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- [00:00]
A
Good morning everybody. Welcome to Crypto Town Hall. Every weekday here on x at approximately 10:15am Eastern Standard Time. Dave and I were just on macro Monday on YouTube and man, certainly for a macro show, but I think it's all crypto adjacent. There is a hell of a lot to talk about right now, so much so that we didn't even get to most of it. Before I dive into that though, we do have an awesome sponsor today which is Zero G. So just to tell you a bit about them, AI is reshaping the world. But right now it's stuck in the hands of just a few big players. But what if AI can run openly, verifiably and on chain? That's what Zero G is building. The world's first decentralized AI operating system open to everyone. Imagine a network where you don't just trade tokens, you train, store and run independent AI models at scale. No lock ins, no black boxes, no single point of failure. Just quick, cost effective, auditable AI that anyone can build. If you believe the future of AI should be a public good, not another corporate monopoly, join us at Zero G. That's the number. Zero G AI. So Dave, one of the stories that we definitely did not get to is the one that I flippantly chose as the title in passing here. Strategy buys 1.25 billion bitcoin amid fear. That is a lot of bitcoin. When we're just sitting here at 90 grand and can't move. I don't hear Dave. I don't know if the rest of you do.
- [01:29]
B
Sorry, sorry. The mute button.
- [01:30]
A
Okay, well, you know, you never know if it's a user error or the individual.
- [01:34]
B
Yeah, no, my, almost always user error. Just ask my wife, she'll tell you that. The, the, the really interesting question here is, and think about this strategy. Buying Bitcoin based off of STRC paying an interest rate higher than Trump wants to limit credit card debt to. Tells you something. But it's a bet. It's undeniably a bet. Effectively buying bitcoin by paying 10% saying they think bitcoin's CAGR will outperform a 10% interest rate is the bet they're making. There are plenty of people willing to lend them the money to do it because of their financial strength. And so that's what you have. At the end of the day, this is very clearly indication or part of the reason why Bitcoin is stuck at this price level. They're buying, institutions are allocating and people are fleeing Bitcoin like rats. Fleeing a sinking ship. You know, just like all the crypto viewership numbers are down. I mean, it's all the same thing. So we're seeing time based capitulation play out and there's just no other word for it. I. I can't look at it any other way. Part of me wishes that this wasn't actually happening, but it is what it is. Sasha. Yeah, I see your hand is.
- [02:52]
C
I think also the threat of the MSCI dealer thing, like getting out of the index was, was also a big, a big part of showing a very strong position and being there. And what's crazy is it doesn't seem it has had a lot of market impact for the volumes.
- [03:11]
B
Well, they decided not to, mostly because they're not suicidal. You know, it's like there's an old expression. Don't lock the barn door after the horses have bolted. Microstrategy has massively underperformed over the last year. And I think if you're in the index committee and you get rid of something from an index, that's the equivalent of selling. And the fear of selling at the bottom and looking stupid compared to your competitors who don't have arbitrary rules that, that would kick them out is I think why they didn't kick them out. And I think that's pretty important. So, I mean, I don't know, but a lot of microstrategy selling happened off of that. The fact that the only way they can buy more bitcoin is by effectively borrowing at what Trump is calling a userous interest rate. And I'm saying that tongue in cheek for those who don't understand. Sarcasm is, I think, is important. I mean, Scott, how do you read that?
- [04:08]
A
Yeah, I agree. 100% agree, actually. So I don't know if the conversation about the indexing and such is the big one. I think what I just wanted to kind of giggle at is how does this guy just keep having over a billion dollars on any given week to buy bitcoin? That's really the kicker here. I mean, 1.25 billion has to be one of his largest of all time, right? I don't know if anybody looked. I haven't taken a. Scott, he, he.
- [04:38]
D
Clearly has no income. He's a, he's a broke man with a broke business model. But he keeps buying a billion dollars worth of bitcoin a month. I mean, it's staggering. I've seen these last a long time. What's that?
- [04:54]
B
I assume that was sarcasm.
- [04:56]
D
Well, I. Yeah, it was, it was massive sarcasm. I mean, where's all the. It's not like he's got a piggy bank called Michael Sailor and he's investing a billion dollars every two weeks in a bitcoin of his own funds. This is third party money coming from all over the place. This is the greatest entry into bitcoin. Like we're back where we were when we were at 57 grand. This feels so 57 grandish.
- [05:23]
B
I think we were 25 grand. But that, that's that I'm quibbling.
- [05:28]
A
Yeah.
- [05:32]
D
This is a weird market, man.
- [05:36]
C
I mean, also bear in mind, right, like in terms of how much asset they have, where they have about 60 billion. Right. So it's basically plus 2% in asset and they have an average price of 75k. So that's. I think that's important to keep in mind.
- [05:51]
A
It is, but it's. That doesn't. I agree, Sasha, about a billion. 1.25 billion is still a lot. Especially when the stock is, you know, consistently underperformed of late, as Dave said, 10,000%.
- [06:03]
C
And also they've doubled, it seems they've doubled employee count over the past year or so.
- [06:11]
D
Have they really? Now that doesn't make sense to me. See, one of the things I really love about his business model, he was able to get from 700 million to 70, 80 billion. And he's not adding massive headcount. I don't know.
- [06:28]
C
It's not hundreds of people.
- [06:30]
D
Yeah, it's double from a low number.
- [06:33]
C
Yeah. But the headcount has gone up. Seems to have gone up according to the data we have from starting April 2025 and it's gone from like 30 40s to close to 100.
- [06:48]
D
Yeah. Well, that's probably the smallest business that's worth a hundred billion dollars in the world. Right? 100 people. As far as headcount.
- [07:02]
A
Yeah.
- [07:02]
C
I mean, maybe Berkshire, but yeah.
