← The Wolf Of All Streets
The Wolf Of All Streets
Crypto Dumps, Coinbase Premium Returns… Something’s Up #CryptoTownHall
00:56:26
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- [00:00]
A
Morning everybody and welcome to Crypto Town Hall. Every weekday here at 10:15am Eastern Standard Time. I hope that you all had a wonderful weekend, were endlessly entertained by whichever super bowl halftime show you chose to view because of your politics. I was watching bitcoin go up and down. That was more entertaining than anything could have possibly happened in that shit show of a football game. But here we are. I haven't even checked since I got home. It looks like Bitcoin trading right around $69,000. 69,522. Ethereum still holding just above 2,000 markets, a bit all over the place. Crypto dumps Coinbase Premium returns. Something's up. I don't know crypto, I wouldn't say dumped. I would say that it had a really nice reaction off of the lows last week when it hit 6 60,000 or broke just below, bounced up into the low 70s and is now settling in and waiting for direction. But I would love to entertain any other opinions there, Dave?
- [01:07]
B
Yeah, I was just looking. I mean every time people talk about the Coinbase Premium, what they're basically saying is USDT is trading a tiny bit below par, which is exactly where it is today. And it's just, it's actually almost amusing. Why is that? It's because Bitcoin USDT price, when USDT is at a slight premium, trades at a higher price than Bitcoin versus dollars and vice versa. And so that's what you see. So people like to make a big deal of that. It's just dumb, but okay, whatever, I'm used to that. What's also interesting is when IBIT and since IBIT debuted with all of the other ETFs in particular, it's restored a bit of equilibrium back. For those who don't know the history, Bitcoin trading in USD dollars actually in spot had bigger volume than Bitcoin trading in Tether for a while and then Silicon Valley bank happened and the anti crypto army basically made it impossible to transfer dollars over the weekend. Meaning that trading in dollars would have dramatically higher cost, dramatically higher volatility during periods of time and the net result was a lot of that liquidity migrated to USDT to the point where there's as the order books even on Kraken, on USDT could be tighter and certainly the aggregate order book would get tighter. So since the ETFs that trend has started to reverse again. Still not completely, but it is fascinating how people look at this and think that it's safe saying a lot what is true is spot led down during the 25 massacre. And Jeff park did a pretty good job of explaining it. But the fact that there's more buying coming out of the the US because it's easier to buy bitcoin in dollars than in tether. If you are trading the ETFs and you have to do creations, etc. Yeah, okay, it's. I don't think it's nearly as meaningful as people think, but whatever. You triggered me on that one, Scott. Sorry. As far as the super bowl goes, you know, look, I'm a football fan and you know, I, I, I, I, as a Jet fan, which of course is my mark of shame. I still, and I didn't want them to trade away Sam Darnold. I'm glad to see him win a Super Bowl. And of course as a Jet fan, I hate the Patriots with the, with the ferocity that one might expect for an organization who has rubbed our, our faces and crap for years. So, you know, to me it was okay. You know, halftime shows, I mean, look, people over politicize stuff. It's just, it's absurd. I mean it really is absurd. Right. You know, it's like, I understand people say in Spanish, I get that, okay, fine, whatever. But you can't argue with the production quality. You can't argue with what they did. And you also can't argue that other people could have alternatives. You know, whatever. I mean, who cares? I mean the fact that this stuff gets politicized, it just.
- [04:03]
C
Can we talk about crypto or bitcoin? Sorry to.
- [04:06]
B
Yeah, it'd be better that I kind of wanted to go there.
- [04:09]
D
Yeah.
- [04:10]
C
You know, like, I mean there's like near 12000 people in the airport.
- [04:15]
B
Yeah.
- [04:18]
C
Let's just crack on, you know.
- [04:20]
B
So James, you, you, you, you know, you, you, you called for the level that we're at now and I remember, I think I saw that, that you went long recently. My thought is we're at a bounce around here for a while before this consolidation. We end up with a hated rally. What are your, what is your thoughts since you're at, since you, since you jumped on. Yeah.
- [04:43]
C
I mean so obviously like you have various stages as a trader like where you take profit or whatever. So you know, DCA into me short and DCA'd out of my short. But I, I did, contrary to popular belief, I flip bullish very recently. Am I longing? No. Have I got longs? Yes. But I, I, you know, I'm adding more to spot than longs. I've got A small long position. Similar to Chris from Dubai. If you know Chris from Dubai is one of the best traders. He did the same trade as me. I made $40 million on the trade he did. He had isolated 17x made, I don't know he made actually made upwards of 70 million but he, it was different. We both caught bitcoin at 42k and did leverage long. But he's now starting to add to his long position. Me too as well. But yeah, so this is like a, just a very strong situation for bitcoin. Not only considering the downfall. It's hard and I don't know what percent face I can drag it now. I felt if I had to 30 was top to bottom, you know, 52 pullback and 52 pullback. Given ETFs, given government, given big money buying like we've never seen before. Last cycle those, there was never no billionaires, you know, multi millionaires, people on TV like you know, Tom Lee or whatever. Like none of that. Not only that but that at this level we've got a huge support channel, you know, I mean from last cycle's double top, you know that, you know that, that support. And then even like this cycle round we had huge like a huge multi week falling wedge at this level and then we're, and we're bouncing off very strongly right now at the 200 week moving average. So to not buy at this level to some degree, you know, well then you're an idiot. If you sell at this level then you're definitely an idiot.
- [06:45]
A
Yeah.
