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Massive $1.2B BTC ETF Outflows in Just 3 Days | Crypto Town Hall
00:38:03
Massive $1.2B BTC ETF Outflows in Just 3 Days | Crypto Town Hall
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- [00:01]
Scott
Morning everybody. Happy December 26th. The day after Christmas of course, and first day of Hanukkah for those who celebrate and of course Boxing Day in parts of the world. We didn't have a show for the last few days. Obviously we'll probably be a bit shorter and smaller show here through the holidays. But excited to get back at it here for Crypto Town Hall. We've got Dan, Carlo, Dave and Panos all here today to join Tom. We're going to talk I guess a bit first about the market kind of chopping still here around 96,000. Not much of a surprise to me. Although you know, the day sort of did start today. Over 99,000. So maybe some surprise that we're have dropped in testing those kind of lower prices after this little Santa Claus rally. Panels. What do you make of the market right now?
- [00:51]
Carlo
I think it's pretty typical of this time of the year historically when we're around Christmas time and the new year we do seem to get some sell offs. So I'm not too worried. I'm actually kind of expecting bitcoin to go a little bit lower before we start moving up again next year. So I think it's pretty typical to be fair.
- [01:16]
Scott
Yeah, I agree. I think that people are generally off. There's not much volume, not much liquidity. But that said, there are some stories here like the one above that there's actually a ton of volume, volume and liquidity just not over these exact holiday days. We've got obviously 1.2 Bitcoin billion in BTC ETF outflows in a couple days. No surprise obviously. I think with the price drop and people sort of taking profit into the end of the year, we see a lot of shenanigans and nonsense I think in the last weeks of the year. But I don't know if you guys saw. But there's also a story that OTC volumes on bitcoin are at like historic highs. That they're. I think the article said that they were going quote unquote gangbusters. So obviously off the exchanges we're seeing a ton of interest in bitcoin trading between primarily institutions you would imagine. We also have a 14 billion bitcoin options expiry tomorrow, which is the most in history by far on dare bit with about 4 billion in the money. I mean Dave, what do you make of this? Seems like there's a ton of ton happening behind the scenes.
- [02:18]
Dave
I mean, yeah, I mean I understand the otc, but look, the OTC volumes, people don't really Understand what. What does that mean? What it means is that there's liquidity being demanded by institutions that the OTC desks then have to source from the derivative markets or the spot markets using tools like, like coin routes or Talos or if it's coinbase, their own internal one that they had bought. And so it makes the volume harder for people to understand what's actually happening. But I can tell you that the institutional volumes for this time of year are crazy high relative to what you would expect. Right? What you would expect is people sleeping, you know, like, oh, God, how much eggnog did I have? Oh, God, how much did I eat yesterday? But that's not what we're seeing. What you're seeing is a lot of volume coming from a few fewer orders than would be a normal time of year. So that's why it's not that surprising. We saw the market get slammed down last night. You know, we've seen. While we've been talking, you know, it looks on my chart big, but it's a tiny, you know, we're in a small range, but I mean, you know, we're about to go back up over 96 again, and we were pushing 95 a few seconds ago. Is that a big deal? Not really. Obviously it's not a lot. So, you know, there is still the underlying demand in Bitcoin. While a lot of alts have gotten, well, some of us will call it, you know, Christmas shopping, and others will call it wrecked. For those who are looking to deploy capital into alts, the last few last week or so has been awesome. But, you know, you could tell it's all, you know, one man's, you know, you know, it's all a question of perspective. But look, you know, I think that you and Mike, your show, and I advise I would, you know, I'll give you a shameless plug. You can't do it for yourself. I think anybody who's serious about understanding how to deploy capital should go back and listen to Scott's YouTube program this morning with Mike Alfred, because. Because it was extraordinarily good. And Mike made a lot of points in there that are important. One of the things he talked about was the option expiration is generally you have to get past that in order, especially when this one is very large, in order for markets to move. And that is true in the crypto markets where it's running liquidity. But if you look at things like the first thing I did this morning after last night was look at funding rates and liquidations and Compared to the size of the move, liquidations were small. So this was essentially someone dumping, probably spot, you know, taking profits, booking their profits, you know, before the year end and there just wasn't a lot of bids to cover it up. And then people wake up and go, what the hell? And they start buying again. And you know, and that's where we're at now. So it's the kind of market you can push around if you're big, if you want to, you shouldn't want to, but people do. So that, that's really my 2 cents.
