two things could happen in the same day. But you know, was Grant, Gary was. Grant wasn't at the correspondence dinner. He was at the Meme Coin Gala. Right?
- [20:32]
D
Yeah, he didn't. I didn't understand that last comment. I don't think they, that action happened. And Marvel.
- [20:39]
C
Yeah.
- [20:39]
A
Just clarify. Yeah, yeah, I think he left any inside baseball on the gala.
- [20:45]
D
You know, I don't think he stayed. I think he went, gave his speech and then left because he doesn't like the. He says when Trump shows up turns into a circus. And it does. You know, you've been there, you see it. Yep. So I'm just glad I wasn't there at either one of them.
- [21:08]
A
Yeah, it's a 12.
- [21:09]
D
It doesn't look like we're going to get a crypto bill here, huh?
- [21:12]
A
I don't think so.
- [21:13]
D
No, man, it's, it's. Russia's going to pass a bill before we are. It's absolutely shocking how incompetent this, this group of people are. Can't get anything done.
- [21:27]
A
I think that that's one angle for sure. I think the other is just maybe they didn't handicap how many parties would feel deeply affected by any legislation or that like the banks and crypto industry would go to battle so hard. And I don't think they also, I don't think anybody thought that the anti crypto army was going to have legs again personally. Like we thought they were dead, you know, so like you get the ethics clause and then you get stablecoin yields and you have some pretty massive divided interests that have no, like Real reason to come together. Lou, did you have a comment? No. I saw your mic lifted and you came up to the top. Yeah. Gary,
- [22:10]
D
I don't know how much time you have, but I was on a Charles Hoskins. Hoskinson's had a event last night. I popped in because I like Charles. I think he's a decent human being. And I was. I did not realize the battle that was going on there at Cordana. And then.
- [22:30]
A
Are you in Vegas?
- [22:30]
D
You know, also about.
- [22:32]
A
Huh? You're in Vegas.
- [22:34]
D
No, no, no, I'm in Sandy.
- [22:37]
A
I gotcha. Okay. I thought maybe that was in Vegas.
- [22:40]
D
No, I didn't. I didn't want to go that circus. I mean, that's a waste of time.
- [22:48]
C
But the point, for the record, it's Hodgkin's, not Hodgkinson's. One is,
- [22:54]
D
yeah, thank you, Charles. H. How's that?
- [23:00]
A
Because I, I like the H. Go ahead. Yeah, yeah,
- [23:04]
D
but man, he's really like, you know, I heard a founder that's just pretty beaten up at this point, 40, 42 years old, and he was telling the community, hey, you know, you guys don't want me to leave this, let me know and I'll move on. I got plenty of things to do. But I can't do a half cook job. I mean, for the first time, I heard an altcoin guy going, hey, this is difficult. Which I thought was really like, you know, the audience had to hear that. I can't imagine they didn't like hear it. I heard it. There's like a key, man, right?
- [23:42]
C
There's a key. Satoshi left Charles on all those.
- [23:49]
D
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a quite an interesting dynamic. And you got to believe that's present and more than just Ada, right? That's probably present. These people have made a lot of money and they're putting up a lot of. They're like, probably, hey, why am I putting up with this? Right? I don't need this anyway.
- [24:15]
C
But it's people saying, why have I lost 98% of my money? Complaining. And it's the person who lost them 98% of their money saying, I don't have to put up with your bullshit. I've made all the money that you lost. So it's like there's two sides to this, to every one of these stories. And I think it's really, it's the problem with so much of what's wrong with crypto. You have founders who've given themselves huge pre mines. They. They made their money and even. And the story is kind of long forgotten as to why it was hot in its day. Cardano being smart, contracts with UTXO with proof of stake like before everything else had proof of stake and its story is just old and I don't know if it's salvageable or not. I don't, I don't pay a lot of interest. I mean just to give the rounded picture of Charles Hodgkins. He, he did at times Hoskinson, Hoskinson. Hoskinson as a book of Hodgkins. He did at one point claim that allude that he might actually be here for correcting me.
