
Massive Bull Run Ahead: Bitcoin To Skyrocket To $500K By 2028!
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Tom Dunlevy
That's dope.
Scott Milker
Let's do massive, massive bull run ahead. Bitcoin to skyrocket to $500,000 a coin by 2028, apparently. This is the forecast of Standard Chartered Bank. We're going to discuss that, but I have bad news. Scott Milker is not with us today and maybe will never be with us again. With recent market activity, he has panicked, sold all his bags, turned it all in cocaine and fled to Colombia. So we don't know if we'll be able to relocate him. But until such time, I've sort of been left holding the bag here and trying to do this show. And so joining me today actually is really good news. We've got an immaculate, famous, infamous, I should say troll, Tom Dunlevy from MV Global. How you doing, Tom?
Tom Dunlevy
Doing fantastic, man. I thought Scott sold the top a few weeks ago and he's sitting in a yacht somewhere in, in Puerto Rico. But yeah, maybe he's gotten some other.
Scott Milker
I mean, look, what he said was that he went skiing. But I think we all know that that's a euphemism.
Tom Dunlevy
That is what the kids call it nowadays, I'm told. So that makes sense.
Scott Milker
So. So Tom, really interesting stuff going on. I woke up this morning and I saw a tweet from you and I'd like to start there and then we'll get to 500, 000 Bitcoin and beyond. And the tweet from you, Let me try and quote it. So no, no, no project in crypto needs to raise more than $10 million, full stop. I frankly think that a lot of these big projects, Bearer chain, Monad, Abstract chain, Infinix, Movement Labs, etc, get their valuation strictly because of the need for big capital allocations from large VCs. The large VCs raised way too much money, you say, and now they need to figure out some way to deploy it. And so they convince all of these funds to take way more capital than they need. So, do you want to explain yourself?
Tom Dunlevy
Sure. So at a high level, I think we've come to a place in the industry where you have these massive funds. You have funds that raise 3, 4, 500 million, even over a billion dollars. And when you're a fund and you have that much money, you have to write a 20, 30, 40, 50 million dollar check. Even if you're doing 5 million dollar checks, you got to do 50 plus of those. That's really untenable. So you need these big projects to actually deploy into. And I'm not sure our space is there in Terms of projects actually needing this much funding. We are in a space where you have low marginal cost software. Yes, it costs money to set up different validators to incentivize development in the ecosystem, pay for hardware, cost to pay for R and D, but it doesn't cost. You know, you see here, Monad raised almost $250 million. Bear chain over 100 million. Movement Labs. 150 million. That is like five plus years of Runway for these guys, if not more. And it provides a few really negative things for the space. It provides very perverse outcomes or very perverse incentives for the team to actually build. Right. If you have 20, 30, 40 plus million dollars in the bank, it's really hard to be really scrappy and say like, okay, I got to go get that next customer, get that next user, etc. It also marks the valuations up to a place that makes it really untenable for retail to actually enter in. And then it also brings the actual valuations up to a point where you're marking into user growth and user acquisition metrics that are probably five to 10 years in the future. Like if you just look at Bear Chain's launch today, it's trading, I don't know, I think like 10 billion or something. FTV, almost. Movement Labs, same thing. Those are like S&P 500 + type numbers for brand new protocols that weren't even in existence a handful of years ago and really have no net new users outside of the people who have been incentivized by yield farming to throw their money on the platform and try to get an airdrop. So what I'm saying is we need to lower these valuations, lower the rounds materially to actually fit where these projects need to be funded.
Scott Milker
Well, I, I have a lot of questions and, and some comments as, as someone who's actually building in the space, but before I get into those questions, let, let's put a little bit of context here. So how many of these sort of large VC funds are there like you know, that have raised multi billion dollar routes and how much capital do they still have to allocate?
Tom Dunlevy
So in aggregate there's at least five to 10 in terms of how much capital they still have to allocate from what they raised in 2122? You can say probably at least half of that, if not more. So there is a large amount of capital still remaining and they need these big projects to deploy.
Scott Milker
What are we talking about? We talk about paradigm A16Z, you know, Pantera, who else.
