TAO Pumping, BTC/ETH/Gold/Silver Up is the Worst Over? #CryptoTownHall

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Wolf Of All Streets

Episode: TAO Pumping, BTC/ETH/Gold/Silver Up is the Worst Over? #CryptoTownHall

Host: Scott Melker
Date: March 25, 2026

---

Overview

In this episode, Scott Melker and a rotating panel of seasoned crypto, trading, and finance personalities discuss the current state of the crypto markets, focusing on the rise of TAO (Bittensor), market cycles in AI-related tokens, the long-term value of Bitcoin and altcoins, and innovations in crypto-financed biotech—highlighted by a special segment with Oren Hershkovitz, CEO of MX. The group dissects narratives in the market, skepticism around tokenization, government trust issues, and predictions about Bitcoin’s next moves amidst global economic uncertainty.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. State of the Crypto Markets & Narrative Cycles

(00:00–06:01)

• AI & TAO Discussion: Speculation on why some AI tokens like Bittensor (TAO) lagged behind the AI narrative boom.
  • C: “Every other AI related everything went frigging nuts and it didn’t. And I think it’s because a lot of people don’t understand it.” (01:02)
  • A (Scott): “The more cynical view is that a bunch of people get together and decide it’s time for that thing to go up... but they never last.” (02:55, 03:18)
• Narrative-Driven Volatility: Jamie details building a diversified altcoin index as a way to capture unpredictable upside from market narratives (e.g., RWA, AI, stablecoin rails, memes). His portfolio saw most alts become profitable when rebalanced to Bitcoin.
  • B (Jamie): “I had 25 altcoin index… I was able to have 20 out of 25 of those be in profit by just... rebalancing into bitcoin.” (03:52)

---

2. Altcoin Indexing & Market Psychology

(06:01–09:17)

• The group discusses the difficulty in predicting winners among non-Bitcoin cryptocurrencies.
  • C: “Total value of non bitcoin crypto will continue to go higher, but... limited clue as to what the winners will be…” (06:13)
• Overblown expectations from vocal communities (e.g., XRP Army) can deter institutional adoption due to unrealistic claims.
  • C: “The expectations in the crypto communities that are the largest are absolutely out of their fucking minds… The notion that a token… would ever be more than a percent or two of [its vertical] is just stupid.” (06:27)
• D (Gary): expresses discomfort with token-picking and prefers a simple, Bitcoin-focused approach.
  • D: “I don’t get it. I’ve been in a few of them and I’ve done poorly… What I do know is bitcoin is behaving exceptionally well here.” (08:23)

---

3. Bitcoin’s Strength, Market Uncertainty, and Gold/Silver as Stores of Value

(09:09–15:09)

• Market turbulence: Despite “unparalleled chaos,” Bitcoin’s resilience is noted.
  • D: “I don’t think anyone expected bitcoin to hold this level with all of this chaos. This is chaos that is unparalleled.” (08:34)
• Discussion about not needing a “strategic reserve” for Bitcoin and skepticism about government asset audits (e.g., Fort Knox).
  • A (Scott): “Trust me, bro. The United States government has a lot of bitcoin. So did Maduro. Trust me, bro?” (11:44)
• Skepticism about government: Multiple panelists express their distrust for state narratives and official figures.
  • C: “If you want to know the one religion I can’t stand, it’s statism because I don’t trust government.” (11:50)
• War as an economic driver and how it factors into the “massive new deficit spending,” leading to bullishness on gold and Bitcoin.
  • C: “There’s no version of the aftermath of this war... that doesn’t involve massive new deficit spending, of course.” (13:35)
• Probability, risk, and Bitcoin upside:
  • C: “Bitcoin is literally one twentieth of the price it will be if in fact it gains that critical adoption to be digital gold.” (14:22)
  • D: “This play is most certainly going to work... I find that to be like, I have no clue what crude oil is going to do... but just buy bitcoin.” (15:09)

---

4. Investment Strategy: Simplicity over Complication, Market Timing Caution

(15:09–18:25)

• Value in being patient, not overleveraging, and focusing on the long game.
  • C: “Don’t make the mistake I made in the last cycle of over levering and learn from that… be able to sleep at night.” (16:24)
• Critique of wild price predictions by public figures.
  • D: “Raoul Pal today said a million dollars in 2027. It’s like dude, quit telling that to people... How do you get to a million dollars by 2027?” (17:22)
• Engagement incentives: Outrageous predictions get attention in the space, but are misleading.
  • C: “Maybe I should try an experiment for a week. Just say a bunch of outrageously stupid… see if that increases the follower counts.” (18:09)