- [07:09]
A
I'm glitching here, but I think we can probably move on from the strategy conversation. But still just astounding numbers. I don't know if you saw this piece of news, but, you know, another pivot from what we've discussed already this morning. Dubai moves to ban privacy coins. XMR Monero is hitting an all time high here, which something I talked about a bit I couldn't really understand beyond, you know, cabal pushing the price, why the cash was moving more than Monero, which is the original privacy coin, if it was truly about the narrative. But here we are, it's making an all time high. But I guess predictably there's going to be jurisdictions in the world that aren't too excited about privacy coins. I guess we could try to get everybody here involved in the conversation, but, but, but interesting times. Go ahead, Steve.
- [07:56]
E
Yeah, I'm a big fan of privacy coins. And you know, even though zcash was a clear pump and dump scheme pulled off by a good group of influencers, it did bring notice to privacy coins. And zcash is the original privacy coin that gave you the option of public or privacy. Monero has always been full private, which in a lot of jurisdictions that's simply not going to work. Us, uk, EU and now uae. But what I really like are privacy coins where you can toggle and it gives you the ability to use them in multiple jurisdictions. I do believe that Litecoin is going to be the winner in that category, given their recent developments in Mimble Wimble and giving you the ability to, you know, make your private, make your wallets private and your transactions private, as long as who you're transacting with also has privacy features. But, you know, giving you the ability to do that that way in some jurisdictions that are totalitarian and people need privacy and then some jurisdictions where privacy, privacy is absolutely banned and there's large capital market systems, but I, I do believe Litecoin is going to be the winner in that category. Monero, still extremely important, but more and more large capital market jurisdictions will probably start moving to ban Monero.
- [09:28]
A
I mean, most, it's not available on most exchanges still, I would imagine.
- [09:32]
B
Right.
- [09:32]
A
Because I remember when it was originally banned or removed.
- [09:36]
E
Yeah, no, that's exactly right. I mean, it's very, very difficult for a U.S. citizen, you know, your average U.S. citizen, to, to transact in Monero. But again, Litecoin, you know, it's been out there forever. It's had zero downtime, basically Bitcoin's code, but with new integrated privacy features. I'm watching Litecoin very closely and I'm really impressed what Charlie Lee's been doing in the last two years.
- [10:02]
D
Hey, Steve, I just followed you. This is Gary Cardone. And the reason I followed you is because I'm gonna be a little, little in disagreement with you. I think the biggest loser here is this privacy market. I don't think any country is going to allow this for people to just move in and out of their country with millions of dollars of crypto and be stealth about it. I, I, I've said that, Scott. You know, when I first met you, I just don't see how these coins, I mean, even Charlie said Just recently, he'd have been better off not doing litecoin, just buying bitcoin. So I. Personally, if I was running a government, I know this is really antithetical to the whole crypto universe, but if I was running a country, I would not let you just come in and out of my country with funds that I didn't understand.
- [10:58]
E
By the way, Gary, I'm about to follow you back because I. I love when people disagree with me and have good reasons to do so. And I think that's a pretty productive conversation.
- [11:09]
D
Yeah. I mean, the question to me is, hey, can it ever really scale? You know, I mean, it's. And it has a lot of risk. Right. And it's like. It's like being in Puerto Rico. Like, people, hey, go to Puerto Rico. I'm like, why would I want to put another target on the back of my head? The front of my head, my heart, my wal. I mean, I'm going to be tracked and traced forever.
- [11:30]
A
Right.
- [11:31]
D
Once they know you're doing that.
- [11:35]
B
I think, Gary. I think you guys are both right. Just to be clear, I actually agree with Gary in terms of the G7, but there are jurisdictions in this world where having a privacy coin to protect against authoritarian regimes is going to be important and people. And I think that has an enduring value. So it's entirely possible that there's value there. But I can't see any version of the world where any crypto is going to be allowed to be more impenetrable than cash. Right. In terms of the way that is. I mean, one of the reasons why bitcoin's never going to get banned is because law enforcement believes, because it's true, that bitcoin is more traceable than cash. And so, yes, you know, for the average human being, you can be private with bitcoin, but don't try to move $100 million because they're going to find you. I mean, I think that's sort of.
- [12:33]
E
The middle ground, by the way. Yeah. I mean, you're. And I, by the way, agree with your arguments as well. And, Gary, one of the reasons why I like your argument is I had the same argument. I remember it was back in 2010. I was running emerging market for Guggenheim at the time, and bitcoin was getting news. And Maybe it was 2011, I can't remember, but the CIO at the time, Scott Miner, came over to me and said, well, you're doing emerging markets. You used to be in tech. Can you look into this bitcoin thing and see if it's something we should consider for our clients. And I probably spent about six months trying to understand Bitcoin. And my conclusion was the Fed and the current administration in the US at the time and current administration and other G7 governments would absolutely not allow this thing to exist. It would blow up the dollar and anybody that touch it would potentially risk legal liability. And sure enough, a lot of that did play out. But, you know, here we are with Bitcoin. Now, I was wrong then, but I, but I personally hedged myself by buying Bitcoin myself, even though I didn't think it was suitable for clients at the time. And it worked out. But I mean, those same arguments that I had then against Bitcoin are very similar to these arguments. And by the way, I agree with you. I agree with the arguments that governments will do everything they can to stop privacy. But you know, there's, there's a, a swell of people that want privacy, which there, which there is. And it's important, particularly in, you know, authoritarian regimes or even, well, Canada. You can consider Canada authoritarian regime. When we try to send Bitcoin to, to truckers that were protesting and the Canadian government tried to, you know, shut down their accounts. That's, that's an area where privacy would be important. But, you know, it's, it could go either way. You know, either the governments will be successful in shutting down privacy or enough people will stand firm and, and force the issue. But again, that's, that's why I do like the ability to toggle between privacy and pub and private and public wallets is, you know, and that's why I like litecoin here.