Tom Dunlevy
You could just get on the list of the top 10 VCs and see how much there is. I think Polychainer Paradigm raised a 2 billion plus dollar fund.
Scott Milker
Yeah, so, so sorry what these guys.
Tom Dunlevy
Are still raising now. So they've raised their last fund and now they're raising their next fund. So.
Scott Milker
Right. And what I think we've been seeing is that most of these sort of funds being raised now are substantially smaller than the funds that were previously raised. That would seem to indicate that the, the funds are not, have not been performing well enough to sort of raise the same kind of money again.
Tom Dunlevy
I think the funds are right sizing now and they're probably still too big. If you look at the space right now x Bitcoin, we're at what, like a little over a trillion dollars? If you have a few 10, 20 billion, let's call it around half a percent. 2% of the space is invested in venture versus the liquid markets. That's a lot, a lot of money. That's way more than traditional finances, terms of the aggregate market cap versus the actual venture dollars deployed. So in terms of what, and, and this is in an industry where the marginal costs are supposed to be lower. So in terms of the deployment of this capital and the recognition of the upside for LPs and then the downside for retail, you know, and the space is starting to recognize this, it's the trade off is just not there. But you know, I'd love to hear as you as a builder, your feedback and how you, how you see this and you know, what, what generally you think of these costs.
Scott Milker
So I'll get into that in a bit. But first I want to sort of continue just looking at this from the perspective of a VC for a moment. So one of the things that you said in the tweet is that these projects are being funded at valuations that fund them at perfection. In other words, nothing goes wrong and 10 years from now, if nothing goes wrong, they should be valued at these, at these valuations. But I, I think that if, if you actually have been looking around crypto, very few projects sort of grow consistent grow their valuations consistently. Instead, what we've seen very frequently is that projects come out of the gate roaring. Right? So today bearer chain came out of the gate 5 billion dollar FTB. So they raised probably a little bit over 100 million. Right. I think the rumors were they raised at a little bit over a billion FDV in the last round or am I hearing the same things you're hearing? Right, so they've come Storming out of the gate at 5 billion and then you can say, all right, well but what have they produced, right? What are their, what are their revenues? Where are their users? And then I would retort, why does that matter? That's not how this industry prices anything. I mean look at the biggest sort of projects after, you know, like if you look at the top 10, what do we got? 140 billion dollar market cap, not FTV, market cap valuation, like something like a, I don't know, we're looking at something like 250 billion FTV for Ripple for XRP. Right. We've got something along the lines of 40 billion maybe, maybe even 50 billion FTV for Cardano. So what do you think, like the valuations here? I think the VCS are basing their, their expectations on those types of valuations. That's what they're trying to hit. I mean that's literally their job. The market seems to be the problem, not the vcs.
Tom Dunlevy
Yeah, I think it's a recursive cycle because as the VCs mark these prices up, the benchmark becomes higher and the bar for competition becomes higher for each subsequent race. Now just like context is really important here. So if you just look at like the S P 500, the 500 biggest stocks, basically, you know, in the world, we'll just use broad numbers, you know, at a launch like this Bear chain and Movement Labs is in line with like Moderna Domino's, Dollar General. These are companies that are making, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Molson cores, like producing ridiculous products have been in existence forever, haven't you know, you know, real businesses.
Scott Milker
Yeah.
Tom Dunlevy
What I'm saying is like day one, these things should not be valued this high. It just doesn't.
Scott Milker
Okay, so, so let's talk about the, the big elephant in the room, right? Why does everything or anything in this space have the valuation it has? And that's because of the big boy in the room, right? 70. If you, if you pull out stablecoins, 70 plus of the value in the industry is in just one single asset, and that is BTC. And today Standard Chartered come out and say BTC to 500k. Right? So that would bring us to.
Tom Dunlevy
I.
Scott Milker
Don'T know, 10 trillion. 10 trillion market cap in by 2028. So that's three years. So let's attack this from two verticals. One, right? What everyone is interested in is it actually going to be a 500 coin by 2028 or before.