- [05:15]
Scott
Makes a ton of sense. Dan, what are you thinking?
- [05:20]
Dan
Yeah, I'm part of the group that has options expiring tomorrow. I think that's a big part of it. I don't know. I mean it was very easy to say once we pass through 100k, we'll never be below 100k again. Whenever we pass a significant milestone, people say we're never going to be below this again. And we always are. I'm not so sure about the CME gap. Where's the CME gap? Does anybody, can anybody film in on that one?
- [05:46]
Scott
I haven't left to be honest.
- [05:49]
Dan
Yeah, I don't, I don't know either. Yeah, I think the ETFs, I think there's a lot of herding in the ETFs. People start to sell, then other people start to sell. And I think although we are, we consider it to be like large institutions. It's blackrock, whatever. At the end of the day, I think a lot of it is still individuals because you know, as we've said, the ETFs are not in the wirehouses yet. They're not in the, the, you know, registered advisors and that kind of stuff that are pushing it there. So I think it is still a little bit skittish. Skittish. It's still boomers majority that's into it and I think they've seen some good profit and kind of cashing in. So I think that's what led the ETF outflows. But if you, again, classic, classic bitcoin term, if you zoom out a little bit, look at the inflows that we've seen this year in the ETFs. They are bigger than anybody. You know, even the wildest predictions for inflows, the ETFs have been blown away. So seeing a little bit come out, you know, it is what it is but I still think we're going to make newer high highs in, in, in Q1. So I'm going to be rolling my options forward tomorrow, I think.
- [06:52]
Carlo
Quick one. Has anyone looked at the difference between the bitcoin inflows outflows versus the Ethereum inflows? Outflows.
- [07:02]
Dan
Ethereum's had really bad inflows. They've had like nothing. And then only recently it picked up a little bit. I do monitor both of them, but I only kind of keep my eye on the bitcoin one. But I remember the Ethereum ETF inflows have been tiny, tiny, tiny compared to bitcoin.
- [07:19]
Scott
Yeah. But Ethereum had been sort of outpacing it on a percentage basis for quite a while. And then I think, obviously I see major downside, but I think there's a 13 or 15 day run or something where the Ethereum was, you know, doing about 40, 45% of the inflow numbers of Bitcoin. And obviously, you know, it's only 20, 25% of the market. So there was definitely a renewed interest there, I think, in Ethereum. I mean, I think what's been interesting here also is that we kind of had this little mini altcoin move. There was a bump and bitcoin dominance that kind of dropped. But now over the past, I think two weeks, it's been pretty much slaughterhouse for, for altcoins. I mean, is this more profit taking? I mean, what's happening here? A lot of the bigger coins have dropped 50 while Bitcoin moves, you know, in sort of a 10 range. I mean, Dave, what are you thinking about that?