- [06:45]
C
Could it go lower? Yeah, maybe. But what's it gonna go to? 50k, 40k? Who gives a, you know. So yeah, like, you know, is it gonna pull a 180? Will it chop like you said, probably chop for a bit but then again I, I, I do feel there's been an awful lot of over the count of over the counter buying by orders. I, I think there's a lot of paper money that's just not been priced in with bitcoin and that, that's where I feel like you could have a very, very swift sharp 180 reversal with Bitcoin. And it will shock us all. Won't shock me but it will shock most people if it comes through. And because I just think a lot of stuff is over the counter. IOUs not priced in bitcoin is so undervalued it's worth far more than 68.8 K. I mean look at the one that gold's gone on. Look at the one that silver's going on. Look at what's called and silver's doing today day. Japan's just made a new all time high obviously after the election over there. But it's ridiculous. I mean, yeah, obviously golden silver's, you know. You know there's no better than. Nothing better than gold when it comes to governments, you know, buying, wanting to debase their currency or protect their currency and buying this, that and the other when it comes into a cold war, world war, you know, geopolitical distress, all this and that and the other. But bitcoin is the. The next in turn. I mean what else can. When the nasdaq sells off or the SBX sells off or people slowly take provisions called. Even though I think gold can very easily double for me why wouldn't it considering the situation in the world. But then again I've got some people would call, you know, irrational beliefs But I think it's all coming true. What, what I was saying year one year ago, two years ago coming into play and you're an idiot to deny anything that I've been saying because it's literally what anybody who says we're not in a cold war. Well, no, they'll tell you we're in a cold war when we're halfway down the road. When we're in a cold. We're in a cold war. Okay. It's all.
- [09:05]
A
Yeah, James, stick on the topic because we got other people with their hands up. So yeah, I want to go to.
- [09:11]
C
Richard because I've already got five minutes. CGPing today. CGPing today told the major chinese banks to start selling u. S. Treasury bonds again. I'm telling you now that the world is completely detaching and shifting. Okay. So yeah, I'm bullish on bitcoin for all of these reasons.
- [09:29]
A
Richard.
- [09:31]
E
Yeah, I mean we've got quite a nice blend of speakers up here and maybe for the purpose of the audience, I mean ask a question and only because you know we, we pretty much in the trenches crypto type people. I mean we're looking at other stuff but just if, if you're willing to for, for the audience sake, you know, just give a thumbs up or a hands up anybody that purchased spot bitcoin between 60 and $70,000 in the last.
- [09:58]
A
I've bought more bitcoin in the last week than as a dollar denominated value than I've ever bought in my life.
- [10:06]
E
Okay, I think that's a healthy question and observation because sometimes people are on here and they're wondering what are the people that have maybe a bit more access to info and data. What are they doing? And I think it's helpful that we've all been licking our lips and if you're a real believer in something specifically with bitcoin, we know altcoins are probably in a bit of trouble for the foreseeable future. It's not to say that they weren't rally at some point, but definitely these prices are highly attractive and if we go lower, I mean I think we'd probably thumbs up again. We'd be actively buying spots again. Right.
- [10:42]
A
100 agree. Mark.
- [10:46]
F
Hey, Scott, I guess the point I was going to talk about.
- [10:52]
A
Hey Mark, you're a little far from the mic anyway. You can make it a little louder.
- [10:55]
C
How's that?
- [10:56]
B
Is that all right?
- [10:57]
A
Way better. Yep, go ahead.
- [10:58]
F
Oh, good. Thanks. I. I was going to pick on I guess we got spot price, we got technicals and then we have the plumbing thing.
- [11:07]
G
Is it worthwhile?
- [11:08]
F
It's only a couple days since Thursday to sort of touch on why we got kicked squarely in the SATs with a deleveraging.
- [11:16]
A
Yeah, your Mark, your mic is kind of crazy but I do think that that is a great topic right now. I don't know if you can fix that.
- [11:22]
C
No.
- [11:23]
F
Yeah, you guys pick it up and I'll come back.
- [11:25]
A
Yeah. Because Dave did a pretty deep dive on that actually this morning on macro Monday. So I know he's equipped to dive into, you know, the mechanics of that actual drop.
- [11:34]
B
Yeah, but I think. Yeah, yeah, but I think it's more important. The mechanics of the drop are.
- [11:42]
A
For.
- [11:42]
B
Those who don't understand how trading desks work on in what you guys call Trad5 but I just call Phi. The mechanics are risk manager taps all the traders on the shoulder or yells on a hoot and holler or it depends on what kind of firm you're in. You know, I've been, you know, in both quant hedge funds as well as on street desks and they say cut your positions and they don't. They're not subtle about it. And so when you cut positions that means you sell and you have several hours to do so or your bonus at the end of the year is going to be a disaster. And so not anybody really violates that. And so you sell. Now how do you know that it was that kind of selling? Well, the first thing you know is unlike liquidation engines, so like, you know, James, you know, trades in perp so the perp liquidation engine liquidates you. They send market orders and they don't Give a crap about the wick. And so you see these wicks where they go down, you know what, 8% or whatever, some percent and bounce back 3% of it. And then you see another one, another one. It's like a jackhammer motion. And that's what you see on the chart when it's selling from people who are deleveraging professionally. You see slow, steady selling pressure. Maybe not so slow, but you see steady pressure. So the wick down might be 3% with no bounce or a bounce of like 10 bases.
- [12:57]
C
Why are we, why are we talking about this? Because it don't propel us forward.
- [13:01]
B
Well, no, will be. The reason you talk about it, James, it actually feeds your narrative is that when you see this sort of thing, you understand that the embedded reason for it was structured products and options that were sold. So selling put options.
- [13:17]
C
I don't care.
- [13:20]
B
Because if you know.
- [13:21]
C
No, no, I don't. I don't. And I think, well, then you're, then you're foolish.
- [13:26]
B
Yeah.
- [13:27]
C
Yeah, okay, maybe I am.
- [13:28]
B
Maybe, maybe I am well too. Yeah.
- [13:30]
F
James, I, I disagree. I think this, this is, this is uber relevant.
- [13:35]
C
Entire crypto space is so heavily consumed in blaming this.
- [13:40]
B
No, it's not about blaming.
