Sachs quits, War escalates, Bitcoin crashes: Is this the end?#CryptoTownHall

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Wolf Of All Streets with Scott Melker

Episode: Sachs quits, War escalates, Bitcoin crashes: Is this the end? #CryptoTownHall
Date: March 27, 2026
Host: Scott Melker
Format: Crypto Town Hall discussion with multiple industry voices

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Overview:

In this episode, Scott Melker convenes a candid and sometimes fiery roundtable with an all-star panel from the crypto, finance, and trading sectors. The discussion is centered around a turbulent week for crypto—including the abrupt resignation of David Sachs from a key policy advisory role, escalating global conflicts, and a sharp Bitcoin crash. The group examines the underlying causes, implications for the financial system, the future of crypto regulation, and the broader macro environment.

Tone: frank, occasionally combative, but always deeply informed and forward-looking.

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Key Discussions & Insights

1. Sachs Resignation and Crypto Policy at the White House

• Sachs’ Exit Was Expected:

  • The consensus is that Sachs’ departure was “preordained” ([02:01]). His move to a vague, broader technology role is seen as part of political musical chairs.
  • Quote, Scott Melker: “I think Sachs was always destined to be gone at this point...it was never meant to last forever.” ([02:01])

• Concerns Over Crypto Policy Leadership:

  • The panel wonders if Sachs’ exit leaves a policy void or diminishes crypto’s priority at the federal level.
  • Positive mention of Patrick Witt as a steadying hand but skepticism remains about whether the government is truly “in good hands” with crypto.
  • “Is there a void now at the White House for crypto being a priority...driving that ship?” ([02:23])

2. Frustrations Over Crypto Legislation (Clarity Act, Stablecoins, Lobbying)

• ‘No Bill is Better Than a Bad Bill’:

  • A growing camp, including Scott, voices exhaustion with gridlocked legislation and fears that sloppy regulation will be worse than no action ([02:40], [08:49]).
  • Concerns raised that the real regulatory work begins in rule-writing by the SEC and CFTC, regardless of Congressional actions ([03:40]).

• Lobbying Out in the Open – Public’s Interest Neglected:

  • Panelists express frustration that lobbying by banks and industry players, especially Coinbase, is no longer subtle but done “in the open,” further eroding faith in representation (“no one from the consumer side at the table”) ([09:14]).
  • Quote, Carlo: “It’s become so transparent now that this is all just driven by lobbying and power. And I think the consumer is going to get the short end of this, as usual.” ([09:14])

• Coinbase: From Crypto Advocate to Self-Interested Player:

  • Growing sentiment that Coinbase, originally seen as a champion for the sector, is now fighting primarily for its own bottom line, especially in its Circle partnership ([07:07], [16:47]).
  • Quote, Carlo: “I think they are more concerned with preserving their revenue model with Circle.” ([07:07])

• The Stablecoin Yield Debate:

  • The focus on stablecoin yield is called a distraction from bigger systemic issues—stablecoins’ core value is fast payments and capital movement, not mimicking bank yields ([12:10]).
  • Panelist G summarizes bank lobbying: “J.P. Morgan, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo...want the bill to pass, but they want to carve out parts that threaten their deposit base, which is the yield on stablecoins.” ([21:02])

• Danger for DeFi:

  • Concerns that pushing high yields on stablecoins drains capital away from DeFi and other crypto innovations ([21:02]).

3. Macro System Pressure – Markets, War, and Regulation

• Market Dynamics:

  • Bitcoin crashes, but holds up better than most crypto assets—echoing the theory that only Bitcoin may survive as a truly decentralized asset, while other coins become increasingly bank-owned ([00:21], [35:00]).
  • Commodities volatility and stock sell-off are seen as a broader signal of a bear market cycle.
  • Mike (trader): “This is just the beginning, a great trading year—look to sell rallies of risk assets wherever you get it...trade the bear.” ([24:30], [27:15])

• War & Geopolitics’ Ripples:

  • The closing of strategic shipping routes, oil price spikes, and war escalation may act as catalysts for recession (“This is a classic trigger to get out, get out of anything that’s risky”).
  • Discussion of how petrodollar politics remains central, with the U.S. likely to defend dollar settlement for oil for years to come ([54:05]).

4. Banks vs. Crypto – Evolutionary Pressure

• Fractional Reserve System Under Threat:

  • Panelists argue that the real fear among banks is being forced to compete on a level playing field, where crypto’s on-demand, market-driven infrastructure could out-compete slow, costly traditional finance ([12:10]).
  • “The real fear the banks have is they will lose if fractional reserve banking has to compete against a world where you don’t need it.” ([12:10])

• Institutional Adaptation:

  • Recognition that Wall Street and big banks are not dumb—they are moving to co-opt crypto infrastructure (e.g., tokenized Treasuries), positioning themselves atop any new paradigm ([44:25]).
  • Quote: “Banks want to co-opt as best as possible. And some of it is actually good for crypto…they want to maintain their profit margins.” ([44:25])

5. Regulation – Cautious Optimism and Cynicism

• Regulators Over Legislators:

  • Given government gridlock, hope is pinned on regulators (SEC/CFTC) moving faster and more sensibly than Congress, though process will remain messy ([12:10], [03:40]).
  • Quote: “It’s become very clear that we’d rather be looking to the regulators than the legislators.” ([11:48])

• Concerns Over Surveillance and Sovereignty:

  • Alarm at new requirements to declare DeFi wallets or surrender device keys (e.g., in Hong Kong) ([49:02], [50:28]).
  • Scott: “Distrust of the government is probably the one thing that we all agree on, right?” ([50:26])
  • Tone: libertarian, skeptical, protective of privacy

• Clarity Act’s Merits and Doubts:

  • Some positive notes on the “Clarity Act,” especially sections about pre-investor token sales and consumer safety, but fear remains that too many competing interests will sabotage effective reform ([48:19]).

6. Bitcoin Use Cases, Adoption & Price Discussion

• Mortgage/Real Estate Integration:

  • Major news that a large institution is now accepting Bitcoin for mortgage-related transactions; panelists agree this is a historic moment for practical Bitcoin adoption ([19:07]).
  • Quote, Gary: “You cannot go to a mortgage and go, here's $10 million worth of gold...you can do it with bitcoin. That's a big fucking deal.” ([19:22])

• Trading Wisdom:

  • Nuanced debate about trading vs. investing in Bitcoin as prices fall; practical guidelines for when to sell, where to set stops, and the difference between hodling and swing strategies ([36:31]).

