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$BTC Vs Stocks, MicroStrategy Lawsuit, L1s, Memes & More!
Recorded: May 23, 2025 Duration: 0:35:27Space Recording
Short Summary
In a recent discussion, crypto experts analyzed Bitcoin's price volatility around all-time highs, the impact of institutional investments like MicroStrategy's on market growth, and the potential for traditional assets like gold to outperform crypto in the coming months. The conversation highlighted emerging trends and the influence of macroeconomic factors on the crypto landscape.
Full Transcription
Thank you. you
right
okay Thank you. you hey guys let's wait for more people to join the space and also for ryan to join as well all right and just join okay i think we can get started with the introductions um for the space uh welcome
everyone my name is sergio i'm a bd manager at phimex i'm also your host for today's phimex space
before we start remember questions are more than welcome.
Feel free to request to speak or ask your questions in the comment section of the space.
Today we're having a few recurring speakers who join our Phemex spaces.
CVS, how are you doing CVS?
I'm good, thank you very much. I'm i'm all good great and ryan what's up
i think ryan's it's getting um just the speaker
um authorization so let's go now to federico. Federico, are you there?
Hey guys. Yes. Yeah, this is Federico. I'm the CEO at Femex. Great to have CBS and Ryan with us today. They are two of the most knowledgeable traders to follow on X. So yeah, looking forward
to hear what they have to say about the markets. Awesome. Ryan, your mic is all good right now?
awesome right in your speak your uh mic is is all good right now uh you tell me how's it sound
yeah i can hear you okay cool okay let's get right into it guys um we have a pretty um
moot morning today um so i wanted to ask you guys what are your thoughts on the bitcoin price action
um this week and and today with the all-time high that we just had, maybe CBS can start.
Yeah, sure. So from my perspective, it's very simple. Lower timeframe, it's very choppy.
It's very volatile. Markets tend to do this whenever we're approaching all-time highs.
It's not isolated to just Bitcoin. It tends to be every market. Whenever we're approaching all-time highs, it's not isolated to just Bitcoin.
It tends to be every market.
Whenever we get within that boundary of all-time highs, a few percent away from it, the market tends to increase in volatility.
And we've seen that over the course of the last week.
But the higher time frame and the simple view of the market is that BTC is very strong.
Any market that is approaching
all-time highs in price discovery quite evidently is a very strong market. So at its core, from a
higher timeframe, BTC very strong, lower timeframe, you have to be prepared to deal with increased
levels of volatility and kind of whipsawing around. And Ryan, we recently had a tariffs announcement today by Trump to the European Union.
It seems like we're at the mercy of Trump's remarks again.
So what are your thoughts on that and also on the Bitcoin price action related to that?
Yeah, I think the market is kind of like over Trump's rhetoric induced volatility. I think if it was legit, like if EU
tariffs were going to be 50% on June 1, like the market wouldn't just be down a few basis points.
I think these are like really good opportunities to trade if you're trading the ES or the NQ when
you have these kind of like brief, you know, vol induced dislocations. But I think at this point, like the market has had kind of
enough with Trump's tariff talk. And I think it's kind of, it's extremely unlikely that tariffs would,
in their current form, be able to persist and not leave markets absolutely destroyed. And I don't
think that really, I don't think at the end of the day that he really wants that or anyone around him really wants that. So, I mean, if it was the case, then, yeah, I think crypto would probably resume its tighter correlation to risk assets.
But the S&P is above the 200-day, so still good.
I think the importance is the shrugging off of that news this morning, which markets are doing decently right now.
BTC is back above the all-time
high. I think like CBS said, and I've been saying this the last couple of weeks in chat, that around
these levels, flows just get really wonky. You got a lot of emotional flows, like a lot of preloading
because all-time high is going to break and that positioning is really sensitive and closes out
every 10 minutes. And then you get people that are shorting and de-risking because it's like one of
the best contextual levels you could do that. And again, closing out at any sign of upward movement.