Tom Dunlevy
Our price prediction for the end of this year is $250,000. So could it get another two or three years from now to 500K? Sure, if we just again, just put this in context. We've gotten, let's just run down what we've gotten in the past two months. We've gotten a pro SEC chair, a pro CFTC chair, a pro FDIC chair, the repeal of SAB21, which constrained all banks effectively from custodying and or transacting in crypto, numerous ETL F approvals, this formation of the crypto council, that's purchasing potentially some sort of strategic asset stockpile for digital assets. If you said any one of those individual things in the past two years, it would have set Bitcoin price up 30% on each one of those bits of news. We're getting so much good news that we're not putting in context what this means for the industry, which is a ridiculous amount of capital flows from institutions in the next three to six months. So this price target seems fairly lofty, but as you very well know, the supply is constrained and when you have all of these buyers, particularly the institutions who are going to incentivize retail to buy this stuff, they're now on our side and they're going to be pushing this stuff. So it's gonna, I think directionally it's correct, it's very, very lofty target. But you know, I think the, the numbers in terms of growth make, make a lot of sense.
Scott Milker
Yeah, I mean look, 250k would take us to, you know, 2 1/2x where we are now. What do the people listing think? Right, well that will we end this cycle only 2 1/2 x where we are now. Are we going higher? And so, so I think that's sort of like being the big elephant in the room, frankly. I think we can potentially get in the higher. Donald Trump is talking about bringing down the 10 year yield significantly. That is going to flood the market with liquidity. Like you said, we're not even taking into account the, the hype that is happening from AI right now. So we're, we're likely to see, you know, sky high valuations across the market, not just btc. And what do you invest in if you want to invest in AI? Actually, BTC looks like a very good bet. It's a scarce asset in a world which is going to see substantial valuation gains and it's likely to be one of the assets which is used by AI in order to pay for things like compute and energy. So there's all kinds of flows that are going to be coming to bitcoin. And bitcoin in the crypto industry has been sanctioned by the US government for the last 16 years. And now we have this new US government which is not only not sanctioning it, but is saying again and again our top priority is basically number go up. So people, post your comments, let us know what you're thinking. But Tom, let's bring this back to the big mystery that everyone has and sort of what we were talking about, the valuations, it feels like in this market basically only two things have been benefiting. BTC and BTC and. And sort of like these meme coins. Right? So it's this barbell, BTC up, up, everything else sort of dying on the vine. Why do you think that is?
Tom Dunlevy
So we're having 100x plus the amount of tokens that have been launched in previous cycles and we already live in a fractured attention economy. Just real briefly on the chart on the screen for folks who think we have just a lot of opium here and you've probably seen a version of this chart, but to put it in context, this is bitcoin each cycle from the bottom. So you can see the first cycle, yes, 500x up next cycle 100 next cycle 20x. So far we're about 6x. So this is happening with a lower amplitude for sure. But it's very. And we're at the point in the cycle where you've seen sort of these inflection points and actual price action. So it's very. It would be very much in line with past cycles to get another 3.4x from here with. Without even considering the institutional flows or you know, retail flows via the ETFs etc. Etc. So we're still on a very reasonable point based on last cycle, even at a. And previous cycles based on a lower.
Scott Milker
They were basically tracking last cycle almost one to one for bitcoin, not for. For the other assets.
Tom Dunlevy
Correct, Bitcoin. And this is the. This goes to your question then you know what happens with alt season right now? And this goes to the fractured attention point. We have not only fractured attention in our everyday lives and across social media, but fractured attention because of the pump.com fun and meme coin. And hey, immediately the President mentioned something. Let's launch a new token about it and hot ball of money of capital. So, you know, my mental model really is that strong barbell. But it's going to be even more pronounced than we think. So it's going to be a handful of majors and you see Ethereum and other sui even now trying to enter that majors discussion. And there's going to be some very use case specific stuff for folks who are very specialized and people tried to suss this out with AI and find out what that was. But still maybe too early to actually find individual use cases there. But this whole middle of tokens is going to really struggle because who is the marginal net new buyer of these things who hasn't been on chain yet and is going and finding like you know, the 200th market cap de token because they've sort of sussed out like unless you have this cycle of use case narrative adoption, you know, pump within the the community of attention, then your token just becomes lost in the noise. So all of these protocols that are in that middle are really going to struggle. So you need to latch onto a use case, you need to find a community or these things are really going to just go slowly to zero from you know, and this goes to.