---

5. Broader Market Structure & Altcoins’ Place in Growth

(18:25–21:22)

• Jamie: Outlines that Bitcoin’s dominance (currently 60% of crypto market cap) will likely continue, but the expanding market means significant opportunity for select altcoins and established blockchains (e.g., Ethereum, Solana).
  • B: “If we get to a place where this whole total market 10x’s... Bitcoin is going to capture at least 60%... That takes Bitcoin to a $900,000 price.” (18:42)
  • Highlights reduced need for micro-cap risk in this cycle compared to prior ones.

---

6. Featured Interview: Oren Hershkovitz, CEO of MX – Biotech Meets Prediction Markets

(21:22–32:33)

Key Points:

• Innovative Treasury Model: MX integrates prediction markets (RAIN Protocol) into their corporate treasury alongside traditional biotech R&D—a “dual engine” strategy.
  • E (Oren): “We are advancing our clinical stage immunotherapy... and at the same time we have built a Treasury architecture designed to capture the value of this emerging prediction markets economy.” (22:43)
• Treasury Execution: MX is the largest corporate holder of RAIN token, with a major option to buy more at a deep discount, planning to use yield for both treasury growth and clinical progress.
  • E: “We selected Rain Protocol and Rain Token as our primary digital treasury reserve assets... We did a transformative pipe invest financing in November...” (24:42)
• Innovation in Biotech Financing: This model reduces dependency on toxic venture or public market financing terms, offers self-sufficiency, and is highlighted as a potential future path for capital raising.
  • E: “The innovation here enables us to self fund our clinical operation again from a small percent of the appreciation of our treasury assets and avoid... to get into a milestone and...additional financing within this the environment of the market.” (28:42)
• Market Perspective: Anticipates exponential growth in decentralized prediction markets, parallel to clinical trial milestones (notably, a large phase IIb study targeting osteoarthritis in 2027).

Memorable Quotes:

• E: “It’s not just about longevity, it’s about how do you spend that time.” (22:55)
• E: “To me, this is a smart and a dumb man’s trade here. You just sit down and don’t do anything… just buy bitcoin.” (15:09, echoing Gary’s prior comment)

---

7. Odds & Ends and Closing Remarks

(32:33–end)

• Quick note from Carlo about his analysis on Circle’s stock crash.
  • C: “I put out a piece... I broke down what happened yesterday with Circle and the stock crashing... if anyone’s curious.” (32:59)
• Typical podcast wrap-up and thanks to the panel and audience.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On AI token pumps and market timing:

  • "The more cynical view is that a bunch of people get together and decide it’s time for that thing to go up… but they never last." — Scott Melker (A), 02:55

• On tokenization and native digital assets:

  • "What tokenization does is increases the velocity, makes it easier to know. But if you’re Bitcoin, it’s natively digital, so you don’t have to do that… That’s the ultimate irony in my mind of all of crypto." — C, 01:33

• On government trust:

  • "If you want to know the one religion I can’t stand, it’s statism because I don’t trust government. It’s really that simple." — C, 11:50

• On altcoin market delusion:

  • "The expectations in the crypto communities that are the largest are absolutely out of their fucking minds." — C, 06:13

• On prediction markets + biotech:

  • "We are kind of combining two powerful capabilities… [Prediction markets] and clinical stage immunotherapy… two pillars that they can benefit from." — Oren Hershkovitz (E), 23:04

• On simple investing:

  • "Pack and stack and just keep going. To me that’s the play. It just is so simple." — D, 09:31

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• AI token narrative; Tokenization skepticism: 00:12–03:27
• Altcoin indexing & market narrative play: 03:52–06:01
• Realistic altcoin valuation discourse: 06:13–09:17
• Bitcoin’s performance amid global chaos: 08:23–10:14
• Government and audit skepticism: 11:19–12:10
• War, deficit spending, store-of-value thesis for BTC/gold: 13:35–15:09
• Simple patient investing; critiquing market predictions: 15:09–18:25
• Jamie on altcoin survival and BTC dominance: 18:25–21:22
• MX’s innovative treasury—Oren Hershkovitz interview: 21:22–32:33

---

Conclusion

This episode effectively captures the anxiety, humor, and enduring optimism that characterize the crypto market at an uncertain global turning point. The panel advocates for cautious optimism—focusing on broad exposure, skepticism around tribal narratives, and avoiding overleveraging—while also highlighting emerging forms of crypto-financed innovation outside speculation. The interview with MX’s CEO offers a concrete example of how blockchain and prediction markets are being innovatively integrated into real-world biotech strategy. The overall mood: Be patient, be skeptical, and appreciate both the risks and opportunities of these volatile markets.