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with timestamps)

• On Sachs quitting:
  “[Sachs] was always destined to be gone at this point...it was never meant to last forever.” – Scott ([02:01])

• On crypto lobbying & consumer neglect:
  “Nobody from the consumer side has a seat at the table for any of this back channel bullshit.” – Carlo ([09:14])

• On Coinbase’s new reputation:
  “They went from being the crypto advocate...to now they’re just in it for their own bags.” – Carlo ([16:47])

• On the stablecoin yield fight:
  “What we need to do is get competition going...It’s a fucking train wreck, Wall Street. So we’re not going to get transparency out of this.” – Gary ([51:52])

• On Bitcoin’s rising real-world utility:
  “Here’s my gold bricks, I want to borrow against them. That would be really problematic. You can do it with bitcoin. Now that's interesting. That's a big fucking deal.” – Gary ([19:22])

• On macro risks & correlation:
  “We all knew it was coming and now we've got the best catalyst in history...get out of anything that's risky.” – Mike ([32:32])

• On trading strategy in a bear market:
  “If you’re trading...you sell 74, 75 until proven otherwise, you buy in the mid to low 60s, and if it breaks 60 with authority, then that's your stop.” – Dave ([37:08])

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Sachs quits, White House crypto policy concerns: 00:21 – 03:40
• Crypto regulatory process, power of CFTC/SEC: 03:40 – 06:21
• Frustration over Clarity Act, stablecoin yield, open lobbying: 06:21 – 09:32
• Coinbase’s changing narrative: 09:32 – 11:00
• Fractional reserve banking’s existential threat: 12:10 – 16:47
• Stablecoin yield, bank lobbying, impact on DeFi: 17:37 – 24:16
• Macro/market analysis, risk assets, trading signals: 24:30 – 32:32
• Petrodollar system, war, stablecoins’ strategic role: 42:06 – 56:00
• IRS forms, surveillance, privacy concerns: 49:02 – 50:28
• Wrap-up, White House news ambiguity, fear of misinformation: 57:50 – end

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Conclusion

This episode is a dense, raw, and highly topical discussion on the future of crypto in a time of global economic and political upheaval. The panel agrees that regulatory and legislative uncertainty, power-plays by banks and industry actors, and the evolving macro environment are shaping a pivotal crossroads—not just for Bitcoin, but for the entire financial system.

Key Themes:

• Don’t count on Congress—regulators are calling the shots.
• Bitcoin’s narrative separating from the rest of crypto.
• Banks and big institutions adapting—at crypto’s peril and promise.
• Sovereignty, privacy, and consumer protection remain unsettled.
• War and macro shocks could reshuffle global finance.

Final Word:
The moment is volatile, the outcome uncertain, but the underlying transformation—of banking, markets, and money—is irreversible.
“Stay safe. Who the hell knows what’s going to happen on weekends…Monday morning we’ll have something new to talk about.” ([57:50])

Transcript

[A]

You there, Scott? Are we up?

[B]

Yeah. The music. Oh, the music ended for me, and then I wasn't sure if I was having a sound issue, as. As is tradition.

[A]

Yeah, well, it's not always a glitch. Well, you were spicy this morning on your show.

[B]

I don't know, man. I woke up, I had a colonoscopy yesterday. I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Strangely, today. Shocking, I know.

[A]

Yeah, well, you know, the market, probably most people trading in the market feels like they woke up with a colonoscopy. When, you know, when you. When you see. See activity like this, particularly in crypto, I don't know, you know, we're talking about Bitcoin, but I don't know if people noticed that yesterday. Ethereum, Bitcoin. The pair lost the 0.03 level and Ethereum is back below 2000. You know, there is an. Is an unpopular take, but it's entirely possible that the entirety of the financial system is doing its best to turn crypto into bitcoin and everything else owned by the banks. And that is a very interesting. That's certainly not even a conspiracy theory. That's certainly what a lot of people are talking about. Hell, it's sort of what you were saying this morning, Scott, is that what might be good for bitcoin is potentially bad for all the major pieces of crypto technology that people have dreams of it being Bitcoin, like, in terms of market value. And, you know, when you see days like today and you see, you know, everything drops, but bitcoin actually kind of holds in there dramatically better. You know, that is something that, you know, with, with Sachs quitting, I think that actually is somewhat rational in a sense. But as you said, it was. It was preordained. And the real question is, is what's going to go forward? You know, when Brian Armstrong and everyone else is basically the food fighting, it reminds me, you know, of like the Animal House food fight scene. I just don't know who's the. Who plays John Belushi in this case?

[B]

Us. I think that was us. We just scream from the sidelines and throw food. But, yeah, I agree with you entirely. So I think first, just as a matter of, like, you know, housekeeping, I think Sachs was always destined to be gone at this point. And apparently, actually the days compounded on a longer scale than was intended. I don't know if it was 120 or 200 or however many days, but whatever the technicality of that role was, it was never meant to last forever. So and he's moving on to another sort of vaguely named post that is in the similar realm. So I guess it remains to be seen what happens there. I think the question is, is there a void now at the White House for crypto being a priority or at least somebody even if it is a priority, driving that ship. Right. And making sure that it's overseen. So I think that remains the question. I mean, Patrick Witt is great and he's obviously there and still in a position. So I think that we're probably in good hands if, you know, if your determination is that the White House driving crypto policy can even be defined as in good hands. But yeah, so I don't think it's really a big story like he actively stepped down or quit and wasn't interested. Yeah, I think we can, you know, we can start talking about it going around the panel. I mean, the more I see, the more disillusioned I become. And I'm a pretty optimistic person. But I'm really starting to find myself in the no bill is better than a bad bill camp. And kind of.

[A]

Yeah, you think, Yeah, I mean, look, here's the thing that people always. Not to make you more disillusioned, but I'm going to pile on a little bit here. Once you get a bill, the real work starts and everyone completely ignores that, that at some point the CFTC and SEC are going to start, are going to actually start writing rules and stop just talking about writing rules. And that's when the details happen with or without a bill. If the SEC and CFTC get together now, and they are, and they divvy things up, which they have, then they start making rule proposals. Once rule proposals are made, of course, there's two piece, two points here, how long that takes and I'll get to that in a second. But once rule proposals actually go in, if we end up next year, let's say a year from now, looking at implementation dates of how CFTC is going to implement issuer rules for, and market rules for the spot crypto markets. And the SEC is creating rules for tokenized securities that look a little bit different than they do for non tokenized securities because of the technology and they overhaul some of the rules that get rid of instant liquidity and you look at all that in, you know, say 12 to 18 months and that's what's there. There's no need for an act in Congress to make that happen. There just isn't because they can do that themselves. I know people say, well, they can over overrule it? I mean, not really. It's hard for the SEC because the Administrative Procedures act or the CFTC to overrule previous rules that. That looked like they had passed the Administrative Procedures Act. So it's really up to them to get stuff done. That's really where the work is going to happen. But the truth is, is when that does happen, if you think the fighting is happening just in Congress, that's not only true. I mean, you know, you go through the whole public comment period is difficult, and so you're going to see lots of infighting on individual nuances of every single one of these rules. And so there will be a lot that's happening. I mean, the stablecoin yield thing is. Is kind of a headline, but what's really going to matter is things like how much, you know, how reversible do transactions have to be for securities, for example, and how do we protect the customer's access to it in the event of a bankruptcy. Right? And you know, all sorts of shit like that. Okay. I finally got a lawyer to raise their hand. Carlo, good morning.