So it's a really choppy area, but I think it's also an area that again is like a switch, not a
dial. Like if you're through the all-time high and you're closing through the all-time high on like
a higher timeframe structure, it's kind of one of those things where you could be late to it and still
be early. So if we get like everything that takes place right around the level right now is not
really my concern. If we're a week from now, two days, we close the weekly out. It's like one of
the only times where I really lean heavily on like time above a level versus like paying more
attention to like the more granular flow stuff. And if we're
closing above the level, I think it's clear as day that the trend is your friend. And the
all-time high levels are usually pretty actionable across the board in any market. This is a fast
return to one. But if we're above the level, we have a lot more plumbing to allow people to buy
this market now. And there's definitely a lot of interest because the derivative market this time around is way different. Implied
volatilities are really low. This is a complete different market structure. The pickup since
April 2nd is notable in ETFs. It's not like part of a basis trade. You haven't seen the same
corresponding change in the CME products to reflect that open interest. So yeah, I mean, above it,
it's good. Below it, I'm like, okay, it's a switch. If we're below it and we're having trouble,
I'll back off of it. If we're above it, then I'm happy to... BTC exposure is not really my concern.
I'd rather be in some of the... I've at this point become a Bitcoin maxi, but I want to find the
things that are jumping much hotter off of the pan than BTC.
And CVS, there's just been a lot of buzz around the Hyperliquid's well position, the Bitcoin position.
How do you see it playing out?
Are you keeping track of this?
Like, I don't know. I mean, like the position's a position.
You know, there's a ton of reasoning for that and, you know, a ton of theory about that.
And, you know, realistically what matters is, you know, the individual involved and motives for doing so, purely money, increasing awareness, marketing, whatever.
Like, it's one of those things that from my perspective, it's, you know's largely irrelevant from my day-to-day life.
So yeah, not something I'm paying a great deal of attention to.
Ryan, have you kept track of the flows from this guy and how has that impacted the market?
Yeah, it's actually, I've been pretty focused on it.
One, because it's like the thing that everyone's focused on. And it could be
a major distraction because there's a lot of times when something like this can be completely offset
in another venue, right? And it could be a throwaway position. This is a position that's
large enough to where it's not a throwaway position, right? But technically, if someone
wanted to fill a spot position, the cost of capital in the futures market is obviously much lower,
and they could throw away a certain amount of capital just to create some kind of response,
elicit some kind of response by positioning in the futures market to get people to kind of pile
in behind. Obviously, it's not that case because this is a significant amount of money. But I think
there is something that is notable about it. And it's just, it's one time where we know that there is one participant getting in and getting out numerous
times over the last week. And we've been able to track their footprint and see,
this is where they put a position on. This is the amount that the market moved. This is the
market's impact. This is where they took the position off. This is the market's impact.
And I think leading up to the all-time high break, the one thing that I was saying was that This is the market's impact. This is where they took the position off. This is the market's impact.
And I think leading up to the all-time high break, the one thing that I was saying was that when he was taking the position on and off or reducing slightly, we're seeing things reduce
slightly, that there was way less of an impact on the downside than there was an impact on the
upside. So it was just giving you some kind of indication as to the path of least resistance,
at least in the short
term. So, you know, at this point, like, I don't think it's important, but it was just one of those
things where it was something that you could you could take note of in terms of just seeing where
the market was sticky, which was the bid side, which was up to this point anyway, because Coinbase
and Binance were like sellers almost all the way up but there was one large or a few large
counterparties that were just holding the market higher regardless and federico how do these um
users like big whales affect the order books in exchanges yeah um a few days ago we had a user
getting stopped out on btc margin margin for a position of around 60 million.
And I think you can make a comparison
in terms of the size of the open interest
that is kind of like similar
in terms of like the effect of that position.
So for us, it was 60 million
getting stopped out on BTC margin
and we weaked around 2% lower than other exchange.
So it's not the end of the world.
I think hyperliquid is well fairly liquid
to handle this kind of position.
It will be a significant stress test
in case it does get stopped out.
So yeah, basically it really depends on the market makers.
But as Ryan mentioned, I think it's very interesting how this is playing out since the position is extremely public, something we have seen becoming more common with the GMX and other platforms.
So I'm kind of surprised that it hasn't been somewhat targeted more.
Maybe we have seen fewer aggressive market makers since Alameda stopped being openly in the order book.
I was fairly sure it would have been liquidated before we hit all-time high.
It seemed like a pretty obvious target.