Transcript

[A]

Just you, me and Jamie, huh? We had to spin it back up. Dave, you're here. Jamie, you're here.

[B]

Yeah, I'm here.

[A]

We tried.

[C]

It's weird how this space seems to crash more than others. I don't really understand why. It's kind of sad, but

[A]

we say negative things about the platform. That's why we talk about it crashing. So they crash us?

[C]

Yeah, I don't think so.

[A]

I mean, neither do I. That was a joke. Although seem out to get you, Dave.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, you know, the problem is, is like X is terrible at understanding sarcasm. So I, I always try. I mean, you pull it off. Every time I try to do something sarcastic, people think I'm serious. So it's like I. I give up. It really is that. It's too bad because, you know, I don't know if you can DM Gorov or, or get him, but I think that, that, you know, bittensor is an interesting one because every other AI related everything went frigging nuts and it didn't. And I think it's because a lot of people don't understand it. And, and so that's interesting. But, you know, I think that the, the, like the notion in crypto of total addressable market, it drives everyone crazy. Like, there's a story out today, I don't know if, if you saw this one from. It was. It was in Wired magazine that was talking about a real estate tokenization plan that basically cost people some crazy amount of money. And the thing about all tokenization is the asset itself has to be real. You can represent it on the blockchain, but the blockchain doesn't prove that the properties have value or whatever. And I think that people always forget that it's like tokenized gold. Like, oh, you can tokenize gold, Great. How do you know that the gold is real? How do you know that the gold hasn't been stolen? How much you know, how do you protect it, et cetera, et cetera. It's all based on the same thing. What tokenization does is increases the velocity, makes it easier to know. But if you're Bitcoin, it's natively digital, so you don't have to do that. And so you know what it is. And so native assets, things that AI agents are going to use, will be valuable and demonstrably so, because the AI agent will be able to say, oh, okay, I know this is because it's purely digital. That's the ultimate irony in my mind of all of crypto is that the people who Hate it. Say nothing that you can't touch and feel with your hand has value, but what's really going to become valuable is the ability to instantly know that something is as it is claimed to be, which requires it to be natively digital. I don't know if you've ever, it's sort of one of these big thoughts. But you know, as we wait for people to get back on here, I mean, I think it's an important one. Have you ever thought about it that way, Scott?

[A]

Yeah, I think it's accurate. I think when I think about why Tao might be going up or why zcash was going up or any of these, I think like you said, it just didn't go when the AI craze was kind of happening. I think it just has to catch that moment where it gets a narrative. And like, you know, the more cynical view is that a bunch of people get together and decide it's time for that thing to go up.

[C]

Yep.

[A]

Which I think is what happened with zcash. But either way, it just kind of goes over a tipping point and becomes the thing of the moment. The problem is they never last.

[C]

Yeah, well, they never last if they're not real. I mean, like, the ones that do last or have lasted, you know, are those that get quote communities and communities. You know, we is is a euphemism for true believers who don't really critically think in most cases. I mean, Jamie, I mean you, you see this all the time, right?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Like, you know, and you know, I was, I was thinking about as we were talking, I mean like, you know, because this is a crypto show, we kind of talk a little bit more about I, I, I do the bitcoin spaces. So I don't really bring it up, but last year I, it was April 4th, I, I actually published a, a 25 alt, you know, broadly because, and primarily because of this right here. Like, we just, we just didn't know what's going to take off what, what to put money behind. But I knew that like a lot of these, you know, blockchains were not going to go to zero. And there is the largely narrative driven. So, you know, how do you place yourself or how do you get exposure to that without and pick one not and not the loser. So, you know, I had 25 altcoin index equally weighted broadly positioned between the narratives. RWA, AI stablecoin rails memes, the, the, the, you know, the Dexes IoT, you know, privacy came up this year. ZK never really materialized, but it's funny. I, I was able, I, I was able to uh, have 20 out of 25 of those be in profit by just taking the volatility of those and transferring it into or rebalancing into bitcoin. Again, you know, I, I don't bring it up on the bit. Not very popular. It's either you buy bitcoin, you hold bitcoin, that's it. We don't care if other things profit. But as bitcoin had the, the, the down year last year, it, and having a full year of looking at actually worked out, you know, to benefit. And I think you kind of have to do that going forward right now because we're, we're still trying to see who are going to be the winners, where is it going to, where's the value going to be? And until that really presents itself, you know, it may benefit you to be more broadly placed than being more concentrated. Tao is something that was in that portfolio and I was able to rebalance and accumulate some bitcoin this last week because of that, but I didn't know when it was going to happen. So like, to your point, you know, being positioned prior to the moves was important because you just don't know where and when it's going to move.