- [08:05]
Dave
I mean, I think that what you're seeing is people in the crypto world are, you know, think that it's alt season. And, you know, it's like, it reminds me of the old Bugs Bunny. I'm a boomer. So, you know, for those who reference boomers, I'm a boomer who tends to be a little bit different than my brethren, I guess. But it reminds me of the old Bugs Bunny because, you know, you know, cartoon with Daffy Duck, you know, rabbit season, duck season, rabbit season, duck season, you know, where it kind of goes back and forth, forth and people in the crypto world don't understand. And that's one of the things that Mike said this morning, which was great because it explains it. I mean, people think of alt season as, okay, bitcoin, we made my money. It's going to pause here for a while. So let's deploy my hot cash into alts. And so they do that and they expect other people are going to come in behind them because it's going to continue. Meanwhile, what's actually happening is people long, some longer term holders have been raising some funds in bitcoin, you know, lightening their positions, taking some profits as newer money has been plowing into bitcoin and keeping it as we've been fighting with the 100,000 level. And so what you've seen is 100,000 unlocked a fair amount of supply slowly into the market being feeding the new money that's coming in, whether it's Saylor or other companies or the ETFs or other sovereigns or other people. There's been a rotation, I hate to say from weak hands to strong hands, but let's just say from hands that are going to sell at that price to hands that are going to demand a much higher price to sell. And so that's happening. And so the people in the alt markets are like, okay, well you know, let's jump in because people are going to follow me. But what happens when you run out and nobody follows you? And I think that's what you saw. It's not money going in writ large into crypto. And the people who took their money out of bitcoin did it to buy, to use the old expression the GI Joe with the kung fu grip, which for those who don't have never seen the movie Trading Places is a euphemism for, for your end of your Christmas presents, your travel, you know, whatever, whatever, whatever, that kind of stuff. So it's the money didn't come out of bitcoin and go into alts like it ordinarily would in an alt season. It just came out of bitcoin and probably got spent. And obviously it's a gross overgeneralization. But I think that's what you've seen, which is perfectly normal. And as far as all your chartists out there, it's a perfectly rational pause. I think that all season will come, but it will be, you know, my opinion, my opinion altseason is going to be spurred by regulatory changes that allow chains with utility to pass on the benefit of that utility to investors and investors in the United States and around the world to be able to invest with more security. I think that is going to be a huge trend in 2025. But that doesn't necessarily bode great for Fart Coin, although weirdly, through your 50% decrease, you know, Fart Coin's been the biggest performer. So, you know, go figure.
- [11:03]
Dan
Yeah, I'll just say the risk of upsetting probably most of the audience out season is not promised. Right. It's definitely not promised. And I think there are a lot of things that would point towards there not being an alt season this time around. Now what goes against that is the regulatory change in the U.S. i agree that's very positive for altcoins. But the thing that goes against the idea is that to quote another cliche, this time it's different. A lot of the money that's been going into bitcoin has been institutions like Microstrategy and like other companies. The one that I just saw bought 21 million of Bitcoin. That plus the ETFs. You know they're going in quite a lot into into bitcoin. They are not rotating out of bitcoin into altcoins. Those are not the kind of investors that are going to make money in bitcoin then rotate into altcoins. And I think they have been a large part of this cycle, so a large part of previous cycles. The people that might have made money in bitcoin and rotated out into altcoins are simply not going to be rotating out into altcoins this year or this cycle. So if there is an alt season I think there's a good chance it's much muted than it would otherwise be.
- [12:14]
Scott
Mutin or do you think that it'll just be more perhaps focused on certain coins, tokens and certain like sectors as opposed like it's. You get just as big of moves but you have to be right. Like it can't just be everything.
- [12:28]
Dan
I think it's going to be more concentrated in, in fewer coins and it's going to be as, as Dave said around the regulatory change. I don't think it's going to be a broad sweeping everything up type mania. I would imagine it's stuff that would previously have not been available because it would flagged as an unlicensed security stuff around that. I think Dave's right. With cash flow tokens and tokens that don't necessarily have a pure, you know, mimetic or whatever, they have a utility, they have cash flow. Some of those stuff, sure. Some yield bearing stuff probably. But I think there will be fewer winners and those winners will go up quite quickly and probably come down quite quickly as well. I would expect bitcoin to drop less and bitcoin dominance to drop less as well. I think bitcoin is much, much stronger and it's a stronger bulwark now than it would be in other cycles.
