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SOL Leads Majors, DOGE ETF Delayed! Alts to Explode? | CryptoTownHall - The Wolf Of All Streets | Wave AI Podcast Notes

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SOL Leads Majors, DOGE ETF Delayed! Alts to Explode? | CryptoTownHall

The Wolf Of All Streets

Fri Sep 12 2025

Summary

The Wolf Of All Streets – CryptoTownHall

Episode: SOL Leads Majors, DOGE ETF Delayed! Alts to Explode?
Host: Scott Melker
Date: September 12, 2025

Episode Overview

Scott Melker and a rotating panel of industry voices dissect a whirlwind week in crypto and finance, centering on Solana’s continued leadership among major tokens, the surprising cash dynamics behind recent crypto company raises, the implications of a delayed Doge ETF, and the muted-yet-bullish sentiment surrounding altcoins. The episode weaves between deep market analysis, philosophy of money, meme culture, and a dash of trading war stories, providing a tapestry of where major players think crypto sits in both the market cycle and culture as of Fall 2025.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Solana Leading Majors & Cash-Backed Treasury Developments

Muted Hype vs. Real Value: Despite Solana's surge towards its all-time high, panelists (notably Dave) argue the market’s excitement is surprisingly subdued compared to prior cycles. Dave references a statement by Mike Novogratz highlighting Solana’s capacity to, in theory, handle the world’s equity transactions—a capability even Ethereum lacks natively ([01:00-03:00]).
The $1.65B Ford Industries Raise: Contrary to expectations, the raise was done in cash, not in-kind Solana. This means actual buying pressure for SOL in the market and signals non-reliance on just crypto-insider capital ([03:38-04:47]).
Quote – Dave:
“So they raised 1.65 billion dollars ... it was all raised in cash, meaning that is $1.65 billion that will be used to buy Solana rather than $1.65 billion of Solana being transferred into the treasury company.” ([04:13])
Implications: The trend is compared to MicroStrategy’s BTC accumulation, suggesting a new era of “strategic asset” accumulation but with less euphoria than historic bull runs ([04:53]).

2. Alts & ‘Altseason’ Sentiment

Altseason Indicator: Scott questions the value of an “altseason indicator,” noting he prefers observing actual price momentum. The group agrees we’re not in a period of retail-driven mania; actual froth and euphoria appear absent, but that may foretell future explosive moves ([00:05-06:00]).
Dartboard Markets: Dave notes we're far from the “throw-a-dart-at-the-board and get rich” environment—a signature of true altcoin manias ([08:30]).

3. Ethereum vs. Solana: Usability, Fees, and Institutional Preference

Usability Insight (CJ):
- Ethereum offers superior liquidity but becomes slow and expensive (high gas fees) in high traffic; Solana offers speed and low cost but gives up some reliability and has higher technical barriers for validators ([06:09-07:56]).
- Quote: “With Solana, things happen very cheaply and very quickly... the speed and ease of use is just not understood because not many people are making markets and using Defi right now.” ([06:09])
Institutional Adoption:
- Ongoing debate about which blockchain ("rails") will underpin the next-gen financial system: ETH (favored as “institutional” by Tom Lee) or Solana (favored for speed and cost). Dave likens recent Treasury raises for Solana to Bitcoin’s own “MicroStrategy moment” ([07:56-10:20]).

4. Macro Backdrop & Asset Repricing

Asset Inflation & The Dollar: Every major asset—from stocks to crypto—is rising. Dave and Scott debate whether this is genuine appreciation or merely US dollar debasement ([11:15]).
Money Markets & Wall Street Influence: Mark cites over $7T in money market funds as a sign of potential capital rotation. More Wall Street involvement could mean more volatility, particularly in under-owned altcoins. Institutional involvement remains in its infancy ([12:52-15:22]).
Quote – Mark:
“We still have so few people talking about even bitcoin, let alone Solana versus ETH, modular versus monolithic... so the investment is still way early.” ([14:17])

5. Tokenization – The Coming Wave

BlackRock & NASDAQ Moves: News surfaces that BlackRock plans ETF tokenization and NASDAQ is seeking to tokenize stocks.
Implications for Blockchain Choice: Whether these institutions select ETH, SOL, or build proprietary chains (“BlackRock Chain”) could shape the next few decades of financial infrastructure ([18:28-21:38]).
Philosophical Angle – Tomer:
- Critiques confusion between decentralized assets (bitcoin, no issuer) and tokenized stocks (centralized, with issuing entities and regulatory intervention) ([21:38-24:16]).

6. Bitcoin as Opt-Out vs. Ethereum/Solana as Financial Rails

Bitcoin as Engineered Money: Several speakers (Seb, CJ, Tomer) underscore Bitcoin’s singular use case: preserving value against fiat debasement and “definancializing” traditional assets, freeing up their utilitarian value ([24:16-31:59]).
Societal Consequences: Seb links the financialization of everything (houses, land) to broken money, suggesting a Bitcoin standard could restore utility to assets and reduce systemic anxiety ([29:40-31:59]).
Quote – Scott:
“Do you know what's backing your money? And they say, well, Fort Knox...” ([29:40]) – discussing the mythos of the US dollar’s backing.