[C]

Good morning. And hey, we would be remiss to not congratulate our friend Scott Melker on his new gig with Yahoo Finance. I kind of feel like I'm in that scene from Goodfellows where one of our own became a main man. You're a made guy now, Scott. You're on the financial mainstream network. And congratulations, well deserved, my friend. You grind every day and it just goes to show you what hard work does.

[B]

I appreciate that. You should have seen the negotiations. Hilarious. It ended in. I'm producing the show. I own it. You guys can use it for four hours and I get to say and rant about whatever I want.

[C]

Good. I like that.

[B]

So hopefully I won't become the mainstream media.

[C]

I love that. Hey, now, look, on the conversation of the Clarity Act, I put out a piece that I'd love to put in the nest that has gotten a ton of engagement because I'm frankly fed up with this. And I think that Congress needs to, at this point, step in and settle this thing on behalf of the consumer and stop this back and forth between the banks and primarily Coinbase at this point, because it's very clear that neither side is prepared to give any ground on this conversation. And there are bigger things at stake here. And I'm to the point where I tend to agree with you, Scott. At this point, I don't even know if we need a bill. It's becoming so ridiculous. And one of the things that's really starting to be exposed here is I think that Coinbase has lost the narrative. I think they are more concerned with preserving their revenue model with Circle. And when I see people in the timeline saying that since when did Brian Armstrong become the CEO of crypto? I think this is starting to backfire. And I think we need to get refocused on getting, if we're truly sincere about getting legislation done. I think we need to stop listening to both sides at this point in backdoor conversations where the public has yet to even see this revised draft of the Clarity Act. And if stablecoin yield on passive yield is truly dead, okay, fine, they're not going to kill Defi and we're still going to have options for the consumer. But this has become ridiculous at this point. Congress needs to just get off, get off their ass and do something and actually do something for the consumer. Not to placate the industry players anymore.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, what really pisses me off or blows my mind, I should say, is that the lobbies used to be sort of hidden or behind the curtain and we could at least pretend that we were getting legislation from our actual legislators. Now, like, it's become so accepted that money drives politics that we literally just have conversations in the open about what the industries are doing with regard to

[C]

policy and nobody from the consumer side has a seat at the table for any of this back channel bullshit. And I agree with you, it's become so transparent now that this is all just driven by lobbying and power. And I think the consumer is going to get the short end of this, as usual.

[D]

Lou?

[E]

Yeah, I mean, I think the consumer's always gotten the short end. And first, again, congratulations. Scott, did you pitch him a show that's anything different than what you've been doing?

[B]

The Yahoo show? It's going to be. The core concept is that I basically pick three stories a day and unload on why they're either signal or noise, you know, and listen, I'll be wrong a lot, but it's basically I rant on what matters and what doesn't. And this is like, it's kind of the first iteration of, you know, we have some room to improve and ad shows and things. So we'll see. But yeah, it should start in a couple weeks.

[E]

Cool, Congrats.

[A]

Thanks.

[E]

Look, I mean, it's my view that the government is not our friend. My assumption is that, you know, the people who give the most money, which in this case it's the banks, they're the ones with the Power and they're going to write the rules. You know the, the Sacks thing. I, I mean it seemed to me that Sacks was bent over on, on, on Iraq on inauguration night and I don't think he ever recovered from that. I was shocked that he stuck, that he stuck around as long as he did. If I, you know, if I was a multi billionaire I wouldn't be spending my time getting bent over. And as far as Armstrong, look, Armstrong's just talking his book, right? Armstrong is not here for the revolution and by the way everybody's talking their book.

[B]

Agree. Yeah, I think that's fair.

[A]

I don't think that.

[B]

Yeah, go ahead, go ahead.

[A]

Hey, sorry by the way Scott, congratulations on your new show and I'm going to look forward to it.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

But I think Sachs is not just leaving his role. Isn't he going to part of a larger role? That's what I heard, yeah.

[B]

Yeah. I think it's a larger technology sort of blanket role but non specific to crypto and AI and it's on a

[E]

council but yeah, no, nobody ever quote leaves. Right. Everybody just gets shuffled to roll the things California.

[B]

Well scared Richie left but yeah, I think it's a hotel California, you know check out anytime you like but you,

[D]

you can never leave.

[B]

Sorry, I don't know if we went blank there anybody else? I don't know. You know, I think it's worthy to continue the conversation about the way that this legislation is being crafted. Dave, I think your point is the most important is that at least if we are going to cheer for the government's participation I think it's become very clear that we'd rather be looking to the regulators than the legislators.

[A]

Well maybe that's a silver lining on that one because the thing that drives me frigging crazy is people are, everyone is focusing on an issue that really should be a non issue. The whole yield debate and the reason it should be a non issue is that stablecoins are really good for payments and moving capital around. But the whole notion the reason Tether is so damn profitable is because they don't pay a damn thing because people desperately needed to own Tether to get a grip basically get an entry into crypto assets and to get an entry be able to move things cross border. The truth is we have $7 trillion give or take trapped in deposits that they're being paid below market interest rates because of a couple of things. But the truth is the economy doesn't need that much. I mean the reason that there's so much Trapped or there's two reasons and only really two reasons. There are Reason one, it is incredibly inefficient to move money, right? You know, it takes days and you can't. And there it is. So it is so expensive if you fail, you bounce a check, you know, et cetera. You know, it is so expensive to fail. People are just trained, you know what, let's leave enough money in cash, etc. You know the idea of, and this is, this is not the first time this has been fought. When money market funds became available, it was pushed into brokerage accounts and they were not allowed to be automatically swept into payment or bank accounts. And now we have exactly the same thing going on. So it really, you know, ask yourself what happens if $6 trillion can enter the real economy away from banks where they sit on it? And so much such a high percentage of the banks are deposits in at the Federal Reserve or holding, you know, whatever various, you know, whether it's Treasuries or agencies or whatever the hell they're holding, you know, or repos. Or repos. So you know, the money is trapped and could be, you know, in the real economy. What's, what's the second reason? Well, the second reason is that that bank, local banks trap them even more because banks give you access to loans. So like for example, if you have a, a, a heloc, you know, I, I have a small HELOC that is a revolving line of credit and for the most part I don't have, I'm not using it, but I have it. Part of the reason or part of the way to have it is the bank said great. The only way, how it works is we'll give you a checking account and you have to take your money into that checking account and move it back and around, right? So you're forced to do that. Local businesses are forced to hold their savings accounts at the same bank that has given them their payment account and that they potentially could get a loan from now with mobile capital. Is that all really necessary? And the answer is not really. The whole notion of fractional reserve banking, and you rail about this constantly, Scott, hasn't been re examined, hasn't been re litigated ever. And it's never had to compete in a world where it wasn't necessary. And that's the real fear that the banks have. The real fear the banks have is they will lose if fractional reserve banking has to compete against a world where you don't need it. It's just like securities lending in the Stock market, this whole notion that you have to locate something, then borrow it a day or two later, which allows naked shorting and all sorts of things. Crypto works perfectly well where you borrow in an advance. Why? Because it's all on demand settlement. It has to be that way. So much of what's, what's happening is a fight over plumbing and market structure that challenges the system. And that challenge of the system is, if you think about it, is, well, what will win? Well, what will win will be what capitalism says should win. Except they don't want to let the markets determine whether the fractional reserve system is a better system. They want to stop that. Why? Because they know they're going to lose. It's not like there's a question, and what does losing mean? Losing doesn't mean that Joe's Bar and Grill won't be able to borrow money because he needs to go to his local community bank, which will be out of business. No, it means that Joe's Bar and Grill is, if it's credit worthy, their local community bankers might very well say, okay, this is a good thing, and they charge a fee for promoting it and sourcing liquidity from a very vast global pool of capital. And really what we're talking about in crypto is a modernizing system. It's why Jamie Dimon is out saying, yeah, crypto is a better system. He's not joking about that. He knows it's true. It doesn't mean he doesn't want to tilt it in a way that benefits his himself. I'm getting too much of a rant.

