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The Chopping Block: 2025 Winners & Losers + 2026 Predictions - Ep. 998
01:08:14
The Chopping Block delivers its definitive 2025 year-end awards — biggest winners (Trump, prediction markets, M&A), biggest losers (Gary Gensler, Web3, Bitcoin's relative performance), wildest surprises (Circle IPO, Ethereum pivot, Zcash revival), best memes, pivots, comebacks, and flops — plus a brutally honest review of last year's predictions and fresh calls for 2026.
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- [00:01]
A
Don't curse, all right? I would never. Hello, everybody. Welcome to the chopping block. Boom.
- [00:08]
B
Not a dividend.
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C
It's a tale of two point.
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A
Now your losses are on someone else's balance sheet.
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D
Generally speaking, airdrops are kind of pointless anyways.
- [00:15]
A
Unnamed trading firms who are very involved.
- [00:18]
C
Alec Eth is the ultimate defi.
- [00:21]
B
Protocols are the antidote to this problem.
- [00:24]
A
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the shopping blog. Every couple of weeks, the four of us get together and give the industry insiders perspective on the crypto topics of the day. Quickly, intros. First we got Tom, the Defi maven and master of memes.
- [00:35]
C
Hello, everyone.
- [00:36]
A
Next we got Robert, the cryptic connoisseur and czar of Super State.
- [00:41]
B
Happy New Year.
- [00:43]
A
Next we got Tarun, the Giga brain and the Grand Poobah at Gauntlet.
- [00:47]
C
Yo, Happy New Year.
- [00:48]
A
And I'm Haseeb, the head hype man at Dragonfly. We're early stage investors in crypto, but I want to caveat that nothing we say here is investment advice, legal advice, or even life advice. Please see chopping blocks at XYZ for more disclosure. So, boys, it is a new year. It is now 2026. I know Robert loves to celebrate with profanity, so I thought we'd put a little bit of a curveball in there.
- [01:09]
B
I am anti profanity.
- [01:11]
A
Are you anti profanity?
- [01:12]
B
Actually, yes. Listen, I have young kids. I try to have a profanity free lifestyle and house. So no profanities.
- [01:20]
A
I did not know that. Do you, like, not curse on the show?
- [01:24]
B
No, I do not curse on the show. We can play back the tape.
- [01:28]
A
We'll see if I'm. Wait, wait.
- [01:30]
C
Now someone's gonna watch the show, Robert.
- [01:33]
B
Someone's gonna get the highlight reel of every time I've like.
- [01:36]
A
Yeah, all right. Are you trying to put money on this? You want to put money on this?
- [01:39]
B
I won't put money on this, but I tried it.
- [01:41]
A
Especially New Year's resolution. He curses on the show. Okay, the young, young Leshners, we're gonna.
- [01:47]
C
Have turned into a New Year's resolution.
- [01:51]
A
We're gonna get a mixtape of all the time that Robert is cursing the show and put out a special episode. Just Robert cursing set to music. Anyway, okay, so it's been another year, which means another year of winners and losers and notables for 2025. So for those of us who remember a lot of ups and downs, we started in the year with the election, the AI boom, you know, Ethereum going through its ups and downs. Meme coins it's been a crazy year, but we are going to, as the chopping block team, look back on a year of episodes of ups and downs and tell you who were the biggest winners. Losers. Surprise. Best new mechanism. Best meme. Best slash. Worst pivot. Biggest flop. Biggest comeback story. Favorite guest. And then finally to top it all off, we'll go through predictions for 2026. So without further ado, let's start with the first category which is biggest winner. Robert, tell us who is the biggest winner in your mind for 2025.
- [02:48]
B
Well, there's two biggest winners, but I'll start with the boring, lame one first. The biggest winner in my mind is the equity based companies in the crypto industry that have benefited from regulatory clarity, a friendly administration, and the floodgates of institutional interest opening up. This is M and A season this year both for the acquirers and the acquirees. We've already seen a lot of consolidation starting to occur this year. We had Bridge and, and Privy and Deribit and Hidden Road and Echo and the list goes on and on and on. The biggest winners are really the sort of like companies in the space that are consolidating and forming alliances and sizing up. I think this is going to lead to, you know, a totally different landscape this year in 2026. But the biggest winners are the growth stage equity companies. That's my lame1. The second biggest winner is all of you here at home who get to go into 2026 with a fresh experience after a roller coaster of a 25.
- [03:56]
A
What I thought you were saying because prices are low so you can buy cheap alts or something.
- [04:03]
B
Yeah, that's roughly what I mean.
- [04:05]
A
That's what you mean? Okay, that's what he means. He means prices are low. This is investment advice, fresh cost basis.
- [04:11]
C
Yeah.
- [04:13]
B
Welcome to 26.
- [04:14]
A
I love the sentiment. Okay, Tom, biggest winner.
- [04:17]
D
Biggest winner. I had prediction markets as obviously the crowd favorite Polymarket, but everyone gets included. You know, it's, it's the end of the year feeling, feeling happy. I mean this was like a category that was so fringe two years ago and now it is so extremely mainstream. It is constantly written about. It is in media. There's a South park episode, it gets cited. Like I just can't remember the last time something got this big so quickly and obviously is very cool. We're still kind of discovering new applications for prediction markets. And so, yeah, prediction markets are my 2025 winner.
- [04:47]
A
Congratulations to Kalshi. This, this episode is sponsored by Kalshi. Thank you. Thank you, Tom.
- [04:51]
D
They're they're in the others bucket.
- [04:53]
A
It's pie market and others got it. All right, so I biggest winner. I had a tie between Tom Lee for obvious reasons being the eth shill and kind of eth doing what it's done, and Bitmine becoming now the contender right behind MicroStrategy as being the biggest debt, second biggest ad in existence. And then I had Donald Trump. I think Trump has basically crushed it in crypto. I think he got in an enormous sum of money from launching his meme coin, the Melania, which I think Tarun on the show coined as the second tower or the second plane, I think it was, I think he called it. And going from that to, you know, world Liberty Financial, Trump media, like all of the different ways in which he has made himself in times at the expense of the industry, but also gotten a lot of policy and agenda wins for himself with respect to the crypto goals of his administration, establishing strategic bitcoin reserve. All of that together, I would say Donald Trump probably one of the biggest winners of 2025 within crypto. Tarun, what do you have? Best winner, biggest winner.
- [05:54]
C
I had crypto derivatives platforms on chain, so perpetual's Dexes. I count prediction markets and the derivative camp because I kind of think they both grew a lot and they fed off each other in some ways. The prediction markets having a ton of press about them despite the volumes being a lot lower, versus the perpetuals markets where there's tons of volume and no press coverage. But yet people in both of those worlds who are working on it, kind of talking about it with each other, I think the overall dex market share, overall spot and derivatives has gone up. And I think being in crypto for a long time, getting into crypto full time partially because of hoping prediction markets work one day, despite it feeling like it took 15 years too long or something. It does feel kind of like a winning day. And I think on the perpetual side, obviously, I'd say we've had lots of versions of it, but it's interesting to see that people are finally moving their money from centralized exchanges on chain. And even with all the security stuff and it being harder, et cetera, I think you can't really knock those two.
- [07:11]
A
So to summarize, hyper liquid, is that what I'm hearing?
- [07:14]
C
Tarun, all perpetual stacks can't bring himself.
- [07:18]
B
To say hyper liquid.
- [07:20]
C
No, I think hyper liquid too. But I think I said hyper liquid last year because like that was right after the airdrop. So I just kind of wanted to broaden it because Other than saying the same prediction twice.
- [07:30]
A
Fair enough, fair enough, fair enough. Okay, cool. So inverse of Biggest Winner, we now have Biggest Loser. Tom, why don't you get us started? Who is the biggest loser in your mind?