- [14:56]
D
So, Steve, let me ask you, how do you look at moneros worth 10 billion? Litecoins worth, funny enough, they've been around the longest. I think they're worth the least amount, 5.93 billion. And then Zcash is worth 6.2. How do you look at these values? One, I don't think it's a massive scalable market. Like, that's, it's not Bitcoin. Right. I love bitcoin because I'm like, hey, you can't stop this. 8 billion people. I don't think 8 billion people are going to be interested in privacy, much less wallets, you know, that require that much responsibility. But how do you look at these companies, you know, when Monero is worth twice as much as Litecoin?
- [15:48]
F
Yeah, look, it's, it's going to be more niche. It's not going to be something that.
- [15:52]
E
Is, you know, 8 billion people using. Right.
- [15:56]
F
But just like any other technology, software right now in the US everybody holds an iPhone. But if you go around the world, there's a lot of other different platforms and devices that are being used depending on where you're at and what networks work better and what applications work better. So I believe that privacy, even though it's going to be a much smaller audience, it's still going to be important, it's still going to be used. And again, just like other types of technology, there will always be competitors. There's not going to be one to rule them all. And competition is important and different features are important. So I think there's room for all four of these tokens in the future, but they'll always be a clear category winner. And Bitcoin is going to be the category winner or is the category winner at the moment for widespread holding of assets and transactions. Monero is important for emerging markets. And then again, Litecoin I think is going to be the category winner for the toggling. Zcash's market cap is really only due to current speculation and pumping, whereas Litecoin is held stable and actually has a lot of transaction usage.
- [17:19]
A
I think. Richard, I see your hand up.
- [17:21]
B
Yeah.
- [17:22]
G
Hi guys. Yeah, interesting topic on privacy. I just, I was actually on a call just prior to this with the Midnight Network team, which is a new blockchain that that's I think been mostly spearheaded by Charles Hoskinson. But you know, the Tornado Cash type privacy coins, I think those speak for themselves and I think Stephen covered that quite clearly. But there is a new, you know, regulation friendly, institutional grade infrastructure that's been built. I mean Canton, I mean it's not a new blockchain. Canton have come out and you know, announced, you know, JP Morgan are working with them, Lloyds are working with them.
- [18:11]
A
The dtcc, I mean literally the biggest settlement layer.
- [18:14]
G
Yeah, bny, you know, so I think it's important to distinguish what is, what does the new privacy look like? Is it Tornado cash and, and you know, Zed cash, Monero put it into that basket or is it something that is going to try and be regulation friendly? Because the way that the guys from Midnight explained it and it is so obvious is like do institutions want everybody to know that they're sending a billion dollars from A to B? I mean certain parts of that need to be exposed from a regulation and a legal standpoint. But does the market need to know about these things? And I would look into things like Canton and Benights if you want to understand it a bit more than just those speculative things.
- [18:56]
B
Richard makes a great point, but I think you need to bifurcate here. There are two very different privacy narratives. Narrative number one is should individuals or companies be able to move value without governments knowing what the hell they're doing at all? And the answer from the government point of view to that question has been asked and answered. The answer is yes for small, no for large. Meaning that sure, you know, individuals who want to move small amounts of money, we don't really care about that, but we don't want wholesale, we don't want drug dealers, human traffickers, etc to do that. Now you could argue whether that's right or wrong, but it's undeniably the government's position. Completely separate from that is a fundamental reality of financial markets, which is forget moving value, now we're talking about transactions. If you believe, as I do, that crypto will replace will be the fundamental technology underlying all financial markets. Understand there are many aspects of financial markets where participants are allowed to obfuscate what they're doing to the broad public, but not to the regulators. And so you need privacy technology to be able to accomplish that. That is 100% certain. So if you're trying to evaluate blockchains and where value is going to be, and by the way, this is, you could, you could look at this. The easiest one to remember or think about is the fact that there is a massive, and I mean massive fight every time it comes up in the equity markets about things like 13F filings. What am I talking about? When people are, are buying equities and they get towards what, what could be considered a controlling stake, which the thresholds, believe it or not, start at 5%, you have to disclose that. And, and it obviously, if you're trying to buy a controlling stake and you tell people you're going to do it, the price is going to go up. And so it makes it really hard to use the market to get there. So there's massive fights about this. That's just one of a hundred examples, if I sat here and tried to think about them, where markets are going to need to be obfuscated. The amusing part is it is so obvious that crypto technology technologically can solve this problem. And so that is something that people could argue about. But that's totally different than the Monero Monero zcash point. That's all I want to say, Richard, because I think you have your finger right on the pulse of it. Sorry for jumping in. I think I saw Amateo next, and then Carlos.
- [21:27]
A
Yeah, a lot of hands, if you can see them, just run through them.
- [21:29]
B
Yeah, I think Amateo was first, and then Carlo and then Sasha.