[C]

You're exactly on the money. And Dave, this is why I feel like they're not letting the market decide. They're not letting the consumer have options. Both sides of the debate are fighting to preserve their own legacy model in a certain sense, because Coinbase for a long time has enjoyed. I think they make 20% off this arrangement with circle of their revenue, and they don't want that disrupted. And I think what's gotten lost in this is their, their desperation to preserve that at all costs has really muddied the narrative. And they went from being the, the, the crypto advocate of the sector for protecting crypto, especially in the last election cycle, to now the narrative has really flipped, that they're just in it for their own bags and they're not much different from the banks. And that frustrates me.

[F]

Carlo. I, I'm very surprised because I, and maybe I'm just really wrong on this, but I actually like what they're doing. They're pushing back against the banks and the legacy lobbyists who are protecting the banks. I mean, I'm a little surprised they haven't spent more time advertising to Joe Consumer in the United States.

[C]

100%. 100%.

[F]

We have solutions.

[C]

Yes.

[F]

And the bank of America and Wells Fargo is blocking and doing everything they can to steal two and a half percent from you. That's what this is about.

[A]

I like why I tell you, I

[C]

think I put out.

[E]

This is about.

[C]

That's exactly why I wrote the book and that's exactly the narrative. And they have such a brilliant marketing team, Gary, that if they would just stop harping on this one subject and really broaden the conversation to protecting the consumer, I think they could flip the narrative.

[A]

Yeah.

[F]

Now, I think it's actually just, just one other thing. I actually think this fa, this Fannie Mae thing, this announcement that came out and then he jumped right on top of it, said, hey, we're offering real mortgages. I think that's his message because I don't think based on what I read about that product, there's a lot of wood to chop on getting that product really competitive. But, but I think it's his message of saying, okay, you guys are going to with us on regulations. We, there are workarounds here. Mortgages would be one of them. Now, that's interesting, right? I think that's a big announcement for bitcoin, by the way.

[B]

Huge news. I think that's the biggest news we've seen. We don't need Congress involved and people are criticizing it. You know that it's only your down payment and over collateralized loan. But that's the step to a fully backed mortgage. But the fact that you can go get. Yes, you still have to qualify for a mortgage.

[F]

Scott, you have one of the largest organizations in the world validating bitcoin. They do not. You cannot go to a mortgage and go, here's $10 million worth of gold. Here's my gold bricks, I want to borrow against them. That would be really problematic. You can do it with bitcoin. Now that's interesting. That's a big fucking deal. No one's making any. There's no noise on this. And I'm like, wow, this is big, big news.

[B]

Yeah, it's incredible. Somebody was jumping in.

[E]

No, I was. That, that is, that, that is big news. I agree with that. The, the point that I was going to make is, you know, I think what Coinbase is arguing for is a lot more than just interest. It's about making money programmable, right? If, if you can't give interest, you can't give other rewards. And you know, in, in my opinion, that's where the real opportunity is, beyond just giving people a little bit of interest. But it'll be like frequent flyer miles or credit card stuff. Every company will have their own money and they'll give all kinds of cool rewards and that's the world that Coinbase

[C]

wants and they're not going to kill that. The banks can fight all day long, but they're not going to kill that. And we still have defi. So yeah, both sides are going to have to give ground, but both seem to refuse to want to. And again, our lawmakers are just letting them continue to control the back channel conversation. Let's make a decision and move on from this already, people, because the market is suffering.

[B]

Pan I said you had that before.

[A]

Yeah, I was just.

[G]

Good morning everyone.

[A]

Gm.

[G]

Gm. Yeah, I just wanted to, it's kind of like two sides to this, right? So, I mean, I thought it was pretty obvious. I actually wrote an article weeks ago about this because if you look, if you just follow the money, right, J.P. morgan, bank of America and Wells Fargo, they spent a combined like almost $60 million lobbying this bill last year and they, they want the bill to pass, but they want to carve out parts that threaten their deposit base, which is the yield on stable coins. So it was pretty obvious that, that this was going to happen. And I obviously, I don't agree with, you know, yielding to the banks and the government. I, I think that Coinbase should keep fighting. But at the same time, I look at it like this because I'm a huge defi guy. If we have this like stablecoin yield that Coinbase want, how does this really affect the, the bitcoin and crypto market moving forward? Because the way I see it, money is going to come in and just go into stable coins to earn yield instead of going into defi, going into Bitcoin. Like people are cheering the stablecoin yield on thinking that it's going to bring more, more capital into these markets. But like, where's the capital going to go if you can go and earn 5% on stablecoin yield? Are people going to be continuing to buy Bitcoin Ethereum using Defi or is this just going to, you know, make a separate kind of tribe in crypto where people are just coming with their capital to stake their USDC and earn yield? So I kind of want to get

[B]

your thoughts on that. And you can also buy SCRC and get over 10. Yeah. You know, yeah, there's competition for it. I, I tend to. I get your point. Totally agree. I would love other people's thoughts on it.

[C]

I got a hand up. I don't know if you see it.

[B]

I don't. So go ahead.

[C]

Yeah, Panos, you make a great point. And the part of this that I think is not clear to a lot of people is that it's really not a sustainable model to continue to pay this kind of yield for Coinbase because it's based on an incentivized program where they get a lion's share of the yield that Circle makes on their treasury reserves that is paid to Coinbase in order for Coinbase to prioritize yield on USDC on their platform. And it's not true yield in the sense it's a yield that's manufactured and we all know how that ultimately ends. So while I like the idea of rewarding consumers, I like the idea of incentivizing. I agree with you. Custodying stablecoins and tying them up and taking them out of the market and just earning yield on stablecoins doesn't do much to help DeFi, doesn't do much to move crypto innovation. And ultimately if yields get tighter on treasury reserves, it shrinks into the amount of available capital to continue to provide these yields. So I don't think it's even a sustainable model and a lot of people don't even talk about that side of it.

[B]

Anyone? Thoughts there? Dave? We should, we, we could pivot to the markets as well. We do have Mike here, so, you know, if we're done with the stablecoin talk, Mike, I would love your broad strokes on the insanity that we're witnessing.