But yeah, maybe as I mentioned, there are other positions offside somewhere else.
So that would explain why.
Got it.
I wanted to touch upon as well the stock market.
I see CBS is short in the S&P.
So CBS, can you tell us more about this short? Is it a hedge or is it an independent trade
that you're looking into?
Yeah, just an independent trade on this one. It's just a very simple kind of
divergence structure just from a systematic perspective. So just a loss of
momentum across these highs, very good opportunities to take the short side. I am absolutely net long
and so this is very much just a short term trade. But we've been in a little bit more of a fortunate
position probably this time in terms of crypto moving to the upside while the indexes have been
have been selling off and so um at least there's been a kind of a bit of jewel protection there
fortunately for for this position but yeah short term just to try and capture some of the correction
here but you know largely you know with with what ryan was saying at the start you know this is still
a market from my perspective that i feel confident about. I still think that it looks good. The only concern that you would raise about the
indexes at this point in time from a very simplistic view of the market would be the
potential for some form of higher timeframe, lower high through here. But again, you're weeks away from having any actionable
information on that basis. So for now, short term trade. And I still think that this is a market
that warrants being a dip buyer on. Moving on to Michael Saylor. I saw a tweet yesterday from
Crypto Chase stating that it's getting increasingly harder to short BTC due to this constant bid from MicroStrategy.
How are you guys looking into MicroSailor?
Do you think it's a net positive for Bitcoin as its cost basis continues to increase?
CBS, you can go ahead with this one as well.
Yeah, I don't know if I can answer the
question whether or not I believe he's a net positive or not. I think the investment
kind of, I guess, can't at this stage be something that I would take any grievance with. It's a great investment from his perspective.
And my only concern, I guess,
would maybe be on the behavioral side of Sailor
and what that potentially has the impact of doing
or potentially in terms of what holdings
are being generated here in terms of attack points.
And we know about the lawsuit recently and
unrealized losses and everything else that's been going on in MSTR. And it's a huge amount that's
going on in terms of the underpinnings of the company as well to how they're facilitating BTC
on the books and the level to which they're doing that. It's a situation in which I don't think we'll escape from. I think there'll always be
news and volatility around MSTR. MSTR is up, I believe, like 2,800% in the last five years.
It's an unbelievable vehicle in the stock market for exposure. I don't know how the story ends.
And I don't know how the story ends.
I don't know whether or not it's a bad ending or a good ending.
But I highly, highly suspect that there will be multiple twists and turns along the way as MSTR develops.
And price of BTC fluctuates in due course as well.
Got it. And Ryan, how do you incorporate micro-saillor's bids into your own trading style or strategy?
I mean, I don't think necessarily it's as useful in the low timeframes anymore, because I think there's many times where there are counterparties that are willing to offset his flow.
to offset his flow. But I think that it does have a significant impact on prices from the mid to,
I guess, short to midterm, not the very short term, though.
Sailor is someone that does kind of freak me out because, again, he is like the Eggman. He has
more supply than I think most people have in any other market of a single
asset, right? And as someone coming from an outsider position, not like a CEO who controls
like, you know, a ton of stock of the company that they started. So it is kind of like unnerving,
I guess. But I think he's structurally okay for quite a bit. I think that he's inspiring like a bunch of other people to follow in his footsteps.
And I think all of those things, it can't be like you can't understate the effect that that has in a market that has a really low float.
Like Bitcoin's float is radically smaller than most stocks.
People, when they compare like the market cap of BTC,
they compare it to the large caps. For example, it just overtook, I think, Amazon as the fifth
largest asset in the world. But its effective float is drastically smaller than any major stock
that's trading. So a lot of it is lost. A lot of it is controlled by entities that have no intention of
turning over. 60% of it hasn't moved in a year. Now it's being picked up by ETFs. So when someone
actually comes into the cash market or the spot market and lifts it, that has a significant effect on the underlying. Like the idea is that essentially.
So the the turnover in like large caps like Tesla or Apple or or Amazon dwarfs BTC.
Right. And if if someone wanted to buy more BTC because of the limited supply, you almost have to see it move higher to create new sellers.
because of the limited supply, you almost have to see it move higher to create new sellers.