Scott Milker
Isn't this what Maxis have always been saying, right Maxis, including myself saying that over time basically everything just gets sucked and stripped off into Bitcoin and the rest of these things get to zero. And now maybe we are at that tipping point, right? Because suddenly Bitcoin is being adopted by the largest financial institutions, Signum Bank, Swiss bank focused like they've been growing like crazy. They recently hit unicorn valuation. Basically a bitcoin focused bank out of Switzerland have said that if just $1 billion, which is nothing in comparison to what people are talking about for the SBR, if just $1 billion of a strategic Bitcoin reserve were to be purchased, that would mean that the price would surge by 20 billion. Right. So they're basically assuming a ratchet here or a leverage of price appreciation in the entire Bitcoin market cap of 1 to 20 on each purchase. Every dollar that goes in is going to send the market cap higher by 20x that dollar.
Tom Dunlevy
Totally, totally reasonable makes sense because the vast under allocation to the asset class here and how in the broad scheme of things still how small it is. This is not only. So the strategic reserve is something that I think is 100% going to happen. I've called for this for a while, but also these state level strategic reserves, I think we have 17 bills in these state level congresses so you are going to get at least a handful of those passed. I don't think all of them will be but that and the individual pension funds within the US have a ridiculous amount of capital like the pension funds of like California, New York Texas, etc have more money than you know, the majority of countries out there. So even a very small allocation from these guys produces a ton of inflows. And then you have the game theory effects of countries saying oh crap, I'm like behind the eight ball here, I gotta start, gotta start putting money in. So things don't move as fast as we'd like them to, unfortunately, because traditional finance and institutions move in quarters, not days like we do. So it's very cliche to say zoom out, but the whole list I ran through previously and then all of the different and actions that are in place right now in terms of these direct purchases for Bitcoin is very powerful. It's very, very powerful.
Scott Milker
What are your thoughts on allocating to projects specifically in the bitcoin ecosystem? Right, we've got Babylon are going to go to market probably sometime soon, their token's going to hit the exchanges. Right. They've got billions of dollars in bitcoin which has been sort of pre placed in their pre placement program. We've got a whole bunch of bitcoin roll ups. You've got bitcoin os of course, you know, there's significant, there's crazy things happening to Bitcoin. Bitcoin is becoming a fully programmable layer as we speak. Are we just going to see a shift from sort of all of this other ecosystem stuff into Bitcoin? Because it's like clear bitcoin has one, but we're still going to need applications, we're still going to need kind of web3 type of things, but they're going to be built on Bitcoin. So are you allocating there?
Tom Dunlevy
So the struggle I have, and I'm sure others have this is I think everyone recognizes Bitcoin as the biggest economic settlement layer by weight, by mind share, and therefore the most secure. The issue is we've talked about these upgrades and changes to bitcoin for quite some time. So one, handicapping how real they are and then two, understanding the nuances of the technology behind it is a very big challenge. So I think a lot of allocators in the space are very much wait and see in terms of what actually will happen with a lot of these fantastic L2s that are being developed. So personally it's just really hard to parse it. So I turn the question back on you and ask how do you make folks understand sort of what is being built here? And then what, what is the timeline to actually realizing and having something people can kind of tangibly touch and use and be excited About.