- [21:33]
H
Hey, guys. Yeah, I just wanted to double down on this very thing. I think you made the distinction very clear, Dave, which is privacy tokens versus privacy technology that blockchain offers. So now that we've got all of these regulatory improvements. Improvements happening, we're starting to get clarity and green lights for institutions and banks to move on chain and have these rails that essentially increase the velocity of value transfer across the networks. Of all the tracks that have been laid, we hit this institutional enterprise hurdle. And that institutional enterprise hurdle was in regards to privacy. And I think that that is the big trend for privacy for this year. What's going to happen with these actual individuated tokens and their valuation? That's to be determined. But we actually hit a roadblock for enterprise and institutional adoption of all of these rails that we were working so hard to be able to embrace. And that is due to the need for selective confidentiality, complete programmable privacy that scales and is cost effective and efficient. So, look, we got through the blockchain wars of scalability. Everything's fast enough, it's cheap enough, it's competitive enough, but now what's the hurdle? The hurdle is you need to be able to selectively choose what information is disclosed or not disclosed and to whom in order to actually bring all of this value on chain. This is something that we're seeing as a necessary requirement for the RWA market. So for that market to fulfill its prophecy and promise, privacy is essential. So what we're really seeing is that we've made these amazing headways in adoption and technological breakthroughs in the realm of blockchain, but now we're actually looking to look at how it's embraced and the value transfer mechanism and bringing these assets on chain. That's where the privacy networks really come in. And I actually joined a privacy network to help spearhead this. But this is, I think, the next big thing to actually create this seismic shift for crypto and blockchain rails to become the global de facto for value transfer.
- [23:55]
I
Carlo, good morning. Scott, good morning. Dave, good morning. I would like to. Good morning. I'd like to pivot the conversation, if I could, to something else that's brewing in crypto, which I think is important to talk about. It was reported in cointelegraph that coinbase, which we all know has led a pretty powerful pro crypto political action campaign. They are Literally moving politicians on this subject. They have dug in their heels according to this report, and they're threatening to withdraw support for the Clarity act if it restricts stablecoin rewards. What I'm seeing here is essentially a battle between the anti stablecoin yield bank lobby, which wants to preserve the opportunity to hold depositors and not lose them to stablecoins because stablecoin holders can earn yield from third party platforms, and now the Coinbase Pro yield sector, which is lobbying hard to preserve it because obviously they make a lot of money off of the yield that they pay out to USDC holders on Coinbase's platform. I'm going to pin something that I wrote that kind of talks about this, but something to keep on everyone's radar is that this is going to be up in Congress this week for a markup and if the Clarity act stalls because we cannot reach consensus on stablecoin rewards, remember they tried to amend the Genius act to add this and Congress rejected that. So now they're trying to backdoor this restriction on yield into the Clarity Act. Not a good thing if we're going into a contested midterm where there might be a flip, which may slow down the crypto agenda if this thing gets bogged down. And what I'm really curious to get some thoughts on is who's going to win this fight? Because the banks have enjoyed great lobbying power in Congress, Coinbase is now putting up a real fight here. Which one is going to win this fight and are we going to see market structure?
- [26:12]
B
Well, can I make two quick comments? First of all, it's interesting. I think that coinbase's interests there are. I think they're fighting, at least rhetorically, for what they think is right. But they're one of the big winners if in fact you banned the. The rewards are banned. I mean, they may not realize it, but they are because I think they have the banking licenses or whatever. Because you can't. Banning the rewards just means it's not easy to create, you know, to take deposits away. But understand that once you can have stablecoins on a platform, you can integrate payment rails on a platform and you can make you create automated sweeps to move money that's in the payment account in the stablecoin to other crypto assets or other tokenized assets. Eventually that's going to effectively give yield to customers, maybe even at a higher level. So the easy money is true. But the second order effect here will, will absolutely help companies like Coinbase in particular, because they're in pole position but the entire notion of this, the problem here, Carlo, is that the Republicans aren't dumb and they know that if, you know, there's so many issues right now that are so much larger. But when you come to the midterms, if you can paint Democrats who have stalled. This space was downloaded via spacesdown.com visit to download your spaces today. For this reason, into being pro bank, it is not something that's going to play very well among the electorate. And so the Republicans like issues. It's, there are so many issues in America where both sides refuse to actually push through common sense laws because they want to keep the issue. We are clearly in danger of that being the case. Yeah, I hope I'm wrong. No, I want to be wrong.
- [28:00]
I
Both great points. Both great points.
- [28:04]
B
So, I mean, I, I, I don't know, I, I, to me, you know, with everything going on in the world and we haven't talked about it, but the macro world is beyond insane right now between, you know, everything that's going on in Iran, which is massive. What the Trump as, as to use, you know, Scott doesn't like getting in trouble for this, but, you know, but Trump's declaring himself president of Venezuela in a meme, you know, talking about, you know, Greenland in, in such fait accompli terms. I mean, you know, these are all things that are late stage, fourth turning, kind of end of dollar fiat regime sorts of things. If you had told me about all this stuff and said, okay, where's the price of bitcoin? Oh, by the way, and gold is, is approaching 5,000 and silver's approaching 90, I would have probably told you, I don't know, 250, 300. Meanwhile, here we are at 90. So, I mean, there's a lot going on. And so, yeah, you know, the clarity markup is a very big deal inside of crypto. But I hate to say it, if a tree falls in the forest and nobody's there, did it make a sound? I mean, people don't seem to care about this stuff right now.
- [29:11]
I
Well, let's talk about the biggest tree that fell. Let's talk about the subpoena being dropped on the Fed on Friday and Jay Powell's video. I want to put a little context on this before we jump into it, if I may, from my criminal perspective as a criminal defense attorney.
- [29:32]
B
Yeah, keep going. Obviously.
- [29:33]
I
Okay, thank you. So important thing that we need to realize is, number one, yes. Subpoenas are investigative tools for law enforcement through the Department of Justice. What we can confirm from this announcement is that A subpoena has been served, per Jay Powell's video. It doesn't necessarily mean that he's a target or anyone at the Fed is a target of a criminal investigation, because we don't know. And we haven't gotten confirmation of a target letter going out to anybody saying, now we can infer from all this, given the rhetoric, given the call for an investigation. Given the call, given the response.
- [30:10]
A
And given the response.
