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The Wolf Of All Streets
Crypto Grows Up: Coinbase Joins S&P 500! Who's Next? | Crypto Town Hall
00:54:44
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- [00:01]
Scott
Morning everybody. Welcome to Crypto Town Hall. Every day here on X at 10:15am Eastern Standard Time. Pretty clear. I think what the biggest story of the day and the one worth digging into first is that crypto grows up. Coinbase joins the S P500. Now, maybe I was living under a rock, but I did not have any indication or see any news that this was coming. Sort of came out of nowhere, but absolutely massive. And I think worth digging in with the panel on just how big this is, why it's so important and what it means for the industry. Obviously everybody lost their minds when MicroStrategy was added to the NASDAQ 100. This is, I would say, many multiples bigger. Dave, do you think that that's a fair assessment?
- [00:51]
Dave
Yeah, this is much more like. And I'm going to date myself, sorry about this is the old guy talking again. But this reminds me a lot of either AOL being added to America Online. For those who don't know the history of the Internet, In April of 1999, AOL, it bought, it bought Netscape and was kind of the first real Internet company. Then Yahoo got added in December of 1999 and it was the only real pure play Internet company. And we all know what happened to the sector of Internet stocks after those two got included for people to understand just how big a deal it is. I mean there are double digit trillions of dollars directly indexed to the s and P500. And if a company is in the s and P500 and you're an active manager, you have enormous pressure to have that company in your portfolio. Because otherwise, if for whatever reason Coinbase happened to outperform, then you would effectively be short because that's your benchmark. So it is a massively important, it's a monumentally important milestone from the perspective of becoming mainstream. And effectively, it's not just a signal that crypto is mainstream, it's a signal that S and P, because they have a committee, there are humans there that make these decisions there that they look at the Bitcoin being a strategic asset. They look at the chair of the SEC saying getting digital asset regulation right as important. It's a very big deal if you don't understand it. All you have to do is just go back and read the history from 99 and see what happened between 99 and by the end of 2000 to understand what is likely to come next. And I do think it matters. And so, you know, I could drone on about this forever, but let's get.
- [02:46]
Scott
To the panel so, Matt, massive, massive two year pump and bubble coming for everything. Crypto and crypto adjacent. And then it pops and we see what comes out of it.
- [02:59]
Dave
Let's not get hyperbolic, but I do think real companies who have, you know, who are there, will. Look, there's a lot of companies in the world who have been reticent. I mean, anyone who's worked in crypto for like the last eight years, like, like I have. You know, you talk to people and I talk to tradfi people all the time. The difference now is there's no longer an if it used to be. Well, if this crypto thing takes off, I guess you'll do really well. Or if this crypto thing, you don't hear if it's now, when. And this is the latest signal of that and it might be the most obvious signal of that. It also indicates by the, that investment consultants who, the ones who drive portfolio allocations have to consider crypto. And so it's not a small thing.
- [03:47]
Austin
Yeah.
- [03:47]
Scott
And one of the amazing sort of side stories to this is that companies like Vanguard that have refused to even list Bitcoin, spot ETFs or participate in any way, shape or form are now forced massively to participate.
- [04:00]
Dave
Vanguard will be the largest or one of the top three holders of Coinbase within six months. That's just a fact.
- [04:08]
Scott
Just by passively indexing.
- [04:10]
Dave
Well, they have no choice because they have the largest mutual fund in the S and P. So by definition, Vanguard will be that. Now, will that mean they've made a choice? No. Will people in crypto Twitter say, look, Vanguard is the largest? It's like, no, it doesn't mean anything other than that's just a fact.
- [04:26]
Scott
Yeah, it's the same narrative as BlackRock being the quote unquote, largest holder in microstrategy or in miners. As if that was an active decision, which we've discussed that it's not. But. Hey, people.
- [04:36]
Dave
Yeah, although, but Larry Fink is out there telling anyone now he is, listen that this stuff is, is under, is underpriced. So yeah, it is different.
- [04:45]
Scott
Austin would love your thoughts on this.
- [04:48]
Austin
Yeah, so I mean, it's an interesting time when I agree with Dave, it's very big. And I think people underestimate how important some of these structural hurdles are to clear in equities markets. Like there are a number of funds actively managed, passively managed, who literally are s and P500 index funds who exactly as Dave said, will be forced buyers of this stock. Right. Like that is the reason it's up so much. To your point as well earlier, it's also up so much because this was kept very quiet. Right. Like, we hear a lot of rumors in the crypto space. I don't know anybody who saw this coming for Coinbase or who was in on this. So this was kept very, very quiet. And as a result, you're seeing what I think is a pretty honest market reaction to it. The other part, you know, zooming out a little bit as we talk about people are going to have to start engaging with crypto. Crypto is here to stay. It kind of drives home a point that I've been thinking about for a while. And, you know, this just seems to be another data point is the things that have really found product market fit with normies, so to speak, are bitcoin. Right? Look at Michael Saylor, look at Microstrategy, look at people talking about Bitcoin, treasury sort of trades. And then this idea of crypto as like a financial tool, because Coinbase is an exchange that also has a significant interest in a stable coin. Right. Coinbase is not out there launching a bunch of tokens, but they do have a blockchain.
- [06:17]
Scott
They have a blockchain with no token. But that basically interesting conversation too.
- [06:21]
Dave
Yeah, correct.
- [06:23]
Austin
Hold on, you're way ahead of me. And I was going to say they own an interest in a stable coin and they have base and they also have Coinbase Institutional, which people forget about quite a bit as well. And so it seems to me the other story that is starting to take off here is crypto as quote, unquote, financial technology. We're not really seeing the move into traditional markets driven by like, meme coins or like going really far down the stack on L1s or protocols. It's kind of, you know, for lack of a better way to say this, just bread and butter stuff, replacing janky 1970s implementations in traditional markets.