- [07:40]
D
For 2025, Biggest Loser was kind of a triple whammy. I have altcoins for a couple of different reasons. One, you can obviously say, hey, performance for Alts has been really bad this year. Everyone's been hoping for an alt season of some sort that has never really manifested. New launches have not really gone well. I mean, we really have not had new coins break into the top 100 other than hype and ENA in the past two years. I think people were hoping Clarity would get passed this year. And obviously, we've had a much more favorable administration, we have much more favorable regulators, and that's all been well and good in terms of providing some breathing room for the industry. But we want actual regulation to get passed, and we haven't had that legislation get passed. We haven't actually had that happen. So that's been a bummer. And then we've also had these other issues between now these fights between equity holders and token holders with these acquisitions happening more recently where, hey, the company gets bought and token holders get shafted. And so it feels like this is kind of so much of the industry and there's so much hope for, I think, what tokenization can do. But it's really just been this year where altcoins have really kind of gotten left in the dust in various ways.
- [08:48]
A
Nice. Yeah, I mean, that hits close to home. But, yes, that sounds right. I had biggest loser for 2025 was the legacy of Gary Gensler. I think basically what we've seen this year is just a complete dismantling of everything this man stood for over the four years of his tenure at the sec. Basically, like, when we started this year, I thought, like, oh, you know, maybe they'll offer some guidance. Maybe they'll, like, you know, settle some of the cases. But no, we saw complete 180. Everything that he fought for has been completely dismantled and destroyed and just forgotten. So he went from being one of the most hated SEC chairman in recent memory I've ever seen in terms of just the absolute uniform level of hate that he's gotten. And for absolutely nothing, nothing that he stood for or worked for has survived in this sec and good riddance. But I think that's, to me, very clearly biggest loser of 2025 is that it's just like a gravestone. Not even a gravestone. Where Gary Gensler used to sit. Tarun, what do you have? Biggest Loser 2025.
- [09:54]
C
I think I've said this on the show many times this year in different shapes and forms. But I think Web3 as a thesis, I think I'm willing to. I'm willing to write it off. I think the NFT market, if you look at the capitulation in some of the larger names, it's like I feel like there's a death tombstone waiting. And I also just feel like a lot of the reputation of Web3 is just so poor amongst creators, artists, anyone who would have benefited from the thesis that it just feels like it gets worse every year. And it does feel like it's at a certain bottom right now where I don't even know if there's a way it can go up. So I really just think the Web3 thesis is a big loser. I mean, even in, I believe in like Andreessen's predictions for 2026, they don't call it out explicitly. Right. They're focused on privacy, they're focused on stablecoin usage and maybe AI. But like, I think like even the people who are the biggest proponents probably don't necessarily at least publicly efface it and anymore. So I'm willing to write the epitaph now.
- [11:08]
A
Do you count IP tokenization as Web3? Does that count as Web3?
- [11:12]
C
If I knew what the IP was, sure. You know, like, it feels like I don't know what IP is being tokenized. No, no. As I don't know examples to like if a lot, if a lot of the IP was actually like royalty streaming from like movies or art or something. Sure. But if it's like, oh, mostly IP is like chip IP that is being sold between sk, Hynix and Samsung, then no. Right. There's a huge spectrum of ip.
- [11:40]
A
Okay, fair answer. Robert, what do you got?
- [11:45]
B
Biggest Loser. I'm sad about this one. Unlike Haseeb's where I was happy, I think the Biggest Loser this year, starting from how much optimism and high expectations I personally had at the beginning of the year, the Biggest Loser is a strategic bitcoin reserve, in my opinion. And I'm sad about this because there was a lot of excitement when we started the year. A lot of us thought that this was the year that we would have the most important sovereign nation on earth really utilizing Bitcoin in a geopolitical way. It sort of fizzled a little bit. It became, oh well, we're going to hold on to seized Bitcoin and we're also going to evaluate other ways to build this reserve to that don't include buying it, which, fine, it's lukewarm all the way up to this moment in time where there was just a story like yesterday that the US Government seized bitcoin from the Samurai Wallet developers and then sold it in violation of executive order 14233, which said we're going to build this slowly over time by not selling seized bitcoin. It's like there's been no progress from the US Government effectively on building a strategic bitcoin reserve. And yeah, there's things that could change in 2026. People are joking around that we're going to seize Venezuela's bitcoin and that they've been secretly building up a stash and that's going to become our strategic bitcoin reserve. But none of this has happened. It's kind of been negative momentum for the past year. And I think these incredible ambitions and hopes that occurred are at this point, quite wounded.
- [13:23]
A
Fair enough. I actually had strategic bitcoin reserve for a different thing, but so I'm going to change that. I'm going to reckon that. Okay, so next category is biggest surprise. Tarun, what do you have? Biggest surprise of 2024.
- [13:36]
C
I'm excited about this because I don't want to get front run, which is zcash. I think zcash comes.
- [13:43]
A
I had zcash. I was like, someone's definitely going to say zcash. So I'm taking that off.
- [13:47]
C
Yeah, that was why I wanted to go first.
- [13:49]
A
All right, good.
- [13:51]
C
Zcash. A couple reasons. A, I have a soft spot for Zcash. I think I mined Zcash in 2016 and blew up an old GPU I had and old computer because I overheated it. And it was just sort of like an experience of like actually getting to read a research paper, seeing it implemented, running on your computer and seeing it actually work. And like, I think that was what one of these things that, like, really sort of made me kind of end up being more in crypto. And I think zcash has kind of gone through a lot of phases. Right? It's. It's had a lot of fights over the developer funding over the years. It's had a lot of fights over, like, how slow it is or the inflation bug. It's kind of had a lot of punches and never many advocates and many people trying to push it. And I think, you know, Mert and Co and Naval, I guess, like, I think that's the Zcash 2025 cabal. I think they really pushing privacy is actually like a good meme, like compared to a meme coin, like there is actually a real reason. And zcash has gotten better. And you can just see the shielded address pool growth, which is awesome. I. I think, like, you know, the other podcasts I'm often on is zero knowledge podcasts about new things in zero knowledge proofs. And there's been tons of things that have been improvements on zcash whatever. None of them have ever really been able to get commercial success or gro growth, I think, because they, because zcash itself never really kind of did. And there's sort of this hopefulness to me that the kind of interest in zcash also will spread down the privacy well. And so that surprise, I think I'm hoping for the trickle down privacy economics of 2020.
- [15:51]
A
Trickle down privacy economics, the best new mechanism as well of 2026. Okay, fair enough. Robert, what do you have for biggest surprise?
- [16:02]
B
The biggest surprise, in my opinion was the Circle IPO and the days that followed.
- [16:09]
D
Damn, scoop me. Oh.
- [16:13]
B
So Circle briefly flipped coinbase in market cap earlier this year. You know, when Circle was considered going public, they really led the wave of crypto companies filing. And up until that moment, there was a lot of skepticism. A lot of industry insiders were like, is this thing worth $4 billion? Like, you know, how can they go public? You know, the people were reviewing the S1 and getting really nervous about, then debuted above everyone's expectations. And the narrative took hold that stablecoins were going to win finance, and that Circle was the only pure play stablecoin company that was public and that the way to bet on the future of finance was to bet on Circle. And this went from a company that people were skeptical about a four or five billion dollars valuation to one in one, which it was $70 billion not very long after. I mean, that is a shocking run for a public company in a short amount of time. And so this surprised everyone. I mean, those weeks where Circle was flying through the stratosphere to the moon were an exciting and heady time, I think. And it shocked even the most skeptical and experienced investor class of the crypto industry.
- [17:27]
A
That is very, very true. I remember that. I mean, it has come back down to earth. It's now post lockup. So I think that's what a lot of people were saying was like, oh man, just wait till that lockup expires. But still, 20 billion now expired. Yeah, still $20 billion.
- [17:38]
C
Company lockup.
- [17:39]
A
Is expired. You know, it's not. It's not coinbase size, but it's definitely a lot bigger than what people were anticipating when they. When they released their S1.
- [17:46]
B
Oh, yeah, kudos to them.
- [17:48]
A
So, very, very big success story. Tom, what do you got? A backup able to improvise something?