- [25:15]
D
Tom.
- [25:17]
C
Yeah, and thanks for being. For correcting me too. So I just, you know, I'd be very careful about what's going on there too. I think he's a, my experience is he's a very smooth talker, a very calm talker, very convincing. But the track record of Cardano is one where a lot of stuff has been released and it hasn't really had a market uptake utility. So it's price at one point pumped on the story of we do scientific research and white papers for everything and we have forks at predictable intervals. But all of that doesn't really matter because it's not getting used for defi in any meaningful sense by any, by anyone. And, and, and the founder who's still the, the in control of it is as you say, sounding tired and making vague threats to leave the project unless people treat him nicer. Well, welcome to the.
- [26:18]
A
You know, like I will say that he, he was on my show a couple months ago and he was very, very convicted that the Clarity act was a disaster that wasn't going to happen so. Got that one right. Seemingly or we'll see. But yeah, I mean how can you not be just out of gas if you're like a founder of a 2017-2021 crypto project, I would imagine.
- [26:45]
D
Is that when they started 17, I
- [26:47]
A
don't know when did Cardano launch? Later, I think.
- [26:50]
D
Oh, later than that. Wow.
- [26:53]
C
They were raising money for a long time before their launch because they were one of these, you know, we need to raise money to do the research, to do the white papers, to do the test, have the test net.
- [27:01]
A
So if you're going to December 27, 2017, that was the launch of the
- [27:06]
C
chain or that was the announcement of main.
- [27:09]
A
I'm looking officially launch its mainnet on September 27, 2017.
- [27:13]
C
Right. So there's probably more.
- [27:15]
A
Yeah, their ICO took place between September 15 and January 16, 2017. I mean 2017 is almost 10 years ago, you know, and this is non specific to them or anything, but it doesn't seem that long because that's kind of when I got in 16, 17 and I still feel like I'm 20 years old. So just.
- [27:35]
D
But bro, see this is, this is really important.
- [27:37]
A
That's a long time.
- [27:39]
D
Exactly. They're all hitting their 7 and 10 year term and like at 10 years
- [27:45]
A
you get really gotta have something bored
- [27:48]
D
of the business, dude. It's like, especially if it's not growing, it's just so painful. And you've been in it, you know, so long. All the meetings are the same meeting, same problems over and over and over, chaos all the time. And you're worth a shitload of money. You're like, hey, why am I doing this?
- [28:06]
B
And plus he, he had come in three or four years earlier than that with Ethereum, you know, growing that. So you know, prior to that he was in this as well. So he's definitely, definitely had seasoned, you know, and going through the trials for sure. I agree with that.
- [28:27]
E
Part of this drama is like infighting within the development organizations that build and operate Cardano as they're looking for grants, right? So this is just a more systemic problem throughout the industry. As you have these, as we're talking about decade, nearly a decade old protocols that essentially in order to stay current, in order to drive innovation, in order to try to get more traction there, they have a need for greater implementation. But to fund that implementation it requires money and that requires more token distribution and that requires approval, especially if you have like a decentralized governance protocol. We saw last week that Ethereum foundation sold, I don't know, it was like 10,000 ETH directly to Bitmine OTC. And this is kind of the dilemma that a lot of these projects are in in order to keep having staying power. But I do think that like if you're at this late stage of the game and you still in our place, where you're like battling to try to keep building, that's just a complete recipe for burnout. And it's just tough, I mean it's really tough out there for these legacy projects to continue.
- [29:47]
A
And they're fighting gravity, right? And they're fighting gravity and the very structure that enriched them in the first place. Even if you the greatest tech in the world, everybody already hates you because the token's down and the incentives were misaligned. So what's really the upside, like the token doubles and you lose 90% of your money, right? I mean, yeah, I mean, and then the value doesn't necessarily even accrue to the token. So like, structurally everything from that era is to some degree broken. I'm not saying they can't go back up or they can't perform, but you basically like, are building against just a wall of like hatred and obstacles.