[D]

Yeah, definitely part of it. But it's. Let's, let's start. An optimistic note for a trade trader. Most of my life, if you're sitting at a hedge fund, you're just looking for opportunities to trade and take risk. This year I think is just getting started as a make or break year for careers. So first of all, the key thing I've gotten wrong so far is I fully expected volatility and metals and energy to trickle up the stock market. The fact is, 60 day volatility in S&P 500 on the year right now down 1%. And gold is up 60%. And crude oil, it's up 140. So the bottom line for me is this volatility, this indication from cryptos breaking down is just starting to trickle down. From every to everything. So right now we got the S&P 500 finally before below its 200 day moving average. Remember Q4 last year that was the key level. Can we break down, can break below, down below the buck. Bitcoin and cryptos are leading everything and it's a really orderly bear market. It's you know, I don't trade anymore but I look at this has been kind of easy to trade. You get down to good resistance, you wait for spots to sell, you reset right back, rinse and repeat. The first it was around 90 and 88, 90 boom. Stuck there for a couple months and then we broke down. Now we're at 65, 66. Next step is down to 50. It's just been so orderly and efficient and I don't see what stops. And I just say stick with the trend, stick with the discipline. Sell rallies and risk assets and be careful overlay treasuries. Now that's another part of my bias that hasn't worked kicked in yet. Treasuries are basically unshine in the new year T bond you're losing a fraction. S&P 500 is down 6%, copper's down about 4%. You see the connection there. Everything's starting to roll over. We're way overdue for it. Cryptos predicted it and then you know, I didn't fully did not expect the straight of homeworks to be closed but now we got that. To me it's a catalyst very similar to some of the examples I remember in history when we had nine, 11 that was a key catalyst that just shut off consumer spending Mostly in the U.S. now this is global. And then 2008 when crude oil peaked around 147, ended the year at 32. This is stuff saw happening. So we had pumps, then dumps and silver and natural gas was up 100% in the year. Now it's down 20%. Copper was up on the year, up 20% or so. Now it's down almost 5%. Stock market was up, Bitcoin was up. Everything is trickling over. It's only Q1. So to me this is just the beginning a great trading year. Look to sell rallies of risk assets wherever you get it. So bitcoin, maybe we get lucky and be able to sell near 74, 75 again. But to me the next happens it just breaks down to 50. We continue the rinse and repeat trend of a decent bear market. Prove me wrong so far I just look at, you know, give me good resistance levels to sell. Prove me Wrong. You know, at least get copper above 6. That's broken down. Let's get silver above 100. That's broken down. Trade the bear. That's the way I look at it.

[B]

7:74 Looks like a good sell to your point.

[A]

Right.

[D]

What you were saying, that's just. I'm sticking with the discipline. The bottom line, it still hasn't happened. Is that stock market volatility still, to me, way too low for this environment. The good news is we finally saw Vix of 30 today. That typically is a sign to buy Bitcoin, but Bitcoin's been stuck in this range for what, a month now. If bitcoin had broken down to 55 or so with the Vix at 30, maybe that's your sign. But to me it's just a nice meeting indicator consolidating bear market. And it's been such an orderly bear market. Usually they rip your face off. This one just goes down on each step. First step was around 90, hung up. Next step was around 6, 60 hanging out. Next step, I think it's 50. I just got to see something to prove that wrong.

[C]

Mike, does. Does the supply chain issue concern you as far as what that's going to do to further pull down markets? Because we're hearing a lot of talk that runways are going very thin for a lot of essentials and global supply chains are starting to break.

[D]

Absolutely. I so enjoy. I'm glad you went there. So I had a call this morning, internal call all BI people about crude oil. It reminded me very similar to a similar call call back in 2022 and everybody's looking for 150. And a very similar call we had in metals a few months ago and a very similar call I had in cryptos about a year ago. It's a classic key. There's always a good reason to go up supply chain, absolutely no problem. But this is an absolute boom for the U.S. for us. We have a major surplus of energy. Crude oil, natural gas, corn, soybeans and wheat. And I was just at an ag conference and everybody there was like, oh gosh, we just had a chance to sell forward and lock in profits last year. Two years it would have profits. And Mr. Energy Secretary Wright hinted at it. Hey, US producers just had a chance to sell forward and bring in those supplies. So it's a major issue for the rest of the world. Absolutely. Have to assume the Strait of Hormuz stays closed for the worst case scenario. But for that to happen, the first thing you have to put in front of that sentence is failure of the US military and Israeli military, failure of the Trump administration's tenacity to open up the strait and then a pretty dystopian global recessionary energy crisis trajectory which we're already in. The key thing is there is a supply chain issue. We're already price warning. Just look at natural gas in Europe is already up 150% or so. Heating oil is up 100%. This stuff is double what happened in 2008, which triggered me really bearish on stocks. The stock in the S and P amendment, crude oil and global crude oil in 2008, we're up about 50% in the year so far this year they're almost 100%. So to me, all this stuff is classic case of yeah, supply chain is an issue, but it kicks in the demand destruction. And I want to ask everybody in this panel, which one of you is making more capital allocation decisions and budgeting decisions now versus what's happening? To me, it's just a complete, hey honey, shut off the spending. Let's wait to see what's happening. And the worst thing you can do for consumer spending on a global basis, most noted in these countries, makes stock market go down and energy prices go up. And that's happening. So to me, just look at this from the future. The data we're going to get from this period is going to be horrible. Retail sales are coming up soon. Retail sales are already below inflation. To me, this is a classic trigger. Just like 911 was to accelerate that bear market. Just like the pumped energy prices into July in 2008 was a trigger. And the bottom line is we came in this time with the stock market, the most expensive and GDP in almost 100 years. So this is the trigger. I think it's finally happening sell rallies. And by the way, in bear markets, everybody can lose money. Unfortunately.

[A]

I saw Matt's hand go up.

[H]

Yeah, I just got to jump in. Mike, I got to ask you. You've warned about post inflationary deflation, deflate domino effect in that world, which asset class breaks first in a way that you think the market is still, you think, underestimated. You think it's equities, commodities, maybe even credit or crypto. Because you've kind of talked about this for a while. In this post inflationary deflationary domino effect, crypto's first.

[D]

That was perfect because they led the way up. It was an awesome space. Some of us, you know, were happy enough to jump on board. Some of us jumped off too soon. But what an awesome Space started with one and now we have millions. Get it, it's great. But crypto's first leading the way down. What's next? Well, and microstrategy was a perfect indication there was a leader and a leader. Now it's stock market catching up. Metals have all put in good peaks like the base metals put in pretty good highs. There's really no way for copper to go up in this environment. I don't think stock market has to go up. China has to recover and they're showing deflationary forces. So there's one Silver just put in a massive peak. It was up 100% in the year, now it's down what, 3%. That's a classic high that usually lasts for decades. So to me this is all happening and I just look for it. Give me the signs that I'll be wrong. To me this is the same setup or worse in 2008, but absolutely. Crypto's lead stock market falls. But the thing is when that goes we've only had what a 7% drawdown which is 15% of GDP. See the problem there? This is just an overdue cleansing. We all knew it was coming and now we've got the best catalyst in history. Mr. Trump made a decision to I think was the right decision. But right now the straits closed. That was a major mistake and that's just shutting down the whole world. World. They're, they're. To me this is a classic trigger that get out, get out of anything that's risky. Certainly a trigger to get out of Dubai. Where are they coming? Miami.