- [13:21]
Panos
Good morning Scott. I tend to agree. I think we are definitely going to see an alt season. There's Just a lot of momentum behind some chains that are building that are getting true network adoption. Are we going to see the kind of an all season where you can just basically throw a dart at the wall and anything you hit is going to be a winner and send Doubtful. But we also have an unprecedented period here. We have never had a four year cycle conclude with the incoming administration being so favorable to digital assets. And I think this is something that's not priced in. I don't think we can have, we, I don't think we have any comparable market cycle that we can look at where the United States is actually favorable to digital assets and encouraging innovation to come back to the US and that's a variable that I don't think we can ignore.
- [14:19]
Scott
So this time in different fundamentals.
- [14:22]
Panos
I think so. I mean where, where in, in the history of digital assets can we look for this kind of favorable tailwinds? I, I just don't think we've ever had it. So I know people like to look back at previous cycles and try to, you know, predict and it's impossible to do that. But this is definitely a variable that I don't, I don't think a lot of people have factored in and is totally priced in now. I realize there's going to be an inauguration and then probably a lot of lag time in getting stuff off the ground. But nevertheless the initiatives are in place and we are going to have a new SEC and this is going to be a reset on the sector. So I don't think that that's totally priced in and that could extend this cycle I think.
- [15:13]
Scott
Anybody else have particular thoughts? I mean, I tend to agree that we have these just incredible fundamental tailwinds and there's certain white swan events that could happen that. Yeah, I just don't know how you can price in a bitcoin strategic reserve or regulatory clarity or any of these things. Right. So hard for me to imagine we don't get some sort of alt season. But Dan, like to your point, besides even the flowing down from bitcoin, we also I think have a pretty significant issue which is just the amount of things that are going to unlock just sheer supply. Right?
- [15:48]
Dan
Yeah, I agree. There's going to be, I mean it's never been easier to create a token. At least in previous altcoin cycles there was some kind of technical barrier to creating coins and there was some other barriers to create coins. Now it's just an absolute doddle to spin up a coin. Right. So the amount of coins that are going to be chasing same kind of mania is going to be what, tenfold, 100fold from previous cycles. So I think, you know, again, the idea of every coin is going to pump is probably wrong. For every coin there's going to be 20 or 30 that try and chase the same thing that's going to, it's, it's more difficult. I mean, every single cycle, it gets more complex in, in ways to predict it. And every cycle has its own kind of catalysts and its headwinds. I don't know, I'm not really in the, in the market for making predictions, but it is definitely a much bigger kind of ecosystem now with more players and they can't possibly all win. So I also think what happened with FTX and with Luna and that a lot of people got quite badly burned on, on altcoins historically. Yeah, who knows, man? But there's so much going on, there's so many moving parts for and against every, every part of it. You can, you can justify any prediction you make either way because there's so many data points that go in your favor or against you.
- [17:03]
Scott
I think, I mean, I like to kind of consider the path Carlo's taking, which is that if you're concerned about altcoins, we have the President launching them. That's generally pretty bullish for altcoins in general. Like even at the most cynical view of Trump, if he's watching launching something like World Liberty Financial, you have to assume that it's not going to be illegal or that it's going to not be in the regulatory crosshairs. Right.
- [17:29]
Carlo
Also, World Liberty Financial have been buying Altcoins, Link, aave, ENA and a few others.
- [17:39]
Scott
Right. I think we all know that that's not Trump per se, but that the project that, you know, he's involved in, for sure. I mean, it's, you know, whoever's managing, I guess their treasury or however you would view it. But yeah, pretty crazy.
- [17:50]
Dan
I mean, are they buying them at size or are they buying them for the utility, like for gas fees? I'm assuming they're buying them.
- [17:56]
Scott
They're pretty decent size and certainly not for gas fees. I don't remember the numbers, but it was significant.
- [18:01]
Dan
Okay.
- [18:01]
Scott
You'd be having to run.
- [18:04]
Dan
Maybe it's just diversification for their holdings, potentially. I don't know.
- [18:07]
Carlo
Yeah, they're buying quite large clips. We're talking millions of dollars worth of, of those, those specific coins. But yeah, I guess it's for diversity. I'm not too sure.