- [17:55]
D
I had Tempo as my backup. Actually. It's pretty good. I mean, I think crypto has had this long history of kind of Fortune 500 adoption kind of happening in these fits and starts where it's like, oh, someone's doing some partnership and, oh, maybe they'll accept Bitcoin for payments. But it never really felt like, oh, this is actually going to be something that people are actually going to invest into, or they'll only do it if, hey, this could be a revenue driver or a profit center versus something that actually requires R and D or investment. Obviously, still very, very early in the days of Tempo to say, hey, if this is going to be a success or not and all is equal. I would probably say that the odds are stacked against them. But I think impressive is the fact that it seems like it is much more real this time. There is an actual, real consortium of real large companies investing serious money into building a totally new payment system from scratch. And I think obviously that obviously having a dent in the industry, driving Green.
- [18:53]
A
Oaks that are investing the money.
- [18:54]
D
To be clear, it's still $500 million. Like, when was the last time you saw around that big for what is ultimately zero? And obviously Matt also, you know, putting his time onto it too. So I'm like, I don't know, it was just. And I feel like it also just came out of nowhere. It's not just like, oh, we accept usdc, which is everyone else is doing. It's like, own actual investment into building something.
- [19:14]
A
I felt like what's surprising was not that Stripe did that, but rather that Paradigm did that. I feel like that's the really surprising thing about Tempo, that if you told me at the beginning of the year Stripe is going to try to launch their own blockchain, I would be like, okay, I mean, that's cool. Good for them. But if you told me Paradigm is going to build it and their whole team is going to work on it, I'd be like, what? That's fucking insane.
- [19:37]
C
And they're going to convince half the EF to go work there.
- [19:43]
A
Also. Yeah, speaking of which. So my biggest surprise of the year was the Ethereum pivot. So there was recent consternation going on around Ethereum and Vitalik. Talking about, oh, what's the vision for Ethereum? We were talking on this podcast toward the end of 2024, basically, that Ethereum was cooked. We thought that the sentiment was just unrecoverable. They were driving themselves into irrelevance. There was nobody there who cared about price, who cared about the actual attractiveness of Ethel 1 relative to L2s. And this narrative set in of, like, okay, the L2s are parasitic, and eth is just never going to do anything about it. And it was, what was it, February that Vitalik saw religion fired, Aya put in Tamash and Xiaowei. And now we've seen this tremendous recovery of Ethereum, something that I think for many years, people were saying, like, man, Ethereum is just under delivering. They refuse to be commercial. They refuse to be realistic about their competitive position. I was very surprised. I was not expecting it. And I think it was actually. I think on the show, I said immediately after the EF turned over. I actually feel really optimistic about Ethereum now. And I was not expecting to say that this year.
- [20:54]
B
Well, I think Tom Lee was the big driver, but that's for debate.
- [20:58]
A
Well, Tom Lee was downstream of that. Tom Lee was downstream of that. I don't think that Tom Lee alone could have made this happen. And I think Tom Lee was, in part, a response to the fact that Ethereum had gotten its shit together. Tom Lee might be working on Salana Dance if had the momentum. Yeah, that Ethereum had the momentum. That was already starting to recover by the time that that mania had kicked off.
- [21:20]
B
I don't know.
- [21:21]
C
Well, I feel. I feel like Tom Lee has been pretty.
- [21:27]
D
Ethan, I believe was the phrase.
- [21:31]
A
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
- [21:32]
C
I think he was on the show.
- [21:33]
A
On the show. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
- [21:35]
C
I feel like that's been true for a while because I remember, like, actually.
- [21:39]
A
I mean, he was like a bitcoin maxi in the past. He was, like, talking constantly about bitcoin. No, he.
- [21:43]
C
I don't think Leshner had an event in 2020 in.
- [21:48]
B
Might have been 2019. 2019.
- [21:50]
C
2019. Yeah. I forget exactly. Yeah. And he was speaking at it, and he was really hyping Ethereum, like, so I. I guess I've always had this impression that he's, like, not so. I'm not.
- [22:01]
B
He came to an early defi event in San Francisco and was, like, hyped.
- [22:06]
C
Yeah, yeah, exactly. In a way that, like. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [22:10]
A
Wow. Okay, Fair enough. All right.
- [22:12]
C
So I just always kind of had this impression he loved Eth. But that also at that time, eats was the only thing, only place you had defi. So, yeah. Yeah, I'm not sure how that. How that cuts.
- [22:22]
A
Fair enough. Okay. All right, Next category is best new mechanism. Best new mechanism. Tom, why don't you kick us off? What do you think is the best new mechanism of 2025?
- [22:35]
D
I don't know if you can count this as new, but I would say this, like wave of ICO 2.0, kind of like tasteful buyer sales, I would say, is kind of in this bucket. I think we've been complaining for years that airdrops are kind of pointless anyway. And there are so many issues. The data supports this. All these teams are expressing this. And then obviously, as we were discussing earlier, we as the most vulnerable group, the venture capitalists in this ecosystem, get so much flak from retail investors. It was a joke. And it's like, how do you kind of solve these two issues? Hey, well, maybe we bring back token sales, but we do so in a way that's not 2017. Free for all. Extremely early. Just give me a lump sum of money and I'll go promise to build this thing. But it's more like a true, hey, crowdsale cap it. We can kind of place our allocations with people who think it'd be long term aligned and obviously put skin the game. So it just feels like, okay, this actually kind of solves all these miscellaneous problems that were happening in terms of token distribution, capital formation. And I don't know, it seems like, hey, if we do get clarity or market structure passed in near 20, 26, maybe that would also just unlock the floodgates even further for this. So that's my best new mechanism.
- [23:45]
B
Tasteful ICOs.
- [23:47]
D
Tasteful ICOs. Kobe, you can take that. Yeah.
- [23:51]
A
Nice. Okay, Robert, what do you got? Best new mechanism of 25.
- [23:55]
B
Well, this is a combination of best and worst. I think this is just most impactful mechanism. And it's not even new. But I have to say, the DAT structure in general, this was the year where it was the highest impact mechanism on the crypto markets. And I don't know if it's best.
- [24:13]
A
Yeah, I don't know if it's. Yeah. I don't know if you call that best.
- [24:15]
D
Yeah.
- [24:15]
A
I was like, okay, I'll take it.
- [24:17]
D
Yeah.
- [24:19]
C
A special third thing.
- [24:21]
B
Correct. This is a third thing.
- [24:23]
A
Absolute value of impact.
- [24:25]
B
Absolute value of impact. DATs are the runaway highest absolute value of impact they have. What's the opposite of dampening volatility, amplifying volatility? They have, they have amplified the volatility of spot assets. They have added a whole new layer of animal spirits, both good and bad. I think they've brought back what will become the bull market, even though they are toxic in their own way and value destructive in other ways. But DATs have totally reinvented the game. They're going to go in and out of favor. But biggest magnitude impact mechanism of the year.
- [25:07]
A
All right, fair enough. Tarun, what do you have for best new mechanism of 25?
- [25:12]
C
So I would say 2025 was a pretty weak year for mechanisms. I would say that there weren't a lot of new innovations on the defi side because when I think of mechanism I think of purely defi stuff. It was certainly a lot more innovating on execution implementation, different things like that, maybe having different trust assumptions. But one mechanism did shine through as actually being novel, even though it's not completely de novo new and also being used a lot, which is the prop AMMs on Solana, which are basically sort of a mix of requests for quote systems and automated market makers like Uniswap. And so the history of this is a lot of defi relied on this passive liquidity sitting in liquidity pools, being available at all times for trading very capital inefficient. You have to have way more capital than you need to facilitate trades. On the other hand you have this kind of RFQ system where someone fulfills your order just in time. It's capital efficient but it has this problem that it can go down. Like if all the solve all the people who are fulfilling orders can't reply, then things don't work as well. And so you kind of saw this dichotomy in the spot market on chain of pure passive liquidity, pure rfq. And there's everyone who's still dreaming of passive only will work and then there's people who. There's still problems with the RFQ system. It's not perfect, but the prop AMM kind of tries to get a little bit of both worlds where market makers quote a wider spread of liquidity and you're sort of getting a temporary order book that people can cross. And it's a little more complicated than that, but at a high level that's what happens. And it has really taken over Solana in terms of Dex volumes. It has really made spreads compressed quite a bit. And it's also has a bit of better on chain provenance than pure RFQs. And so I think while it's not sort of like again like A totally new thing. It's sort of like a mixture of things that already existed. It's clearly new, it's clearly working, and I think it's deserving of that title.