[C]

Well, there's, there's a broad, there's a broad point there, right, which is, you know, and Matt's not here, but Matt Hogan has been pushing, you know, for index products in crypto. I mean, I, you know, my gut has always been that there will be that the total value of non bitcoin crypto will continue to go higher, but that I have no clue, well, not no clue, but limited clue as to what the winners will be and why. I mean, I know a couple of things for sure. I know that, that the expectations in the crypto communities that are the largest are absolutely out of their fucking minds. I mean, I don't care what people say, but the notion that a token that is used by a vertical that might, the entire vertical might sum up to $10 trillion of all the companies all around the world. And the notion that a piece of utility that they're using as part of their business would ever be more than a percent or two of that is just stupid and it's just dumb because companies will find other ways to do their business. They're not going to pay away most of their business in a piece of it. It's like asking for the steel that goes in the railroads that are used by the railroads to be more valuable. Than the railroad. I mean, it's just not going to be the case. But yet that is the thesis that, you know, the XRP army, you know, believes. And I just, my brain just doesn't understand why they look at that. That doesn't make XRP necessarily a terrible investment. Doesn't make that at all. I mean, it could very well be worth more than it is today. Just not what these idiots claim it's going to be worth. And the same thing is true. But the problem with that narrative is when normal regular financial types listen to people in crypto, they think that's what crypto is. And they go, well, the whole thing is stupid. And so, you know, you get these sorts of tribal nonsense and you know, Gary, you're up here and this is true with virtually every crypto. I mean, I'm picking on XRP now because it's fun to do so and they get so upset. But the truth is that, you know, there's a lot of sophomore nonsense in the crypto world in terms of the way it's talked about. And that turns off people from adoption or studying or understanding what it really means. And that's something that we see all the time. I'm trying to get you to say something, Gary. I don't know if you're behind the mic.

[D]

Yeah, I know you agree with that. No, no, thank you. Look, I, you know, I wouldn't bet on any of these tokens. Like, I don't, I don't get it. I've been in a few of them and I've done poorly, but I'm not a market timer. I'm not, I'm not going to ever be an expert on 20,000 tokens or 20,000 of anything. You know, What I do know is bitcoin is behaving exceptionally well here. Exceptionally well. Dude, I don't think anyone expected bitcoin to hold this level with all of this chaos. I mean, this is chaos that is unparalleled. Unparalleled. I, I don't think that's hyperbolic.

[C]

No, I agree.

[D]

And bitcoin has been, you know, like, it's just doing. Unbelievable, man.

[C]

Well, I expected to get three weeks are exhausted. And when sellers are exhausted, this is what you see. I mean, it really, I, I hate to, to be pedantic about it, but, you know, I, I think that that's what we've been seeing and you know,

[D]

but, but I, I don't know how anyone builds a case to go into any of these tokens. I mean, I'd Love to see some of the audits on these guys that can do this and my hat's off to them. If I could see some stats, I would probably allocate some money to one of these guys who looking at this 18 hours a day. But I am not convinced that the math will, will prove out that you can buy boo boo boo Boo and flip it over to bitcoin and get more bitcoin and hold that bitcoin for the duration. I, I just, I'm just not that smart. So I got to be real simple. Pack and stack and just keep going. To me that's so that's the player. It just is so simple.

[C]

Right. I tend to.