So I think these are things that if they, as long as the parties getting involved now are
structurally set up like Sailor, where they're not in risk of liquidation in the near future,
then it's great because it will have a drastic impact on the underlying. I don't know what it
means like the next five to 10 years, but you want people to come in and buy something that has a low float because again, it's just a very
basic supply and demand dynamic.
Okay. Now moving on to other chains or tokens, I wanted to ask, let's start with CBS.
From CBS, which layer one chart currently has your attention?
CBS, which layer one chart currently has your attention?
Good question.
I don't know how focused I would be on the layer one side of things.
I mean, from my perspective, I don't know if I would be too deep there.
I mean, the best-looking chart for me from my perspective,
like higher timeframe, and this stems all the way
from kind of a weekly into a monthly,
so I really am talking at the upper range of higher timeframe here
is still Sol.
I still think that Sol is one of the best looking higher timeframe charts just from a simplicity
perspective of the monthly holding on to a very key level of $125, the weekly holding on to $130s,
the lower timeframes reclaiming that level quite convincingly. From my perspective,
that's still set up as kind of one of the easiest, simplest charts. And even the reaction today from a lower timeframe perspective so far has been relatively decent in terms of picking back up towards the 180s after trading significantly lower.
So from my very simple view of the market right now, I still think that that is higher time frame spot positioning-wise,
one of the more attractive pieces. But I know that people also feel very strongly at the moment
about ETH versus Sol. I've seen many people make a case for why this time has to be different and
this time ETH will be the outperformer. But I guess that is to be seen.
Primeeth will be the outperformer, but I guess that is to be seen.
Got it.
And Ryan, what about you?
I mean, Hyperliquid, another layer one just broke yesterday.
A new all-time high.
Are you looking into that chart as well?
Or are you focusing on smaller tokens?
I mean, so my fast answer that I would mockingly say, I don't know what the fuck a layer one is.
And I'm obviously being facetious, but in my language, I don't I never think like this.
Like, I don't really make any kind of idiosyncratic assessments into into any of these projects.
I think that if you make an assessment,
it has to be off of like what is capturing mindshare.
So, you know, Hype and Solana,
definitely capturing more mindshare than ETH as of late.
But like to be just as objective as possible,
my filters for the market are a few technicals and it spits out a list of assets and it's very simple. It's
what has been performing over the last month, what lines up on a weekly performance basis,
what's high relative volume, and then the list has to be incorporating things that are,
at least from a trend standpoint, to get behind momentum moves, have their 20 over their 50 and
the RSI is above 60. And then I just get spit out a
list that's like 30 pairs and I sort from there. So maybe it's an L1 that's at the top of that at
some time. But for the most part, you're going to see that that category or the area to focus on in
this market hasn't been to make like idiosyncratic investments into or fundamental thematic trades
into, you know, L1s or one particular project over another that have been
around for a while. It's just to chase where most of the market is interested, which has
categorically been memes, 4chan stuff, and then AI, a semi-distant second. And then everything
else is pretty much doesn't justify the lack of beta to hold.
So, you know, what is at the top of the list?
Where are people most active?
It's the meme stuff.
So, you know, unless this market sees a massive influx of new people that existed under a rock
and never been familiar with crypto, you expect that the preferences of the people here will remain constant.
It's not like we're going to go from a group of people that love iPhones to suddenly, you know, they're switching over to Androids the next day.
So, you know, I can't really tell you much about L1s or L2s or anything with that regard because
I don't have the bandwidth, one. And then, two, the market does a good job, I think,
of communicating where it's interested in trading. And that's kind of where I want to trade to.
So are there any specific meme
coins now that you're talking about the meme coins that are worth keeping an eye on in your list?
You were talking about the 20-day SMA. Maybe you can elaborate a little bit more on that.
Yeah, no, I think the meme coins have been. So what you want to see is that ideally that you have a consistency in what is the strongest off of it, like an intraday low, for example.
And if you look back over the last month's performance, which is not something that's like really transient, right? Things that have done really well have continued to do well on every single bounce. So, you know, your your mudangs, your chill guys, your cookie is a new project.