- [30:11]
I
And given the response. Exactly. But we have to stay. Let's stay with what we know. And then, of course, we can talk about how this impacts markets and how this impacts both sides of the aisle, because one side is saying this is weaponizing the only lever that Trump can pull against the Fed, which is a criminal investigation, because he can't executive order the Fed and contain them. He can't push Congress to contain the Fed because they're supposed to be an independent body. And then the other side of the aisle that's saying, well, this is an affront. This is an attack on the Fed. This is weaponizing doj. I get all that, but we don't yet have confirmation that an indictment is coming. What we can confirm from this announcement is a grand jury is sitting, looking at what happened with this renovation of the Fed and sending out subpoenas to collect information. Whether this elevates to a criminal charge. An indictment is the thing we gotta keep a close eye on. And obviously, I'm curious to know from the panel how this is gonna impact markets, because it does certainly introduce a layer of potential manipulation of the Fed through a potential investigation, and a lot of people are debating that. And on the other side of that, if there's wrongdoing there, it should be investigated. Trump has already said last night on Air Force One, I have no idea what the DOJ is doing. I don't know anything about it. So he's kind of taking the approach of plausible deniability. But many people cannot argue. The timing of this, obviously, is certainly subject to debate. So that sets the table from a legal perspective. We don't have an indictment coming that we can confirm, but we do know that an investigation through a grand jury is happening, and responses will have to be made by the targets. When I say the subjects of the subpoenas, not the targets, a criminal investigation and how they respond, whether they need to take the Fifth, whether they need to comply with the request. So there's a lot more to this that's going to develop as we continue to get into it, but I think a lot of people are rushing to say, hey, this is tantamount to the White House is prosecuting the Fed. This may happen, but we're not there yet.
- [32:24]
B
But what's undeniable is Powell is making it personal and playing to the, the, the, the intense personal reactions that the electorate has to Donald J. Trump. You know, and, and his, his goal here is to stall if, if this is him, I mean, very clearly pushing back in order to, try to, quote, defend the institution. Now, I, I, I'm going to admit to being more of a Jeffersonian than a Hamiltonian. I don't think the Federal Reserve should exist in its current form. I think it is the height of insanity that we've made the most important financial job in the United States be one that is effectively unaccountable to the chief executive. And effectively, we all know Congress doesn't really have oversight. So, you know, to me, the Fed should be massively, should be intensely audited and restructured. But that's a totally different question. But Powell is effectively laying, you know, this was him basically saying, okay, your turn, Donald. And, and the theater is amazing, but the reaction to it is telling. I mean, if you're a statist and you believe in state control and you believe that the banking cartel should continue to run the financial system, you're going to back Powell. Right. You know, and it's an interesting flex from his perspective. And I don't think, hey, Dave, for.
- [33:51]
D
The audience, people need to understand this is a private corporation who is basically sticking their finger in the air to the President of the United States saying, you, we are going to war. I think war was claimed this weekend.
- [34:08]
B
That's my point. It's frightening that, that you get senators who say, oh my God, we need Fed independence. And it's like, well, why? What the hell does that mean? Anyone who really believes the Fed is independent wasn't paying attention in July of 24 when the Fed cut rates 50%, 50 basis points to try to help Kamala win. I mean, we all know that's what it was for. I mean, nobody even disputes it. They just try to memory hole it. The fact is the bond market knew it because rates went the other direction. Right? So, I mean, look, there's very little question that the Fed is independent. The Fed just simply what it is, is, it's, it's not independent. It's just, it is in the interest of the bankers who control it. Right? I mean, that's the issue. And the fact that we've never had an audit of the Fed, that, that they, that there's no accountability is, I think it's insane and you know, it is it. But it's also this fiction that has to do with the fiat system. You know, when you're printing money like this, it's a big deal, right? And I think, Stephen, you had your hand up.
- [35:10]
F
You know, you, you and Gary just said everything that I was going to say. But I just wanted to be very clear that, you know, number one, the Fed is not and has not ever been independent. That's just pure rhetoric to, you know, attack Trump. And second of all, you know, and they are owned by the bankers, you know, the Fed members. That's why, that's why Jerome Powell in November declared that they were going to end QT and start adding to the balance sheet again on December 1 because banks were in trouble and they needed a repo line. Number two, you know, I've been a Fed watcher my entire career, given, given my bond background, but the, the last eight years has been the easiest prediction of Fed direction based entirely on politics. And I've been able to predict every single Fed move based on election cycles. So, yes, it's clearly obvious those two points and the fact that Powell has been so political in his moves and in his speeches. This, this speech that just occurred is a political speech. It's a political move and it's to get the media on his side, which.
- [36:39]
A
They already are.
- [36:41]
F
And to try to further paint Trump as a dictator.
- [36:45]
I
And circling back to what Dave said, how does this news not dramatically influence the price of Bitcoin? Because you would think that this type of announcement is making the very case.
- [36:56]
A
It only matters when price is going up. Carlo, simple answer is there's no such thing as good news unless prices up. Then all the good news matters, right?
- [37:05]
B
Well, I mean, look, that's true. I posted before one of my favorite quotes. I mean, I went and I researched it. I mean, Jefferson said a lot of things, but he wrote a letter where he said, I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies. And the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale. Now, you could say a lot of things about the Founding Fathers, but if that quote doesn't encapsulate exactly what's happening, exactly what the Federal Reserve and our current budget situation with all the fraud involved stand for, I don't know that it's possible. I mean, I never thought of Jefferson as Nostradamus, but as one of the greatest predictions ever because it is literally exactly what's happening. And oh, by the way, to your point, Carlo, that is exactly the value proposition behind bitcoin. It's to say, okay, opt out from that build or have something that they can't play with and watch the stuff that they can play with devalue relative to it. And weirdly, this administration is filled with people who believe in that. So there you go. Anyway, Stephen.
- [38:16]
F
Yeah, I mean, that's pretty much it.
