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The Wolf Of All Streets
Extremely Bullish On Bitcoin: Crypto To Become A National Priority
00:23:15
Extremely Bullish On Bitcoin: Crypto To Become A National Priority
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- [00:01]
Scott Melker
Donald Trump is expected to issue an executive order calling cryptocurrency a national priority. And this could happen on day one. The bullish hits just keep on coming for bitcoin and the cryptocurrency industry. And that's not the only thing that happened this week. Fortunately, I got NLW here to unpack all of it on the Friday 5. Let's go. Let's do. Let's do. What is up, everybody? I'm Scott Melker, also known as the Wolf of all streets. Before we get started, please subscribe to the channel. Hit the like button and you're going to have to hit the like button for this breaking news that I just mentioned. In the beginning, this was kind of an honorable mention because we had five other stories laid out. But here we go. Trump plans to designate cryptocurrency as a national priority. Executive order expected to create a crypto advisory council. We knew that Trump allies are discussing stopping federal crypto litigation, which we'll get into later. But literally calling cryptocurrency a national priority. What does this mean?
- [01:23]
NLW
I think that the question is so one you gotta love when, when the, the breaking news articles on Bloomberg, not like CoinDesk or, you know, one of the crypto outlets, it just shows kind of how different things are. I think that the question. So there is a flurry of information around what might come with these executive orders. It seems to me my best read is that it hasn't been, that there's a lot of discussion. Right. I don't think that this is a question of plans are fixed and we're just not getting the full story. I think that there's probably a lot in flux right now. We've heard the possibility of, of, of, you know, repealing or stopping, you know, existing litigation efforts. We've heard a bunch of different things. One thing that notably we haven't heard is any sort of more rumors around strategic Bitcoin reserve as a likely Trump priority. I think the question, when it comes to this idea of designating it as a national priority, the question for me will be, what does that actually mean? I actually think that that coming out of the Trump administration on day one might be less impactful if it doesn't have some specifics behind it than we would have, you know, than it would have seemed maybe, you know, a couple months ago, just because he's. So now Trump is already associated with, you know, crypto. He, he's already the crypto president, you know, to, relative to, to market understanding. And so it really has to be actual action, not just symbolic action at this point. So, not that it's not a good thing, obviously, this is, you know, hyper bullish. But if it's designates crypto a national priority, by which he means point one stops all crypto litigation. Point two, you know, creates a special panel to study a strategic bitcoin reserve, you know, and step three, creates, you know, incentives for bitcoin miners. That's a whole different ballgame.
- [03:13]
Scott Melker
Yeah. There's some conjecture that this could basically be the inverse Biden executive order. Right. Obviously, those who remember we had this Biden executive order saying that agencies should take a deeper look into crypto policy, send him their feedback. And people actually took that as bullish at the time, if we recall, that he was mentioning cryptocurrency and it was a priority. People saying that maybe this is sort of the inverse of that, where he says, hey, every agency, take a look and send me your feedback. Tell me what you want to do with crypto in a positive light.
- [03:42]
NLW
Yeah, could. I mean, could be that again, that. That would be the. The more specific it is, the more action aligned it is, I think the more impactful it is. But listen, there. I thought there was a meaningful chance that in the swirl of everything else that has to get done, crypto would be more like a. A week three priority than a day one priority. So if. If this really is a day one thing or a day two thing, I think that's. That does speak volumes all on its own.
- [04:06]
Scott Melker
Yeah, just like to speak to that. We have this as potentially a day one priority. We've seen news that the executive order on SAB 121 could come day one. So where there's smoke, there's usually fire. I think crypto will be in the conversation now, and that makes me feel a lot. A lot better. Sleepy at night.
- [04:28]
NLW
Yeah. I mean, listen, Cynthia Lummis tweeted and then tried to tamp down, you know, it's about to get crazy. Don't fall for scams. And people are like, well, what do you know? And she was like, no, no, no, I don't know anything. It's like, well, you did this tweet. It's about to get crazy.