That's not a meme, but is at the top of my list. Nero, you have virtual, which is more related to
AI. You have Mog, you have SPX coin, which is these are things that I have no interest in
making long term bets in. But they are really technical to trade because there's a bunch of other retail people
trading this. And it's not a bunch of wannabe citadels trying to enter in a trade. So during
times of momentum, these seem to be the most favorable areas to focus on. And it's been
consistent. They've stayed at in relatively the top 20, top 15 of my list now for the last month. And I've just run the filter every single morning for the most part. And I think
that that communicates a lot. The problem with these is like, if you're trading them, and you're
looking at them on a high timeframe, you know, it's some of them are a little bit intimidating
because they're up quite a lot. But the mistake is often that you look at the things
that are up a lot in this market and then you just kind of look for like the third derivative
of that somewhere else. You know, what's related to it? What's like the 10th permutation of PopCat?
And it just would pay more often than not to just buy PopCat if it's been leading and to buy PopCat
on the retest or Farpoint on the retest rather than look for, you know, the the one million market cap
pair that's semi related. It might be the next one. But yeah, I mean, I think the names have
stayed relatively stable, honestly. Fartcoin, for example, I think I probably deserve a ton
of hate from all the bookmarks I created by sharing the euthanasia roller coaster, which
applies like pretty much across the board to most alts,
if you zoom out.
But Farcoin has been exceptional.
At the same time, I was talking about Farcoin and hype
as being the best areas to focus on.
I just was under-allocated to Farcoin.
But yeah, no, it stayed relatively consistent.
consistently consistent. It'd be hard to not see what is doing well right now.
It'd be hard to not see what is doing well right now.
And CBS, you mentioned that you're very good at catching trends instead of catching
bottoms. How do you do that? Today I woke up and I got stopped on two trades. I think
it's because my stop loss is very tight. And with these trending markets, I guess you have
to be more flexible with your stop loss. Is that what you mean? Yeah, so I think it probably relates to a couple of things. What we were discussing at the start
of the space is when we're talking about the fact that BTC is very volatile around these levels.
So we're still very reactive in terms of the lower timeframe moves. And we also know that
you add that volatility into a market that people already feel as though they need to catch an entry
on, whether or not it's need to catch an entry or they want to try and make some money in the short
term. And so typically what tends to happen is people run tighter stops so they can up leverage
and increase position sizes to take advantage of the current climate. And again, with BTC volatility
being higher than average because we're trading around
that all-time high region and because the market likes to be aggressive and to run these areas when
we are trending upwards, usually is a bit of a recipe for kind of that tight stop approach
whenever we're trying to catch some of these moves. So the post about Fartcoin is really just a case of, you know, there have been multiple times over the last, well, 2025 and at the tail end of 2024,
where there are just very clear signs that the market has changed in terms of its trajectory or its momentum or its structure.
And, you know, I'm usually very solid at, you know, actually executing at those moments and then letting the trade play out.
And Farccoin is a good example.
It's more difficult to try and time that bottom.
The swings are very strong on that market.
And so in terms of actual risk percentage there, you have to be very careful because the swings are very, very strong. And
when we have volatility around big selling days, it can take two days and suddenly we're trading
back above a 20% red candle. It's a very aggressive market to try and be trading. But when
the tides turn, it's usually something that you make a low leverage trade on or you buy spot for,
and you can pretty much just sit and hold that position and be comfortable from that point
onwards. And the other example of that was probably when BTC broke out of the last eight
month consolidation region that it was in. And that sort of 67-ish level went finally,
and we did the big move up then to the six figures. And that, again,
was another very clear moment in time where we had seen a shift in the market. Momentum was now
back to the upside. We clearly seen that breakout of that structure. And one of the things that I
try and stress a lot of the time is you should try and just believe the market where possible.
When you think a market is breaking out, we had some great questions in the stream this week about
always getting caught in fake outs of markets. And my advice is really just believe what you see,
believe what the market tells you. And if it doesn't work out that's unfortunate you know it was a good trade
with a good idea that didn't play out but a lot of people sit there and they don't action then when
the market is making something quite simple for them because they're nervous about you know this
being a fake out or not being able to get that momentum to the upside so basically believe what
the market paints to you and dial down the leverage
a little bit, especially in these conditions, because otherwise it gets painful when you're
trying to chase profit because you think everybody else is doing well.