- [38:20]
E
I think we're on the same page.
- [38:22]
F
And look how I think this is going to play out. It didn't create, like you said, a lot of volatility in bitcoin. And I think the reason why, and I say I think because I don't know, is prediction markets have taken a lot of the retail speculation liquidity out of crypto markets. A lot of retail investors and even some small hedge fund managers focused on crypto have used crypto trading as their own prediction markets on speculation, on Fed moves and other macroeconomic moves, and now you can do it on prediction apps. So I think a lot of those types of people have moved out of crypto, taking their liquidity with them. They're focused on prediction markets. So you're not seeing a lot of that volatility that you normally would a year ago on news like this.
- [39:21]
C
Yeah, but that being said, 93% of the volume on Kalshi over the past month is Sports. Politics is 1.5%.
- [39:31]
A
Yeah, but I think more. Yeah, Sasha, you're correct. I think more in echoing Steve's points. I actually wrote a really long article about this a month ago that I put on X and I've been talking about prediction markets killing alt season for many, many months now. But I think it's the point that younger people needed an avenue to gamble and crypto was the best way to do that in previous cycles. Meme coins and thousand X, even the ones with quote unquote utility. And in a world where you can just yolo into a bet on the weather, the minute that you wake up, the speculative use case of crypto is de minimis. So that's where a lot of the volume was coming from. If we're being intellectually honest. And therefore, whether it's on politics, sports or something else, I think it speaks to the fact that most people who are gambling on crypto were just gambling because crypto was there to be gambled on and they didn't really care about crypto. So now they're just moving on to greener pastures. Gamble on something else that's my thesis.
- [40:34]
C
I agree, but I don't see the same level of volumes. That's the thing, right? If you look at prediction markets top on a good day you get a couple hundred million in trading volume.
- [40:45]
A
Well that's because crypto altcoin trading volumes are fake. I mean those are exchanges wash trading the bulk of it. Right?
- [40:54]
B
Well keep in mind it's the derivative markets in crypto which, which have most of the volume anyway. And a lot of that is not fake. I mean Binance, Bybit, OKEx, their volume, you know, hyper liquid, you could see it on chain there. I mean those volumes are not fake. They're just, they're, they're large. I mean they're lower now than they were a couple months ago. But that's because volatility is dramatically lower. That's cyclical, that's not secular. Prediction markets have nothing to do with that. I mean, look, my, I have a long history with sports betting. I mean my grandfather was a bookie. My father taught me what a vig was. That's vigorous. For those who don't know, it's, that's the, that's what bookies charge as their commission or spread. I knew what that was when I was three. People love to bet on sports. People love to bet, but there's a big difference. You bet on the. The closest analog you can have is if you wanted to make a bet on, I don't know, the Mets. Have, I guess, some chance, but you pick some. If you want to make a bet that's equivalent to a crypto bet. Bet on the jets to win the super bowl next year. You're probably getting thousands to one. That's the kind of asymmetric bet that you can get by buying some meme coins or small things, whatever. That's not a bitcoin bet, but it's an all coin bet. You can't get that in prediction markets particularly easily. So there is a difference. But the reality and what does matter is there is a lot of freaking money around the world that is looking for speculative bets. And you're seeing it in the silver market. Now it's not the United States, but you're seeing it in the silver market. Because under the contract for differences, market exploded. People. I'm going to, I just repeat this. A week ago I told everyone after literally it was last week after the CME raised their margin requirements. I said, you people are getting it wrong. They thought that that meant that it was going to prick the bubble. I said no, because the CME is actually smaller now than the contract for differences market. But the CME is used to hedge by the big market makers in that market. And so by increasing margin requirements, you've made it more expensive than the hedge, meaning that actually it will feed the upside volatility if the market gets going again. And that's exactly what's happened. And so, you know, I think the biggest thing that's taking money away from altcoins is silver because it's a huge market. It's bigger than bitcoin and it has volatility that bitcoin can only dream of. I mean, just look at it. It's. Bitcoin has had this volatility in the past, but not for years. And it's way below it right now. So I think that's a big deal. I'm curious anyone else seeing that? Nobody, because that, that's a big, I mean, know, silver's at $85 today. It, you know, it's bounced between you.
- [43:40]
D
You, Dave, you think retail silver.
- [43:43]
B
There's no think about it. It's just not retail in the United States.
- [43:45]
A
Yeah, for sure.
- [43:47]
B
Oh, well, well, retail in the United States though, if you go on, go on Atmex right now and try to buy a silver eagle and I have some, you know, whatever I have, I have some silver coins and not a huge number, but some. And there were, they were at discounts to. If you were selling it, you had to sell it a pretty big discount a couple of weeks ago. That's evaporated now, didn't take very long. And if you want to buy it, you're paying a huge premium in the bid offer spread on silver in the United States. If you want to do physical, silver is somewhere over 10%. That's the bid offer spread. Right? Bitcoin has a bid offer spread that's almost immeasurable and even with commission.
- [44:27]
D
This is the thing that people don't ever talk about metals though, is that when this market goes crazy, the bid offer spread like blows out crazy. Somebody should try to take silver to the dealer and see what kind of discount or premium they get.
- [44:42]
B
Oh, it's like a 15 bid offer spread between selling and buying physical. Right now. It's an insane amount. That's just the numbers.
- [44:54]
A
I just got a. Dave, as a total aside, I got a really interesting email pop through from Robinhood which says new IPO BitGo is now trading on Robinhood. Bitco Inc. Plans to go public. You can now find BTGO in the IPO access list and review the prospectus that's great.