7. DOGE ETF Delayed & Meme Economy Talk

DOGE ETF Delay: Scott breaks the news; Tomer calls it “a relief,” but both acknowledge the absurdity and inevitability of meme assets reaching ETF status. Dave notes Doge’s persistent top-10 ranking and its “proof of the insanity” in crypto ([33:01-34:30]).
Market Entertainment vs. Fundamentals: The discussion segues into the entertainment aspect of meme coins, NFTs, and even “zombie tokens.” The meme asset trend is linked to the “financialization of social trends” ([35:35-36:05], [48:22-48:59]).
Quote – Tomer:
“Is it entertainment or is it reality?... What's the genre of entertainment you're getting?” ([35:35])
Cultural Phenomenon: Noah and Nicholas liken meme coins and NFTs to cultural collectibles (e.g., Pokémon cards), recognizing that while most may fade, some could persist and acquire nostalgic or speculative value ([41:07-44:19]).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

Dave (on Solana’s muted price action):
“All I could say is this. When the four year cycle is completely debunked, many things can happen at once... we haven't seen any of those days yet. Not in a while.” ([05:00])
CJ (on DeFi and adoption):
“What does it take to get mass adoption? What does it take to onboard a billion people? It takes ease of use…” ([06:09])
Scott (on Bitcoin, ETH, and Solana coexisting):
“I kind of default to the very classic meme of the little girl shrugging that says why not both, you know?” ([15:22])
Tomer (on blockchains’ role):
“Bitcoin has no other utility than being money… It doesn't have an opportunity cost. You can't live in it, you can't grow food on it, you can't use it to store something else in other than value.” ([31:59])
Seb (on broken money and society):
“What does the world look like when we have an ability to save, when we no longer have to worry about what our money is doing and then we can direct that capacity towards our family and our hobbies…?” ([28:43])
Noah (on memes as culture):
“What they represent is more of a deeper cultural phenomenon and not necessarily an asset class for gambling on, although that's kind of like the undertone of the whole thing.” ([41:07])

Timestamps for Important Segments

[00:05] – Intro; recap of market-moving news: Solana, DOGE ETF, IPOs
[00:55–04:47] – Solana strength & Treasury company cash raise
[06:09–07:56] – Usability comparison: Ethereum vs. Solana (CJ)
[07:56–10:43] – Institutional interest, tokenization, and “MicroStrategy moment” for Solana
[11:15–15:22] – Macro conditions: asset flows, money market funds, Wall Street involvement
[18:28–21:38] – BlackRock, NASDAQ, and the blockchain race for tokenized assets
[21:38–24:16] – Philosophy: decentralized vs. centralized assets; regulatory issues (Tomer)
[24:16–31:59] – Bitcoin vs. Everything: societal impact of fiat debasement (Seb, CJ, Tomer)
[33:01–36:10] – DOGE ETF delayed, meme coins, and financialized social trends
[41:07–44:47] – Meme coins and cultural collectibles – Pokémon cards analogy
[54:00–54:53] – Episode wrap-up and poker banter

Tone & Atmosphere

The conversation oscillates between technical, philosophical, and irreverent. The roundtable format allows for smart banter, pointed critiques, market tales, and cultural musing—retaining Scott Melker’s trademark blend of down-to-earth skepticism and broad curiosity. Sarcasm, self-reflection, and financial war stories give the episode both credibility and a warm, club-like vibe.

For Listeners Who Missed the Episode:

This episode offers a granular snapshot of where sophisticated market participants see crypto as of September 2025: Solana’s rise isn’t driven by mania but careful strategic plays; altcoin euphoria is (for now) absent; and meme assets, for all their seeming absurdity, reflect deeper currents of culture and market structure. Meanwhile, debates about what blockchain underpins a tokenized future remain front and center, as new institutional money gingerly enters and contemplates the rails of tomorrow’s global markets.

Host: Scott Melker
Notable Panelists: Dave, Mark, CJ, Tomer, Seb, Noah, Nicholas, Gary

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Transcript

Dave (0:00)

Foreign.

Scott (0:05)

Everybody, welcome to Crypto town hall. Every day here on exit 10:15am Eastern Standard Time. Dave, I think we have to start with the market today. Right. We've got Solana leads majors. Does ETF today alts to explode. I've seen a lot of tweets with the alt season indicator hitting 69 and it needs to hit 70 and then we're magically an alt season. So I have no idea if that's worth discussing or not because I don't use an alt season indicator. I just look at the prices of things and if they're going up, generally think that we can gauge the sentiment. Solana obviously leading here as we've been discussing was possible for a very, very long time. Apparently a doge ETF hitting today we had the figure markets IPO which did exceptionally well this week and Gemini IPO today. There's a lot going on.