- [27:28]
A
We were debating this earlier is that it's basically Kyber, but it's like one admin key.
- [27:35]
C
Yeah. With like, slightly. Exactly. That's my problem with it being like, is it a new mechanism?
- [27:39]
A
Yeah. So it's an old idea, but it's finally working because of the latency. And the people who are actually running it are very, very sophisticated. So it's working. It's working and it's taking over Solana.
- [27:49]
C
And I think it's also proving that. I think we will see. Maybe I'll save this for predictions. Never mind.
- [27:56]
A
Okay, okay. All right. Save it. All right. So I had for best new mechanism of 2025 was federal preemption. So for those of you who do not know the reason why Kalsheet and Polymarket can operate in all 50 states and offer bets on sports and so on, is this mechanism known as federal preemption, which is that if there's a federal law, it overrides state laws. And that's the reason why you're seeing so much growth in these prediction markets that they're available in all 50 states at all times. Now. This is being challenged in the courts, tbd, whether or not this is going to actually survive the various fights with state attorneys general. But I think in terms of a mechanism that is actually impacting the landscape of prediction markets, this is probably the most important term which you're going to hear again and again is federal preemption. And so that's why I had it for the best new mechanism of 2025. So, okay, now we got best meme. This one's. This one's a banger. Robert, we'll start with you. What did you have for best meme of 2025?
- [28:59]
B
So who remembers when the Trump administration initially released Texas tariffs? Raise your hand.
- [29:07]
A
Oh, the board.
- [29:09]
D
The board.
- [29:11]
B
So, no, the best meme, our social media intern at the chopping block when the video AI tools were still earlier. I mean, 2025 was a long time ago released. I think the best video content we have released as a podcast, which was the four hosts working in a Chinese toy factory with the sad music memeing videos that were going around TikTok in like, Chinese media about, like, we gotta.
- [29:42]
A
Play a little clip of that just for everybody who doesn't. Who didn't see it.
- [29:45]
B
Best meme of 2020.
- [30:04]
A
Very Nice.
- [30:05]
D
That could be a meme right there.
- [30:06]
C
Clip that, that.
- [30:08]
A
So I had best meme of 2025 was digital asset stockpile. So I don't know if any of you remember this, but Trump said there's going to be a stockpile of other crypto. There was an executive stockpile. That's right, that's right.
- [30:26]
C
I forgot about that.
- [30:27]
A
We're supposed to go in there. Ada's supposed to go in there.
- [30:29]
B
AD.
- [30:30]
A
Yeah, Nothing, nothing. Absolutely zilch. Doesn't exist. Probably will never exist, but there's an executive order about it, you know, red meat for the crypto industry. Isaac, best meme of 2025. Tarun, what do you have? Best meme 2025.
- [30:46]
C
So I don't know if it was like quite a meme, but it was the thing that stuck to me the most. You know, I think oftentimes when there's a hack in crypto people have, you know, the, the crowd is. Will like loves to find the worst in everything and like, you know, whatever the person who's like dealing with it oftentimes unnecessarily the best at crisis comms and things don't go well. But the Bybit hack, post hack and being such a large hack and still having such a good response and like the memes of the video of like Ben, I thought that was pretty good because how do you get memes out of a billion dollar plus hack? And if you can do that, that means you've aced crisis comms and it's not. Again, it wasn't the most funny meme, but I thought it was somehow taking this thing that was a huge negative and flipping it. I thought that was very impressive.
- [31:44]
B
I was really hoping you were going to say the Tarun Neo bot meme where there's to folding clothes in the house.
- [31:52]
A
That's pretty good. That's pretty good.
- [31:55]
D
You're really up on the, on the social. On the. The chopping block intern.
- [31:58]
C
Yeah, I feel like Robert really is saying. Robert's really saying best meme. Chopping block intern.
- [32:05]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Our social media team is the best follow which is tomorrow chopping block on the intern.
- [32:13]
D
The intern.
- [32:14]
A
Tom, what do you have best meme.
- [32:16]
D
So I thought this meme, not only the aesthetics of it appealed to me, but also is very topical for a year where so much happened and so many things people thought were going to happen kind of happened, but also a lot of things didn't happen and in some ways nothing ever happens. And I think that was very much a theme for the year you thought you were going to get the US Government buying Bitcoin. No, that's not going to happen. Thought you're going to get tariffs. That's not really happening either, but you can believe it for a small period of time, and some might say you could fall for it. And so I really love the Felford Again award meme. Have you seen this? It's really just this template with really high skill, expression, and people have just gone really crazy building all sorts of very elaborate landscapes and portraits using the Fell for It Again award memes. So that's my. That's my meme of the year.
- [33:11]
A
Wow. Spoken like a true meme. Lord. Thank you. That's a. That's a very deep, very deep cut meme. That's like a Michelin starred meme right there.
- [33:19]
D
You need the highbrow and the low brow together.
- [33:21]
A
Yeah, yeah. Oh, I respect that. Okay. All right, next category is Best sl, Worst pivot. I'll go first on this one since I haven't gone first yet. So my vote for Best sl, Worst pivot is Galaxy Pivoting to a data center company.
- [33:38]
B
Oh, this is so close to my one. You're scooping me.
- [33:41]
A
Okay. Yeah. So Galaxy, for those of you who don't know, of course, Galaxy Digital, which is like a crypto merchant bank thing, they thought that the business they IPO'd was a crypto business. Well, it turns out that they acquired this data center company from a bitcoin miner that became this company called Helios, which became a subcontractor to CoreWeave and is now contracting over $1 billion in annual recurring revenue over 15 years. With Core Weave, it is now the lion's share of the enterprise value of Galaxy. Galaxy is now an AI infrastructure company. The crypto business is tiny compared to this gigantic AI bet that they have that's paid off. So good for them. But, yeah, quite a pivot, I'd say. Best pivot. This definitely counts as, like, best pivot in my mind. So that's my vote for best pivot. Tom, what do you have Best worst pivot of 25?
- [34:31]
D
Well, for best pivot, I actually had Eth and Tom Lee, and basically Tom Lee rebranding Eth as stablecoin layer. And I think it was like one of those things that was chatgpt for.
- [34:40]
A
Crypto, chatgpt for crypto.
- [34:42]
D
Anything and everything can be really. But I think it's one of the things where I think people have been very frustrated by the EF's reluctance to embrace DeFi and I think stablecoins as a product of that for so long. And then you just get Tom Lee going on TV and be like, no, this is how people are going to pay each other in the future. What do you mean? This is like the future of finance, and that was kind of all you needed. And so I don't know if it's a pivot. I don't know if it counts, but I think it's sometimes just like having someone almost with beginner's mind, beginner eyes from the mouth of babes or from the mouth of Tom Lee, that's kind of all you need.
- [35:14]
A
Sometimes Tom Lee is kind of a babe. I get it. Robert, what do you got?
- [35:20]
B
Well, this is closely related to Haseeb's already, but I'm going to go with Core Weave. So coreweave was an Ethereum GPU mining company. They were literally mining ether and then everything over time, Ethereum switched to proof of stake. And I don't really know what happened to Core Weave. And then you blink. And Core Weave goes public this past year and is now a $40 billion company because they've pivoted their Ethereum GPU mining business into an AI data center company. And this is a, you know, if you want to take the meme of like, pivot from crypto to AI, this is a true historical pivot from crypto to AI that generated a lot of value. And yes, Galaxy is a subcontractor for Core Weave, but coreweave is the big dog. Right. And they've pulled off an incredible pivot and they have really done something successful there.