- [07:03]
Scott
Yeah, I had Matt Hogan on this morning on YouTube for Bitwise. We were discussing this and we kind of discussed the fact that it was interesting that Coinbase got listed in the S and P before Robinhood. That's a separate conversation. But how? Basically, Robinhood and Coinbase are going to be the Charles Schwab's of the future. This is the next wave of the full suite of financial services. Robinhood is a bank now. That news went wildly underreported a couple months ago. Coinbase has applied for a bank charter charter. Coinbase just bought there a bit last week. Right. In the largest acquisition ever. So you can tell that These are not just crypto exchanges. To your point, right. Coinbase is going to be the full suite of financial services, will be one of the biggest companies, which I've been saying for years, I think, in the world. Amateo, Go ahead.
- [07:55]
Amateo
Yeah, actually on that specific point, Scott, it was announced this morning that Robinhood acquired WonderFi, Canada's top.
- [08:03]
Scott
Mr. Wonder. Mr. Wonderful Man. Guys, come on.
- [08:07]
Amateo
Mr. WonderFi. So Robin Hood is coming to Canada, which I think is super significant. And because it's a crypto trading platform, I think they're going to be leading with crypto. So I think you're, you're spot on there. But going back to Coinbase, having been in this industry as long as I have, you know, I think there was so many opportunities for Coinbase to go in the wrong direction and they've just continued to persevere and make really smart decisions. There's been so many liquidity events, there's been so many honey traps, there's been so much regulatory attacks. And for them to actually move through this, do all of the right things, continue to take, you know, punch above and go the regulatory route in such an official manner to actually reach this place, it's just incredible. And you also actually touched on something with Base that I wanted to highlight. Dune, the on chain data data analytics platform, published a wallet report today. Really fantastic, highly recommend it. But there's a couple stats here that I wanted to highlight, which is that base already accounts for 20% of all embedded swaps and up to 25% of all swap volume in wallets. Base also leads 65% of new account deployments this year. That's, like, insane. So not only are they just handling so much of the institutional side of microstrategy and everything else that gets all these headlines when it comes to the actual global retail, when they're getting onboarded, they're coming to base first and foremost. It just shows the amount of dominance Coinbase has in this market.
- [10:04]
Scott
Agree that the Robinhood acquisition of WonderFi is really interesting and I think you made the most important point, is that it's the first time I believe Robinhood's coming to Canada at all, and they're leading 100% with crypto. Shows you exactly where the puck is moving. Right? Go ahead.
- [10:22]
Ian
So what's also very interesting, Scott, and you've got these tools so you can check it for yourself, but on Coinbase, if you switch to the monthly time frame for the past two months, we've actually had a setup which we call a squeeze shading. Coincidentally on Coinbase. And it's very interesting how technicals can a lot of times not predict news events, but they line up for news events. Yes, just like this. So what a squeeze shading is, guys, for those of you listening, it's a area of the chart where you can tell that volatility has been bent up and it has to be released. And usually when that volatility is released, it extends in a very violent, extensive breakout that doesn't stop for quite a while until that volatility is all dried up. Now the interesting news is that we're actually not yet broken out of that volatility squeeze. So it's actually not too late for people to get in, which kind of lines up with kind of, you know, common sense. If people are buying S&P 500, they're essentially going to be buying a part of Coinbase every time now. And you know, look at that monthly chart because we've not yet broken out. And I don't think it's too late. If you think you've missed the move on this to get in on it, you, you know about the volatility squeeze, Scott?
- [11:35]
Scott
Yeah, of course. I mean I, I agree. Like I said, charts aside, I think Coinbase ends up one of the top 10 biggest companies in the United States. I really do not going to be this year.
- [11:49]
Ian
Yeah. And the last thing I'll say, if any of you want to hear about that volatility squeeze, I have a video on my, on my page if you want to see what I'm talking about. But I do expect if we break out of that, that the technicals say that this could go to about 550 pretty quickly in this bull market. So very interesting to watch.
- [12:07]
Scott
Maybe we should pivot there and actually talk about the market itself then. You obviously referred to it as a bull market. I think that's pretty clear. Al still think that, you know, this is a big bull trap after the drop from Liberation Day. But what do you make wick of the price of bitcoin at the moment? And more importantly, I think the fact that altcoins finally moved here. Right. That to me has been the most interesting thing is that bitcoin went up, but altcoins actually went up more, which I think is an indication of a healthier bull market across the board, including, you know, tech.
- [12:40]
Ian
Yeah, no, absolutely. You know, you can look at this from the long term perspective, which is, I've thought that this has been a bul. Simply any corrections that we have are buying opportunities. People are always Asking me if I've shorted the correction and the answer is no, because I have a golden rule. I do not ever short a bull market. And I think Arthur Hayes hit, hit it on the head when he said that when the government started to do buybacks bonds, that was kind of the bottom of that correction. Right. So I think we'll see a few more times like this where we do major corrections of 30% or, or such as we've seen in know, different markets. You've talked about 2017, I think we had four to five corrections of 40% or, or just around that area. So yeah, this is nothing different than any other bull market we've had. You know, there's going to be times and periods where everyone thinks it's over and those that are confident in these cycles, you know, see them as buying opportunities.
- [13:34]
Scott
Jonathan, what do you think? Obviously you're looking at this every day for stock twits. What do you make of the market movement?