- [18:21]
Scott
Yeah. Does anybody looked at why that Is like what the utility is of sort of, I don't know if they're going to be flipping these things. If they're trading it like their treasury effectively is buying all these tokens. Does anybody know why? Okay, good. Just me either. I think sort of another question that we've discussed quite a bit here and this show is going to be shorter today obviously because we're kind of limited on guests is Sailor, I mean the, the guy and we talked about this on my YouTube show this morning. Dave, I know you listened, but we kind of have, you know, Sailor continuing to buy every Monday this week I think was like 500 million, something like that. How much of the buying pressure on the market as a result of that? And then I guess what, what do we think of miners and other companies following that convertible note strategy? Dave, I'd love your take first because I know Mike Alfred had some interesting thoughts on the miners, but your take.
- [19:20]
Dave
Yeah, I agree with Mike. I mean, so Mike made the point. For those who don't want to go and watch the whole episode, his point was simple. It was the convertible mechanism which is basically where you effectively take volatility in your own stock and monetize it by getting really cheap financing and or selling at a higher price if in fact it becomes convertible. Is there are two things you could do with it. One, if you buy Bitcoin with it like MicroStrategy is doing, it's like, okay, so now you're buying another volatile asset, volatility on volatility and will people give you that cheap funding? MicroStrategy has critical mass. MicroStrategy has a track record. MicroStrategy already has a portfolio established. And so all of those things make their funding rates probably better than somebody else coming to the market will be. On the other hand, if you're like iron was or whenever he mentioned rattle off a bunch of miners. If you're a miner and you're using the same idea to fund state of the art data centers to lower your cost of producing Bitcoin and oh by the way, have the ability to provide the same data centers for AI as that demand picks up, which gives you a little bit of exposure to both and some downside protection in case into the future Bitcoin has a serious drawdown, should make you a little bit resistant to that. That's a totally different approach. And both are reasonable and we've talked about that before. The sole question with MicroStrategy is are they going to get too top heavy? That is if you consistently Buy at similar clips all the way up, fine. It doesn't matter. If on the other hand, you're pyramiding, which is what a lot of people, people are interpreting, and you buy more as the price gets higher, well then at that point you're, you're taking on more risk. But people forget that microstrategy. If bitcoin went to, you know, a thousand, I mean, it's not, but let's say it did, you know, effectively what would happen is all of micro, microstrategy way underwater on bitcoin, people would say, oh, the stock is horrible. They would dump it. But the stock still is the stock. They don't go insolvent, right? You know, necessarily until the bond, you know, until they can't, you know, service the, these very low interest rates on these bonds. The question of bitcoin dropping that bad would be people would say, okay, well, wait a minute, what if it stays down there? And so at the end of the day, if you think bitcoin's going to zero, then short microstrategy, if not, then look at where its ratios are. And right now it looks like the air has been popped out of the bubble relative to it, it's trading at an nav premium of under two, which, considering their buying power, what they can do seems like you're paying for a basic managed levered long, slightly levered long, not 20x like you would do in perpetual swaps. So it's different and you need to understand that it's different. And so Mike made the point of look at what people are doing, the converts for what it's getting invested in, and is it just for buying bitcoin or not?
- [22:25]
Scott
Yeah, he pointed out, I don't think people, a lot of people sort of remember what happened in the last cycle. But he pointed out that I guess for Scientific, who obviously declared bankruptcy and then came out of it, has done exceptionally well. They had a similar strategy last cycle. And whether they were taking convertible notes, them specifically, or other miners and companies, what happened was just like retail, who fomos into the top, a ton of miners attempted to scale at the top of the bull market, which meant buying machines at an exceptional high premium and seeing them drop by 90% in value and not being able to even get them online until bitcoin was also down 80 or 90% because of infrastructure. And that completely exploded these companies. So if you're using a convertible note to buy bitcoin, okay, great. Although Mike's point was like buying Bitcoin at 100,000, if you could mine it at 30 or 40. A little confusing, but B, a lot of them may be trying to scale and if they pay too much for equipment and take too long to get online, that could be a huge risk. Or they could be successful and buy them exceptionally cheap and get online quickly.