- [36:18]
A
So are you a shareholder?
- [36:20]
B
I'm not a shareholder. No.
- [36:21]
A
I. Oh, shoot.
- [36:23]
B
Yeah. If only I could have seen the pivot from crypto to AI.
- [36:27]
A
Yeah. Damn. All right, Tarun, what do you have? Best slash, worst pivot?
- [36:32]
C
Yeah, so this one is a very long time pivot, but I think it's kind of worth remembering that they've pivoted. And I think I have to give this in the best category to Lightr because Lighter is kind of a crazy company by crypto standards. Like, they were founded in 2017 as a networking app for co founders called Lunch Club in San Francisco. In fact, there were like, two of these types of things have led to crypto companies. Like Alchemy was this before and Lighter was this, but lighter, you know, like, in a world where everyone's always talking to you about how fast a company is growing or like, time to X revenue is like three days. This is a Company that took a long road and its company split in two. And the other companies is a successful AI company in Cognition. But they kind of took a long road, went through a lot of different ideas, built this product for a while, coming at it from like, hey, we're a bunch of people who worked in trading, but we also like zk and then, yeah, like they got users, they tged. I think like you can count that as like the full cycle of the pivot getting to this point. And I think, you know, yes, they probably officially pivoted 2024, 2023, but I, I feel like realizing a successful pivot probably is this year.
- [37:58]
A
And so I did not realize that Lunch Club was co founder dating.
- [38:03]
C
That's kind of. It's like. And networking that matches people to like. Yeah, yeah.
- [38:08]
A
It's like so founder market fit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the founder market fit there for Vlad and co founder dating is like so incredibly bad compared to lighter, which is so incredibly good.
- [38:21]
C
But that's why I'm saying later is.
- [38:22]
A
Exactly what Vlad should be building.
- [38:24]
C
This is why I think this is why I'm giving the best pivot.
- [38:27]
A
It's a good pivot. No, no, that's agree.
- [38:29]
C
I also think in crypto, very few companies persist. People constantly start something, toss it off, start a new thing. Right. So it's almost nine years and I think that is something. It's kind of a crazy thing. Most people would have just killed the old company, started a new company, but you sort of kept the cap table some employees over such a long time period in very volatile industries. I think that does sort of deserve a really good pivot story. And like, I think it probably just hasn't been told because I don't know if you want to highlight the co founder dating stuff in 2026 because I don't think that's like, like in 2016. I could see that being in the meta. Right. Like now, I don't think.
- [39:14]
D
Yeah, it's a good one.
- [39:16]
A
Okay, so next category we have coming up on the end here is biggest flop. So something for which there was high expectations did not quite deliver. Biggest flop of 2025. Tarun, why don't you start? What do you got?
- [39:30]
C
I mean, I guess I've said it on the show. I've been on both sides of the iron for it, but definitely October 10th and sort of the liquidation mechanisms. Just like October 10th. Well, liquidation mechanisms flopped.
- [39:45]
A
Liquidation mechanism. Okay, that's your flop.
- [39:47]
C
Like the October 10th event showing the liquidation mechanism. Yeah, showing the ADL yeah, and I fundamentally agree with Don Wilson's point, even though I don't agree with the solution he proposes of like, you're not really going to grow the market 100x unless you fix this. And I think that just showed like how brittle some of these things are, especially in a decentralized environment. And I think it's obviously the biggest thing that has to get fixed if we want 100x volume overall. Like stuff like that for the average user. So. Yeah, but I'm sure I'm going to get a ton of hate in my Twitter, which I have for saying this even, but.
- [40:33]
A
All right, I'll go next. I had for biggest flop of 2025 was AI agents. Obviously we went into the year. Is this a crypto podcast around AI? Yeah, well, I mean like think of virtuals, think of Zera, bro. Think of AI16Z. Like this was everywhere when we started the year and all this stuff is now. It's not just that the tokens went down, it's that it's fucking annoying. Like nobody likes any of these things anymore. It's like, oh my God, it's so good. Look, it's a, it's something that has crypto and it's talking to us on Twitter and now it's just like, oh man, like, tell AXBT to shut the fuck up. Like, I do not want that thing in my comments. So the sentiment shift, but also like the fact that, I mean, obviously the speculative mania has died away, but also just the fact that these things have just really under delivered in terms of value now. It's not to say they never will. It's not to say that AI agents don't matter. Obviously outside of crypto, you know, people are very excited about coding agents and what they can do and the, the ability to automate real valuable economic work. But the idea that they're going to be these token speculative things, I think that is the biggest flop of 25. Tom, what is your pick? Biggest flop 2025.
- [41:43]
D
I always, I kind of don't really love this category because it always feels like we're punching down a little bit. But in this case it is kind of very explicitly. I have Bar Chain. It's hard to remember, but take yourself back a year ago and Bear Chain was one of the hottest up and coming new chains mentioned in the same breath as a Monad or a Mega Eth raising at multibillion dollar valuations. Someone actually posted a picture today of a photo of their token 2049 picture party from last year. That was just mobbed. There were the bear baddies. It was this whole thing. And then they launched the token about a year ago. And it's really been down only since then, I guess down like 90%. And I can't remember the last time I've heard someone mention bearishain to me in earnest. It was the chain that didn't take itself seriously. And then of course, no one took it seriously. And so again, I feel a little bad punching down, but in this case, it is kind of hard to believe that that was just a year ago. So that's my big flop.
- [42:40]
A
Okay, that's. I mean, it's accurate. Robert, what do you have? Biggest flop of 25.
- [42:47]
B
Well, this one will be controversial and it's also a little bit sad. And this is.
- [42:51]
A
Okay, you should curse to sell the controversy.
- [42:54]
B
No, no, no, no, no. This is a flop on a relative basis. Okay, I'm going to say bitcoin because this was a year. Hold on, hold on. Let me explain. Yes, it was only down 6% for 2025, but this is a year that should have been bitcoin's year. Gold was up a very, very significant amount. From a macro perspective, everything was up. Equities rampaged. Right. On a relative bit basis, bitcoin was a flop this year. And that goes for the crypto asset complex.
- [43:28]
A
Maybe we should be counting fiscally. If you do fiscal year, Bitcoin outperform the nasdaq. Sure.
- [43:34]
B
But my expectations were higher. I think the investor class in general was expecting bigger things from bitcoin and therefore crypto in general. This was a very soft year, very soft year when it should have been a very strong year. And so I don't want to give bitcoin the prize, but I think bitcoin is the biggest flop in my opinion for the importance of the asset for the industry.
- [44:03]
A
Okay, fair enough. No, that's a, that's a strong, motherfucking strong answer, Robert.
- [44:09]
C
No cursing on the shelf actually is. Is the flop bitcoin or is the flop the four year cycle, the happening cycle?
- [44:17]
A
Because it's kind of like how is that how. No, that's not a flop. That's like a guarantor. Like, that has been reinforced. The four year cycle came true. No, like, how is that.
- [44:27]
C
I think, I think, I think bitcoin being down on the year for some people is a sign that the happening has lost its impact on supply. Shock. Like no one cares anymore.
- [44:38]
A
But when did the happening happen? Wasn't that years ago?
- [44:43]
D
It was April 2024. So I don't. Not happening.
- [44:50]
A
The four year cycle predicts that this year is the end of the cycle and it should go down.
- [44:55]
C
Right. But there is sort of something weird about the end. This is the part where I like, I haven't really.
- [45:02]
A
All right, we need to get some. We need to get some rainbow charters up on here.
- [45:05]
C
Actually, can we, can we cut my.
- [45:08]
A
No, we cannot. We're keeping that.
- [45:09]
B
No, we're not keeping that out.
- [45:11]
A
We're going to put that in the intro. We're putting that in the intro permanently.
- [45:14]
C
I like. I. Yeah, I mess up.