- [30:27]
E
Yeah, I can't disagree with you there. I mean, I think that's just compounded with the fact that we haven't had sustained movement in these assets because of the structural asymmetry for, for going on five years, which is just toxic. The sentiment for these builders to try to create and develop it. And it just continues to be increasingly difficult as that gravity over time creates just more, more downward pressure and just beats up everybody.
- [31:02]
C
I think this really helps people see that. One of the major distinctions between Bitcoin and all of these other projects, Bitcoin does operate without a leader, without a foundation. The incentive to secure it is the block reward that leads to, that has led to huge amounts of energy and lots of public companies and private individuals securing the ongoing decentralized continuity of the entity. It's not, there's no one who can intervene and interfere with master keys. And that's what causes people to store tremendous amounts of value in it and then take a, have a lot of skin in the game and take, and take a lot of care with what happens in bigpoint. So that like the forks that Scott mentioned earlier get evaluated and dismissed really quickly. A lot of people pay extremely close attention to, to what's happening in bitcoin. The allegations of quantum, quantum cryptographically relevant quantum computers. Sorry for that mouthful. Gets analyzed very, very thoroughly. False claims get pushed back on not by some funded entity, but by individuals with skin in the game and no other connection to one another. So you get this chaos, but this continuity that's unstoppable and people ensure that the promises that were made in the white paper continue to get capped because nobody can change the code and have lots of other people run it. This is so different from everything else that we're talking about, right? There's nobody who can threaten to leave Bitcoin that would stop Bitcoin. I mean, Michael Saylor could say, I'm going to sell all my bitcoin in one giant whale move. It would be incredibly self destructive to him. So he's also, you know, he's got skin in the game to go the opposite direction. But aside from moving the price around, nobody can stop Bitcoin and nobody can intervene in bitcoin's operation on its promises, which creates this virtuous circle, which means that as people realize that, they're like, I don't want anyone to stop me. I want to be able to own what I own. Bitcoin seems to be the thing to do. They put skin, some of their skin in the game. And now they're involved in the activity of understanding bitcoin. Securing bitcoin, storing bitcoin, ensuring that it keeps its promises, preventing attackers from undermining its integrity. It's very different from all these other things. Right. There's no bitcoin foundation that sells 10,000 Bitcoin to Michael Sailor to keep the pump going of his stock. There is only bitcoiners.
- [33:42]
F
Hey, just staying on bitcoin, I want to go back to something that you and I think Gary said because I am actually in Vegas for, you know, BTC Vegas.
- [33:50]
C
And I was just wondering why you
- [33:51]
F
guys think it's a. I don't know if you called it a joke, but what your views on it are. Because I'm just here just.
- [33:59]
A
I can tell you what consensus is not. I can tell you what I'm hearing. Not because of me. I'm going to consensus in Miami because it's closer. And Vegas, I was very disillusioned by Vegas last year. Not specific to the conference itself, but I think bitcoiners have just had flown the coupe with treasury companies. And I was in there in disbelief, just literally fighting with everyone I told, talked to, telling them what a bad idea everything they were telling me was. And luckily I've been vindicated on that, I think, over the past year. But I think that there's. I walked in the door with Gary and we were pitched seven treasury companies the minute we got off the plane. And so I would say for me, I can just tell you why. A, it's just a big trip I don't need to take. B, I don't give a. I don't want to hear speeches from every politician and all the headliners are like Trumps and government officials and such and kind of not what I came for. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it, but, like, I don't give a what Eric Trump has to say anymore, ever. Period. Right. He'll be a consensus, too.
- [35:07]
F
Yeah, exactly.
- [35:08]
A
Right.
