I wanted to start with the obvious, which again, I want to be clear, I am now a holder of Bitcoin.
But it is funny, it's been a week. It's been a full week, David.
I don't know, are the net new inflows in the room with us right now, David? Are they here?
The quadrillion is coming today. They told me they're coming at around 2pm.
Now, I think the outflows from GBTC are very strong, which makes a lot of sense because of the fee structure at GBTC, which pales in comparison to all the other ETFs that are out there.
And so, there's a lot leaving, and then there's obviously a lot moving. The inflows into the ETFs have been very strong by ETF measures.
And I don't think, obviously, the push downward is not a great look for the asset class.
It's going to take more time because of that push downward post ETF for the asset class to gain the recognition that it desires or that people wanted to get from traditional finance folks.
But again, I don't think when crypto is flying high, I get too excited either.
I think most of us that speak here on this space are in it for the wrong term for very fundamental reasons.
For fast money people, this has got to be whatever. This is their roller coaster ride.
I mean, that's the way fast money works in very volatile asset classes. So, they're getting what they expected, obviously, to the downside, not to the upside.
But so be it. For those of us that are in it for the wrong term, do I think it's buying opportunity? I do.
I think my price target for the year is still $100,000. Again, not investment advice.
But I do think that this could be a major, major year for crypto, maybe more so for Bitcoin than Ethereum, even though they talk about an Ethereum ETF.
It's going to get louder as things settle down. But nevertheless, like I said, I'm in this for the long term.
Downward pressure sucks. But it's just even if it were a month we were talking about, it still wouldn't be something so scary.
This is a week. And like you said, again, I'm obviously spin the other side of the story, but that's really genuinely how I feel about this.
Sure, I'd rather see upside momentum. But on the other side, it's not like we're seeing crashing.
We're just seeing a fair amount of weakness. And for those that care about the asset class, it's buying opportunity.
And we'll see how things go after we reach a point of stability.
So agreed. I will say I wanted. One thing I was thinking about is that it's helpful to be transparent because people ask me at what point did I get in.
And like I said, I got in over the winter. So, you know, really, it was after a few conversations with Scott Melker.
We were discussing the fact that it's uncorrelated. I made the decision to go down this road and get about about one percent, it's a little bit less than one percent of my overall portfolio that includes all the exit funds from Schoology and everything.
And so that's my total net worth now in Bitcoin. I will say that I bought it around thirty eight something. I can look up the numbers, but somewhere around thirty eight, nine.
And when it was reaching right before the ETF, I considered and I was like, no, Donish, you did not buy this to pump and dump.
Right. Now, that would have probably been the right move. But in it, in essence, I want to tell people before I do it, that when we get closer down to that same range when we're in the thirty eight thirty nine, which we are going to go to probably,
I will probably increase my holdings significantly. I'm just letting everybody know now before I do it, because for me, it doesn't matter if he even goes down to twenty.
Right. I'm like, if I truly believe in the asset class, which I do, not because there's some fucking beautiful thing about it, David, I believe in it because it reacts differently to the markets.
And when the markets are acting in, you know, when we are in risk off, it acts like gold. When we're risk on, it acts like tech.
That is a very interesting dynamic that we have seen. And I've evaluated the charts for the last few years. And it seems like that's the dynamic that it has settled on.
Now, once institutional assets come in, am I worried that it's going to start acting like growth? Yes, I am worried it's going to start acting like growth.
By the way, that's the biggest worry that any the coin holder should have is that not that it acts like gold, but acts like growth.
If it acts like gold, that's great. I'm bearish on the long term. But if it starts acting like growth, then we should all be worried. Right.
Because growth is much more cyclical and much more concerning. So I think like, you know, that that's sort of the and I know, David, I think you think that once institutional money comes in, it's going to act like gold, which is also not good in some ways.
But at least it's it's less volatile than growth. And so that's my game plan.
Just want to make sure that everybody knows before I do it. So I don't seem like I'm like speaking after the fact, because I did this time, this time I did when we went on break.
I did go and buy some and didn't tell anybody. And then afterwards, I was like, oh, by the way, I bought some.
But so I wanted to be ahead of it this time, just so that people know where I'm coming from. I'm going to be speaking my book.
And again, I will caution buying if people remember, even after I bought, I will caution buying because you need to be careful about how much of your asset portfolio is in this type of an asset.