- [13:41]
Jonathan
You have a little bit of a mixed feeling by our users. Overall though, the consensus is very bullish, cautiously bullish. But you look at the market cap dominance of bitcoin and it's had five consecutive straight months higher. It's reached multi year highs if you look at it just as its own technical chart. Very much overdone. But the length of time it's spent with bitcoin controlling more and more of the entire crypto market cap. It's, it's been going on for 32 months. It's been in this uptrend which is, you know, we haven't had a long time of crypto to base that off of. But the longest one prior to that was 20 months. That was in 20, beginning of 2018 through the latter part of 2019. Yeah, this has been a very, which makes sense with all the adoption institutionally. So if, I don't know if I see. And our users also have said that they think bitcoin is going to keep appreciating, but altcoins are going to appreciate more. Like there's going to be enough fiat traveling into the crypto market to support bitcoin and altcoins going up higher. In other words. What I'm saying is, is don't be surprised to see bitcoin's dominance drop even though it's closing in the green. But altcoins are closing in the green even higher and harder.
- [15:08]
Scott
Ye. Yeah, I mean that's, this was kind of the first time in this market cycle where we saw that in a meaningful way, which is kind of my point, Bitcoin dominance down while bitcoin is up. Right? We've just seen bitcoin go up and bitcoin dominance goes up with it and all coins disproportionately suffer. And a lot of this obviously is because of how big Ethereum is. And it finally moved.
- [15:26]
Jonathan
Right. And the capital rotation theory in crypto is going to have to be changed a little bit because it used to be, you know, you'd have a cycle where Fiat was going only into bitcoin because that was pretty much the only thing Fiat could buy. Well, that's not the case anymore, but still, you know, there, there is a case going on here where there's enough new money entering crypto to support Bitcoin, which is being converted into altcoins, but you know, not as much as it used to be because it's easier to, to get access to altcoins with, with dollars, euros, pounds, whatever. But you're, you're definitely seeing enough money to support the, the conservative asset in crypto, Bitcoin, the safe asset, and that also to support the very speculative side.
- [16:08]
Scott
Brian, I think this is once again that this is an indication for the first time that there's definitely some new money here because most definitely, especially on.
- [16:16]
Jonathan
The retail end, even though there's not a ton of retail in it yet, there is a lot of, when you look at the altcoins, you look at the addresses, wallets and all that jazz, there's a lot of new creation of wallets and entities, small, smaller entities, retail coming into this.
- [16:36]
Amateo
Yeah, I just wanted to double click on that. Going back to the wallet report that that is absolutely true. All wallet activity is at all time highs and ripping up into the right, which I think is really interesting because again I love to do this but like harking back to a couple weeks ago, it was just like retail's not here, retail's not participating. But when you actually look at wallet data the, which is now dominating where swaps and activity is happening, everything is up to the right and it's actually signaling that it's lower balances and a lot of growth globally in Africa, in Asia. We have so much wallet growth and actual transactions and volumes on chain, which is really, really exciting. So I actually think that we have to take a more global retail outlook because we used to take our retail outlook when it came to like altcoins and crypto and narratives to being very US centric and I just think that that's changed dramatically. OKX is dominating the world of wallets And I don't think that's something that many of us probably here listening use, maybe some of us do. But I think that that's the outlook has to really broaden because this market has become global and global retail is arriving in mass.
- [18:00]
Scott
Ian, you're seeing this every day on coin rats routes. What people are actually trading, where the volumes are coming from. I mean do you have anything kind of to support the idea that there's some new money here and that there's more interest in altcoins than previous parts of this cycle?
- [18:16]
Gary
Yeah, I was trying to come up with something smart to say but basically I think the difference between this cycle and the last cycle with respect to trading is now a lot of these crypto exchanges have what they we call unified cross margin. So you can hold any asset and trade any other asset. And I just don't think that was really as prolific in the cycle of 21. Like it wasn't as robust as it is now. Now all the major exchanges have this and it really means that you can hold anything as collateral and trade anything else. And before, you know, if you wanted to buy Bitcoin on leverage, you had to trade kind of the inverse perpetual products. That's what you know, most people traded. That was the Bitmex product where you held Bitcoin and you were able to lever up on Bitcoin.
- [18:53]
Dave
Right.
- [18:53]
Gary
And now you have all this, this whole like cross margin system. And so you can hold Eth, Bitcoin or salon or whatever. And so I think the market dynamics are a bit different. I think it's going to be hard to predict kind of like how this cycle plays out versus last cycles. Because I think some of the fundamentals of the markets have changed. I mean we have, I would say most of our traders are holding tether now. They're not actually holding spot. Like the people that are trading a lot, they're hold the high turnover kind of individual traders that are moving these markets around. They're holding tether and they're trading all these assets on leverage.
- [19:26]
Dave
Right.
- [19:26]
Gary
Whereas before maybe they were holding bitcoin and ETH directly and trading those things. So I think it's a bit different and it's going to be interesting to see how this all plays out.
- [19:37]
Scott
Awesome.
- [19:40]
Austin
So another point to pile on there, because it's something I've been following for a while, is the introduction of the Bitcoin ETFs have really produced a significant change in crypto market structure. You have a large pocket of people because they are investing through money and brokerage accounts into the ETFs that really cannot, will not, do not want to rotate into other coins. Right. Like if they're selling Bitcoin, it's to go buy like stocks or Coinbase or something like that at this point. And so exactly as was said, that's changing the structure of derivatives markets too. And I would pile in to say one of the things I've been observing as we look at, you know, volumes here, and I think Dave and I have discussed this before, is as we think about the usage of perpetuals in this market, there are increasing situations where levered traders taking positions there using tether as the base can get moved around by spot underlying moves that are disproportionately small compared to what you get in the majors. It's something you also see in commodities markets. So as a market structure sort of thing, one of the things I'm observing and we're experiencing is sort of a disconnect in the volatility regime between call it just Bitcoin into a lesser extent, Ethan, for lack of a better way to say it. Everything else.