[F]

Hey Mike. What in your opinion isn't risky? Mike,

[B]

He's gonna say bonds.

[C]

Hello.

[D]

I'm sorry, I didn't catch all that. I guess it was breaking it. Yeah.

[A]

I think what do you you not consider a risk asset or what is not a risk?

[D]

I think this I my bias this year on the back of last year was gold got lucky. This year it's treasuries, just overweight treasuries. Anything that's risk off treasuries and I think at some point that long bond is going to kick in. It's at post deflation, post inflation deflation usually works. 2008 was a great trade. It worked out similar. Oil pumped up everything, switched everything over to the short term inflation that switched to longer term deflation.

[A]

2000 we're going to talk about this on Monday at length but for someone who says where's the beef? And here is at the, is at its intermediate term high is definitely not, not Strengthening as all this is happening. I mean the beef is basically saying that that that's wrong, that that this is a, this is all dollar assets getting sold because people need to, this is, you know, Robert Infra has, you know, talks about this. I think that the dollar milkshake theory, and I don't want to go into it, has huge flaws in it. But one thing that is true is when Europe is F'd and they are effed, they have to sell everything dollar denominated in order to pay their bills. These days I think a large part of that's going on. My answer to Gary and we'll flesh it out more actually at this particular point I see Bitcoin is way less risky than a lot of other assets out there, both within and outside of crypto. I think that certain other companies are in very good position, will gain out of all this. But what is really happening right now is the administration has, there's no pressure. I mean if they think they're going to lose the midterms no matter what, at a certain point this just becomes the only way out is through. And understanding what that means in terms of the global geopolitical petrodollar system and alignment is you're going to see lots of different things changing. I mean oil companies, we know that. At the same time, it's not an accident. I think that the narrative around climate change is starting to change. You might have seen several studies out recently starting to debunk a lot of the nonsense that's been talked about with CO2. I think the strongest, safest is energy production. And yes, understand that. So that is important. There's all sorts of things that are pretty much guaranteed right now to happen. And you're right that it's going to be volatile. There's no doubt that that's true. But at the same time, the S&P's lack of volatility, ask yourself why? Well, the answer why is because there's no alternative, right? The government, we know, we know that what happens if the wealth effect gets reversed? If we had a, what you call normal 25 to 30% sell down in the S and P, not a V bottom but like a grinding bad bear market that continues to move lower like happened in the 70s, for example. I mean we'd have $5 trillion deficits in this country and the pain would be unbearable. And you know that they're not going to allow that to happen. They may end up doing something worse, but it can't happen. And so I look at this notion that a $2 trillion market is leading a $50 trillion market around as laughable. Yes, bitcoin on the weekend is the only thing that's open. But I think today's move was because of thoughts of David Sachs and the stuff on the Clarity act and blah blah, blah, blah, blah. But think that it's bitcoin being dragged down by crypto instead of the other way around these days.

[D]

So, Dave, I gotta ask you one question, One question. Where's your stop? Because you've been saying that to me. I've been wrong for a while since I've been calling for. Wait, where's your stop? Because you've been saying the same thing. Since I've been calling for bitcoin to drop, for a drop of zero from a hundred thousand for way too long. Everything is rolling over. So where's your stop? Because at some point people are going to be losing too much money with that call. They're just losing money and they're getting stopped out.

[A]

Well, it depends if you're trading or if it's. Depends on where it is. I mean, like here's the thing. When in 2021 and I was trading, right, and I had a leverage position and I thought that it was not going to go below 30, I was wrong. I got liquidated.

[D]

Boom.

[A]

Had I not had a liquidated position and I had my cash needs for years sewed up like I do now, then I just sit here and watch. If you're trading, I think that you sell 74, 75 until proven otherwise, you buy in the mid to low 60s and if it breaks 60 with authority, then that's your stop. And you wait for the next level

[C]

and you got to hope you don't catch that beach ball when it comes out of the water with full force and momentum and you have tax advice.

[A]

But Carlo, that's the difference between trading and investing. If you're basically trying to do an inter, there's long term trading, in which case I'm buying and holding, holding and sleeping well at night. That's me. Then there's intermediate trend trading and you know, basically swing trading, in which case you sell 74.75. If it gets to 77.78, you cover your frigging stop, your short and you wait and you do the exact same thing between buying 64, 65 down to 62 and you cover if it breaks 60 with authority. Right? It's the same thing. That's a, that's a swing trader. That's not an investor that that person knows that they're not trying to time the bottom, they're not trying to time the top. They're trying to, they're ranging. And that's where I am now. Now admittedly, you know, when, when it was at 90 and I thought 85 was sort of that, that critical level, the downside it would have broken had I been long there trading the swing trade, I would have covered, I would, it would have, I would have been stopped out, which is what Mike's asking me. He's asking me where my stop is, my stop for that swing trademark, not me, because I'm not selling a damn thing because I'm not swing trading. But if I were, I would be covering somewhere between 59 and 58 would be where my stops would be positioned right now. But I actually don't think they would get there. Only because it, it will require, it will get there. If we have a disaster, you know, if oil spikes to 150, the S&P drops 10 or 15%. Oh yeah, it's going to get there. It's going to, of course, because correlation goes to one. But that's the answer to your question, Mike. As far as Bitcoin is concerned, as far as crypto is concerned, I don't have a level where I'm, I'm comfortable holding Ethereum right now. Because if Tom Lee implodes, people talk about microstrategy, but if Tom Lee implodes, it's game over, right? Literally game over. You know, it. What's going on behind the scenes is you're watching all the use cases that everyone thought was going to be the total addressable market for XRP and Ethereum to some degree, Solana, but a little bit less on that because of, for a variety of reasons, all getting migrated towards chains which are not going to be worth more than a fraction of a percent of the infrastructure. Right. Because the banks and the companies that are in those verticals are going to want to control most of the money. And so it's going to make, it's going to commoditize smart contracts. And so supply demand doesn't justify 100 billion to, you know, trillion dollar valuations. And so yeah, I think that there's a real issue within crypto that said, there's also real opportunities within crypto if you're looking in places where that are going to be more defi oriented, agentic finance oriented. And so that becomes a critical thing. So you can't look at these things in a microcosm. You know, you have in a macro World, you have to look at it very specifically at gold. For example. I will continue to tell you I think gold's equilibrium price is 5,000. I think that the farther it gets below 5,000, the more it's a coiling spring, the farther it gets above 5000. Same problem. I think there's a shit ton more speculation in gold than people want to recognize in the United States. And that's why on a day like today, gold is up. Now you have to look through this. I think silver is a proxy for the developing and the electronification of our world. And yeah, it got overheated, but it hasn't fallen nearly as far to the downside as people would have predicted either. So all of these things are different, Mike. And I hate this notion of looking at. And you're talking to a quant, right? I spend a decade plus using correlations in order to make trades. But the first thing you learn when shit goes against you. And in my book I actually talk in depth about the Quant quake in 2007, which probably very few people listening to this know what that was. But the. But what it was was based on traditional relationships among stocks in the market. Effectively an impossible 15 standard deviation event happened with regard to growth versus value in various correlations and they just literally completely obliterated. That sort of thing does happen. And I think we're seeing that agentic finance is going to drive a lot of changes to correlations. A reordering of the petrodollar system could cause that in either direction. Win, lose or draw. Right. So I think that people have to be worried about using past correlations when you're investing. And that's one of the reasons volatility is likely to be so high.