[D]

And it works exceptionally well for gold for the people that held onto it for five years in the last. Like everything we see and know, bitcoin should be. Bitcoin should do exceptionally well here. I think we have 12 to 14 months for Bitcoin to really take off here. And I'm not trying to be really bullish and get people to go do anything because I think there's too much of that shit right now, quite frankly. Too many people going, hey, it's going to 150,000 and like, shut up man. Like, you know, shut the up. Like who knows what it's going to do. Right now we're in uncharted territory. So, you know, my thesis is, hey, I came in here for bitcoin to be that, that, that store value, that that would be solid when the market rolled over and here we are. So we're going to find out sooner than later, I think. And we don't need a strategic reserve. I don't know why everybody thinks we're going to get that. We're not going to get a strategic reserve with Bitcoin. $1.3 billion trillion dollars.

[A]

We don't even have the audit.

[D]

Don't want it, don't need it.

[C]

It holds.

[A]

We still know how much bitcoin we even have in the quote unquote strategic reserve that we've held or any of the other digital stockpile. That was one of the first promises.

[D]

Yeah, we don't audit, dude.

[C]

We don't know what's in for. I, I loved your your post this morning, Scott. We don't know what's in Fort Knox either. I mean it's. Yeah, that's kind of my.

[A]

Trust me, bro. Trust me, bro. The United States government has a lot of bitcoin. So did Maduro trust me, bro?

[C]

Yeah, I, I don't trust anything. I mean I, I posted Something this morning, you know, Thomas Young and I are having a conversation, you know, about stuff and it's like, if you want to know the one religion I can't stand, it's statism because I don't trust government. It's really, it's really that simple. You know, absolute power corrupts absolutely and all that.

[A]

So yeah, I made the joke yesterday that I keep getting called I being told I have TDS because I'm, I don't know, I guess it's a crazy opinion to think that war is bad, but I keep being told I have tds and I said, well if my TVS is bad, my BDS for Biden was much worse, which means I must just have gds, which is government, you know, derangement syndrome. Because just anti government.

[C]

Yeah, I definitely have, I wouldn't call it derangement, but government skepticism.

[D]

I have bsd. Bs. That's derangement syndrome.

[C]

Yeah, there's so much of it. I mean look it, it, I, the thing about this war that I find amusing is how so many people are so certain of opinions that they can't possibly know to be true. I mean I, I, I, I just, how do you comment on situation that you know, you don't have good information on? I, I just, I don't, I mean, and I'm talking both sides. I don't really care. This is not, this isn't, you know, like all the doomers are saying oh my God, the world's going to be, you know, going to go in nuclear fire, blah blah blah, this is going to bad shit's going to happen. Trump is killing us and all his supporters saying oh look what he's doing. We don't know. I mean, and yes, we have to try to figure it out if you're an investor. So figure the only thing that I know for sure, there's one thing for sure, there's no version of the aftermath of this war. The that doesn't involve massive new deficit spending of course with the only thing we know for sure so which is

[A]

why we're at war.

[C]

Which look, there's lots of things we don't know, but we do know that. And so when people were saying yesterday gold was going to go back down to McGlone was saying just moronic stuff about 100 year highs in or 10 year decade highs in silver and gold. And we've already seen it. I'll take the other side of that bet all day long. Not because in a world of fixed dollars he's wrong. Because in Fixed dollars. He may very well be right. But we're going to pump a shit ton of dollars into the system because we have to. And that's why I think that I keep saying gold equilibrium is somewhere range 5,000 to 5,500 now, but the equilibrium post is going to be much higher. So who the hell knows? And the same is true for bitcoin in spades. Because bitcoin is literally one twentieth of the price it will be if in fact it gains that, that, that, that critical adoption to be digital gold. And so ask yourself, where do you want to put your money? I mean, I like that bet. Does that mean. It doesn't mean it's going to work. Anyone who thinks you're getting one to one odds on a, on a 20 to one payoff. Well, I mean, I got news for you that you're the person I want sitting at the poker table with me. Right? You're not. I mean, bitcoin isn't. It's not guaranteed to do anything. It is, however, much more likely to do to create that 20 to 1 payoff than the market is pricing it. That's simply the way I look at it. I mean, Gary, I assume that's sort of the way you look at it as well, right? Because it's all math.