Yeah, totally true. And Federico, going back to the trend of trading in tokens during this cycle. Have we seen some significant volume this past month
with all the uptake of the memes again?
Yeah, it's interesting because as Ryan mentioned,
some meme coins really attract retail volumes.
So we've seen in the past couple of years,
Pepe, of course, Doge before that.
And even now we see some MIM coins that tend to have real traders behind them,
like Nero, for example, Brett also, while some others,
they seem to be purely traded by some internal market makers on some major
exchange, just trading back and forth.
And in those cases cases the price action is
basically entirely manufactured so the price is moving but no one is really trading them i would
say um so yeah i would say generally uh some tend to have a community that really trades or attract
retail interest that like the volatility while some other seems to be more like just uh kind of
while some other seems to be more like just kind of a vehicle for market makers selling off
after an initial maybe week or month of hype behind the new meme.
So, yeah, it's a very difficult market to trade.
Like the rotations are very fast and very few tokens are actually kind of elected as winners in the long term.
actually kind of elected as winners in the long term.
Okay, now moving on to the last topic.
I wanted to get from Ryan and CBS any controversial take that they may have,
even for quarter two, one that other people may not agree with you
or maybe going against the grain.
Ryan, do you have any?
No, I don't have really any controversial take.
I'm pretty boring.
I think that it doesn't make sense to be too contrarian in Q4
because Q4s are historically just better times to be in the market.
No, Q2, sorry.
Oh, Q2?
Oh, I could see us still putting in a longer consolidation
in this all-time high break being a brief
deviation above the highs.
And a couple of things might stand out.
There is a lack of interest in the options market.
There's a little bit more interest in call overriding.
There is a quicker response back up to the highs.
So, you know, usually all-time high breaks are some of the, you know, the most positive EV trades
you can get, but time under the level makes a big difference. So last summer was such a clear trade
to get behind in November because of the level was so clean. This is a really violent move back
to the level. And I think it's also predicated on whether or not the stock market continues to do really well over the summer.
So yeah, I mean, I could see, you know, this maybe being some kind of amalgam of 2021 and
last summer, like however that leaves us. I think that the market has definitely changed from ETF
moving forward. So I think the violence of prior cycles is going to be something that is more or less
muted over time as new longer term asset managers who are less price sensitive are getting involved
and smoothing things out.
But yeah, I could see this possibly moving up to 120, topping between here and 120.
And then we're doing the same old, same old in
the summer. And you try to buy the July lows, wherever those are. And if you want to come back
after Labor Day to be part of the more volumous trend, that's probably my most controversial take.
But above the level, I'm not going to fight the market.
And CBS, are you going to be enjoying the summer or are you going to be actively
trading during the summer?
No, I think, you know, again, we know historically lower volatility during that patch, whether
or not global climate really lends itself to a quieter summer, we'll see. But no, from
my perspective, I did quite a lot of business on the TradFi side of things
during the sell-offs.
So I kind of hope to be a little bit more relaxed over the summer.
I don't really see any reason to be over-trading this patch.
Again, I think that Ryan's right in terms of the potential
for the response through these highs
and his kind of more controversial take on the market, which I know it isn't that controversial,
but it's a valid point, I think, in terms of how we might trade through this zone.
I think that if I probably was to add anything in on the more controversial side of things,
I would probably say that I think that gold and silver are not done on the TradFi side of things.
It's something that we saw quite a lot of aggression on the gold side when we started having the tariff discussions.
And gold went into price discovery first.
And there were lots of memes about gold's outperformance versus BTC. I don't think that trade's done. I don't think gold and silver are done on that side.
And so if I was going to go for a relatively controversial take, I would say that I still
think that gold and silver have the potential to outperform the majority of crypto, certainly
over the summer months and towards that latter part of the year.
Awesome. Well, I think that's everything for today, guys. Thank you very much for your time.
Please follow our guests on Twitter. And if you want any deeper insights, consider joining CBS
Telegram group as well as The Haven and also ryan's workshop i just wanted to throw this out
femex is sponsoring a few slots for his discord workshop group um so consider uh doing that as
well if you if you are interested and and yeah thank you ferrico as well uh appreciate those
who tune in today and i hope to see you again in the next space thank you guys