- [04:42]
Scott Melker
So, yeah, listen, I think that there's an element with all of this of everybody capturing the hype of this moment. Right. And so even if Trump's not mentioning an sbir, she's been leading that charge, so not surprised that she would be trying to hype the idea of that being a first 100 day priority. And listen, I mean, we have, you know, the New York Post running articles that we could get a strategic shit going reserve. You know, it's not what it said, but, you know, adding xrp, it's a lot on Made in America tokens. I don't think Trump really said that, but it just speaks to the fact that anyone who has the opportunity here to get some free PR on the back of the hype around crypto and politics is taking that opportunity. And should I think Trump goes out there and says, hey, I could add Solana and XRP or whoever said it from his administration, because he wants these people to keep giving him money and support him and keep the, you know, flywheel going.
- [05:35]
NLW
Well, another, another interesting thing, which I don't think was one was on our list is, you know, obviously Trump has some very loud tech supporters. Musk has been, you know, all over the place as part of this transition. He's running Doge more quiet but seemingly significant. It appears that Mark Andreessen has basically been living at Mar a Lago for the last month and he's just started to talk about it a little bit. But I think on an interview in a podcast he said that he had spending like 75 or 80% of his time on the Trump transition. And again, this is totally unannounced and not discussed. And Andreessen is obviously hugely focused on things like crypto policy, you know, AI and advanced technology in general. But, you know, 816Z is one of the more loud advocates for positive crypto policy. So to the extent that he is involved in, in actual policy making and decision making, which you got to think that if he's been there for a month and, and no one has been really talking about it, he's probably hanging out with the people who are actually trying to craft the executive orders rather than the people who are trying to make headlines. So that's, that's another detail which suggests to me that maybe there could be more, more on this sphere than, than than we might think.
- [06:47]
Scott Melker
I was entirely unaware of that. That's really great information to have. The next story has to be the macro. This is kind of where we were going to start before that. Nasdaq futures jumping 1% as Fed rate cut bets revive. You got a giggle. Of course, Bitcoin rises past 100,000 threshold amid risk rally renewal. This to me, looking at the data that we've had over the last couple of weeks, right, we had job data that was difficult to parse. We've had inflation data that Was difficult to parse. Is it good, is it bad, is it meeting expectations good or bad or the actual number. And to me it feels like regardless of what the data actually said, the market was just waiting for an excuse to go back up.
- [07:28]
NLW
Yeah, I see fears.
- [07:30]
Scott Melker
We had yields rising and everybody's just dying to hit the buy button. And even if they could have someone say, hey, CPI is pretty good go, I mean we had Bitcoin from 100 to below 90, back to 100 in a matter of 96 hours.
- [07:44]
NLW
Yeah, I think that, I think that you're right that the market was waiting for it, which to me says that the market might have realized that it got, it was getting a little overly pessimistic and you know, it had over corrected for something that wasn't bad news. It was just potentially less clear on the future.
- [08:00]
Scott Melker
Right.
- [08:01]
NLW
When it came to, you know, our whole discussion last week was about what these different job reports meant, right? Did they pro, did they portend more inflation was really the big thing, you know, if, if there were more, you know, jobs were raising at a kind of a higher rate than we thought, that means that not only is there potentially a reason to pause the cutting cycle, you know, does it, does it actually mean that inflation might be stickier than we think and we might even have to put hikes back on the table? Right, that was a fear and that sort of insecurity was driving a lot of the, the market, you know, concern. But then we got the CPI report this week and it was interesting, I mean, to your point, you know, headline, the overall number was up slightly, but the headline CPI was down. It was down for the first time in six months. And I think beyond just the headline CP CPE being down, which is, you know, obviously a more significant factor for the Fed, they've been very clear on that. We also started to see that. So shelter costs came down, was, it was a big part of this and, and, or shelter costs didn't come down, but they went up by their lowest rate for some amount of time, basically. And one of the sort of, you know, nuances of the inflation conversation for months has been does the stickiness of inflation actually reflect stickiness of inflation or does it reflect the lag specifically in shelter data, which is sort of the hardest to calculate? I think not only did this show headline CPE down for the first time in six months, which is like not only not bad, it was actually positive, it also came from that shelter area, which added credence to the belief that perhaps even some of the previous, you know, negativeness was what was sort of based on, you know, a misreading or just a lag in the data.