- [45:11]
B
Congrats. Congrats to Mike and Belshi. Sorry. And the team there. You know, we'll see how the IPO goes. My guess is it'll go well. And I think that there is, there's money to be made here. It's just that the market itself is, I said it this morning, when it comes to bitcoin at least and all coins, we're in, we're in the middle of time based capitulation. People are just, you know, they're, they're taking their bats and their balls and they've, they've gone. And the buyers are people like Sailor and his investors and the people allocating between 1 and 4% of JP Morgan, etc. Etc. And this will continue until it stops. And you know, who knows, maybe the four year cycle guys will be right in a sense. Not that it'll drop massively from here, but that it already would have if it wasn't for new buyers coming in. And when people in the crypto world say wait a minute, when's going to be the upside? You know, when they get in and that's what causes it. And we don't know when the timing of that will be. But you know, the, the IPO markets for companies like Bitgo is, that's a pretty important tell, don't you think?
- [46:18]
A
100%. I think that we're going to continue to see that be where the primary interest is from. Crypto money is going to be in crypto adjacent stocks which, you know, like I spent the whole last year saying I thought that alt season was happening. It was just happening on, you know, Circle and Treasury company stocks and everywhere else that you could gain exposure in public markets. I don't think that's slowing down. We got Bitgo here. What Kraken coming. I mean quite a few. So it's IPO season.
- [46:48]
B
Yeah. And don't, and don't forget, don't forget, you know, anthropic XAI OpenAI because when people start digging into their prospectuses and start understanding whether it's Jordy Visser or others, there are lots of analysts out there who are basically telling people, hey, bitcoin is a major beneficiary of the AI move for a lot of different reasons. And that all will happen at some point. Right now there's no interest in crypto. You said it yourself, the viewership on this show is hardly the only one that's down. I mean, YouTube is down, the algorithm is down.
- [47:24]
A
Yeah, YouTube is at the lowest since January 2020. One for crypto views over the past three months. And everybody here is bitching that they're not seeing enough crypto content and angry at Nikita and the Twitter team. Well, maybe that's because just throwing this out there, maybe it makes sense for these platforms not to serve content to mainstream people that they're not interested in.
- [47:47]
I
Right?
- [47:47]
A
And we can't even get crypto people interested. Why would people in crypto think that they're going to serve our content to a bunch of new people?
- [47:54]
B
Right? Absolutely. And by the way, ask yourself the second question is when that happens, is that more symbol emblematic or closer to a bottom or a top? I mean, does it's one of the.
- [48:05]
A
Ultimate bottom signals every time?
- [48:07]
B
It is, it is literally one of the ultimate bottom signals. So we are, we are getting confirmation from virtually every contrarian source that we're closer to a bottom than we are to a top. Yet it's like day follows night. People get not are totally uninterested. You can't give away, you couldn't give away stocks in 2009 when Tom Lee was literally the only analyst. I'll always give him credit for this. He's like the only mainstream analyst. He would go on CNBC and be Hector. People would be like, how could you possibly say that? But you know, the bull market that started hasn't ended yet, you know, and that's, that's 17 years later. So I mean, it is what it is and just take that with a grain of salt. I mean, people talk about microstrategy, they say, oh my God, how could he be buying? Well, the answer is he thinks the same thing I just said. And if he's right, then him essentially pumping his bags here at what is a potential. It could be a multi month process of bottoming. It could be a multi year process process. We don't know. But buying at these levels is going to ultimately be judged very well by history. And I think that was the point that Gary and I were making right in the beginning of the call. I mean, Gary, you've done businesses for a lot. I mean, I assume your thought is pretty much in general. The time to be buying into and building businesses is when nobody else is interested in doing so. Right?
- [49:30]
D
Yeah. And yeah, I think so. I mean, to me it just shows you the market like it has. No, the bitcoin market is really tiny. I think that's the. It's really, really tiny. And it's always going to be affected when it's that small, it's going to be Affected more on the downside than the upside. For the upside to get there you're going to need something else different money. Look just back to silver though just for the I went and opened up a Kitco account one it loaded took five minutes to load. So they clearly are either overwhelmed or don't want too much activity. 100 ounce silver bar 0.9999 is 90 $200. That's not a massive premium the coins or trading at 1 ounce silver rounds like a buffalo which I like the buffaloes if I'm collecting those things. $91.18 and the market 10% premium.
- [50:38]
A
10Ish 98 to 10% maybe premium.
- [50:42]
D
Well no the silver market right now is what 84.85 trading for silver I.
- [50:47]
A
Think it was 84.85. I haven't checked but yeah yeah so.
- [50:50]
D
The 1 ounce but you know you really like buying a 1 ounce coin. I don't really know why you would pay an $8 premium when you can buy for $2 premium 100 ounce. Right. So I, I mean what would be interesting is okay when you come to sell this stuff in fact I'll do that. I'll be quiet and I'll try to see if I can sell a coin or a bar and see what the delta is. But that's not unusual Matt. Like like three or four dollars for this stuff is not unusual. So maybe it's doubled a little bit but it's not.
- [51:25]
B
Yeah it was more insane this morning I was looking on Atmex and Atmex just so you know is which is another one that competes with Kiko right now. Silver Eagles 981 ounce silver bar is 95. You know you can pay more obviously if there's if they're you know buffaloes weirdly are 94 so there's obviously more.
- [51:44]
D
Buffaloes and list dude the buffaloes are cheap you know premium.