Scott Milker
Well, like, I think it's very real. What I mean, think I know it's very real. Like we've, we've had. So our team, we, we managed to demonstrate ZK verification on Bitcoin several months ago. And where, you know, that was a hard coded ZK verification took 54 transactions. We've now gotten down to six transactions. We expect to get it down to two. So, so it's very real. Testnet for us is coming out soon. Babylon have seen, I think it's $6 billion worth of BTC flow into their system before they've even launched. And they're about to launch. There's a whole bunch of projects that have been built on them. Some of them multi billion dollar projects. Not to mention there's multiple, you know, bitcoin, there are two projects. So I think it's very real. And actually I want to come full circle. Maybe you and I, after this we can chat a little bit about, about what I actually see happening in the bitcoin ecosystem. We can have a conversation about that. But back to your original tweet, right. You asked me as a builder, what do I see? I think from a tech perspective, you're right. You don't need that much money in order to maintain these systems. However, I think in crypto there's two weird things. One, you get one shot to raise capital and then you're basically ipo. Like the first thing you do is ipo, that was your shot. And then the second thing is going to the heart of what you were saying. It's all about attention. And so most of these projects, most of their spend is marketing spend. That's why you raise the big capital. 80% of it is going to marketing. And so basically we're in this arms race of who can sort of spend more on doing crazier things or sneakier things in order to get attention.
Tom Dunlevy
And yeah, yeah, the best marketing is making people money. And it's almost impossible to make people a lot of money when the protocol launches at a 5 or $10 billion FTB. I think the notable exception would be hyper liquid, but they airdrop 31% of their token to users. So that was their marketing, which.
Scott Milker
Exactly, yeah, which is. But that, that's just as expensive as, you know, raising huge, huge amounts of capital. All right, so let's bring this to a boil. Let's bring this to an end. We've spoken about $500,000 Bitcoin BTC price from Standard Chartered Signum bank, saying that's going to be Peanuts. Us saying everything about this sounds realistic. And now Eric Trump jumping into the ring saying he thinks it's a good time to enter btc. What do you say, Tom? Now's the time to press the buy button.
Tom Dunlevy
This. This guy knows something, right? Like, obviously, like if you look at World Liberty Financial, their entity has been basically like t whopping eth. They've bought mid 8 figures now, and they were just having these ridiculous buys. They hold, I think BTC through WBTC right now, which I know is probably not your favorite, but, you know, they're very bullish on the space and they're actively deploying capital against it and they're talking their own book. I mean, the tweet he had about eth, which wasn't just on the screen, was e thank me later, sort of like in almost those words. And then he, he changed it to just, you know, good time to buy eth. So does this mean they're buying it in the strategic reserve or this Bitcoin stockpile or whatever we're going to call it? Potentially, I find it really hard to believe they're going to spend 180 days analyzing it and come to the conclusion that we're not buying anything. So I think they're likely buying a handful of the majors, Bitcoin ETH and maybe a few others subsequent to this. And David Sachs, who's running this division, is a multi coin lp, and Multicoin's biggest position is obviously very vocally Solana. So I don't know, you look at the incentives and you show me the outcome. And I think, I think we're a lot. We're going to see a lot of strong purchases by not only the Trump entities, but also potentially the government in the near future.
Scott Milker
All right, well, that is a wrap, Tom. Thank you so much for joining me, everyone who's been listening. We'll see you next week. And of course will end with what is, you know, the, the, the one truth that we've learned in this industry, which is that there's basically never a bad time to hit to smash that orange buy button. All right, guys, see you next week. Let's do.
Podcast Summary: The Wolf Of All Streets – "Massive Bull Run Ahead: Bitcoin To Skyrocket To $500K By 2028!"
Release Date: February 6, 2025
Host Scott Melker engages in a dynamic conversation with Tom Dunlevy from MV Global, delving deep into the future of Bitcoin, the state of venture capital in the crypto space, and the factors driving a potential massive bull run. This episode uncovers critical insights into market valuations, institutional inflows, and the evolving Bitcoin ecosystem. Below is a detailed summary capturing the essence of their discussion.
The episode opens with an unexpected twist as Scott Melker announces his absence from the show due to recent market volatility. He humorously claims that Scott has "turned it all in cocaine and fled to Colombia," setting a lighthearted yet intriguing tone for the discussion.
Notable Quote:
Scott Melker [00:15]: “Bitcoin to skyrocket to $500,000 a coin by 2028, apparently. This is the forecast of Standard Chartered Bank.”
Tom Dunlevy initiates the conversation by addressing a tweet he made, criticizing the trend of crypto projects raising excessive capital. He argues that projects like Bearer Chain, Monad, Abstract Chain, and Infinix Movement Labs are overvalued due to large venture capital (VC) investments, which in turn foster perverse incentives and unsustainable valuations.