[D]

Yeah. Look, to me, this is a smart and a dumb man's trade here. You just sit down and don't do anything. I saw Scott's comment today to random. It's like, dude, just chill out and just buy bitcoin. This play is going to work, folks. This play is most certainly going to work. I was up really late last night and I was thinking, every time I've done one of these, I've always gone through the period where everybody's like, you're fucking crazy, dude. This play is going to work so well. And it just really, really excites me because no person, there's a lot of smart people in this community, not one of us have gotten this right. And I find that really, really exciting. I find that to be like, I have no clue what crude oil is going to do. Like, yeah, crude oil and Oman dropped $90 today. $90, man.

[A]

We're being given a gift, right?

[D]

Totally, dude.

[A]

I think there's enough uncertainty that the price is depressed for longer than we would have anticipated, which means more opportunity to buy before the inevitable happens, regardless of what timeline that's on.

[D]

Bingo.

[C]

Exactly. That is exactly the way that I look at it, which is why I did a podcast yesterday on. I guess it's on crypto banter so it'll come out whenever it comes out. And the point that I was trying to make, which is a simple one, is if you believe what you just said to be true, don't make the mistake I made in the last cycle of over levering and learn from that. You know, it's like don't get yourself washed out, be able to sleep at night. You know, it's, it's important because as Gary says, there's just so much going on in the world and you know, all these people who claim to know. I just, you know, I just find it funny how people are so certain of in an uncertain time and you know, I know people get annoyed because it doesn't get engagement when I say well it's uncertain. So here's what you do and you know, et cetera and you give real advice. But that real device isn't buy this because you're gonna thousand x your money and become rich.

[D]

But David, it's so, it's a little frustrating for the public. I, I, you know, you read stuff like Raoul Pole today said a million dollars in 2027. It's like dude, like quit telling that to people like, like you, you, you know, there's some really smart people, but people are saying things that just don't make any sense whatsoever to me. How do you get to a million dollars by 2027?

[C]

I mean anything is possible, Gary, but

[D]

yeah, I know, but dude, like you know, you could say 300, okay, you could give it a serious haircut and you're still doing awesome.

[C]

I, I just find it funny how people care about these price predictions. I mean Jamie, is that a legacy hand?

[D]

Because well, they must care, they must care about them, dude, because you got, you got really, you know, relevant people spouting. No, maybe they just want followers. I don't know, maybe that's the deal.

[C]

But yeah, maybe I should try an experiment for a week. Just, just come up, just say a bunch of outrageously stupid and see if that, that increases the follower counts. But works well, it works well.

[A]

We are going to go to Oren in a minute but I want to give Jamie's had his hand up. So go ahead Jamie and wrap us up here.

[B]

Yeah, I mean you know, I don't know if you look at it, you step back a little bit. I mean you know we were, we're under, we're about two and a half trillion total market cap. I mean we were at about 3 trillion which is like was the top, was the top of the total mark cap last cycle. Right, but I mean if, but Jamie,

[D]

a trillion of that, dude, a trillion of those dollars. Not, not to interrupt you, but a trillion of those dollars goes to zero, dude.

[B]

Well yeah, I mean, but I mean it's a good point. I mean obviously that's going to happen. But you know, you know, last cycle of his NFTs and a lot of that went to nothing and this one's memes and it's going to go to nothing. Like I get it, you know, but like we talked about, like Bitcoin has 60% of the, of a, of the total market cap. So like that's what it has maintained now going forward. Like just like it did last cycle. Like say this, we get to the place where this whole total market market 10x's and so you know, if you're at 3 trillion, you're going to be at 30 trillion. You know, Bitcoin's going to capture at least 60 of that. That's the foundation. That's what you start with. That takes Bitcoin to a 900000 big price. The, the when that happens is irrelevant. But just looking at it in the broader sense and how that's going to happen, it also means that 40% of the rest of the ecosystem is also going to get elevated. Whatever doesn't go to zero, you know, and you can place some of those bets since you know, if you're, if you're talking about because this is crypto, you know, Ethereum or Salana, some of those chains that you believe will make it, maybe some of the, you know, the decks is under that because that's where the volume's going to be. You know, you can, with you, this is to me compared to last cycle. You know, we had to take a lot more risk to get a lot more potential up. You know, multiples where this one you can go with A lot of the large blockchains that have been established have been made through multiple cycles have you know, for example, like Ethereum, there's you know, or Solana that we talked about. Like they, it seemed more likely they're going to be here then go to zero. And you can get multiples without taking the type of risk where we had to go into you know, really small or micro caps last cycle to get those kind of same returns. So you know, the way I would look at it is in a broader sense more patience. Like you mentioned expecting that this whole mark cap is going to expand and then having 60% at least Bitcoin Capturing that. And then if you want to dabble and place and play some other bets with blockchains that you believe may not go to zero, you know, there's another 40% of value that's going to be elevated with, with bitcoin as it comes up. It can't survive by itself. It's, it's going to be some use cases that are going to be in other blockchains until, you know, innovation is, is, you know, accelerated on, on the, on the bitcoin ecosystem.