- [51:50]
B
Strange. I I don't really know. I I There was a time when I I I knew the difference. Gold buffaloes are cheaper than gold eagles which made zero sense because the there was a higher gold content in the gold buffalo but so I'm not really sure sure why. I maybe it's just not as, as collector positive but you know it the, the disc the premium to discount has been has, has definitely blown out. I mean we'll see what happens. There's a very large smelter that's going to come online at some point this year which will allow you know junk silver to get price closer to spot. But of course people will Say, well when that smelter comes in, that will depress physical, you know, that will depress the actual price. I mean we'll see. There's lots of cross currents. But the, the point is that it's not if you're paying a premium and there was a, plenty of time when, when the premium was, was 1 or 2%, not, not as much as it was, you know, if that's what's happening, then American retail is at least semi interested. The real, the real money though is on the, is in the contract for differences where you could literally. This is going to sound familiar to crypto people get 100x leverage to trade silver, which is, you know, we all know what my thoughts on that process are, but that's really my point. But that's, that's not in the United States.
- [53:04]
A
I think this was the best episode of Smelting Town hall that we've ever had.
- [53:09]
B
Yeah, well, you know, it's like all I'll say is we'll see what happens. I keep asking people the same thing. The other thing about bitcoin volatility is the predicted, if you go on bitbo and you look at the 30 day estimated forward volatility, it's back under 1%. But the 60 day is 1.87% so it's almost double. And so I think there are a lot of people out there for some reason who think that somehow in the next between one month and two months from now, there's going to be some events that are going to change things. I don't know what that is or why that is, but that does seem to be the case. I guess we'll see.
- [53:47]
A
I'd be surprised if we're locked in at 90,000 two months from now. I'm not saying I can guarantee if we're 10% up or 10% down or more, but that'll be a hell of a lack of volatility. So I think it makes sense that you would bet on higher volatility on a longer time frame right now in these conditions.
- [54:05]
B
Yeah, no, it's true. I mean, you know we, we talked about this in depth in, in our show this morning. But look, these markets are. Bitcoin today is a totally different trading pattern than it's been in the last few months. We've seen the 945 sell off, et cetera. We've seen Candles, Etc over the last, you know, since we've been speaking. I mean this counts for volatility in bitcoin space. It's up like 1600 bucks. But it's a slow grinding rally as opposed to a candle. That doesn't mean we won't get a sharp candle down at some point in the afternoon when someone dumps a bunch of spot. But we are definitely seeing there are cracks in the regime. And so what does this mean? Who the hell knows? But there's so many stories out there that could be driving bitcoin. That's what Carlo was saying before. And this markup on crypto is a very big deal. The stablecoin stuff is a big deal, but I have different opinions on where it will go. I just think we have to see it play out.
- [55:08]
A
Big deal for plumbing and for long term, but maybe not big deal for price in the short term.
- [55:14]
B
Well, for bitcoin, no. But for some altcoins, yeah, I think that there will be. I mean, it's like, as I said, in a world where you can't get yield easily and the only way to actually make money with your crypto is to take advantage of its speed and buy tokenized assets, including bitcoin, when you're not using it for spending. When it's in savings, that will be a boost. But we're long from that. That hasn't been integrated into payment processing very well yet. But we'll see. I mean, I think a lot of people are hoping the easy way will make the mean, that they could be lazy. People like laziness, that humans are lazy. I mean, I'm lazy.
- [55:55]
H
I mean, that's for sure.
- [55:57]
B
So it is what it is, anyway.
- [55:59]
A
All right, well, I think we covered it all.
- [56:01]
B
Yep.
- [56:03]
A
Yet another smelter town hall in the books. Guys, great conversation. It blows my mind that we literally naturally have to talk still. I mean, I remember, you know, I say it all the time, but I remember when crypto town hall, all we talked about was crypto, what was happening in the meme coin market, all those things. Now you know, it's politics, geo. Geopolitical upheaval and silver and gold and the Fed. You know, I missed the days of just talking about whether we should buy a mansion in the metaverse next to snoop for $2 million.
- [56:37]
D
Well, Scott, is the rumor true that David Bailey's on the show tomorrow talking about the recovery of naca? Before you go, I heard this room, the show might have been a dream.
- [56:47]
A
Yeah, I mean, he's invited. I would love it, but feel, feels, feels.
- [56:53]
B
Feels like it's done.
- [56:55]
A
Yeah. Did you have that. What time did that dream?
- [57:00]
D
It woke me up. It woke me up and I was going to call you, but I decided to save the question for. For here in front of the audience. We. We would welcome David here. There's been many times in all his glory at 44 cents.
- [57:15]
A
Okay, Gary, the company.
- [57:18]
D
The company. I'm sorry, but the company is worth today 188 million. And he paid 140 or 50 million to an investment banker. And I was stupid enough to invest it.
- [57:31]
B
Well, it made a nice tax loss for me last year.
- [57:35]
A
I'm saving that one for all my inevitable.
- [57:37]
D
You know, I did it. Dave. Dave, I didn't take. Dude, this exactly what I did. I took none of my losses thinking that my gains this year would be better.
- [57:47]
B
My losses were a lot higher than the current price. Again, I mean, I'm not saying I will or won't. I mean, anything is possible.
- [57:55]
A
Yeah, Gary, I literally just quit.
- [57:57]
B
But David, it would be an interesting person anyway because, I mean, it's not just naka. It's the entirety of the bitcoin treasury market.
- [58:05]
D
That's why I brought it up.
- [58:06]
B
I think he has.
- [58:07]
D
The old market was. I think the alt market was destroyed by these companies. And if the alt market's ever going to come back, I don't see anybody going into that sbr, whatever you call that market, outside of strategy, like, they're very different business.
- [58:24]
B
I think that's true. But I would love to hear his perspective. That would be. That would be tremendous.
- [58:29]
A
I had him on the podcast last month. We dove into it pretty deeply, but I know he would definitely. Come on, Gary. I agree with you. That kind of stole the shine from the all coin volume and potential all coin seasons. So something's going to have to change for that money to somehow come back. But yeah, we got to go ahead and wrap. Thank you, everybody. We will see you tomorrow for another crypto. Town Hall, 10:15aM Eastern Standard Time. Have a good one. See you.