- [09:51]
Scott Melker
I just giggle because like the fact that we have to say, you know, the belief and the perhaps and the could be. We all know that these numbers are probably going to be revised anyways but that they're exceptionally hard to calculate and the market is mostly animal spirits.
- [10:06]
NLW
Yeah, I think, I mean look, everything for the last, you can boil everything down to is do we think inflation is going to go up or do we think inflation is going to go down? And what does that mean the Fed's going to do? And so the TLDR is this one pretty clearly said this gave, this gave a bunch in the column of it's probably going to keep going down. Which means we get to proceed a pace with, with all of our fun.
- [10:27]
Scott Melker
Yeah. Last week we were not going to cut because of strong jobs and this week maybe we'll cut because of inflation data.
- [10:35]
NLW
March, the potential of the pricing in of a March rate cut went from 0 to 30%. That's kind of, you know, all you need to know.
- [10:43]
Scott Melker
That says everything you need to know. Also, I mean we had 10 year yields just greater. Yeah, yeah. I have just, just for, for reference for those who haven't looked at the chart, I mean we, you know, it hit basically 4.8% I think it was on Monday and then just fell off a cliff. But at that point it was oh my God, they're going way above five. We're so screwed.
- [11:01]
NLW
Yep. Yeah, we. One thing that is always the case is we definitely always whatever is the latest thing that happened is the most important thing that's ever happened or will ever happen until the next thing. And, and we kind of behave as such. So that's a good reminder I think always to, to try to avoid over, over indexing on any, on any one, you know, piece of news.
- [11:22]
Scott Melker
Yeah, well, we have to go right back to Trump. It's still the biggest story and everything surrounding it and I have a feeling it will be for a while. And of course in this case we're talking about Scott Besant who will be confirmed at Treasury. He's going to wind down his hedge fund. Wow. Someone from the government divesting their financial interest to become a government official. Crazy. That's so like eight years ago to have somebody do that. But yes, he's actually going to do that. I mean this is his hedge fund. He's going to divest dozens of assets but including, I believe it was up to $500,000 in Bitcoin Spot ETF. So if there was doubt that this guy is a believer, he owns it himself. And he's also opposed to central bank digital currencies and much more likely to be crypto friendly, as we know.
- [12:13]
NLW
Yeah, I mean, look, the headline here is homie owns Bitcoin ETFs small portion of his portfolio, but it's a small portion of basically everyone like his portfolio, if it exists at all. And for many, it still doesn't. So it's, it's, you know, the, the, the signal that he's not just giving lip service to it, he's actually put some of his capital into it is, is real. He's an interesting one, I think, relative to all of the other Trump officials. This is a guy who definitely has a point of view on structural shifts happening in the world and how the next generation plays out and wants to have a role. And I think that him fully leaning into this role.
- [12:53]
Scott Melker
Right.
- [12:54]
NLW
Not hedging a bit, divesting himself of everything is further reflection of the idea that this for him is not just, oh, cool, I'll go, you know, larp as a government official for, for a few weeks until I get fired. It's, this is what he wants to be doing. And he's, he's, he's strapping in to go.
- [13:14]
Scott Melker
He's gonna last more than one Scaramuchi, for sure.
- [13:17]
NLW
Yeah, I think so.
- [13:19]
Scott Melker
Yeah. I mean, listen, this is honorable mention on the treasury side, but I'm sure you saw this story that Chinese hackers breach US treasury computers. Apparently they had access to Janet Yellen's laptop.
- [13:32]
NLW
Oh, my God. We didn't, we didn't talk about it at all. But the. Have you been watching the memes as, as Tiktokers have angrily started downloading this Red Note app, which is actually owned by the ccp.
- [13:45]
Scott Melker
I saw one very enthusiastic young woman talking about going to China and finding a husband there and hoping that they were tall because Red Note was so much better than TikTok and she didn't care that TikTok was disappearing. It was quite entertaining, but only one. I know. It's a trend.