- [21:00]
Dave
Yeah, I think that the one thing I would add because like Ian made the point last week about you know, you know, hyper liquid, if you look at their growth, you know, the ability to trade on margin, you know, kind of the way he was talking about, but also hold on to, you know, not have to give up your, your coins to a centralized exchange is definitely a trend. I mean I think that was a good highlight. I think that, that seeing, you know, the leverage play out and the way that it, that it works is going to be a wake up call for traditional finance as well. I mean, you know, we talked about it a few weeks ago. Coinbase filing perpetual for perpetual swaps here will be a big deal when it gets approved. And I say when because look, I've talked to, you know, I actually talked to the CFTC commissioners who are now in the ascendancy and they will approve it once it gets to a reasonable point. So there's a lot of that going on. But I think that that does matter and I think the Bitcoin ETFs opened up capital flows, frankly. I think, you know, Coinbase being the S and P is going to open up capital flows. I mean capital flows are different now. It's not just crypto only.
- [22:09]
Gary
Yeah, I mean, I think we're seeing a wealth effect though as well because a lot of our, I mean I think it's half, half, like a lot of traders will hold Bitcoin on an exchange like a Buybit or an OkX and then they can trade all of the perpetual futures where that bitcoin gets converted into tether margin at a 0.9. Basically 90% of the USD value of that Bitcoin is credited in tether for the purpose of trading perpetual. So obviously, if all the money's flowing into the ETFs and they see their Bitcoin balance go up, they might be inclined to take larger positions on the perp side. So I think the wealth effect is less direct where people are directly flipping their bitcoin into alts. But I do think that because of the price appreciation of Bitcoin, traders that are holding Bitcoin as collateral are able to trade all of these other instruments maybe, and maybe that is enough to offset the inflows from the ETFs, which aren't exactly liquid into the other markets. So I think it's something to watch.
- [23:01]
Scott
Yeah, maybe it's a bit of both, maybe. The fact is, I think, Austin, you're a thousand percent correct, obviously that someone who buys an ETF and puts it in their retirement fund can't really sell the ETF and go buy the meme coin flavor of the week. But now I do think that we're getting a lot of people who maybe came into to crypto through Bitcoin ETFs starting to do a deeper dive into the space and find out that there are more assets and deploy different capital. And I think that there's probably new money coming in that way. Either way, we couldn't have had that move of everything up last week unless there was some new money here to drive it. Because also, I mean, meme coins also went up right there. Our point before was there was bitcoin, mean coin, sort of barbell and everything else in between wasn't catching a bid. But if everything across the board is catching a bit, there has to be new money in my mind.
- [23:51]
Austin
Yeah.
- [23:51]
Jonathan
Last week, Scott, like Friday was hilarious. It was, it was a dog, a frog and Trump leading the Friday's market. It was, it was Pepe, a dog with hat, and then Trump's coin that, that were all leading everything on Friday by huge numbers, not just percentages and, and growth, but like the amount of money traded and it was insane.
- [24:19]
Scott
Yeah. And everything in the middle still went up with it. So, yeah, to me this is a, it's a inflection point, I think, for the bull market argument. And Dave, we talked about this yesterday, but to me this feels like Evidence of the early iterations of a bull cycle and not the end of one. Because the new money doesn't just come in and get washed in the first week.
- [24:42]
Dave
Yeah, I mean, look, the most important point here is the holding periods. And you know, we talked about the, we talked about it last, you know, yesterday maybe, you know, the Goldman Sachs owning a lot of the Bitcoin etf. Well, the reason for that is for hedging of swap products and derivative products that generally have an average holding period of somewhere between one and two years. You know, Grok thinks it's one and a half, whatever, but it's not much months, it's not days, it's not weeks, it's years. And you know, if that's what the new money is doing, then that's not really nearly as susceptible to the short term shakeouts that the crypto world is used to. And so that does matter. But then that money flows into the hands of people, as Ian was mentioning, that are in the crypto space. And so, you know, look, I jokingly made the joke. We may never get the opportunity to buy Bitcoin below 100 and 100 thousand about a week and a half ago. And honestly I will tell you, I am surprised that we haven't even seen a tick below 100,000 in the last week and a half. Now does that mean it will never do it? Of course not. But every time we get these periods where bitcoin consolidates at a level and stays in a really tight non volatile range, the resulting volatility when that range breaks is higher than people expect. And it's happened every single time. I don't expect this to be any different. Now that doesn't mean that it's going to end tomorrow, but I do think that it feels more like a coiling spring than it does like a market top. I mean if it were doing this and the funding rates were really high and people there were tons of leverage and it was derivative led, I'd be saying something very different. But that's not the case.
- [26:27]
Scott
Alex and Austin.