It is an unknown asset. It's an unknown entity. But I just wanted to be clear about that. Joe, I'll go to you and then Emma. Go ahead, Joe.
Yeah, real quick comment. I think I'm the only one who doesn't own any just a real quick comment.
Well, well, Justin, it's probably a good idea for you to make your own decisions. Right. So I'm happy that you don't own any because that means that you're making an independent decision.
And I wouldn't recommend people own anything unless they have like a real thesis behind it.
It's really, really dangerous to make moves just because other people are making moves.
In fact, that's how everybody loses money. So I actually like the fact that you're being independent minded on this.
Again, my reasoning was that it's specifically a technical reasoning. It's not like I don't believe in the asset class long term.
If the asset class starts acting a certain kind of way, then like, for example, right now, it has a very specific look to it.
If you look at gold right now, it's very obvious. So I'm happy to like kind of walk through that. But that was my thought process, Justin.
Josh, we were on the other the crypto space. And I think just only me and you were saying it's headed down here. And I think we came at it from different angles, though.
Back in October, there was a poll and it was what we see 35 again before the end of the year. And I was saying, yes, of course, this is the most transparent asset class there is.
You can look at on chain data and October institutions were buying it up and it wasn't reflecting the price because the supply was high.
Supply is what impacts the price the most when it comes to Bitcoin. And look, things inflows are up.
It's the greatest ETF launch ever. I do think what me personally, not financial advice, I'm going irresponsibly long.
When it gets between 36, 32, if it goes that far, if it goes above 40, I'll buy in also, but not irresponsibly. So it is transparent.
That's the thing I really like about it. And my thesis is you can see the data, you can look at the numbers, you can look at the inflows, you can see what happens when people start buying it up.
The fact the price is down right now is just because of supply. Now I forget the symbol of the people who are selling to get back in.
It always takes a month or two after supply starts getting bought up for price to go up. And I think we're in for a massive run and Bitcoin repeats itself over and over and over.
I've made a lot of bad calls thinking it's not going to repeat itself this time. And this year, I've gotten it right almost every time and anytime I'm on one of the stages because I just go back to the chart of the last cycle.
And that's what it does every time. If you look at 2017, three months before the halving, there was a mid cycle top. It came down 20% and then it started to pump again. And that's what I expect this time also.
But 20% down from the high here being 49. It didn't hit 50, it was 49, right? That was the high?
Yeah. That would be 39. So again, in that range that we were discussing and the halving for people that don't know has to do with mining and how much additional will be released. And every time it's half.
Sorry, Joe. I don't know if that's the best way to explain it, but that's the simplest.
Yeah, I mean, that's a good way to explain it. It's just the amount of work that needs to be done to get one Bitcoin increases by double.
Exactly. So essentially, it's the opposite of what the US government does. Go ahead, Emma.
Doesn't that mean transaction fees go up like a ton?
No, not necessarily. The computation goes up, but typically what happens is that's kind of offset. But that doesn't mean transaction fees go up.
Also, Emma, no one does transactions with Bitcoin. That's like the biggest lie. Bitcoin is not really a currency. It's just like a holding. People speculate.
I don't know. I mean, I read a lot about stuff going on. This is before the whole Ukraine-Russia war, but arms dealers in Russia and stuff, and they have to turn down.
Yeah, sure. There's like 35 transactions for like billions.
But my point is like day to day, no one's going and buying groceries with Bitcoin. You know what I mean? They like to believe it is. People like to believe that it's like that.
But that's just like a farce and a lie from the crypto industry. If you look at transaction activity for Bitcoin versus market cap, it's just like a ridiculous multiple, which by the way would not exist for any other currency.
So it's not really a currency. It's a speculative asset. I don't want to go into this.
There are a lot of people like me, for example, where I hold my expendable cash, let's say, in Bitcoin, and then I use my credit card, which automatically transfers it into fiat and then use it that way.
But yes, I am using fiat. I'm not using Bitcoin to buy it.
Exactly. So it's not a real currency. It's a store of value. Again, I don't want to go too technical because I know that people freak out about Gensler and how awful he is.
But that's actually not the case in this specific situation. Like you literally said that it's because of the fact that no one in the Bitcoin world has done a good job of figuring out the transaction problem and the availability problem.