- [14:03]
NLW
The memes are hilarious. I mean, holding aside whatever you think about TikTok and about the generation, nothing could be more quintessentially American than telling the government to piss off by downloading an app from the enemy that they're trying to get, you know, out of their, out of their face. I mean, it's just, it is so. It's the most petulant side of rebellious America. And it is hard to laugh at.
- [14:28]
Scott Melker
Oh, you want our data? Yeah, here you go. But some of it, yeah. I mean, the takes in even that one video, but the obvious, obvious ones, it's just so funny. Like, you know, taking our data of us twerking. There you go. Americans love to twerk. You got us. So listen, moving from percent to the SEC as the next story, obviously, Trump's new SEC leadership poised to kickstart crypto overhaul. Sources say this, of course, now pivoting to Paul Atkins likely to be the SEC chair. But we also know that there will be sort of a period where Gensler steps down. There will only be four SEC chairmen during that time. Ueda and Peirce, obviously the two Republicans. And as Atkins getting confirmed, one of those two most likely, Ujeda, it seems, will become the acting chairman while he's getting confirmed, but basically already saying they're going to stop these enforcement actions against Coinbase, Kraken or any crypto enforcement, or at least take a very deep look at them. And probably we're not going to see any more of those coming in the future. Which also is hilarious, by the way, in the fact that the SEC decided, or at least it really came out yesterday, that they were going to appeal the XRP decision days before we head into a new administration that's obviously going to drop these things.
- [15:47]
NLW
Yeah, yeah, this is, this is a fun one, I think. You know, going back to that idea of we are quickly going to shift from stories of what could be having resonance to stories of what actually is. And it being a put up or shut up moment. And this feels like Commissioner person yout have been let off the leash to make sure that the moment that Paul Atkins sits down his desk has 10 proposals sitting there for stuff they should actually do right away and move. You know, it's the collective set of things that, that I think that, you know, that that set of commissioners, things should have been done or should have been looked at differently. I think that this is very positive and will be significantly meaningful in terms of its actual impact.
- [16:29]
Scott Melker
Yeah, they're taking the governor off the crypto industry in the United States. Right. I mean, it's been nothing but antipathy from the government stopping us at every turn. Choke point 2.0. Of course, that's not the SEC, but all these things are going to be lifted. To me, actually, and I've said this before, it kind of puts the onus on the crypto industry to actually put up or shut up as well. Right. Like, if we have no more excuses, we have to prove that we're worthy of this limelight and this moment. And so I'm really hoping that we don't go through another period where some scammer or failure or collapse steals the limelight from the things that are actually being built and might have a chance to shine. Yeah. So the next story we have here, interesting. US government says seized Bitcoin from 2016 hack should be returned to Bitfinex. You can see the story here on Twitter. Government says these bitcoin should be returned in kind. Right. So this is really interesting because, ladies and gentlemen, here's your United States strategic stockpile of bitcoin. Right. We know that the. The U.S. marshals, or the DOJ has potentially begun selling or intends to sell the Silk Road bitcoin. But the largest tranche I believe Left, it's almost 100,000. Bitcoin here is from Bitfinex. If you guys don't remember, this was hacked from Bitfinex. You had Razzle Khan and her boyfriend basically finally being caught. But the United States government is holding this as if they own the asset. But that, as I've said before, is like somebody coming in my house, stealing my wife's engagement ring. The United States government recovers it, and then says it's theirs instead of my wife's.
- [18:12]
NLW
Yeah, I mean, that's. That's why the. The response to this has been like, huh, doing the right thing, not really sure what to do with it. There's a lot of.
- [18:19]
Scott Melker
How is there even a question it's theirs?