- [13:43]
C
Like I've come. This is one of the biggest crypto spaces. Yeah. And I'm up here and like it's so perpetually boring. There's nobody with half a training.
- [13:56]
B
How do you not care about gas? Knowing where gasoline is, you know, knowing where, where flame, you know, understanding that, that you could. That the reason why when you say. And you said it, you, you, your words, that we could see a surprise move to the upside. Understand there is a ton, and I mean an absolute calls that have been sold. And when those calls have to get re hedged in an up move that could cause.
- [14:19]
C
Who even is this guy? Because for me personally, again, it's no disrespect. I just, I am this guy. That's why people listen to me or follow me or whatever. But like you're talking, you're talking, you're talking. There's 3,000 people in the space. And to be fair, I think there's a lot of people in space who's got questions for me. I think there's a lot of people in the space who are tuning in right now because I'm here. You're like, you're just like talking to them.
- [14:44]
A
James, we have less people here than on a normal random Wednesday. I would stop inflating your ego.
- [14:50]
C
You are probably one of crypto's biggest bitches when it comes to just leading people into the fire.
- [14:56]
A
Thank you.
- [14:57]
F
Is this guy a plant?
- [15:08]
B
Someone asked the question I was answering. If you don't like somebody, somebody come.
- [15:12]
C
Ask me a question or like bring up a topic or I'm, I'm gonna off or you guys.
- [15:18]
B
Okay here I'll ask you the question. Do you agree with Arthur Hayes when he talks about how important it is to understand the triggers and the levels that are going to matter to where you could see acceleration either.
- [15:33]
C
Okay, okay, I'll talk about arth right now for you. Arthur Hayes said 250k Bitcoin by the end of the year in November. Okay. Arthur Hayes said he's selling, he's selling his hyper liquid tokens, his hype tokens for a new car. Just as when after got launched it was obvious he was deleveraging off hype because he knew the attention was going to shift to Asta. And now you're even talking about Arthur. Who, who gives a. About Arthur? Yeah, great guy, maybe very clever guy, probably fab IQ than me. But I, I, I, I, I, I operate on common sense, you know. But yeah, so now you're bringing up Arthur.
- [16:12]
B
Who gives a. Arthur as a human. I'm bringing up Arthur as his argument. I don't care about.
- [16:18]
C
Well, what's his argument?
- [16:21]
B
He, he had, had. There was an interesting thread over the weekend where he talked. Go, go on where, where he talked about the fact that there is a lot of calls that have been sold on Bitcoin through people who are generating yield that could create fuel to the fire. If you ever get to a significant rally, well, that's all. That's all.
- [16:40]
C
I operate on a chip. When someone feels cheap, I buy. When something feels expensive, I sell. I operate on that. I don't give a fuck about the nitty gritty who, what, why, when? You know why it's there or the yield or the options or the fucking cold or the or disorders or the, the liquidation price. Who gives a. Who gives a.
- [17:03]
A
3, 000 people?
- [17:04]
C
Yeah, we're at 69.4k. You like it or you don't. Who gives a white how? We're there. Of course we're there. We had a 650 value. We've had a 50 drop. It's expected and normal. I called it. And we're now bouncing off the 200 week moving average. Who gives a who, what, why, when? Who will what Arthur says or Tom Lee. Tom Lee said 10k eth by the end of the year and then 11 by January. We ain't there, are we? So come on, guys. Like even you guys who were running the crypto Twitter spaces, basically you have a lot of mind share, by the way. Nobody's sweat with any of you. But this is just, you know, I'm, you know, I'm up here, I'm speaking straight in mind, don't give a. So like, you know, I think you're all just boring talk. A lot of. You've got no facts. I think you're just plodding along like NPCs.
- [17:54]
F
Yeah. It sounds like you got other stuff to do, James. So back to what Richard was talking about, you know, trying to get gauge of what people are doing on this with positioning. Thanks for kicking off that idea, Richard. I'm going to go back and talk about what I think was the biggest move. And still, as Dave said, there may be legacy. Risks or opportunities because of the huge deleveraging we had. And Dave, are there ways that people can look at positioning of options that are listed to get ideas of where those marks might be at 80, 90, 100k?
- [18:34]
B
Yeah, honestly, there are a variety and I have to agree with James a little bit. I think that trying to pick those levels is silly because most of the actual real dollars are in structured products and in private, you know, offline.
- [18:49]
F
Yep.
- [18:50]
B
So that, you know, you'll often get the wrong thing. It's sort of like there's a lot of false flags in crypto star. And, and, and he's not wrong when, when you talk about that. It's just important to understand there are people who believe the reason you point this out is because there are people who don't understand. We heard on this space and I sat and I, and I kept shaking my head that volatility in bitcoin was dead because the options market meant that it was going to continually suppress volatility. And I said no, the options market will suppress volatility until it breaks and it will be like massively increase it, which is literally exactly what happened.
- [19:27]
F
Right.
- [19:27]
B
And so understanding that allows you to under, to, to calibrate your leverage better. And James may not like that, but calibrating leverage is important for some people. James is not an idiot and therefore doesn't put his entire net worth on one leverage position. He has lots of smaller positions and ways of managing it. There are a lot of people who listen to this space who don't. Aren't that sophisticated. And so yes, you need to understand that volatility is a feature of the bitcoin market and if anything the potential for volatility is larger now.
- [19:58]
F
Yeah.
- [19:58]
B
With the development of the IBIT options market than it was a few years ago. And that is not well understood. So that's the only reason I care.
- [20:06]
F
Yeah. And it's sneaky. So I agree. I think it's good about having countercyclical measures so you know, when things are working it's pro cyclical. Lean into a trade. Lean into a trade. But I think the point is, and I'll take it back not knowing if 80, 90k is where there's options. It's more that wow, what just happened. There are players, there are things that we can't gauge. So I have to have a discipline that, that's beyond the charts. It has to be an absolute level of leverage. I'm willing to take and reassess it because the amount of paper Bitcoin is growing, the derivatives and interest in Bitcoin is clear.