[A]

Yeah, agree. And, and, and thank you there. And we were talking about actually prediction markets earlier. So it's great that we have Oren coming up now. Oren Hershkovitz, CEO of mx. I wanted to give him the spot, the sponsor slot today because you guys had, well, you reported earnings, you had a huge announcement today. Really incredible numbers. 1.23 billion net income profit EPS $25. You know, that obviously an important milestone for you guys. Oren, how do you think about this in the broader context of everything that you're building? And maybe you should just give us the TLDR because you have an extremely novel setup.

[E]

Yeah. So. Hi Scott, thanks for having me. Yeah, definitely. Definitely a big moment for us. You know, we see this moment as an initial expression of our repeatable and scalable, you know, capital strategy which is aligned with the growth of the prediction markets as a financial category supporting our, what we call our dual engine model strategy. And we can talk about a little bit more.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, feel free to dive into that. Obviously, you know, I.

[E]

Okay.

[A]

Yeah, you're kind of, you have the quality longevity company powered by, powered by a prediction markets Treasury. So this is definitely a different approach to the treasury market with an actual company on the other side.

[E]

Completely, totally agree. Well, you know, the times have changed and we needed to respond to that. So what we're doing today is really unique. We are kind of combining two powerful capabilities. So on the one hand, we are advancing our clinical stage immunotherapy which is a platform focused on common underserved longevity related diseases such as osteoarthritis, where we believe we can deliver a meaningful therapeutic impact on the quality of extended longevity. Right. So it's not just about longevity, it's about how do you spend that time. And we think with our therapy we can provide really a substantial therapeutic value to those aging population. And at the same time we have built a Treasury architecture designed to capture the value of this emerging prediction markets economy that I think everybody is familiar with specifically in our strategy. It's anchored around the urine decentralized prediction market protocol. And we believe that this dual engine structure can provide the public market investors exposure to both the emerging prediction market infrastructure while it allows us to continue to advance our clinical development programs focusing on improving the healthspan and quality of life. So it's really a unique, I think we're doing here something which is really innovative that potentially provide to our shareholder value two pillars that they can benefit from.

[A]

So it's a unique approach in that you're integrating basically prediction markets infrastructure into a public company, which I don't think we've seen at all. So what made you comfortable taking that step? Where did you come up with that idea and how did you actually execute that?

[E]

Right. So as I said, you know, times has changed and let me maybe take you back a little bit to the decision process. So when we evaluate our treasury strategy, we were looking for a digital asset, that portfolio that can provide real utility and real adoption and really long term structural growth. Many companies selected Bitcoin, for example, as their strategy. But we wanted to look for something different that can provide a differentiating factor. So we believe that prediction markets meets all of those three criteria. And we're already seeing this reflect right in the strong trading volumes and this really exponential rapid growth of this market, of the sector. And on top of that we're seeing increasing institutional engagement right with the investments in Kalshi and polymarket for example. So within that sector, within prediction market claim clearly that we want to be part of this and this is at early stages, relatively early stage, we wanted to take part of this and we selected Rain Protocol and Rain Token as our primary digital treasury reserve assets because it's really fully decentralized, permissionless, global and designed to scale protocol, allowing anyone anywhere in any language to create a market. So this is really coexist alongside with what decentralized prediction markets provides. And once we saw, you know, the institutional backing of that, all that made us very, very comfortable to execute that strategy. And we did a transformative pipe Invest financing in November that allow us to purchase substantial amount of rain tokens and on top of that and as part of that transaction to receive an option that we just announced that we extended it to the next end of 27, an option to acquire additional about more than $900 million of the rain token at the price, which is about 65% discount to the price that is currently to the current price of the rain tokens. So that's also a substantial option for us to generate yield from this Strategy.

[A]

So how should people think about the role of the treasury then within the company beyond the short term market movements?