- [23:32]
Dave
Yeah. It is worth noting that if you're a miner and you're buying equipment, first of all, the equipment's not at a huge premium today. People forget just how crazy it was, you know, second hand miners and what was going on. You know, if you just look at the average cost of production for a company and what the marginal cost of production is, that will tell you an awful lot about their, their credit worthiness. Right. That really does matter and it's a non trivial point.
- [24:05]
Dan
But isn't Saylor in a blackout period for January? I think we spoke about that.
- [24:11]
Scott
We do, yeah, yeah, it's rumored.
- [24:13]
Dan
We don't know, but it could be. I mean, yeah, someone should try and stand.
- [24:16]
Scott
Right. So how much does it matter though that he's buying? You know, a billion? Exactly. That, that was kind of my first question. I don't know, Dave. I mean, relative to market, that's not that much volume, right?
- [24:25]
Dave
It's not a bit, it's not, it's not a huge deal. It's just, it's the. Look, I, I mean I actually am happier with him buying slow and steady than with him doing the, the, you know, crazy stuff. Right. You know, we just don't know how the market will react if he runs out of funding. There are black swans that are possible out there. I personally think that most of the black swans that people keep talking about, microstrategies are overblown. I've seen all sorts of stuff. In fact, I've kind of, I won't say yelled but. And I won't say shouted down, but certainly posted significant disagreement with people who are talking about, well, what happens when he decides to sell or take profit. They don't understand that that's not in the cards. I mean, in point of fact, if he actually did do that, I think he could get sued. Right. So this isn't an Elon Musk situation where he says, oh, okay, well we're not going to accept Bitcoin anymore. And Bitcoin, remember, was at 50 and it went to 30 because of Tesla's choice. Taylor can't do that. He wouldn't anyway, because I say he.
- [25:36]
Scott
Would get sued because his public narrative has always been very loud from the mountaintop we never sell. And that would Be misleading to.
- [25:43]
Dave
Yeah, more than that. I mean if it was just that yeah he probably could get sued. But it's not that he's selling bonds based on the fact that he's using the proceeds to buy bitcoin that he's planning on holding. So he arguably he'd be violating the sales materials and the marketing of the bonds and that's very serious. And there's no way he would do it. I mean to me even suggesting it is silly. It proves that one doesn't understand there are all sorts of stuff that I mean I suppose he could do that you wouldn't know. I mean by puts for example, you know, stuff like that do structured products and structured derivatives on it. I would be once again highly doubtful that he would would but at least he could. But that wouldn't have anything close to the effect of people talking about him selling. So every time I hear that my, my head hurts is really what it boils down to. I think that the question really is that you have to look at is where's the risk reward? Is bitcoin going to finally get through escape velocity this cycle? Or as most of us thought it would take another couple of cycles before it 10 x's to being pari passu with gold. Right. That's the question. And with this administration and with the kinds of money that's behind it buying it for its a asymmetric return, I think the odds of it happening this cycle are much higher than people are saying. I don't think it's priced in. I don't think a US strategic reserve is priced in. I don't think that completely unopening bitcoin to be purchased through brokerage accounts is priced in. I don't think this stuff is all priced in. I do think however that it takes time and none of these things turning a dime. So effectively chilling now. Yeah, no problem. I understand the option expiration but you know this is one of those things that people need to be reminded of. You're my one of our favorite stats Scott. How many days in a typical bitcoin bill bull market cycle make up 90 plus percent of the of the move? What is it? 10?
- [27:46]
Scott
Yeah, it's something like that. I mean it's like 10 days of the year. Right.