- [45:17]
A
All right. No, it's good. Perfect. All right. Tarun doesn't care about bitcoin. He has no idea what the four year cycle is.
- [45:23]
C
Yeah.
- [45:23]
A
All right.
- [45:24]
C
I only know Eric Walls rainbow chart. Okay. That's like the only. That's. That's what I live and die by. Die.
- [45:30]
A
Okay. All right, comeback story. Biggest comeback story of 2025. I will go first. I have Biggest comeback story of 2025 is near. So near basically had this renaissance with Intense where all of a sudden now, I mean, it's kind of tied in with the zcash story of zcash coming up Near. I think it kind of been left for dead people like, oh, you know, what does this chain do? What. Who cares about it? All of a sudden it's kind of re. Entered the zeitgeist with the growth of intents. And for anybody who's bought zcash or not everybody, but many people buy zcash because it's not available in a lot of jurisdictions. Precisely the reason why something like Near Intense is attractive is because you can buy any asset on any chain using. Using multi party computation, using Near Intense. So I had come back story Near Trun. What do you have for comeback story of the year?
- [46:18]
C
I have Maple Finance, which if you look at the TVL chart kind of says the entire story, you know, like they've gone through everything, hack issues, counterparty issues, et cetera. But I mean, just look at the chart. I don't, I don't. There's like not that much else to say. Like that chart is very impressive and is a very real comeback.
- [46:41]
A
Yeah. But syrup is the asset you want to look at now.
- [46:45]
C
Yeah.
- [46:45]
A
Because MPL has been.
- [46:47]
C
Sure. Yeah. So I don't mean their token. I mean just like the overall usage of loans associated to Maple, the complex of them. Because like now there's multiple products. But.
- [46:57]
A
Yeah, yeah. Good, good. Robert, what do you have?
- [47:01]
B
This is in my opinion the biggest tether. Tether Is a company that.
- [47:07]
A
What's the people.
- [47:08]
C
Yeah.
- [47:09]
D
Wait, they're the biggest winner last year? I would. Yeah.
- [47:12]
B
No, it's continued, though.
- [47:14]
A
This was a comeback from winning to win again.
- [47:17]
B
Fine. You don't like my controversial pick for biggest comeback?
- [47:21]
A
No, we're sorry. I apologize. I apologize. Please tell us why Tether's the biggest comeback story.
- [47:26]
B
Let's just call it.
- [47:27]
A
Fine.
- [47:27]
B
We'll rephrase this. You ready? Tether as a respected asset and company. This was their comeback year with the.
- [47:33]
A
Trump administration of Tether.
- [47:35]
C
Yeah.
- [47:36]
B
Reputationally, Tether. This is a year where, yes, Tether had a lot of stable coins last year and they were printing money last year, but this is the year where they're out there raising at a $500 billion valuation from U.S. institutions. Okay. This is the Tether comeback year from a reputational perspective and stickiness perspective and acceptance in the broader socioeconomic, political, economic, industrial complex.
- [48:04]
A
They're.
- [48:05]
D
They're no longer the bad boys. That's actually your. Your comeback came back. I was. I, you know, I had really low expectations coming back.
- [48:13]
A
That's good. That's good. I feel like going from biggest winner to biggest comeback, that almost impossible to do, but they pulled it off.
- [48:20]
C
The intern is going to have a field day with this episode.
- [48:24]
A
Yeah. All right, Tom, what do you have for biggest comeback?
- [48:27]
D
I also had the Buybit hack, so I guess it could be a. I.
- [48:30]
A
Was going to say by the. I was like someone else is going to say that, so I'm going to. I'm going to. Going to leave that off.
- [48:33]
D
Yeah. I think sometimes those obvious ones, we actually don't get to because everyone's afraid someone else is going to take it. But, I mean, I feel like getting hacked for a billion dollars and then handling it so gracefully, having that all come back, actually reabsorbing pretty much all the loss in terms of volume and consumer interest. And I just would not have been able to predict that. I think that would have sounded absurd if you told that to someone four or five years ago, that one of the largest exchanges is going to get hacked. But it's actually going to be totally fine. That's like kind of a crazy story and I think speaks to, like, again, how much the industry is maturing and sort of progressing and also just frankly how well they handle it. So props to them.
- [49:11]
A
Good. Very, very good. Okay. Second to last category is favorite chopping block guest of 2025. We had a lot of guests through the year. We had some big heavy hitters. We also had some crazy People who came and joined us on the show. So who do you think? Robert, we'll start with you. Best guest of 2025. Who's your vote?
- [49:32]
B
My vote? Just from a hosting perspective and who I enjoyed the most having on the show. You know, I don't know if this is, you know, your favorite. It probably is, but. Hester Purse, crypto mom, SEC commissioner, leading, you know, the comeback of crypto in the United States of America. Absolute joy to have her on the show. This was early in the year. This is the USA's comeback. You know, we could have picked USA as well, but, you know, she's kind of the vanguard of leading the charge to make the US the crypto capital again. It's almost like having Trump on the show. Yeah. Coming on the tail end of the, you know, the Gensler exit. I mean, that was my favorite guest. You know, I just think it set the tone for the year so.
- [50:19]
D
Well.
- [50:20]
B
And maybe we can outdo ourselves by this year having Paul Atkins on the show. You know, you're invited, Paul, if you're listening. But favorite. Favorite guest.
- [50:29]
A
Yeah, that was great. Tom. Favorite guest.
- [50:33]
D
I thought. I thought I was going to get scooped on this one. I had Joe Weisenthal from Odd Lots.
- [50:38]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [50:38]
C
Early.
- [50:39]
D
Great.
- [50:39]
C
Well, I got scooped some.
- [50:41]
D
Yes.
- [50:42]
A
All right. So all three of us are. Joe.
- [50:46]
C
I mean, we could just. That's fine. We could just all.
- [50:48]
A
Yeah, no, it's true. I mean, if it's true. It's true. Joe is fun.
- [50:52]
D
You know, it takes a professional podcaster to really be a great guest.
- [50:55]
A
It's true. Well, the thing about Joe that I really enjoyed was that he was just so earnestly, like, not in crypto. He was, like, just in crypto enough to know enough to ask good, like, probing questions. And he was game. But. And also because it was in person, it was just like a lot more, you know, flowing than, I think, a lot of the other video interviews. But, yeah, Joe was. Joe was great. He was just like.
- [51:17]
C
I think also having a skeptic who's good at paying at good at, like, framing things is, like, good, because I. I kind of think it's obviously, if you're running crypto podcasts, very easy to have guests who are in crypto or live and breathe every day. Right. But, like, getting someone who's like, every once every hundred things they read is in crypto, maybe less than that, but then, like, has it, you know, gives a good kind of holistic view. I think that's something maybe we can do more of in 26. Because I do feel like that episode came out.
- [51:53]
A
Yeah. I do think it's the vibe of the show that we are kind of crypto skeptics, despite the fact that we're also crypto insiders, is that we talk shit, we call things out, we're very blunt. We're not just cheerleaders for the industry. And I think that's part of the reason why people like the show is that we try to keep it real. At the same time, we are also trying to be positive and constructive on the things that we do think matter, and we don't just try to fall into this vibe of negativity or just criticism for its own sake. But, yeah, I do agree, having somebody who is a competent skeptic is very refreshing and I think very necessary to just be able to hear back, like, here's what it sounds like you guys are doing. Is that what you guys are doing? Because it's kind of what it sounds like. And yeah, we should definitely. I agree. Let's try to find more of that energy in 2026. So. Okay, last section is predictions. And as we're going through predictions, what I want to do is actually go back to what our predictions were for 2025, when we made them at the end of the year in 2024.
- [52:52]
C
Spoiler alert. Not good.
- [52:54]
B
Yeah, I bet.