- [20:43]
B
Let's not go down that, that yes and no. Anyway, Gorav, you have your hand up. I don't want to do another diatribe.
- [20:52]
H
I mean he has already said everything so I don't think there's a level of decorum of this, of this conversation. So as he sounds, James definitely for this crowd is an outlier. But he reminds me of a fact that's probably not relevant and doesn't suit especially in my professional, my professional hat of a market maker and a large trading bench. But I want to say this out loud today in the flow of thoughts that, that, that James has said I made all my money like 5,000 bitcoins, half a billion ripple. I don't know what or what numbers and no bragging because I lost all of them, but I made all of them trading exactly like James as a noob. As he said, who cares about sophisticated trading? Who cares about what. And since the day I established my hedge fund in 2017 or like later 2017, I've actually only lost money, man. And then so in a way that noob trading and not knowing the sophistication and not leaning onto hey, the institutions are coming in and hey, look what's the options volume today? And like the freaking market crashed because of Ibid options volume. And Dave, don't hate me for this and Scott, don't cancel your contract with me because all of that depends on the sophistication that we operate on. But it is such a refresher to probably look at a case history or a case file like mine for those who don't know I'm a zero finance literate guy from my education. I'm a telecom engineer and I came into crypto with zero financial education. So basically opening up Poloniex account and looking at the charts was like magic to me for the first time. And I said, you know what, fuck this shit, I'll go back to Kraken where the beginner mode did not expose me to a chart. For those who Remember Kraken in 2015 16, there was a beginner mode that was the default opening. So not going too deep into that but actually taking a hook on, on the, on the vibe of today and accept your, your rude statement, James. You're actually pretty smart when it comes to masses and you know, taking a 30 second dip into spirituality and science. Science is the identification of the common truth.
- [23:35]
D
Right.
- [23:36]
H
While spirituality is the identification of a specific truth to a specific person or subjective truth. So you're absolutely correct on your own, at your own place and time. Scott, you were about to say something.
- [23:48]
A
Yeah, well, quickly, I'm going to go to Dan. I just want to say that first of all, if anybody is disinterested in the conversation, generally you have the power to leave. So if you don't like what we're talking about, nobody on stage can tell you whether it's the appropriate conversation. As for me being a bitch, I've been called worse by better. So that's not relevant. But we're conflating a couple topics here and I think it's very important. So I believe you called me a. That's led more people to slaughter. I tell people to dollar cost average into Bitcoin and hold indefinitely. So regardless of what your cryptos, I let you talk. Okay. And so if you're telling people to slowly do that and wait decades, that's like the prudent approach that people have accumulated wealth over time.
- [24:34]
D
Time.
- [24:35]
A
Even if you've been right, James, you're telling people and showing them to trade with high leverage 24, 7, 365.
- [24:41]
C
And I condone against leverage on every single one of my spaces. I condone against leverage.
- [24:48]
A
Yeah, but you're, you're, you're publicly doing it as your personality, which is fine. I'm literally not criticizing you. I'm just saying it's, it's pretty rich to say that people who say hey, dollar cost average if buy Bitcoin because it's important are reading leading people to slaughter. When you're talking about the size of your positions where they are and the high leverage that you're using for them. But listen, I respect it.
- [25:07]
C
You was telling people, we go, you was telling people on your channel and your large following that we're going higher and higher and higher at the top anyway.
- [25:19]
A
You're missing the point. You're missing the point. Nobody gets wrecked if I tell them simply buy Bitcoin at every price because it's going higher later. I'm literally telling people not to follow random levels by people and that I don't know. I was literally on mainstream media last week. The guy asked me what's price doing? I said if your crystal ball is better than mine, then lend it to me because I have no idea. And nobody else does either. So anybody who is actually, and I'm not saying you, anyone who's actively promoting that they know 100 where markets are going. That's somebody who's leading someone to slaughter. And nobody up here to my knowledge. We don't allow people to do that up here because it's irresponsible and what you're doing is perfectly great for you. I'm not saying it's irresponsible. I'm just saying that most people who are following you are doing it for the entertainment of watching your high leverage positions, which you are, you know, I don't know how successful or unsuccessful you've been doing those. That's great. But most people are going to try to. A lot of people are going to try to copy that and get wrecked. There's no trade for someone to copy of mine.
- [26:19]
B
Yeah, that's impartially that, that is objectively. This space was downloaded via spaces down.com.
- [26:26]
F
Visit to download your spaces today.
- [26:27]
B
True. Yeah. You mentioned Tom Lee. I mean Tom Lee has been, you know, he was brilliant in 2009. He's done a lot of things that have been really interesting since then. Once he wore put on the Ethereum jersey. I'd say I said it at the time.
- [26:45]
C
I gotta go, gotta go. God bless, God bless. I love all of you guys.
- [26:49]
E
One question before you go. Is, is it inappropriate then to ask if SC is good or bad for the markets?
- [26:56]
C
Say that again. Say that again.
- [27:00]
G
He said are going good. James, I want to chip in. You're a working class lad from the north of England just like me. Much respect. It's been a lot of fun, mate.
- [27:08]
C
Sorry I can't understand your accent.
- [27:13]
A
Thank you for joining, James. Appreciate it.
- [27:14]
D
It's good, good.
- [27:15]
A
Thanks James.
- [27:16]
C
God bless. Love you all like, you know, hope all is well, you know, good on you.
- [27:24]
G
What a lad.
- [27:27]
A
If you, if you're if you don't have on your bingo card you get called a on your own show Monday morning.
- [27:32]
B
What a It's all, it's all good Dan, but you be clearer because we don't understand your accent.