- [18:22]
NLW
A lot of. A lot of bitcoin. Twitter had a tough time writing a set of tweets after this one. It's like, try looking for something to do wrong, but actually agreeing with the US Government on something. Look, I mean, the. The other dimension of this, which is important to note, is that part of this decision is, is basically that they believe that Bitfinex made sort of fair accounting with its customers. So in their estimation, Bitfinex is the sole victim at this point. Right. This is going back to Bitfinex, not to be redistributed to those customers because Bitfinex did something else to make them whole based on the previous situation. So this is just a big pile of bitcoin that's going to come back and land with these folks.
- [19:04]
Scott Melker
I think it's fair to say, though, if it's not going to be a strategic stockpile, that's not going to be added there, which I think we all believe is morally wrong based on where these came from, that Bitfinex AKA Paolo Arduino AKA Tether is a really good place for this to land. Considering that they add Bitcoin to their actual balance sheet on a regular basis and are likely to be diamond handed with this into perpetuity.
- [19:29]
NLW
Yeah. They're also just about the only institution in the world that might literally plausibly not give a crap about $9 billion showing up in their accounts. 9 billion rounding to rounding error. I agree. If you're going to plop 9 billion down a Bitcoin down with someone, that's about as good a place as you can do it.
- [19:46]
Scott Melker
Yeah. Because every other time we've had a situation like this, FTX creditors getting money back or Celsius or void anything, whatever it is, it's always are they going to buy, are they going to sell? Where's that money going to go? Is it going to be bullish or bearish for the market? I think that this is decidedly bullish. We have one final story here, but I haven't really unpacked some. Counting on you Tech Group Sue US CFPB to block rule on payment Apps Digital Wallets Peter Van Valkerberg so we have get two midnight rulemakings for the price of one this year. Here's our take on the recent CFP rule to apply Reggie to crypto. It's unclear whether they intend to cover self custody wallet developers. They do include self wallet custody wallet developers. The rule would be beyond CFPB statutory authority. Okay, go ahead man.
- [20:31]
NLW
The, it's the, it's the, the perfect capstone to the last four years midnight midnight rule trying to get a last one in and you know the idea is that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau which by the way is sort of got it very high up on the doge chopping block by by all reports is, is saying that you know, there needs to be consumer protections around crypto wallets and their, you know, and, and stablecoin transactions. And as always is the case there's either a lack of consideration of self custody and how that means how that is fundamentally different than you know, third party owned wallets and infrastructure or an actual attempt to just bury self custody. And that's sort of what Van Valkenberg is saying there. It's like you know, we can't tell from as it's written if it was, you know, if they're stupid or malicious but you know, one way or another it's not going to work if they intend to to drop dragnet that in it's this one. As opposed to, for example, the last minute stuff at the end of the last Trump administration with Steve Mnuchin. Doesn't, it doesn't really, you know, raise the hackles because it's just so clearly not going to go anywhere. I think it's more, of course we were going to get a last minute, you know, listen, the only thing left for Biden to do to, to float, throw the double middle fingers up is to pardon Sam on the way out the door. You know, that's, that's it. Everything else they've done.
- [21:52]
Scott Melker
So I can't see it.
- [21:54]
NLW
I don't, I don't think I, I don't think so. I, I think, I just think he doesn't like Biden.
- [21:59]
Scott Melker
He knows who he is.
- [22:00]
NLW
Yeah, but, yeah, Biden does not have any to give left at this point for, for a variety of reasons. And I can't imagine this one being there. I think unfortunately for Sam, and I'll. What, what maybe some people are forgetting is that Sam's influence was entirely predicated on how fast he was accumulating wealth. That is gone now. He doesn't really have that.
- [22:22]
Scott Melker
So if you can't just show up in the club and start making it rain, nobody really cares. You know, it's weird, guys, when you go to strip club, they don't like you if you don't throw the money at them. And it's the same in the United States Congress and Senate, apparently.
- [22:36]
NLW
Indeed.
- [22:37]
Scott Melker
Yeah. All right, guys, that's all we got for you today. Quick Friday 5. Love it. We'll be back, of course, next week. Follow nlw on X, YouTube, everywhere else. And check out, of course, course, his daily show, the Breakdown, which is amazing. Thank you very much. Always a pleasure, guys. We will see you on Monday. Thanks, Tim. Later. Let's do.