It's not if people are working on a Bitcoin cash and others, but it's just like not again, I don't even look at it that way. It's just a technical asset for me.
That's just how it's like looking at platinum or something. But Paul, your thoughts?
Yeah, thanks, Donish. I mean, ultimately, Bitcoin is a commodity, right? So it's a commodity, you know, like crude oil, right?
So you can buy it. You can mine. You can invest in equipment and mine it. You can get more of it that way. And what is it? But just like crude oil, it doesn't have that much value in and of itself.
You have to it gives you access to like block space. That's kind of the idea that what Bitcoin is really doing for you as far as the transaction.
Crude oil is a source of energy, though.
But if I gave you a barrel of crude oil, what do you do with it? Nothing. You've got to refine it. You've got to turn it into something else, just like Bitcoin.
I'm not going to give you a barrel of Bitcoin that you can refine, Paul. I'm just saying, like, I feel like it's interesting.
The issue here is that both things can be true. Bitcoin has no use. People are fucking tweeting me right now saying, what about ordinals? Have any of you fucking worked with ordinals yet, except for Joah, probably?
Like, come on. Like, no one's using this shit. Like, let's just be honest and be thoughtful about it.
On the transaction space. Yeah, on the transaction space, I think you just think about like the look at the Lightning Network and the layer above it.
So you're right. Like, it is hard to do a transaction on Bitcoin itself because the amount of time it takes to clear that it can't be reversible or anything like that.
But, you know, the Lightning Network is, you know, it has, you know, a large amount of transactions getting done.
And, you know, here in the United States, we don't have we have access to more monetary systems that we can use and do transactions.
There are people in other countries that don't have access to similar systems. And as a store of value, yeah, talk to people in Venezuela and Argentina and Zimbabwe and all these other countries.
Like, it is helpful to them. Obviously, this is not investment advice. Do your own research. But it's, you know, long term.
Like, you should not be buying Bitcoin to trade it in the short term, unless you're a professional trader that has access to all these different markets.
Do your own research. But as a very long term, you know, you have to take a view of what do you look at the, you know, what do you what do you how do you value block space in the future?
And, you know, Bitcoin is one network. There's other networks out there. But, you know, that's kind of the way I think people should look at it.
Yeah. And I will let I'm not going to hold Bitcoin for like 20 years. I just want to be clear. I don't believe in the long term value of the asset.
I might my whole point is as long as Bitcoin can I could hold it for 20 years, as long as Bitcoin acts the way it's acting right now and has been acting for the past since the last having actually, Joe.
I'll go to you with that. But since the last having it's actually been acting differently until then for people that have been paying attention.
You know, Scott actually walked me through the charts until the last having it was actually acting exactly like a risk on growth asset.
And then since the last having its changes technical behavior to switch back and forth between gold and a risk on asset.
So it's been very interesting to change. But that's what Scott walked me through. And I was like, oh, this is interesting.
It is different. And then to continue to see it do that. I think it has to do more with geopolitical stuff, which I'm not sure why.
But people are starting to use it as a true to store of value, which is interesting.
Think about when you're looking at that and he's showing you this charge, he's showing you Bitcoin priced in dollars and then gold priced in dollars and then tech stocks priced in dollars.
So and gold tends to be. So if you think about the geopolitical aspect, people often think you'll hear American investors complaining.
Gold's not acting like it's supposed to. But heck did it. I'm like, go tell that to somebody in Japan when this is like 2022 in Japan.
The end just got murdered or tell it to somebody in Venezuela because to them it's working great.
It's just the denominator. Interesting. Your point is that it's actually not behaving differently.
It's the dollar is behaving differently. I'm saying that's definitely a confounding factor.
I haven't looked at the charts myself, but I would look at it.
So one of the charts that you showed me was Bitcoin versus gold. And in certain periods, it was acting just like gold and other periods it wasn't.
And when you then look at Bitcoin over Magnificent Seven, in those same periods that was not acting like gold, it was acting like the Magnificent Seven.
So it was interesting how it was switching back and forth. And that was a very interesting for me, a very interesting behavior.
Sorry, Joe, go ahead. And then David. Yeah, I mean, Donna, you're in tech. And I think this is a part that doesn't get spoken about a lot.
In tech, it's always a race, right? Like if you create something new and innovative, it's a race to get mass market before your competitor who already has mass market just copies your tech.