- [27:41]
G
I'm sure I don't know exactly where he's from but I know for sure he's was within like a 20 minute drive of my house where I grew up for sure. As soon as I saw him tweeting I, I knew immediately where he's from and then I heard him speak and I was like yeah, he's from really close to where I grew up so I've never had a chance to speak to him. So I wanted to get in for him to come back and say you can't stop my accent. That was funny. Anyway, I agree with with him about a few things about when we talk about, you know, options is doing this and blah blah, blah. I understand where you're coming from Dave. I just wanted to say this. I think these things are more useful looking back after something has happened to understand why it happened, not necessarily something to use going forward. So when we look back at events like 10, 10 or other times that there's been massive deleveraging, it's good to look back and see we can understand now what the hell that happened. Like a plane crash investigator, I don't necessarily think they're as valuable looking forward to predict is what I would say.
- [28:42]
B
Yeah, I agree with that. But the reason why I think it's important and it's a very specific reason and it's one that Scott and I constantly tell people and we have people listening here who need to understand this is that if you were sold the bill of goods that bitcoin's volatility which was at historic lows and had been for some time meant that, you know, well, you know what? I, I could do 10 per I, I could do 10x leverage instead of 3x leverage because after all bitcoin's volatility such it's not going to drop more than 10% in a few hours and you become convinced of that or if you became convinced that you could put on a long term position at like 5x leverage and say ah, come on, we're not going to see a 30% fall and get liquidated if you believe that you got wrecked and knocked out of the game. And that's the thing we want people to understand in terms of respect that's.
- [29:36]
G
Been the case for like 10 years at least. Right.
- [29:40]
B
Saying Dan is, is that the warning.
- [29:41]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [29:42]
B
There were a lot of people on X and around the world saying that Bitcoin's volatility was. It was now a feature, that it was lower because of all the Ibid options that were being sold, it was going to keep it in a range.
- [29:55]
G
And, and the four most dangerous words in finance this time is different, right?
- [29:59]
B
Correct. And so, but understand, I basically was trying to tell people that, listen, the more options that are sold, both. Both sides, the more options that are sold, the more violent the change in volatility will be. Meaning you will have less time to get out of your leverage position. That's the sole reason I'm mentioning it. Not to say, to predict anything. Because you're right. My crystal ball. I lost it a while ago and, you know, don't care. You know, my favorite quote, I'm not trying to defend myself or, or Scott are wrong. I think the truth is, is that give James his flowers has been he. He's been. He and a guy named Dr. Profit, who I don't know, are the two accounts that have been the most accurate over the last six months. That. That's just absolutely, that's just fact.
- [30:47]
D
He's.
- [30:48]
G
He's a character. He's a lad. When it comes to crystal ball, I just want to throw out one of my favorite quotes. Price predictions are like, nipples. Everybody's got one. Yeah, tough crowd.
- [31:02]
B
Other than that, other than the Coinbase premium, how many other people were watching the super bowl, saw an ad from Coinbase and groaned in. In their own heads thinking, okay, well this is a short term top. Again, just curious. Nobody. Come on, Rich, you had to have been thinking it.
- [31:22]
E
I was disgusting. It was just disgusting. What a terrible use of a great landmark. My gosh, it was disgusting.
- [31:33]
G
I liked it when someone played it and they were like, this is what normies think of crypto. And it was like a bunch of guys and women watching the super bowl and they're singing along to karaoke and they're having a great time and then it pops up. Coinbase and they're all like, oh, what the fuck? Like, that's how normies think about crypto.
- [31:50]
B
Yeah, I, I wasn't criticizing the commercial because I'm not an advertising person. I just, just the entire notion. I thought we, you know, look, my favorite ad, and I'm not gonna lie, I think it was one of the funniest ads ever made. I still quote it was FTX's Super bowl ad one with Larry David saying, I got 10 things, 10 forks right here, baby.
- [32:09]
E
All I can say is being as close as possible to a boomer, to have, to have someone younger than you allow an ad like that. You know, this is quite appalling. I mean, honestly, Coinbase's marketing team should be fired. And I saw their response this morning. They were like, oh, well, even if they're talking about it negatively, they're still talking about us. I mean, that adage died a very long time ago. It's not a great use of marketing. Gary, I see you on the show.
- [32:37]
B
Someone was saying they strongly disagree. Who was that?
- [32:39]
A
Me.
- [32:40]
G
I think it was a great ad. I, I, I've worked in advertising for years. I think that was a phenomenal ad.
- [32:46]
B
So there you go.
- [32:48]
A
But for some reason, I got rubbed again. But yeah, I mean, it was the back, it was Backstreet Boys karaoke lyrics, correct?
- [32:56]
G
Yeah, that's right. I mean, you had the whole of America singing karaoke in front of their tv.
- [33:02]
A
The crap part for them, the bad luck, was that, like moments before, maybe within 20 minutes, there was an actual commercial with the Backstreet Boys.
- [33:10]
B
Yeah. Older one who looked, who looked wrecked, by the way.
- [33:15]
A
They look amazing. Just like the rest of us who are in our 50s and are just still doing it, you know?
- [33:20]
B
Yeah, well, that's true too, but it's just, it's, it's funny to, to see you look up. I said to my wife, I go, that's what the Backstreet Boys look like these days. Geez, I guess I'm not the only one who feels old. Anyway, back to, back to markets. Back to markets. So, you know, I'm just curious that there are a lot of people up here. I mean, Tomer, you're up here. There have been a lot of people talking about, you know, Epstein buying off bitcoin core and block size and all this other stuff coming to the fore. Does anybody think that this is a big deal from a price perspective, or do you think that, that, that any of these debates are going to matter? I mean, I'm curious. I mean, you're like, in the middle of it. Gora gave me the thumbs down, so feel free to talk after. Tomer.