- [52:55]
A
We're like, zero sucks. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. Okay. We're gonna go. We're gonna go through them one by one. Okay. Because each of us made multiple predictions. So my predictions were that bitcoin is going to hit 150k and then dump. Now, I was kind of right. It did dump, but it did not hit 150k.maxed out at 126. I said that DCI tokens were going to turbo pump. They did. Momentarily. That's what a pump means. A pump can still dump. So they did momentarily, but that didn't totally age well. And then I said, AI, coins go bananas, but little protocol adoption, I'd say, you know, they did go banana. They were already bananas by the end of 2024. So I'm going to say this is mostly partially right, partially wrong. I'll say kind of a mix on that one. Okay, so that was me, Robert, you said that bitcoin was going to hit 180k, so you went up me. So you were more wrong than I was. You did not say it was going to dump. You said that crypto civic legislation would be signed into US Law. Genius.
- [53:55]
B
Accounts genius.
- [53:56]
D
All right.
- [53:56]
B
Yep, yep.
- [53:56]
A
That genius counts. So I'd say that'd be good. AI based system becomes a crypto scammer in a newsworthy way that's gonna be published on the block or on CoinDesk.
- [54:06]
B
I don't think.
- [54:06]
A
I don't think. I don't think so. I don't think that happened. I don't know.
- [54:10]
C
On the other hand, scammers are definitely using AI assistance. So they are.
- [54:16]
A
But like, scammers are using every. Like everyone's using everything. You know, like my assistant is using AI. Does that mean that.
- [54:22]
C
Yeah, no, no, no, I, I agree, I agree. But I'm just saying, like, there's a. We also. It's a little underspecified.
- [54:28]
A
It is a little underspecified. But let's, let's, you know, we, we got to give a. We got to give a fair shake. Okay, so Tarun, yours was more than one app chain slash, L2 merge. I don't think we've seen any mergers. I think that one's a miss.
- [54:42]
C
Yeah, I, I kind of think there were like these consortiums, but yeah, I don't think they're.
- [54:46]
A
Yeah, there's no mergers.
- [54:47]
D
There's no.
- [54:48]
A
Okay, so then you said that agent market capital, at least 5x from where it was, which was 10 billion to 50 billion. Okay, that was your claim. So that I'm going to put that as like, like two, like five wrongs in making that claim. And then you, the last prediction you made was that Salana emissions would decrease by more than 25%. I believe that's also wrong. I believe it didn't pass. Yeah, SIMD228 did not pass. So you are 0 for 3. And then, Tom, your predictions were that a money game is going to go mainstream, viral, as big as the national lottery.
- [55:23]
B
Definitely not.
- [55:25]
A
Did not happen.
- [55:25]
D
No, did not happen.
- [55:26]
A
Did not happen. Next year, you said a new year, lame crypto ETF will launch like XRP or Litecoin. I'll give you that one. XRP ETF launched. XRP ETF launched. Litecoin launched, HBAR launched, DOGE launched. And then you said a massive application level compromise in a library or an application. I think. Yeah, that happened multiple times. There were like supply chain attacks against various libraries.
- [55:49]
D
There's just one, like a week ago, Trust wallet. Right.
- [55:52]
A
That was like a. Yeah, yeah, so you got this one. So I would say the one to do the best is Tom. Tom got two out of three.
- [55:59]
D
I think I need to swing a little bigger, you know, I think, I think these are two base hits.
- [56:03]
A
The supply chain attack was pretty safe. Supply chain attack was pretty safe. But lame crypto etf. I feel like that's little bit more of a reach next time I. But this year I want to do something bold from you like to runs. Okay. I want to hear, I want to hear a 5X. I want to hear a 5X.
- [56:16]
B
All right.
- [56:17]
A
Okay.
- [56:18]
C
I, I feel, I feel like I was bullied into big predictions.
- [56:24]
A
No one file battery claim against the rest of your co hosts. Yeah. All right. Tarun was bullied. Let that let the record show. Okay, so let's do 2026 predictions. Tarun, we'll let you go first so you don't feel bullied. What are your non bullied predictions? Make sure that these are as little influence as possible by potential bullying from the four of us.
- [56:46]
C
Three of us AI generated hack generating greater than $100 million of damage. So I'm giving a number, not just hey, there will be one.
- [56:54]
B
I feel like that's almost already occurred.
- [56:57]
C
Not provably.
- [56:58]
A
Well, people talk about the balancer hack being maybe AI vibe coded. Yeah. Which is 70 million.
- [57:04]
B
Yeah. Almost occurred.
- [57:07]
A
Yeah.
- [57:07]
B
Okay. That's not a huge.
- [57:08]
A
I feel like this is pretty safe. This sounds pretty safe. This does not sound like a 5x. It's not a 5x. That said I'm not bullying you. That said I'm not bullying you.
- [57:15]
C
I'm taking the TOM strategy this year.
- [57:18]
A
Okay. Okay. All right. Safe bet. All right, so 100 million in an AI powered hack. Okay.
- [57:24]
C
I think a non trivial percentage of AI Capex will be funded in stable coins.
- [57:32]
A
Okay, hold on. All right, all right, hold on. These are too vague. All right, give me a point estimate. So you said at least 100 million. Give me an actual point estimate and we'll decide at the end how wrong you are. From that estimate.
- [57:45]
C
Between 1 and 5%. It's like zero now.
- [57:50]
A
Okay, 1 and 5%. Okay, so let's say 2.5% or 3%. 3% of AI funding will happen in stablecoins.
- [57:59]
C
Yeah.
- [58:00]
A
Okay.
- [58:00]
C
That's a big one because that, that's a larger number still.
- [58:04]
A
Okay.
- [58:05]
C
Okay.
- [58:06]
A
All right. Do you have. Okay, the answer is no. It's fine.
- [58:15]
B
You don't need to make.
- [58:16]
C
Yeah, I don't. I, I, I have some bad ones.
- [58:19]
A
I see the computer running. Yeah, it's defragging.
- [58:21]
C
I have some bad ones that I have written and I'm like, I don't really even think they're worth.
- [58:25]
A
You don't want to Tell us. Hold on. You got to tell us the bad ones now.
- [58:28]
C
I mean one, one of the bad ones is like we'll actually have private defi usage grow. Like you know, the zcash. You know my, my trickle down privacy economics thing.
- [58:43]
A
Of course, trickle down privacy economics.
- [58:45]
C
There will be the. That, that will happen somewhere that will happen. I don't know.
- [58:48]
A
Okay, yeah, this sounds like a very. It will.
- [58:52]
C
It will happen.
- [58:52]
A
Difficult to verify. Yeah, very difficult to verify.
- [58:55]
C
It's a bad code.
- [58:56]
A
Okay. That's why I was like, all right, all right. I think that's good. I think that's good. We'll take the two.
- [59:01]
D
I'm really good. Charun is not writing the market descriptions on polymarket because this would just be like uma drama like every single.
- [59:09]
A
That's true.
- [59:10]
C
I think my main thing is I made two precise and large predictions last year and so the natural tendencies gun shy.
- [59:19]
A
That's not good. That's not good. You can't be results oriented. Okay, I'll go next. So I had predict. So obviously every year I write down my predictions. I'm just quoting from some of the predictions I've already made publicly. So my first prediction is that bitcoin is going to go to 150k by year end. Second is that a big tech company is going to launch, slash acquire a crypto wallet. It might not go live, but they will at least announce that they're going to be shipping a crypto wallet. So when I say big tech, I mean one of the top seven big tech companies like a consumer tech, not like a fintech. And then lastly that equity perps will grow to 20% of DeFi per volumes over 2026.
- [59:58]
C
Okay, that's. That one is the big. That's your big one. That's your big one?
- [60:02]
A
Yeah, it's a big one. Okay. Tom, predictions pretty good.
- [60:07]
D
I also had a equity perps one, but I was going to say equity perps for at least one asset will match spot for that asset one day this year. So like you'll have the same amount of volume for like not tokenized spot, but spot. Spot, spot, spot. Yeah.
- [60:22]
A
That'S a big long tail. We're talking about long tail, random stuff that people are putting on chain.