[E]

So currently we're, we're the largest corporate holder of rain and we plan to continue this buy and hold strategy. So as I said before, we, you know, while we think, and it's not just us clearly that prediction markets will continue to grow exponentially, we think that RAIN will continue to grow substantially alongside with that. So behind the short term market movements we are planning to, to utilize yield enhancement activities and that can lead to outperformance of the token. And we are planning to use these yields to increase our treasury holdings on the one hand and allocate a small portion of it to push forward our clinical program, which is at late stage for really huge unmet medical condition in a huge market, as I said before. So I think it's a dual engine strategy and that's the way people should look at it.

[A]

So obviously I think you are straddling between multiple industries here, but you really, I would imagine, are firmly in traditional biotech, I mean, or biotech. Is that fair to say?

[E]

Yeah, the legacy is the biotech and now the prediction market exposure as an additional engine.

[A]

I would say so obviously I would imagine that funding in biotech, or so I've heard, is a continuous challenge. So how does what you're doing change the way that you think about, I guess, financing, like innovation of financing?

[E]

Well, that's an excellent question. I think it's completely an innovative approach to financing. Right. Funding was always challenging, but really for early stage biotech companies it became extremely difficult in the past two years and I can talk for hours about that, but that was one of the drivers that pushed us into looking for an innovative approach. And the innovation here enables us to self fund our clinical operation again from a small percent of the appreciation of our treasury assets and avoid the classical model of getting into a milestone and then potentially do additional financing within this, this, the the environment of the market. In many cases it means pretty toxic terms. So we can control that ourselves today. And I think this is, you know, an innovative financing strategy that we're kind of establishing here.

[A]

Do you think, I mean, just as an aside, do you think that that's sort of the future of financing? I mean, we've heard about crypto being used for, you know, kind of crowdsourcing or for raising capital, you know, outside of the current system. I mean, do you think that that's where the trend will go based on your experience?

[E]

I think that, that that's definitely one of the possible ways that it can go. I mean, since the circumstances changed so dramatically, you know, once in a while you're seeing new infrastructure, financial infrastructure for companies to, was it to raise money? And I think what we're seeing here is one of the new directions for sure.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. So I guess now you guys have reported you had huge earnings, so you're clearly, I imagine, looking ahead. So what are the key milestones right now that you would say you're focused on? And I guess from both sides, clinical side, and at the company and treasury level.

[E]

Right. So our working assumption is that the prediction marketing system continue to thrive right. In the next decade or so. And alongside with that, the growth of the centralized and decentralized prediction market. And they're going to be a substantial growth in decentralized prediction market just because it provides another layer that you cannot accomplish with the classical centralized one. And we think RAIN will be the leading one in prediction markets. And that's as time goes by, the RAIN foundation and the RAIN Protocol will grow, allow us to benefit more and more from our strategy, generating more yield, generating, increasing our holdings and progressing in parallel our clinical development. We've announced an FDA approval to initiate our phase IIb study two days ago. And we're expecting to get significant, substantial data from a large phase IIb study in 2027 that will allow us to move into a phase three trial and hopefully later on to commercial studying. And these two pillars would define our scalability of the method and, and you know, many more milestones to come in the next two years.

[A]

So anything else that I missed, I mean, that you want to share with us while we got you?

[E]

Well, no, I think we covered the main points. We're totally excited. The team here is eager to move both engines forward and this is just the first step.

[A]

Awesome, man. Well, I appreciate you jumping up. Congratulations on the big news and we'll all look forward to having you back for an update not so far down the road.

[E]

Same here. Thank you very much.

[A]

And yeah, thanks to everybody else that got us to time. So thanks to the panel. Thanks everybody for coming back. After we crashed, we somehow got back to over 3,000 people. That's pretty awesome. Glad that we were able to get back up and Dave, Mauricio, Jamie, Gary and I see Carlo there. Good morning, Carlo.

[C]

Good morning, Scott.

[A]

That's all you get today. I had to get it in.

[C]

Hey, I put out a piece. People can go to my profile and look at it. But I broke down what happened yesterday

[A]

with Circle and the stock crashing and my take on it, if anyone's curious. But I promised I'd joined today, and

[C]

I had to get out of court to make it here, but I did, so.

[A]

Good morning, Scott. Sorry we didn't have more time, but we'll get into it on Friday for the next show. Thank you, everybody. We will see you on Friday.