- [34:05]
I
Yeah, I mean, I, I think that there's a lot of attention being drawn towards what's going on, especially in the crypto and bitcoin circles. And it's causing, it's causing a lot of confusion for a lot of people. People who, because there are people who are putting a lot of energy going down the rabbit hole, trying to get to the bottom and trying to find truth. And it's hard to find truth in clippings of emails and things with the innuendo and code words and everything. So there's been a lot of chaos in the discussion. I don't know that it's. It's been where the price has moved, but it certainly, it certainly caused a lot of debate and, and a lot of emotion. I don't, I don't, I don't sense that it's. It's been tied to what the price is. I mean, I'm kind of curious, you know, I don't think, I don't know if you guys discussed it at any point in time. Earlier today, I was having little connection problems, but there was that weird error on the I don't even know how to pronounce bit thumb exchange where they accidentally credited 620,000 Bitcoin to various customers who were selling them. That to me seems like something that could have had an amplification of selling pressure at the time that it happened. But I think the Epstein stuff is really rotten. I don't know. I don't know what to make of it. There's obviously a lot of really rotten stuff that's. That's happened. Whether or not that's had any impact. Influence. I think it's going to impact certain people's reputations, of course, and maybe destroy certain people's reputations. But that's, that's all I have to say about this. Sorry for the scrambled and mixed topics in my reply. I only have one minute to speak.
- [35:48]
A
Last week, maybe it was on this show or elsewhere, but it is funny to me that I had a couple friends who are very normie Wall street guys who, you know, superficially track bitcoin. And I had three texts at the end of last week pinging or, you know, just mentioning Quantum and Epstein as reasons for the bitcoin retrace. Though, like, as stupid as that is in the echo chamber, it is somehow out there.
- [36:10]
B
And I think you were giving the.
- [36:12]
A
Thumbs down we have left.
- [36:15]
B
Gore, if you're giving the thumbs down before, you know, you think that, you think it's a total non. Event or, or you think not a total. Not.
- [36:22]
H
Not event, but definitely a fuel for speculation. We heard Vinnie on the last, I think last space when I was there. I think it was Thursday.
- [36:33]
B
Very interesting conversation.
- [36:35]
H
But. But guess what? Even he doesn't have.
- [36:38]
C
He.
- [36:38]
H
He said it by himself. He doesn't have bitcoin and so he's not selling. Let's talk to somebody. So far I Failed. Amongst my clients, amongst my friends and everybody that I've had a word with. Nobody that has bitcoins or even a position on bitcoin. I'm not talking about a 50x position, I'm talking about a 2x position max that has sold or has made a decision based on this spot spot. People are not even concerned. So.
- [37:18]
B
Did everyone else lose gorav the cage?
- [37:21]
H
Okay, yeah, there was a call I guess that would have just. But I was simply saying I've not really seen somebody with bitcoins selling it. That's it.
- [37:33]
D
Simple point.
- [37:34]
H
Except for those who don't talking about, you know, talking shit about shit.
- [37:40]
B
It feel for what it's worth, it feels to me that they, that people did, but that it was short lived and I don't think it's a big deal. I do think that, that you know, Quantum definitely impacted people and I think that the, the sailor news and the coinbase news on Quantum has not been fully digested by some of those people and that, I hate to say it, when the price starts moving higher and it what I'm calling a hated rally, they'll all kind of revisit it and then you know, then that will add fuel to the rally. That's sort of, I think, Tom, I see your hand up. Yeah, okay.
- [38:17]
D
Yeah, yeah. I was just gonna say, you know, I think that you know, the manipulation was more part of it, you know, just to get the price lower. You know, I think that a lot of the bigger people coming into the space didn't want to buy at the high levels. I think that it was manipulated down maybe with news, maybe with some of the other things you guys are talking about. But I personally think that the price is probably going to sit around here for quite a, quite a long time. And I just wanted to ask you guys while I had time up here, what you guys thought about. You know, the price is kind of fluctuating between 60 and 70 for quite a while. You know what I mean? Maybe lower, maybe a little higher, but just kind of fluctuating for maybe the next six months to a year. Just wonder what you guys thought.
- [38:58]
B
I mean that that's my base case. Not six months to a year. I think less than that. But I have a bunch of reasons. But you guys don't want to hear me. So Mark, why don't you answer your hand?
- [39:11]
F
Yeah, I, I, I think that we will stay in this, in this range. I think the catalyst is going to be, you know, old time hockey. I think it's going to be A print. I think it'll be the something along the lines of warsh. Whether that's too, too trite and expected, I think it will be the warsh aligning with treasury in a fiscally responsible but clearly fiscal dominant slash funding manner. And then when people look through the actual result of it, further debasement, treasury accommodation, maybe at member banks, things like that, that's when I think you'll see a move. That's, that's my five cents.
- [39:59]
B
Yeah, my, my, my thought is that bitcoin is underpriced here and it's a beach ball being held underwater for by a bunch of things. When you talk about manipulation, it's, it's fascinating. I did a video this weekend on what it is and what it isn't. There's clearly manipulation in the bitcoin market to one extent. People historically have done this many, many times and October 10th was the biggest example of this. There are definitely people who build up spot long perp short positions that then dump their spot in order to slam the price down and make money on the perps that are more liquid. I mean that happens consistently. It's been happening consistently for its, but it doesn't have a long term price suppression effect. But in the short run it can be a big deal. When that gets added to macro factors such as what happened last week, you, you will see, you could see it, you know, dramatically overshoot to the downside, which tends to happen when it's at the same time as chartists and other, you know, Elliott, wave, whatever, all kind of come together and say that this is what needs to happen. When as Scott pointed out, every single time in its history, bitcoin loses the 50 week, it's going to go to the 200 week. And so all of a sudden all the technical traders, which by the way this market is still dominated by technical traders move like, like a pack of lemmings and that's what happens. So a lot of these things line up, but what also lines UP is a 200 week moving average being a very strong support level and, and, and yet not the market not feeling ready for a massive rally. Does that make sense, Tom?