Notable Quote:
Tom Dunlevy [01:19]: “I think we’ve come to a place in the industry where you have these massive funds... it's really hard to be really scrappy and say like, okay, I got to go get that next customer, get that next user, etc.”
The discussion shifts to the immense capital raised by top VCs, some over a billion dollars, leading to inflated valuations of new projects. Tom highlights that many of these projects do not require such vast funding, resulting in overvaluation and limited accessibility for retail investors.
Key Points:
Notable Quote:
Tom Dunlevy [02:24]: “Monad raised almost $250 million. Bear chain over 100 million... those are like S&P 500 + type numbers for brand new protocols.”
Scott and Tom explore the landscape of VC funds in crypto, noting that while several large funds still have significant capital to allocate, the industry is witnessing a shift towards smaller fund sizes. This adjustment indicates that previous funds may not have performed as expected, leading to a more conservative approach in fundraising.
Key Points:
Notable Quote:
Tom Dunlevy [05:11]: “We are in a space where the marginal costs are lower... but the trade-off is just not there.”
A significant portion of the episode focuses on Bitcoin's potential surge to $500,000 by 2028, as forecasted by Standard Chartered Bank. Tom Dunlevy counters with his prediction of $250,000 by the end of the year, acknowledging the possibility of reaching $500,000 in the subsequent years due to various market factors.
Key Points:
Notable Quotes:
Scott Melker [10:14]: “BTC to $500k... so let's attack this from two verticals.”
Tom Dunlevy [10:37]: “Our price prediction for the end of this year is $250,000... but I think the numbers in terms of growth make a lot of sense.”
The conversation delves into the various factors contributing to Bitcoin's bullish outlook. Tom emphasizes the influx of institutional capital, regulatory approvals, and strategic reserve allocations as key drivers that could significantly inflate Bitcoin’s market cap.
Key Points:
Notable Quote:
Tom Dunlevy [11:57]: “We've gotten so much good news that we're not putting in context what this means for the industry, which is a ridiculous amount of capital flows from institutions in the next three to six months.”
Scott inquires about investment strategies within the Bitcoin ecosystem, highlighting projects like Babylon and Bitcoin roll-ups. Tom acknowledges the technological advancements making Bitcoin more programmable but points out the challenges in understanding and evaluating these developments, leading to cautious investment behaviors.
Key Points:
Notable Quote:
Scott Melker [19:39]: “It's very real... We've managed to demonstrate ZK verification on Bitcoin... Testnet for us is coming out soon.”
A critical issue addressed is the imbalance between marketing spend and actual development in crypto projects. Tom argues that excessive funds are funneled into marketing to gain attention rather than into building sustainable products, leading to inflated valuations without corresponding value creation.
Key Points:
Notable Quote:
Scott Melker [22:24]: “Most of these projects, most of their spend is marketing spend. That's why you raise the big capital.”
In the concluding segment, both guests express a highly bullish stance on Bitcoin. Tom highlights significant purchases by entities like World Liberty Financial and anticipates further institutional investments, reinforcing the belief that now is an opportune time to invest in Bitcoin.
Key Points:
Notable Quote:
Tom Dunlevy [23:11]: “They're very bullish on the space and they're actively deploying capital against it... We're going to see a lot of strong purchases by not only the Trump entities, but also potentially the government in the near future.”
The episode wraps up with a reaffirmation of the bullish outlook on Bitcoin. Scott Melker encourages listeners to invest, emphasizing the consistent upward trajectory predicted by both market analysts and institutional players.
Notable Quote:
Scott Melker [24:22]: “There’s basically never a bad time to hit to smash that orange buy button.”
Final Takeaway: The conversation between Scott Melker and Tom Dunlevy provides a comprehensive outlook on Bitcoin's future, emphasizing the substantial potential for growth driven by institutional investments, strategic reserves, and evolving technological advancements. Despite concerns over inflated project valuations and excessive marketing expenditures, the overarching sentiment remains optimistic, positioning Bitcoin as a formidable asset poised for a massive bull run by 2028.