- [27:50]
Dave
So the question is if you're long term bullish and you're not a professional trader glued to your scre that it could be nimbly trading in and out then buy hold DCA done. If you are a professional trader. Yeah obviously there's all sorts of incredible opportunities in trading this market. And professional traders understand how to hedge and understand how to, you know, how to, you know, not get themselves caught, you know, in a face melting rally. They do have the discipline to get the hell out. So it's important for people to know what they are. If you are a dentist and you're going to look at it, look at your portfolio once or twice a day, don't get involved in leverage shorting. I don't care how smart you think you are, because you could find out that in between your first look and your second look, you've gotten blown up. And that happens to a lot of people. And I'm picking on dentists because I have friends with several. But it is really important to understand that's the market dynamic we're in. I mean, the kind of moves that we've seen recently. I think Mike had a great point. These are nothing in percentage terms. I mean, you know, we look, oh, a thousand dollar move. It's like, wait a minute, that's, that's 1% now. I mean, that's nothing for bitcoin. I mean, bitcoin, you know, 4% is like, you know, for the stock market, that's a big deal. So it really, people should understand what you're dealing with. A 10% move in Bitcoin, which would not be crazy right now, is almost a $10,000 move. And those things happen pretty quickly.
- [29:27]
Scott
Yeah. Another story that we didn't get a chance to discuss, which I saw and just worth noting, kind of had this back and forth with Russia. They're becoming like the new China here. But Russian firms turned to bitcoin stablecoins for global trade amid sanctions. So bitcoin mined in Russia becomes vital for international transactions amid Western sanctions. The headline is Russia is now using crypto for international payments. I'm not clear if it's actually Russia or companies in Russia, but it sounds like it's at least state firms. Does anybody look more deeply into this? I mean, this seems like one of those huge news stories that just gets lost in the cycle. Classic. You guys know as much as I do. Okay, guys, Russia is now using crypto for international payments. Paul, you trust me, guys, it's not your fault. These are we kind of weird stories. We're here over the holidays.
- [30:22]
Dave
But, but understand there, there's a, there's a, there's a story under the story there. What happens to the, the world economy and what happens to bitcoin if Trump gets into office and is able to negotiate peace And Russia is all of a sudden not sanctioned as much anymore. I mean it'll start by them being sanctioned more, not less. But let's say it gets resolved in a year or so. I'm not saying it will, but let's say it does. Then what happens? Well, the alternative to the dollar is one thing. I don't really think that BRICs are a serious threat to the dollar. I think people keep thinking they are. I don't think bitcoin is a threat to the dollar either unless it 10x bitcoin, 10x's people start thinking about it. That's, that's the point that, that is important to understand. Gold at its current market cap is viewed by the central bankers in the community as, as well under control. Not a problem. So bitcoin could 10x before it's even thought about as maybe there could be a problem in the future. And that has huge implications for, for the asset price. It tells you that many things could happen without the eye of Sauron as it were, caring. And keep in mind that, that we have an administration who kind of wants to see that happen because well, you know, his kids will make a lot of money and let's, let's be, let's be honest about it and you know, he's come out in favor of it and so it could be the refuge here and it's the refuge in Russia. So understanding what's happening geopolitically is going to be relevant. We'll be talking about it on macro Mondays a lot as we get into probably the second quarter would be my guess.
- [32:10]
Dan
Yeah, I think the idea that if Russia starts, you know, more wholesale adopting bitcoin, there's two ways you could look at that. You could look at that and say, well, if Russia starts using it then Western countries are going to sanction it and ban it. I think that is the wrong kind of short sighted way to view it. I think if Russia starts adopting it more aggressively and more wholesale, Trump in the White House, he's going to say no, we're going to beat them. We're going to, we're going to hold more of it than they do. We want, he's already said, I want all of, all of the remaining bitcoin to be mined in America. We want to be number one. If Russia starts adopting it more aggressively, I don't think the Trump administration will shy away from that and say, right, let's try and sanction it. I think they will go more aggressively and say if you want to do it, we'll do it even stronger. So I think an adversarial country going more into bitcoin is good. Is a net good for everybody in the space in terms of adoption on price.