- [41:37]
D
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. You know what I mean? I think that there's just a lot more going on behind the scenes than a lot of people see. I think everybody has a opinion, you know what I mean? I just hear so many different opinions all the time left right up, down. This is why this is, this is why that is. This is where this is gonna go. And really I just think that, you know, most of them are just, just hyper, just people trying to just talk, you know what I'm saying? To have some kind of influence in this sphere. You know, I just, I, I've just watched the market and obviously with the Trump and everything pumped up, you know what I'm saying? Obviously I had a big retracement down. That was obvious. I think so many people that were buying the highs didn't want it to go low. But I think the number one thing for people to do, you know, like I think Wolf says is just to kind of cost average in. If you, you did buy high, keep buying, you know what I'm saying, and just keep your cost just average in, you know what I mean? That's what I do. I think the only way I've ever won wasn't by leverage trading. I think I've won, I've lost a lot of money, leverage trading, but the only way I've really won is just to buy and hold. You know, I think that's, that's one of the key, key ways anybody can win in this space. And you know, I think that that's the number one thing I think I, I think everybody should just be pushing. You know, I think Wolf's great for just telling people, buy, you know, because if you buy, I personally think bitcoin will probably be at between 1.5 and 2.5 million between 2031 and 2032. But you know, that's just, that's just my opinion, you know what I'm saying? So, I mean, obviously that would be wonderful.
- [43:10]
B
Right, so, so let's get back to, to where we are today. I mean, Mark, I see your hand up. I actually wanted to ask Gary something. You've been listening, you're listening to James and you've seen what happened last week. If you're behind the mic, I know last week you were like just looking at the toxicity in the, in the system and saying, you know what, we still need another flush. You still think so?
- [43:31]
J
Yeah, yeah, because I think we can't get like we didn't get to 75. So I don't see, like, just, let's just be realistic. I mean, I think there's more downside than there is upside here. I think these, in like the tension in these rooms right now. It's this battle between low price and high price. Bitcoin has failed to do what it was going to do. Like, I give these things windows of time and what we're in February now, we're 20 days from March, man, from spring. Q3 starts in April, Q2 starts. So to me, I just don't see the buyers, man. We do not have new buying here. We have more selling than buying, period. And you can say it's about the perks, the futures and all this stuff, but like this is real bitcoin, dude. This is, these markets, you know, you can only manage the price so much. There's a lot of FUD in these rooms about people moving prices around. This is, this is, this is weak demand.
- [44:45]
B
I, I agree, I agree. But, but I, I want, want to give one piece of info just because it's, it's, I think relevant in, in years. After a down year, then the, the, the average return from May 1 through the end of the year is north of 50% and, and particular potential. And, and it's for a reason. And this year has, and I say may because it's specifically trying to find out the impact of tax refunds. This year is going to be the largest U.S. tax refund year in history and by at least 25 to 30% if not more because of the big beautiful bill. And it was a down year last year. Now why the down year? Because the down year means that people aren't paying taxes on capital gains and bitcoin. Bitcoin, right. Because there aren't any. And so it is if, if you ask me why do I believe that?
- [45:38]
J
But it's, it's February 10th. I'm just saying, hey, today, like I don't see how bitcoin gets, but yeah, you're right.
- [45:47]
B
Yeah, I get that.
- [45:48]
J
And if it can't punch through 72 now, where's it going to go? You guys are, you guys do charts better than I do. Okay, but this is finding like it hits, it hits an altitude and it's got to come back down. It hits another lower altitude and it comes back. So it doesn't seem to have the fuel to get into the hundred thousand foot altitude. It just doesn't, guys. I mean it's, it needs jet fuel and crypto's out of its jet fuel. In fact it's being sucked out. The margin calls all happened Friday. I had to post new collateral. I asked Coinbase, the people that handle the. And the only reason I'm saying this, bifurcating the ultra wealthy because they said that only 10% liquidated their positions and just got out but 90% provided more collateral. Now I think that's very positive, but I suspect, and I did not answer that on the retail level, it's probably 90, 10 the other way, where 90% of the people got liquidated and 10% put up collateral. So that should calm down. But I, I just, you know, I love to hear somebody tell me why this isn't going to go test 66 again. Because it needs to test it, doesn't it?
- [47:08]
B
I. I personally think it probably will. I think you're gonna.
- [47:12]
J
Yeah.
- [47:12]
B
In this level, I just think that there's two things that could happen, but for the most part, I don't think. I. I've been saying for a while that I thought that it would be six months after 10, 10 before we get out of whatever is going to happen. You get a regime change. It's weird how the world works, but if for some reason at this point the Democrats actually allowed a crypto bill to go through, that would be a massive surprise because I personally think that we're going to get nothing. And I think most people have gone in that direction. So that's one thing that could cause jet fuel. I actually don't expect it, though. I mean, seriously don't expect it. Another thing that could be jet fuel is. Well, actually, I'm not even sure that it would be because, you know, you got to wait for Warsh to go through confirmation hearings and seeing what's going to happen with him in dissent, et cetera, et cetera. I think most of the things that I think would be positive line up on the back half as we start approaching the spring, you know, potentially as early as March, but more likely April, May. That's what I've been thinking all along. That's why I asked you. And I also think that, that this, the Epstein situation is not going away. I mean, having, you know, and you've been very outspoken on it. And for the record, I agree with you that any. I still can't believe the names are redacted of the people. I just, it's just. It turns my stomach, you know, as a father of two girls. So I. It just makes me crazy. But I don't want to go down that rabbit hole. But the fact that our Secretary of Commerce is one that is being implicated. People are talking about one that's so involved with so much in the crypto industry, that's a serious drag on what's going on. I have to believe that's true. And I know you agree that's a.
- [48:50]
D
Serious drag, that nobody's been arrested yet as well. You know, I think that's, that's definitely.
- [48:57]
B
Personally, they haven't even been. The names haven't even been released.
- [49:01]
D
Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right. It's just a complete total utter, you know what I'm saying?