- [35:09]
F
I mean, I agree with everything that
- [35:10]
A
you said, and I think there's a massive, like, and this is non. Like, this is not my personal view, but, like, there's a lot of people who are disillusioned with the organization of the bitcoin conference. Right. The Nakamoto ties and Bailey and all. David Bailey. Yeah, yeah. I'm saying that's not. I hate saying that, I think, you know, because it's not like I have a. But I think that those are the reasons that there's a lot of disillusionment. And I think, you know, consensus was like dead in Toronto last year. Now everybody's like, well, maybe I just want to go to Miami. I'm just hearing a lot of that. Right. So I don't know.
- [35:45]
F
I wasn't going to do both, particularly after Token died.
- [35:48]
A
Yeah, well, I mean, that, that seems like a boon for bitcoin conference since they were the same week. Right.
- [35:54]
D
Let me, let me bounce in here, Lou. Look, Scott and I know almost everybody in the industry. It's not like we need to go to have a meeting with somebody we don't know. Right. The other thing is, for me, going to a trade show and being one of 50 meetings is not a good use of my time and energy. However, I will say, because I don't want to just poo poo on the convention. If you're new to this industry and you're trying to make contacts, it is most certainly an awesome centralized location where everybody can meet together and do their deals. Even if you can't afford the big deal, like go to these parties for 20 bucks, dude, you will not need to eat all week.
- [36:39]
A
And it's really fun. It is really fun. I mean, it's a trip to Vegas.
- [36:43]
D
You meet some awesome, awesome people and you get a sense of what's going on and, and you know, the, like, you see, you see all companies here and you're like, wow, what the hell are you doing here, man?
- [36:56]
A
Yeah, it is interesting watching the composition. Yeah, watching the composition of the attendees over the years is very interesting to that point. Right. It used to be like just retail. Then last year was like suits and politicians and whatever. And if I didn't go to the bitcoin conference last year, I would have never had the experience of playing double down blackjack with Gary and John Deaton until 3 o'clock in the morning, which is the most degenerate gambling stupid game in history.
- [37:21]
D
No, the most degenerate is me and Fong Lee.
- [37:25]
A
That is what happened there. I don't know that story.
- [37:28]
D
That takes djen to different level, bro. We were, we were. I walked up to his Asian table at the encore. It must have been 2 o' clock in the morning.
- [37:40]
A
And was it in that, on that trip.
- [37:43]
D
Oh, yeah, dude. Like, like right there on that trip. And I, I, I, I'm standing behind him. He notices me. He said, hey, sit down. I said, were you sure, man? Because I'm the only whitey here. So I started. My, My joke with those guys is a racist joke. And anyway, they all leave. Fong's on first base, I'm on third base. It's just he and I. He looks at the he look. It's a $10,000 max table. We're playing for 30 minutes, and the guy says, hey, can we double the max on the table? I'm like, bro, we're already playing 10,000. We're maxing our hands out every time like crazy. People laughing our asses off, thinking it's just so hilarious. We ended up walking back to the hotel at like 5 o' clock in the morning. It was a blast.
- [38:31]
C
Who is this with Gary?
- [38:33]
A
I missed the architect of strc, buddy. Come on.
- [38:37]
C
I just wanted to make sure. Okay.
- [38:40]
A
Hey, I, I do not hold anyone's 2am Degenerate gamble gambling against them in business affairs. I hold. I give it as a credit. Separate the two.
- [38:52]
D
It must. It was most certainly was fun.
- [38:57]
A
That's awesome. Well, guys, we hit time here for me because I need to wrap the shows when Dave's not here at 11 to go prep for the next thing. So I appreciate the whole panel and everybody, great insights. You gave me some good lines to steal, which is all I really come for now. So thank you. I appreciate that. Richard, I'm going to tell everybody about your experience at the meme coin gala. So thank you for that. Really appreciate it.
- [39:19]
E
Just kidding.
- [39:20]
A
All right, guys, that's all we got. We'll see you on Wednesday. Thanks.
- [39:22]
E
Bye.