[C]

I had a hand up earlier because I was going to ask you that exact question. Do you think on the other side of this war the petrodollar system is broken? And if it is, it just makes this case for stablecoins being the, the stopgap to save treasury global demand even more imperative.

[A]

I think that if you're Scott Besant and you're the administration, that is the fear because this is going to go in one of a few different ways. It's either going to strengthen the petrodollar system if the US and UAE and GCC states win, Iran becomes less of a threat and or you know, on the peace side, you know, a, a different sort of partner as opposed to a global antagonist. In that case the petrodollar system is strengthened. And that's true. But it doesn't change the fact that you want the dollar to be able to be used in global commerce almost exclusively, which stablecoins want to do. On the downside to that, we lose the war. Iran, Russia are strengthened tremendously. We lose our bargaining chips and leverage versus China. In which case then you want to slow de dollarization. It's your only chance. So yeah, you're right in one case. But the two things are it's one lever that they can pull and why the administration cares. Why do you think the administration cares so much about brokering a deal with stablecoins and why do they care about banks? Well, obviously the banks are funding a lot of the congresspeople because they lose their source of their personal piggy banks if they pulled their money. But the other reason is Americans dominate the banking industry globally. And if you think that that isn't relevant for Treasuries, you're smoking something. So you know, they, they want to play ball with the banks because until, you know, there's a world where the banks don't control the dollar system and aren't the main reasons why the dollar is being promoted. Well, you know, and that world is a. Is, is far into the future.

[C]

We talked about it on my show this morning, Dave. They're actually talking about doing that because the banks are looking at creating tokenized exposure to Treasuries which could be a arbitrage for a global bank play over Treasuries borrowing against Treasuries in a bank tokenized asset which again just reinforces the blockchain narrative.

[A]

Well sure, I mean of course it's going to happen. You have Jamie freaking Dimon telling the people, I mean they're diamond. He doesn't have a D at the end of his name, but he basically is saying this. Why is he saying it? Because instead of having the global capital flows gate kept by the Swift network and things that are very slow, which causes him to have a lot of risk, he has the ability to have instant movement of capital and instant and promotion of his private capital pools where he could take his cut. These people aren't stupid. Everyone in the crypto world thinks that banks are just dumb behemoths. No, they're not. They want to co opt as best as possible. And some of it is actually good for crypto if it comes out that way. What the. The reason that this whole yield thing is happening is because they don't want. They were happy with Tether's business model. They didn't mind Tether's business model because they saw themselves being able to participate in Tether's business model. What they don't want is to have companies be able to have less regulatory oversight and more cost being able to compete with them. Now, one could argue that or regulatory oversight is because of fractional reserve banking and yada yada, and we go down a rabbit hole. But understand, at its core, the banks want to maintain their profit margins. That's all they care about. And right now their profit margins are enhanced by the dollar being dominant for finance. And they make a shit ton of money on the FX markets, which allow them to take really nice spreads when people want to bring back and forth to their home currencies. So if you think that they want to see efficient, transparent, tokenized fx, well, no, they definitely don't want that. But we'll see. It'll be an interesting tap dance between how they can have one and not the other. Anyway, does that make sense to you, Carlo? Yeah.

[C]

I mean, you gave me the other side of the conversation and I love it. And I'm curious to see how this plays out too.

[A]

But as far as markets are concerned, I think that people have to ask the question, what is the investment thesis behind X Asset? And if you're in the world of crypto, in the case of bitcoin, the investment thesis is unchanged, literally unchanged. None of this makes a damn bit of difference. What does matter are global capital flows into and out of, and are sellers in the bitcoin world exhausted or not? That's, that's really it. What Gary said is incredibly important, right? The, the narrative for Bitcoin, if there was no war with being able to be used, just, just being able to use it to, you know, create to, to, to qualify for a mortgage and being able to use it for a down payment is an immense difference between where we were two years ago or health four years ago. When I bought my condo, whatever Bitcoin I heard was irrelevant, literally irrelevant. I was told by the mortgage broker, don't even bother. It doesn't matter what you own in crypto or in bitcoin, that changing is not a small deal. Right? It is not a small deal. Right. Matt, you're giving the answer.

[H]

Oh, yeah, Dave, I was with you. I was there a couple of years ago refiing a piece of property. And same thing, the mortgage broker looked at me and they said, they laughed, they go, magic Internet money. So yeah, that is a big win. And Gary knows what he's talking about. And if I could just circle back one thing on the conversation about the Clarity act, there was one piece in there, if I could at least think that's positive, is the. Where we want a little more clarity about who's selling pre, you know, investor tokens. There's a lot in there, and I believe it's section 203. I can't remember off the top of my head, but there's a whole part in there where we're talking about who's actually going to be looking at these token sales beforehand. So I think when we talk about consumer safety and consumer protection, kind of like what Carlo had mentioned at the beginning of the conversation, there is at least one redemptive part of the Clarity act that I think has some merit.

[A]

I think there are a lot of parts that have merit. The problem is, you know, it's, you know, the, there's all sorts of aphorisms about what happens when you get too many people, too many cooks in the kitchen and all this other stuff. I mean, everybody has their, their, their pet project or their pet ideas. And we're worrying about like, for example, killing, defy or making, you know, and it's not in the current version of the Act. I don't think Carlo is it, unless I, I blinked and someone stuffed something in trying to make.

[C]

We don't know because we haven't seen the revised. We haven't seen the revised, but from what I understand, defy is pretty safe at this stage. So I don't think that's on the table.

[A]

I mean, look, look, the worst part of the things on the table, and, and I'm about. I, I'm gonna deal with it this weekend are some of the new forms from the irs, you know, asking you to declare your defi. Wallets, you know, to me, that is, I mean, they don't do that with cash, right? They don't say, okay, what do you have in your safe deposit boxes? They, you know, they don't ask what you do, you know, how much gold and silver do you have in your safe at home? They don't ask all that. But now they're asking for wallets, you know, and what you own. That's a big difference. And I think a lot. And there are a lot of people out there who are. Are very concerned about their personal sovereignty and think it's none of the government's business, Right? It's not the same if you go to sell it, I understand that. That's different. But if you're just hodling in your own cold storage, why do you have to declare that? That's a really interesting question because you don't have to declare it. You could have a ton of gold buried, literally buried in your backyard, and there's not a form that says you have to declare it. So I mean, there are things that are happening that, and this is not going to be a simple thing. Fight, no matter how you want to slice it. I don't want to be, you know, I, I, I don't want to let my libertarianism shine too much through, you know, but, you know, but, but the truth is, is that distrust of the government is probably the one thing that we all agree on, right? I mean, distrust is probably a small world. Scott, I know you, you trust the government implicitly, right?