- [49:06]
B
So, but, but understand when you bring it back to markets, the one thing markets hater is uncertainty. So not knowing or not being sure of who to go at. I mean look, I, I, I saw people when you.
- [49:18]
J
Yeah, but you have people in government saying, hey, if we release all the names, our society will collapse.
- [49:24]
B
Well, that we need.
- [49:25]
J
Exactly, that's exactly.
- [49:27]
D
Take them the out and replace them. You know what I'm saying?
- [49:31]
J
Yeah, but the point, if we, if we stay on point of this meeting. I think the point is people do not invest in environments like that. We are very close to civil unrest here. I mean civil war, okay? The Congress and the senators and all these fucking professional politicians are already at civil war, dude. We can't even get a bill passed. It's logical, right? So we are effectively at civil war without the muskets and that.
- [49:57]
B
And that is, that was my point exactly. Right. I think that unless there's some resolution or people just decide we're gonna have like markets don't hate gridlock in Congress, right. In fact they generally like it because it means nothing happens. The government can't fuck things up. So that's true, but this is different. This is finger pointing at people who are very relevant in the crypto economy and often in a world without information. And that's the worst possible.
- [50:25]
J
See now Dave, if I could just punch in here. I don't even think this is about crypto. Crypto is only the lens. Like we're starting to. I think you're going to have some big whales walk away from Bitcoin because of this shit that's coming out. But the real investment dollars, everything seized up right now. Like nobody trusts anyone. How could you go invest in big pharma until these big names have been redacted, Unredacted. Right. So I just think there's a lot of risk across the whole board. And that's the other reason Bitcoin can't possibly get a bid here, a strong bid, because there's nothing else to fuel the economy. And these guys coming on, you know, the Davids, talking about tech. Hey, listen, I cannot disagree with some of what they're saying, man. Like the SAS model is fucking broken. CRM is a grossly overvalued company now. And the only reason they're making money is because of migration inertia. So I think we're going through this like we are going to go Through a point where we see major companies fail here, this transition we're making to this new world, you are going to see failure, man. We're going to go through a fucking seriously rough patch. And like what the reason I come to these is, hey, where can I place my assets that you know, can navigate a really high risk environment that I don't think many people in this room, 3,000, 4,000 people have ever gone through. In fact, no one's gone through this before. This is a true turning event.
- [51:53]
B
Well, I don't know. I'd say that what happened to retail from the rise of the Internet was very similar in a sense. There was enormous amounts of creative destruction that happened. A lot of new models failed and a lot. And the ones that took hold are now the biggest companies in the world. I think the exact same thing is going to happen here. But you know, we can. Things march on and you see all sorts of impacts. I mean, I thought it was fascinating this morning I'm looking at Jack Mahler's tweet and Jack Mahler is the one who's, you know, people have been bitching at him because the spacious that went live with this company came out of Cantor. But it was just the spac, they're not on the board, et cetera, et cetera. So I'm not impugning Jack, but the fact that he's had to deal with this shit is exactly sort of the point that you're making, which is until people know they don't want to push their chips into the middle of the table and that's important. But his tweet is, he thinks, and I actually think it's premature, but it will happen that Bitcoin being considered a software stock as software stocks are getting pummeled might be the impetus that takes Bitcoin from not to not be considered a, like a software stock. I don't know if that's true or not. Maybe he's just talking his own book, but it is interesting. Tomer.
- [53:08]
I
All right, I'll try to. I know we're almost out of time. Pack a big idea into a very short period of time here. I do think Gary's right. We're in a turning fourth turning event, which is for people who have read the thesis on it, the book is that the institutions of a particular age lose their. They disintegrate. And the institution that has been disintegrated is that of trust. We no longer trust education industry, we no longer trust politicians, we no longer trust the media. We no longer Trust pharmaceutical companies, we no longer trust our doctors, we no longer TR and our whole civilization starting at the end of the last Fourth Turning World War II has been to build these global trusted institutions and entities that we've now lost trust in. And my theory around the role that Bitcoin plays, and this is of course Bitcoin is the trustless institution that has no people in it whose trust can be compromised. So I'm not talking about short term predictions here, but I think as we watch the chaos and you guys, both of you just outline pretty clearly the thing that emerges from it is a trust, a trustless platform, a trust, a trustless base layer, a trustless protocol that people can ultimately trust in because it's. Everything's mathematically verifiable, mathematically provable within it. I think crypto was trying to rush into this thing and unfortunately compromised trustlessness for this, for the appearance of being decentralized. And so there's a shaking out and clarification that has to come through. Just like the original business models that failed on the Internet had to fail before we found out that Amazon and Google and Facebook and social networks are really what works. We have to go through that. But that's my compressed thought. And actually we're already at 11:16, so.
- [55:13]
A
It was a great wrap up. Appreciate you giving us the good words to leave by what, what an absolutely eventful space is today.
- [55:25]
D
Hey, thanks for having me up, guys. You know, I just appreciate it. And I'd also like to say that even before all the institutions have come in here, we've been doing this, I've been through a few cycles now. We've been doing this without all of these people. So, you know, it's just interesting to see how they've been playing a part in this. But remember, guys, this is a cycle. You know what I'm saying? It's. I'm not sure exactly that it's going to stay the same because of everything that's been happening, but you know, obviously it's still a cycle. It's been a little up, but it's still a crypto cycle, guys.
- [55:57]
A
Well, God speed to all of us then. Thank you everybody for joining. We'll see you tomorrow.
- [56:01]
B
And for the record, I don't think.
- [56:02]
I
You'Re a Scott, so.
- [56:04]
A
Oh, I do. Like I said, I've been called worse by better. You're totally a dude. He called me a the entire time, so it's whatever. Like I said, I've been called worse by better. Gary's on stage, he's called me worse. That's all I can for you guys today. We'll see you tomorrow. 10:15am Eastern Standard Time. Have a good month.
- [56:26]
G
Later.