- [26:31]
Alex
Yeah, listen, I just want to compensate on what was said earlier about the Bitcoin etf, which has created a bitcoin super cycle, in my humble opinion, because I define a super cycle when not just retail but also also institutional capital is flowing into that particular asset. And I can also confirm, Scott, that there is new retail money. So in terms of onboardings month on month within the Swissborg app, I can tell you if I compare the month of April and May, we're up roughly 23, 24 in terms of new registrations of new deposits. We also have more AUM coming in. So there is the beginning of new capital. But I also think that one thing that's really important, Scott, in terms of what's different in this cycle on top of bitcoin kind of decoupling from stocks, potentially being the leader and the mother of all assets, I only think the reason why other assets are pumping is just because bitcoin is dragging them. And as we know, 70 to 80% of all algo trading are from bots. And so these bots take profits and they go into different assets and it kind of spreads from there. But the biggest concern that I've heard at token 2049, and I was very active and I talked to some very, very established, incredible people in the industry, is that we had such a growth and such dilution in terms of the total crypto tokens and the asset markets marketplace that people are getting lost, right? We have now currently between 16,000 to 17,000 assets that are being tracked on coingecko and crypto and coin market cap. And that's a lot, a lot of dilution, right, because people don't know where to focus. And for those reasons as well, obviously we had the meme coin cycle and all those kind of things, but for those reasons as well, it also creates some sort of negativity towards many people who have ended up thinking that this is a bitcoin only cycle, which is couldn't be further from the truth. And so my contrarian view, right, even though many smart people are saying I'm just going to sell everything and go all in bitcoin, I really don't think that's the right mindset. And I would, for all those listening out there, I would be very wary about the people you follow because that will have direct influence on your mood and sentiment. And I must say that I'm seeing a trend of the older people who've been here, like you, Scott, you're negative sometimes too, by the way, a bit too negative compared to what, what you were before. But understandably so and reasonably so because we've seen so much happen that a lot of us have ptsd. So for example, El Capo, he literally liquidated his position at 102K US dollars of Bitcoin. 50 of his position was he sold. And he said, I'm, I'm half out and I'm waiting to liquidate the past. For all those who are following content creators that have been in the game for long Be careful, be careful. Because what happens is when you first get into the cycle, you're very, very optimistic after a certain amount of time and you get slapped around, you lose some money, you make the wrong calls, you become more realistic, but after a longer amount of time, you become pessimistic. And I think it's very important that if you're following content creators, and even though I've been in this game since 2016, I'm doing my best not to fall into this PTSD, overly pessimistic cycle. Always doubting, always having uncertainty. And I try to look at numbers only. And that's why, Scott, I had a big debate with one of your guys, you know, after the fomc, because I thought in terms of data, the Fed had made the wrong choice. But for all those watching out there, really try to follow an ensemble of different content creators and experts in the industry from the old school guys who will definitely be more pessimistic because they've suffered a lot and they've, they, they do have thick skin, but they will be more negative with the more, let's say, only one or two cycles guys and the new cycle guys, because I think it's important to have a very global and wide perspective in order to be an adaptable investor, which is the investor who will make the most money.
- [30:22]
Scott
I can assure you new cycle guys who are going to get lucky in a bull market will be old cycle guys and poor in two cycles.
- [30:30]
Alex
100%. We need to stay sane, right?
- [30:34]
Scott
Forgive my pessimism, but let's not pretend that people who are making money right now in crypto for the first time are going to have that money in four years because they're going to get washed. So, yes, call me, call me pessimistic, but 99% of this is complete hot garbage that needs to go to zero post haste. And if you have made money on it, it, you should sell it and enjoy your life. So there's my dose of pessimism. But if we're following the new money, it's a bunch of morons trading dogs, frogs and cats who think that that's the future of finance. And so I do agree with you that you should follow a full swath of people, but the people who have actually been here are the ones who will tell you how it is and not tell you how they want it to be.
- [31:21]
Alex
Not necessarily, brother, because if you look at people like Warren Buffett, he's probably the greatest investor of all time. There is a certain expiration date. Unfortunately, there is an expiration date. And even though Berkshire Hathaway has done relatively well in most recent years, what happens is it's not the intelligent investor. The concept of Benjamin Graham and the whole intelligent investor book couldn't be more flawed because it's not about being an intelligent investor and understanding value investing thing. It's about being an adaptable investor and how can you stay in the game without, as you say, becoming completely moronic. Like the new money that has no clue what they're doing, but not being entirely negative like the old school money who are gonna. Or missing out on a lot of these chances. Right. Like these cats and dogs have created significant wealth. I have a guy in my building, it's his fourth cycle. He's. He's generated $47 million in net profits. I've seen it in his wallet. I see him every day at the, the pool. And he hates these meme coins, Scott. But he's making more money than you are with your Bitcoin.
- [32:18]
Ian
So in all defense, Warren Buffett is 100 years old.
- [32:21]
Scott
Yeah, Literally.
- [32:23]
Alex
Yeah, I'm going extreme, guys. I'm deliberately being extreme today, but it's just for the sake of good conversation.
- [32:28]
Scott
Yes, but your guy who made 47 million in meme coins is a guy who's been around the block a hundred times, hates them, knows exactly what they are, and that's why he is smart and is making money on them. But I would also argue he's full if he has $47 million sitting in a wallet.
- [32:44]
Alex
No, no, no. It's not in usdc, by the way. No, but what I'm saying is he's adaptable enough to take advantage of things based on his experience. So maybe I miss. I. I miscommunicated my point. I know you're.
- [32:54]
Scott
No, I think you're right. I think it's a happy medium. I'm just saying there is literally, I, I will argue that just on the far end of that spectrum, there's nothing worse for retail than coming in and listening to the brand new people who are all hype and have no idea what they're doing.
- [33:15]
Austin
I'll hop in to make a deeper point, which is he took that $47 million from other retail people. Right? Like, the thing about meme coins is fundamentally, all value created is coming from somebody else. In that context, there's no, for lack of a better way to put it, operating business, generating cash flows here. To go back to Buffett and the intelligent investor and on that point, like, zoom out, right? If you read about Crypto. And you talk about crypto and you're on crypto Twitter and you're talking to crypto people. You have an extreme sample bias. Back to having like a large pool of people that you listen to, the majority of investors. Not on Twitter, not in crypto Twitter. Like you really do need to zoom out on these things. There's this long, slow grind of money in the RIA community coming into Bitcoin only because of the ETFs. These are people who quite frankly don't think about crypto at all. They just put a 2% portfolio weight in there and start buying the ETF and don't even think about it. It's just going to grind. So yes, bitcoin right now is making less money than the meme coin. But like, this is a time frame question. Are you a day trader or are you a long term investor like Buffett? Because if we told everybody here you could only hold one coin, you're going to hold it for 10 years, you can do nothing with it and you just come back and get the returns. I think all of us would pick bitcoin.