[B]

They're my favorite.

[C]

Yeah, just look at the nonsense. Just look at the nonsense we saw with that announcement from Hong Kong that you have to surrender your keys upon entry and allow unfettered access to your devices. That's terrifying.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, I don't think it

[B]

would be fair to say I'm disillusioned. Yeah, I think it'd be fair to say that I've been disillusioned with what we've been seeing.

[A]

I mean, look, one, what is happening right now is there's no way there's. If physicists will talk about entropy and talk about things. What's a stable state? The current world right now, once this war started, there's only two stable states. Neither one of them is being priced in. That's just true. A stable state where the US loses its price preeminent position in safeguarding the petro system completely, or the US reasserting its dominance over it. Neither one of those is priced in the market right now. And so we know. And that's why you have to understand volatility. Right. And that matters. Okay, good. Gary, you're more of an expert in this than me, but I'm guessing that I'm sort of directionally right but are saying something wrong.

[F]

Well, I wanted to maybe just approach this a little differently. See, I think the banks are doing exactly, exactly what I would have expected them to do if Bitcoin really is a solution. So the good news is they are validating that Bitcoin is a massive threat to them. See, to me, that's really important. And whatever they're going to do will be from a legacy perspective. They don't know how to adapt for change. They've never competed, ever. Guys, 30, 40 years of mediocre people who don't compete and they steal from dumb people like this is Ours to lose. So again, I would say no bill unless it suits. It's on a fair and equal basis with all banking. I don't know, I don't know why y' all are worried about this. First off, it's not about Bitcoin. 2. You're not going to get any more or less transparency than we have in equity markets. I mean it's a, it's a fucking train wreck. Wall Street, Street. So we're not going to get transparency out of this. What we need to do is get competition going. So as far as the volatility though, I, you know, hell, I don't know what's going to happen, man. I would bet my entire life though that the crude oil will be priced in US dollars for a very, very, very long time. I mean, for a very long time. Let me say it this way. It'll be settled in dollars. They'll probably settle in whatever currency we want. But it's going to get price. It has to have some basis for pricing, man. You know, people have been looking at crude oil with one price for 30, 40 years. They're not going to just change the basis upon which the base product is measured. I don't see that happening.

[A]

Whoops. I think that that is the important point. If you believe that that is true. If Gary is right, and by the way, I, I think you are too

[F]

much of it gets, look, we, if we didn't own any of it, it'd be one thing, okay? But we are a major player here. So I don't see how that ever, I, you know, ever's a long time.

[A]

But, but that not changing says that we weather the storm, that we don't lose control, that we continue to have oil as our counterweight to China's rare earths, etc. And the equilibrium and that Trump meeting Xi and dividing up the world in a rational sense because the difference between Iran and China is Iran theocrats are not what we would call rationalist, self interested actors. China is, we may disagree with their way of doing it, but they are rational actors. And that is a clear. Your thesis basically is buy assets and own assets that will do well in a higher printing environment and that aren't subject to the vicissitudes of this volatility in a real sense, not market sense in a real sense. And so that puts you very bullish on Bitcoin. That puts you bullish on energy infrastructure, on AI infrastructure, not necessarily an AI consumer, on the things that we know that's happening in the world that's what it means. It means inside crypto, find the narratives that actually make sense, where the tokens actually have real value and you can do well. But it's hard, right? And it's, it's in these world. These world. It's hard to look through the noise. But you just said something, Gary, that's very important. If the belief is the US is going to come out of this maintaining control over the petrodollar system, that's how you have to position because most of the fear porn on this site is the exact opposite of that. Does that make sense?

[C]

It makes sense out of me.

[F]

I don't know what else they're going to go to. You're going to go to the, the, the, the Romini. I mean, like, come on.

[A]

To me, that's the point. So if that's true, then stablecoins continue to grow, the system gets higher and higher velocity and the rails become more and more important. And you just simply have to figure out what.

[D]

Yeah, but.

[F]

And that doesn't mean McGlone's not right. Look, look, I'm trying to buy, I'm trying to buy 70 more bitcoin right now, you know, and I'm not going to buy it. Like, I'm not pricing my bit. Another 70 Bitcoin. $3 million worth of Bitcoin at 66. Like, why would I do that? I don't see the Hodlers doing it. The Hollers are buying 12amonth on their 300 cost base.

[A]

I continue to say that if Microstrategy, if strategy doesn't start stretching out their product purchases and using the volatility, then they will continue to be throwing money away. It doesn't mean that they'll be wrong in the long run, but it does mean that there'll be less. Right.

[F]

See now that's an interesting conversation. That could take an hour up. What, what would the price of bitcoin be today if, if Sailor wasn't going to buy $42 billion worth of Bitcoin? Like, I don't know, 40,000 probably.

[A]

I, I'd say somewhere in the, in the, the low 50 to 50. Yeah, you know. Yeah, you're right. It'd be a big difference. That's true. I think that's right. But anyway, I think we've kind of gotten to this. We're at, we're at time we. Scott had to. To bolt. He has a. Something at 11:15 and I kind of want to get around, get, get back to my day as well. I think everyone should stay Safe. Who the hell knows what's going to happen on weekends? Weekends seem to be the last few weekends haven't had too much. Too much. But I don't know. My guess is Monday morning we'll have something new to talk about. Whether it's a truth social post or some actual real development. Who the hell knows?

[H]

Hey, really quick, Dave. There was something put out from the White House last night. Did you see this video that said there was some big announcement today and it was like a reverse message and people online were playing it backwards. Was there anything that came out from the White House? Because I, I woke up and I've been on here with everybody on the panel. So far I haven't seen anything come out from the White House.

[A]

There's the two things that I saw this morning with the David Sachs news and Iran attacking a Marshall Islands shipping container, you know, a container ship in, in, in, in, in the straits. Those are the two pieces of news. And the, the latter is why oil is up and why most stocks are down. Bitcoin is probably down a little bit more because it has the David Sachs news in it and people are, you know, people knee jerk around all this shit. But I haven't seen anything else. If anybody else has, please mention it. Okay, well on that note, I guess we'll see. I mean the news flow is hard to understand these days and there's so much, there's so much fear porn out there. I don't even know how to express myself other than to say that I'm disgusted with people who make assumptions about what's going on without evidence. And I've already bookmarked so many posts so I could go back and hold people's feet to the fire that at this point it's almost a pointless exerc exercise. But we'll see. Anyway, have a great weekend everybody and stay safe. We'll see you again on Monday morning.