- [60:29]
D
I mean it can be more long tail. I would include.
- [60:33]
C
Have you seen any equity perps for long tail? They don't add long tail right now.
- [60:40]
A
Somebody dumps some long tail thing and then technically trump.
- [60:43]
C
Well, I think everyone's afraid of the or oracle stuff. So there is some bias towards the large cap.
- [60:47]
A
Right, right. That's why. Because somebody could totally, you know. Yeah.
- [60:50]
D
Anyway, I'm aware, I think this, that's why it's.
- [60:53]
A
That's your prediction. That's your prediction. We'll let you have it.
- [60:56]
D
Next one, I think we will see, I'm going to say at least three Dino Chain foundation wind downs. We've obviously already seen like one or two over the past year. I think probably, we'll probably see more if like hey, these things don't actually rally. We're kind of reaching that point where people are running out of funding and maybe there's other better things to do. Maybe token holder revolt, tbd. And then three, there'll be some sort of major scandal about insider trading for a non securities or non sports related prediction market. So there's already kind of rumors about this floating for Maduro. I think something like will actually happen and maybe there'll be a smoking gun and it'll be this whole kind of kerfuffle. So that's my third prediction.
- [61:34]
A
Okay. I'd say that last one sounds pretty safe, but yeah. All right. Because I feel like we, I think we might have already had that in 2026 because Maduro just happened like two days ago.
- [61:44]
D
It's, it's true. But I did write this down before that, so I'm going to count it.
- [61:47]
A
It's more like a retrodiction at this point, but. Okay.
- [61:50]
D
I, I don't want to get scooped by Maduro. That's bullshit.
- [61:52]
A
Yeah. Yeah. The hard, the hard part about predictions is doing them about the future. But. Okay. All right, Robert, what do you have for your 2026 predictions?
- [62:01]
B
I will just read out from what I tweeted on December 31. These are boring. These are not like to the grade that the chopping block requires. BTC and metals, all time high lukewarm crypto industry consolidation, lukewarm market structure.
- [62:20]
A
What does consolidation mean? What does consolidation mean?
- [62:22]
B
There's going to be more M and A. I think we're going to see some like big boys operationalize.
- [62:26]
A
How do we know you're right or wrong?
- [62:27]
C
Give a claim minimum, minimum, minimum acquisition price should be something, you know like I think that's like.
- [62:34]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [62:35]
C
All right.
- [62:35]
B
I think there will be at least $5 billion of crypto M and A this year.
- [62:42]
C
Okay.
- [62:43]
A
Total much. Wait, there was there already been more than 5 billion last year? Yeah, there was way more than 5 last year.
- [62:49]
B
There was, but that was my going to go down. That was my biggest winner from earlier. Earlier in the show was talking about consolidation in 25, and that was like $5 billion, you know, so like 26. Let's go with 10. 10 billion.
- [63:01]
A
Okay. I think there might have been 10 million as well. I think anyway. All right, fine, fine. We'll have our fact check, all right. Because I'm pretty sure, like hidden road was two. Then there was ninja trade, there was like also two, and then there was like, you just added all 15. There we go. Okay, that's. That's a real prediction. That's a real prediction.
- [63:20]
B
Market structure, legislation passes. You know, this is a medium, lukewarm one. You know, I think the odds are good. People say they're 50. 50.
- [63:28]
A
I Polymark. It has it at 75.
- [63:31]
B
Well, that way.
- [63:33]
A
Safe one. Layup. Lay up. That's good. Just take them. Take them where you can get them.
- [63:38]
B
Yeah, and that's pretty much it. I'm not much of a predictor. My track record is.
- [63:44]
A
It's all right. That's how you're going to win next year. That's how you're going to win next year. Okay, that is it. That takes us to 2026. So last thing I guess I'll ask you guys is like, it's been. 25 is harrowing year. We've talked about the ups and downs and all the different little sub dramas that took place over the year. How are you feeling about 2026? Like, what's the vibe? What's the. What do you feel inside going into this new year? And what personally are you setting as an intention for how you're going to be approaching crypto this year? Tom, why don't we start with you?
- [64:14]
D
Yeah, I. I think in the grand scheme of things, 2025 was not nearly as harrowing as like any of the other past years. I think actually one of the least harrowing years in memory. I feel like actually this is kind of more like, you know, when pilots are like setting up their flight plan and they like put all their like, waypoints into the flight, the autopilot, and then the plane kind of just flies itself from waypoint to waypoint. I feel like we already have the waypoints locked in. Everyone kind of knows what the game plan is at this point, more or less. Maybe there'll be some turbulence, maybe it'll be good. I don't know, some wins, whatever. But like, for the most part I've kind of like see what the future could look like. And it's not super exciting, but that's okay. It's good. So I think that's Kind of what I think 2026 is going to be more like is there are fewer unknowns, which is good and bad for the industry. It's just something we haven't really seen before.
- [65:02]
A
Fair enough. Tarun, how are you feeling?
- [65:05]
C
I think last year everyone was like, wait, they're in the middle of the party, took too many drugs and everyone was at the peak high. And then like very quickly, like by April or something, they kind of. Or March maybe, things kind of washed out, started washing out a little bit. And then everyone tried again. They're like, okay, I need a new substance. It's called DATs. And so then they got high off the DATs.
- [65:28]
B
High on DATs.
- [65:29]
C
I got high on deaths.
- [65:31]
A
Yeah.
- [65:32]
C
And then. And so I think there was a lot of substance abuse issues last year with the crypto industry and this metaphorical sense.
- [65:39]
A
That's good. That's good.
- [65:40]
C
So I think this year is the year of temperance.
- [65:42]
A
Straight edge.
- [65:43]
C
Temperance. Yeah.
- [65:45]
A
Okay. I like. Actually, you know what, Robert is a great way to end that off with his no profanity. I think we should make 2026 the year of no profanity. It's a straight edge.
- [65:54]
C
No, that's so hard. That's so hard.
- [65:56]
B
I know that's your resolution. It's all of our resolution.
- [65:59]
A
Robert, what's the spirit with which you're taking 2026?
- [66:04]
B
I'm excited. I think this is a big year. I think we've been saying this for, like years and years, but the institutions are coming in a big way. I don't know about retail. Retail might not be coming. We'll see. The developers are coming. I think there's more use cases that are coming. I think our government is still here. I think legislators are here. I think it's just going to be a great tailwind, bullish environment for the whole ecosystem. And I think we're going to have a very good 2026.
- [66:34]
A
Well, yeah, I will say I'm feeling really optimistic and really energized. I think the fact that as you opened, Robert, prices are reset, it feels like kind of a clean slate. Although 1010 was a very traumatic event, it also is a big, giant reset. And one of the things that I was saying on a previous show, there's a lot of bad sentiment, horrible vibes, especially in November. And there's a lot of talk from people who are leaving the industry. And one of the things that I said at that time is that actually this is necessary, this is good, because the people who are disillusioned and who can no longer fight. Those people need to go home for the war to continue. And it's like, okay, we got to stop. We got to regroup. We got to make sure nobody's left behind. But we chopper them out of here and we move forward. And so, yeah, my feeling is that 2026 is going to be a fucking great year. So I'm feeling good.
- [67:26]
B
If only you didn't curse.
- [67:27]
A
Sorry. Yeah, if only. Okay. Starting now. Starting now. Now is the moment that 2026. Trul. No more cursing.
- [67:35]
D
January 6th, when Haseeb celebrates the new year.
- [67:37]
A
January 6th is fiscal year.
- [67:39]
B
You're going to have a cursing dry January. Okay.
- [67:43]
A
All right. I'm going to work on this.
- [67:44]
C
That seems easier than the whole year.
- [67:47]
A
Yeah.
- [67:48]
C
Yeah.
- [67:48]
A
Well, I'll start with January, and then we'll work up to see if we can do it for all of 2026. Okay, that is it from us. We'll be back next week. Thank you, everybody for tuning in as always, and we look forward to enjoying 2026 and explaining it all along the way.