- [34:37]
Dave
Yeah, yeah.
- [34:39]
Scott
I 100% am on board, by the way, with like, you can make more money in meme coins than Bitcoin. And I'm not bitcoin only, so it's a strange claim anyways. But your point is very important to us. And 99.9% of people who try are going to fail.
- [34:54]
Dave
Look, most day traders across the spectrum, numerically, as a percentage, lose money. I mean, speaking of someone who ran a firm that literally took the other side of day traders, you know, it's something that if you're a professional or you're good at it, you make money. And it's one of those great things like casinos do really well. They love to point out the guy who beat the roulette table for hundreds of thousands of dollars or the grandma who wants the slot machine and you know, and got the big jackpot because that's what brings everybody into the casino. Never mistake the fact that your guy who made 47 million is an advertisement for the casino. And in this particular case, Austin's right. It's not really the house that's making the money, it's the smart people. It's just basically a sorting function. Smart people, professionals taking from the next stage in. But there is a big difference. And Warren Buffett, you could say a lot of things about him. I mean, I'm not a huge fan of him as an individual because I think he's a hypocrite. But he made his money on the basis of a meta trend. It's no different than Michael Saylor. Michael Saylor's meta trend we all know is Bitcoin vis a vis Fiat. Buffett's metatrand was financialization. Everything Buffett invested in was based upon the Fiat Ponzi as some people like to call it, or just basically just the free money, the below market interest rate environment which allowed financialization. So he bought into companies that would profit from that. Was an incredibly savvy derivative trader. So you know, you could look at Warren Buffett, oh he's an old guy, he did this. But he caught that meta Trend which was 30 years of below market interest rates and that's how he made his money. What's going to be the next meta trend? That's what you should be thinking if you're just a long term investor. So I would point that out because it really does matter. And if we are right on the meta trends of digital assets reshaping finance and the meta trend of Fiat eventually finding Bitcoin becoming that alternative, if either of those two meta trends is right, then crypto becomes something massive compared to where it is today. But those are metatrends. That's not trading in and out based on what's going on on Pepe the Frog or you know, Dog Whiff Hat or Sheba or anything like that.
- [37:14]
Scott
By the way, it's even more difficult I think in crypto than in standard markets because structurally you have to not only understand the trend but you have to find how that trend is investable and then choose the correct token that doesn't have shit tokenomics, even if it's a great idea, right? So like even, even the best ideas in crypto, the ones that will eventually win, if you were a retail investor who tried to gain exposure to that through some token, you're down 99%.
- [37:42]
Alex
Right?
- [37:43]
Scott
Because like of just structurally how much liquidity there is and when the unlocks come and who, you know, what VC is dumping on you. So I just think it's a very, very hard market to make money if you're going to have much exposure beyond the quote unquote safer investments. Alex, I even think you'd agree with that.
- [38:04]
Alex
Yeah brother. So listen, I, I, I probably miscommunicated my point. I didn't want to mean that experience doesn't come into play. I was really talking about the mindset, how you can easily go from being optimistic to realistic to pessimistic. So I wasn't I wasn't criticizing your experience, brother. I know how sharp you are, but it's just, I feel like you're a little bit a negative, a little bit of a negative Nancy these days. And by the way, guys, I don't know if you saw, but inflation numbers came out and we've just hit an all time low since 2021. So the whole, all the political and noise BS that we're talking about last week relative to inflation numbers probably going back up was, was bogus. So.
- [38:43]
Scott
I agree with that. The trend has been down. But the conversation, I think last week was more like if tariffs set in after a certain amount of time, it could be inflationary, which you wouldn't see yet in the data, but very clear that debt inflation has generally been coming down. I think you're correct there. And I think the market, market's not too concerned about inflation at the moment. Danish, I wish I could get you up here. I see all the funny, funny faces, but the panels fall when someone drops. We will get you up here. I mean, yeah, I might be a bit of a negative Nancy of late, but if you've, if you've, as you said, sort of been through a few cycles, it's a lot easier to just outright all from day one on 99 of the stuff that you would have deeply believed in in the past. Well, and.
- [39:33]
Jonathan
The longer you're in the market, the thicker your skin gets. That's just with trading in general. I mean, I, I was day traded for 12 years before I got married, had kids and decided I want to live past 50. And, and also you like day trading. It's the antithesis of normal human behavior. I mean, you, you, you, money isn't everything, okay? But it is a thing that puts a roof over your head or clothes on your back and food in your stomach. So it's pretty goddamn close. And that, that's the thing you have to risk to make money. God help you if you have a mortgage and kids and a family. I mean, that's, that's a nightmare. But comparing Warren Buffett though, yes, there are 2 billion people here when he made his first investment, 11 years old in 1941. Now there's 8 billion. I mean, trying to use, having a measuring stick for anything is like, like, he's like the Michael Jordan on cocaine of investing. It's just, it's just nuts. But yeah, day trading crypto. I don't even know how you would do it. I would, I would. I just get a sick stomach trying to think about it.
- [40:35]
Scott
People who are making money day trading crypto aggressively, by the way, are doing it largely on inside information. But go ahead. Wait.
- [40:44]
Ian
Yeah, you know, and not. Not to just stick up for Scott. It's not that I don't think that you're negative, Nancy Scott, but I do think that after being in the market for quite some time, me, I've been trading professionally for 20 years almost. I mean, I've never had another job. And I would label that as being defensive. And one thing that you learn after being in markets for quite a while is that you have to be more defensive and optimistic because you can lose money a lot faster than you can make it. If anyone's ever heard the phrase you take the stairs up and the elevator down, that is very true. And if you are too complacent, you will lose your ass in this market a lot faster than you think you will make it. So I think that older traders actually have a much larger edge, as you know, as you. As you said, they know when to be in it and to take that risk, but they also know that they have to be defensive to be able to survive in trading. And that's the main game is survival, not trying to make as much money as you can.