- [33:07]
Scott
Yeah, I tend to agree. I was going to say really interesting, Carla, just I think or Paul whoever was about to jump in. We have kind of a lot of these actual stories like not always positive, but Japanese PM not ready to talk Bitcoin reserve. That's from Cointelegraph yesterday. The point that this is even on the docket that the PM of Japan has to speak about this or that, you know, we're hearing nation state news, whether positive or negative shows you that they're all being forced to consider it. Sorry Paul, I didn't mean to interrupt. Go.
- [33:40]
Paul
Just when you think of what's happened the last three years with Russia and the US and the banking system, they've taken Russia off the SWIFT system. So Russia really cannot do any international settlements or international trade on especially in the oil space in the US dollars or use kind of, you know, Western banks. They have to look at other means. And there was a lot of talk probably a year and a half ago in the last year about the bricks meaning new method or new currency. And that's really, it looks like it's kind of like fizzled out a little bit. And so you know, Russia is doing the practical thing in terms of what they, you know, they have, they have a lot of over additional energy available to them since they're not sending gas to Europe.
- [34:34]
Dan
Right.
- [34:34]
Paul
And they're not and they have additional oil so they can, they have the energy to, to mine if they want to and they don't have a use of the traditional finance system. So like and BRICS is not really looks like it's, it's really turning up to be anything that that's useful right now. So you know that I think that's the, the one place that they can operate and they've been put in this position by the, you know, the sanctions have been put in place and it's also like not only the, and their assets that they have in I guess Western at least the interest is being, you know taken away right there. The interest is being sent to, to, to go to Ukraine.
- [35:17]
Dan
Right.
- [35:18]
Paul
So they're, they're literally paying for their own and the US is taking, I'm sure people kind of like realize this now like the US is taking any interest on, on us on Russian assets and US entities and they're putting it, you know, they're taking it and they're using it to fund Ukraine. So it's something that, like, they've been put in this position and, like, they're just kind of making the best of it, given, you know, there's no, like, there's. And every other country. Right. You know, I was talking about this a year ago. Like, every other country, it's like, sees this and say, oh, if they could do it to them, they could do it to us. So we have to have at least a backup plan. Maybe bitcoin is. Is what. At least one backup plan that they could use in case, you know, a large group of governments come back, come after you and try to pull you off the system. That's how you normally operate your, you know, your, Your trade.
- [36:10]
Scott
Go ahead, Dave.
- [36:11]
Dave
Yeah, please, please, just one point about Japan. Their reason was really important. Basically, the reason was the volatility. In other words, bitcoin. They're basically saying, listen, as a reserve asset, bitcoin makes no sense. At 100,000, Bitcoin gets to a million and sits there for a while and doesn't. And the moves in percentage terms are, are dramatically lower because obviously the higher a price gets, the harder, as we already talked about that, then they could reconsider it. It's. It's kind of funny. It's like the old meme, you know, the store is like, massively crowded at a hundred thousand, and at ten thousand, the store was empty. Well, you know, that same thing is going to play out. The store is massively crowded at a million, and it's, you know, it's empty at a hundred thousand. You know, it's the same basic idea, but that's what they said and that complete, completely rational from their point of view. The reason why I think that the United States will probably be different is because that trade from 100,000 to a million is a trade that would look good. And when you have a president who enjoys and understands the art of the deal, as it were, it's a great deal. Especially if you can, you know, if you can. If you have the edge that, you know, you can buy before other people say, wait a minute, and they'll follow you in. I mean, you always want to buy things if you're trading where others follow you. Sometimes it's legal to do it, sometimes it isn't. But when you can do it legally, it's a good thing.
- [37:39]
Scott
Absolutely. All right, guys, well, we're going to end a bit early today here at 11. We will be back tomorrow 10:15am Eastern Standard Time, of course. Great. To get a quick conversation in here with these amazing guests. Dan, Dave, Carlo, Panos, Paul, give them all a follow. They're all amazing. Thank you guys for showing up here on the day after the holiday. Holiday for many of you. And we will see you tomorrow. Thanks, everybody.