Dave (0:55)

Yeah, I mean look, Solana in particular the news is just, it's actually muted. I mean compared to the response to Oracle, compared to the response to what was it Open door compared to what we're likely to see in the Gemini ipo. Solana still came towards its previous all time high that it's like less than 1/4 the value of Ethereum with the power behind the people talking about it. I mean Novogratz came out and said yesterday something very specific. He said and this is the reason why I own some Solana is that it has the capacity to handle all the transactions in the world equity markets more or less. I mean you could go dig up the quote and find out exactly what he said. That is an extremely important point. So you know there's Ethereum can't. Ethereum could with level 2 layer twos but it's not the same. And so if you're really talking about the total, the, the use case of being the underpinning for new modern financial markets, Solana is one of the ones that could actually do that. Right. That that matters. And, and you know if you look at that and you say to yourself okay, you know what could that mean and why is it 1/4 where Ethereum is and at the same time holding the thought in your head that Ethereum might be undervalued relative to everything else, one could see very explosive growth. So I'm actually surprised that Salon is only sitting around 240 to be.

Mark (2:36)

Dave, Dave, who said that that it could handle all the.

Dave (2:40)

I read it on Twitter quickly. That's what I saw Mike Novogradz saying it might have been taken out of Context. So take it with a grain of salt. So that's why I asked if someone wants to look up that interview. But truth is that the holy grail for much of the, of the crypto ecosystem is to underpin a new, more modern version of the financial markets. And that total addressable market is really, really large. Right. And so that's really the point. And look, you could take into, take valuation metrics however you want to take them. I mean the fact that it's TVL is at all time highs, it's transactions all times, that doesn't mean anything to me because what you really care about is what could it do? So in terms of hype, it's actually in my mind very, very muted relative to what we've seen in the past. And so by the way, that's right.

Dave (7:56)

Well, I mean, look, I think we can get a lot of people to debate that. I mean, that's my thesis pretty much as well. I don't really care about what's happening today. The biggest news that we've seen recently is, you know, NASDAQ putting $50 million into Gemini. And as the big exchange groups and the big brokerages and the big firms start to move towards tokenization, what are they going to use? And we've seen a lot of, you know, statements. Tom Lee has told everyone who wants to listen that he thinks that Ethereum will be the institutional blockchain. He, maybe he'll be right, maybe he won't. It's, this has got to be one that a lot of people have opinions on. But to me that, that matters in the long run. In the short run, if we're talking about markets, you ask yourself the question is, is, is Solana with the big. Remember when Solana lost its all time high the first time? It was because of the, the, all that ftx, Solana being sold and all the major unlocks, all that. I'm not gonna say it's gone, but it's unlocked. There's no more shoes to fall. And if what we now have is a Treasury company supported by actual users on a strategic basis, it feels a lot like the microstrategy moment in Bitcoin, you know, several years ago that Saylor has described much more than anything else. Just like Tom Lee, you know, going into Ethereum, he's trying to do that, but it's not nearly as much in terms of how it will get used in his case. It's, it's as a strategic asset. So to me it feels like that's a big deal. And all I, all I'm saying is, is I'm not seeing froth or euphoria yet. And a lot of the coins in the crypto world really rely upon that sort of, you know, euphoria or animal spirits for them to get moving. And so if we think that will happen, then sure. You know, Scott, you always talk about the dartboard. You know, you could just throw a dartboard, you know, a dart at a board and whatever it is is going to go up, whatever huge. We are very, very, very, very far from that. And whether or not this will get there, I think it's going to matter, you know, in terms of, you know, macro stuff and what's going on in the main markets, et cetera. But the truth is that it feels very muted that the market isn't really, you know, exuberant about this. That's really the point that I was making.

Tomer (21:38)

Yeah, I'm just saying there's a lot of like categorization and distinguishing to be done. Like, you know, the reason bitcoin has a blockchain is because it's meant to be. It has no issuer that it's issued by its own network and the rules are there and nobody can change the rules and nobody can interfere. When a company issues stock, the company is the issuer and the company has the right to retire stock, suspend stock, issue more stock. It doesn't make a commitment at its inception of what it will be for all eternity. And so the requirement for many of the elements that are in blockchain as it was designed for bitcoin, the rules are enforced by everybody and therefore hard to break by anybody and also hard to stop by anybody. You don't expect that want it needed in securities. You expect there to be new things issued all the time and issuers and that issuers actually do have some degree of control over what they're doing with it. So I think this is where the different classifications of systems needs to be clearer in some people's minds. Otherwise you end up, you end up making bad comparisons of what a system is trying to do. Like just as a straw man, I would say, you know, if you could get the regulate, you know, whether you're going to get the regulators in on the securities being traded on blockchain or get the regulators out of the database, that is the current stock Exchange. When you do that, the two different technologies become indistinguishable from one another from a utility point of view. And I guess that to me is where this point lies. And I think this will be the back and forth, the battle regarding the kind of joke that I made is like, will these systems coexist where you can actually buy a share either on one of these blockchains or through an exchange? Can you trade one for the other? How do you trade one for the other? Like it all, it's going to be an interesting transition. We, you know, and it probably won't take more than a decade or 15 years tops. Kind of like how it took all of telephony to become voiceover ip, but you still have, you know, you still had the telephones until people realized they didn't want to talk to each other, they wanted to send text messages to each other, which, which might be another breakthrough that none of us can see coming. And in stocks.