- [41:39]
Scott
Chris is a great time for you to jump in, buddy. Chris? X, you there?
- [41:47]
I
Yeah, man. Can you hear me?
- [41:49]
Scott
Dan.
- [41:52]
I
Can you hear me?
- [41:53]
Scott
Yes, sir.
- [41:55]
I
Okay. Yeah, yeah. Okay. I got you, man. Yeah. No, I love what, I love what Wick just said there because, you know, again, speaking as somebody who's been in a long time as well, you know, this is my 31st year. You know, this is something I try and tell everybody to listen anytime they can, especially new traders coming in. You know, trading is a game of losing. You know, it's inevitable that you will lose money. It doesn't matter how long you've been in, you will lose money. The only guarantee in trading is the long as you know, is that you're going to lose money from time to time. And the newer you are, the more money you're going to lose and the more often you're going to lose it. So you absolutely have to come in with the mindset that risk management is the most important thing that you're doing. But unfortunately for most of us, I was one of those, you know, it takes a while of losing money and of being in the markets before it finally clicks. You know, when we first come in, we've got big old eyeballs, you know, pie in the sky, dreams. We're going to buy that. I Don't know. Back in 2017 it was Lambos, right? We're going to buy that island next week from our hundred dollar trading account, you know, because we're just going to go up, you know, infinity in the next week. But you know, that's the way everybody comes in. And I want to say that because what that means is when you come in, you're doing no different than pretty much everybody else. Year after year in every market that's a new trader, right? We all come in with the same thoughts. We all think we're going to get rich overnight. We all think it's going to be easy. And so if you understand that, then you can forgive yourself for making the bad decisions and for just jumping in with that kind of thought process. And you can look at it now, you can say, okay, what did I do wrong? How do I need to correct this? Because here's the thing. Until you actually admit that you've made mistakes, until you actually take responsibility for the decisions that you're making, especially in trading, you can't actually then go back and look and say, well now how do I change it? As long as it's always somebody else's fault, you're never going to look and figure out how to change it. And you're going to continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. And you're going to be like, you know, 90 plus percent of retail traders that just lose money when they come in. And so, you know, it all starts with exactly as Wick was saying there, which is this idea that you need to be defensive when you come in, which is completely opposite of the way that we, that we tend to unfortunately. But if you can do that, you know, then you understand that trading is not a, is not a sprint, it's a marathon. It's something you do over time. You get happier, you get more complex, not complacent, but more accepting of like a two hour or a four hour trade where you're, you know, where you're making twice what you risk or three times what you risk rather than trying to hit a 10x or 100x over the next week. And I think the quicker that traders can get to that mindset, the more likely they are to actually be able to stay in the market rather than just get kind of wiped out. And unfortunately.
- [44:50]
Scott
Yeah, I agree with all that. Go ahead, Alex.
- [44:53]
J
Scott, I just wanted to say I. Gary, Gary, I do not think you are negative in the least. For you to be here this long, bro, you have to have a little Bit of a crazy positive streak. So I don't hear the negativity. What I do hear is like, I don't. Maybe we wouldn't have heard this from you eight years ago, but I think there is a big warning that should go out to everyone that here's these $47 million. Hey, I made that much money. And like these are very extreme events. I don't know if this guy's going to keep his 47 million. Congrats to him. But it is not the way most people make legacy wealth and protect their future. It's just not. It's a very high risk way of doing it. It sounds sexy, but I've known a lot of traders and every one of them, including myself, have lost massive amounts of money on positions they just couldn't get out of that look good at the time. So paper. Well, you know, player beware.
- [45:56]
Scott
Yeah, I mean, Gary, I don't think Alex and I are friends by the way. So like.
- [46:01]
Ian
Yeah, yeah.
- [46:01]
Alex
So guys, I love.
- [46:02]
Scott
Just to be clear, Alex wasn't like taking. Yeah, go ahead.
- [46:06]
Alex
I literally love you, Scott, you know that and I'm just pulling your legs. So. But it was cool to see everyone here have your back here. And I can probably say that everyone here has at least a decade of financial experience. So obviously there, you know, everything is relative in life, right? You cannot call anything without having relativity. And I'm just saying that to tease you, Scott, relative to the previous cycle, 2019 to 2021, relative to now. But is that just a part of the game? I think Christoph mentioned something really, really important which is. And the reason why I use Warren Buffett to, to scale in numbers is because he is the Michael Jordan of all time. But one thing that he lacked wasn't intelligence. It was a lack of flexibility to not get in, got. Not get in on the best performing stocks and assets like bitcoin of all time. And it's. Was. Is it due to the lack of intelligence? No, because becoming too intelligent actually equals stupidity. Because if you come become too intelligent, then you're lacking the flexibility that Christoph Christopher. Sorry. Was talking about. And that's really, really important to always stay flexible at all times. And if you hang around with, you know, the old dogs all the time, which is great, you'll learn risk management, you'll be more careful, you're more cautious. And especially if you're building wealth over time. Right. If you're in this game for two decades, three decades, you're more looking to preserve your wealth than gain wealth. So Also, the amount of net worth, the net worth you, you have or you is, is very, very important with regards to psychological side. All I was saying, Scott, is all the old dogs that I know from 2014 to 2016, when I got into this game, they're all super negative. And by the way, Scott, I'm really once again teasing you. They're way more negative than you are. Like, literally a lot of them are saying, it's my last cycle. I call them. I said that's, I said, you're not going to leave. You're maybe depressed because this was really intense. We lost, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars through all the black swans we had in 2020 alone, all the way up to 2025. So it's been really intense. But what I'm saying is, for your sanity, for your mindset, do not only hang out with all dogs, I wouldn't hang out with all you guys every single day. I want to hang out with some fresh young puppies, even though they're dumb, even though the puppy will fall over, will jump into a tree, because that's how you detect trends at the end of the day. And so what I'm trying to say with Warren Buffett is even the most successful guy in the world if he really wants to make good money. And we're talking about, like, create financial freedom over time. It's not the intelligence, but it's the flexibility. And that's why I always tell everyone, do not be too intelligent. Be adaptable at all times. And by the way, adaptability, not just as an investor, as every single Fortune 500 CEO has mentioned, adaptability is the key to success for the top CEOs in the world. Adaptability is the key to success with regards to any species in the world. Why? Why did the cockroaches manage to survive so long? Why are alligators and crocodiles still alive? It's all adaptability. It's never been strength or intelligence. So anyway, Scott, you know, I love you.
- [49:11]
Dave
I think it is worth, I want to point out one thing about Buffett and make a point here. He also missed the, the Internet and technology. He missed all of that. He. The analogy of Warren Buffett to Michael Saylor is far better than people realize because effectively, when I said he followed a meta trend, he did. He followed his meta trend about easy money and financialization. And that's what he did. And people think of him as just this broad based investor. They've never been that way. Look, I remember when he bought into Salomon Brothers after Salomon had their credit crisis. It was all within what he knew. And so when you ask someone like that who always invests, I mean, effectively, Warren Buffett as an investor was only willing to look at a small sliver of market opportunities and within that do extremely well. That doesn't mean that we should listen to him about things that are outside of it. So he and Charlie Munger with their rat poison comments, they made similar things about technology stocks which looked equally stupid, but because their results were good, nobody cared. So it's not. He was never about adaptability. There are lots of investors and lots of people who have seen trends in technology. And so I just, I hate the analogy because essentially you're talking about a guy who had blinders his entire life. But because he got it right within what he did and was really good at what he did, we kind of laud him as his general investor. That is not the case. And I think it really matters. So, like, you know, like you were talking about your show this morning, Scott, you made the point, or someone made the point. I think it was Tillman about how algorithmic trading is used for everything in equities now. And you look at who are the most successful investors in equities. I don't think there's anybody who's even close to Renaissance and Two Sigma and Citadel over the last 15 years. Why? Well, because they took emotion out of it and went completely quantitative. Now there are things they'll miss, but that's a trend that you're going to see that in crypto as well. Because crypto is, and we know this because of how well coin routes clients do using its algos and how well, you know, Arch's clients do using its algos. And there are different types of algos, but there's a lot of really new things going on that are going to come into this market. And you shouldn't be making these over, over broad generalizations. Sorry, but you got me.
- [51:28]
Scott
Yeah, I mean, listen, my, my, to Alex's point, he's known me a long time and I have openly said this. My biggest crime of the last bull market, so to speak, was being completely irrationally bullish at the top. Right. Bitcoin went from 65 down to 30, then it went to 69. And I was 100% sure it was going to 100, you know, 98% sure it was going to 100. And I thought that every single new project that was building some esoteric use case was going up 100x and, you know, and so I Held too long and shared a lot of things that I thought were great that ended up being complete hot garbage. Right. And so if you don't learn from that lesson, I, you know, I don't know what.
- [52:13]
Dave
Right. And, but I think it's. The funny part about it is history doesn't, you know, you know, repeat, but it rhymes. What's amusing is a lot of people are remembering that experience and ignoring what was going on in the backdrop. Right. Ignoring the fact that, that, that run to 60 and the run to 69 were on top of leverage, not on spot, and that leverage was off the charts. And people, people were paying 100% annualized interest in order to buy this crap. And that was all happening. And there's like literally zero of that today. You know, at the same time, the network metrics and TVLs and every possible metric you could use were a fraction of what they are today. And yet people are still remembering that, and that's guiding a lot of crypto trading. So it's the kind of, the false memories and false, you know, that sort of thing, it really does matter. Right. I mean, I, I know a lot of people here have seen that. I mean, I think, you know, several of the speakers here would, would are definitely people who comment on this all the time. Yeah.
- [53:17]
Scott
And here we are, kind of the end of the show. I'm going to go ahead and wrap it. I think we beat my negativity to death, Alex. Yeah, I actually, honestly, I'm very optimistic about the space and about what's to come. I think I, you know, and I think we all share the idea that this is a very solid bull market and hopefully one that's going to continue. And at the end of the day, I think the, the safest bet for anyone if you want to listen to old dogs, is just keep buying Bitcoin. Beyond that, you know, you got to do your own research and really, I think, dig in and understand what you're trading and, and what you're buying. And most importantly, I think what your exit plan is, because 99% of it, even if you're up and you got 47 million in a wallet, you know, unless you have a way to get out of that, to Gary's point, and it's actually liquid, you're sitting on massive paper gains that you're going to be very disappointed when you see what you realize in the end from it. So I think it's, you know, we do have a. This show has turned into a bunch of, you know, 45, 50 plus. Age, guys telling you the painful stories of their past. But those stories exist for a reason. Because nothing changes. Markets come in cycles and people get rich and they get poor and they boom and bust. And you want to be the one who booms and doesn't bust. So we'll be back tomorrow, 10:15am Eastern Standard Time with another crypto town Hall. Amazing conversation, guys. Thanks once again, everybody. Give our speakers a follow and we'll see you tomorrow.
- [54:43]
Dave
Bye.