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the sociopoliticotechnocapital machine ep 2
Recorded: Feb. 5, 2026 Duration: 2:35:04Space Recording
Short Summary
In a recent discussion among crypto enthusiasts, key topics included the significant decline in Bitcoin's price to around $70,000, the impact of a recent gold run on liquidity, and the shifting dynamics between Eastern and Western investors. Participants expressed concerns about the current state of the crypto market, citing a lack of innovation and declining investor confidence, while also recognizing the potential for future growth driven by new narratives and the evolving landscape.
Full Transcription
Music Thank you. Music Thank you. Music I'm going to go to the next episode. Thank you. Thank you. I'm Thank you. Music Thank you. so
how's it going guys
appreciate you guys tuning in it's um 1 40 a.m in my time i just wanted to talk for a little bit before I went to sleep. But this is for the people in Asia, people in Europe waking up.
Usually I do it in U.S. friendly hours.
So this one's for you guys.
where do we even start
Where do we even start?
we're making new lows that we haven't seen in um
a year and a half bitcoin's at 70k eth at around 2100.
Certainly, um,
interesting times.
The last time we had
this much of a correction, it was in April due to the tariffs and every other asset was going down with it so
i i think there are like you know there's like moves where like everyone knows why it's going
down and there's moves where like there's not really a strong reason and
that's like particularly scary i think for people that are long when there's not a strong reason
why things are moving this much because it's unclear like what will cause it to reverse
so if it's like just going down with no singular reason,
you know,
you have to like sort of be open to the mindset like that.
The equilibrium is a lot lower.
So I think that's like explaining a lot of like the sort of uncertainty and
anxiety is just like,
there's no clear reason we're going down this much
it's like a factor of reasons
and you know I've been saying this
for the past maybe week or two
but I think this like recent gold run
has really destabilized a lot of the liquidity.
And yeah, I guess it's unclear where the new equilibrium state will be for assets.
I think this gold run really sort of spooked people.
run really sort of spooked people.
And I think the West has been low on free cash for a while,
just given Bitcoin and equities just not really moving much
over the past four months.
Granted, this is all on those just vibes but like you know the the machine is so complex that like no one really
understands like they all see like their own slice of what's going on but very few people actually are just spending every day just
like staring at um just like a big picture i think and then you can always say that yeah they're like
you know you're competing against like drunken miller and stuff but he's not like he's old right
like the turnover in this type of thinking is very high just because it's
very demanding there's just so much information to absorb and reality shifts the underlying reality
shifts so quickly that like it really is just like a few people um i think that like are trying
to figure out what's going on and even though there's a lot of money behind them it's it's not
that's why you don't see all these threads.
They're all kind of just guessing and sticking their fingers in the wind,
and that's what I'm doing here.
But my take on what's going on is that the West is out of money,
and the East is in the middle of deploying.
It's unclear what inning they are in in in their asset
allocation like gold is still quite strong it still gets like bid up in asian hours
that move from like 4400 to like 51 was pretty powerful and silver still there was like a sell
off earlier this session that i think triggered all this like triggered the crypto stuff
But yeah, it's like very interesting to see like
Sometimes all assets move together
And like the only explanation that I have to explain that is that
like there's like this there's this like dollar factor right we're like every
asset is denominated in the dollar so like when the dollar does well like
everything kind of even though they're not like fundamentally supposed to like
sometimes when the the overarching, the, the overarching,
like strong reason for why float like liquidity is moving around is like,
you know, because of the dollar,
all assets tend to move at the same time.
And yeah, so I guess,
I guess what's going on right now is in my mind that I see it that like
Like two days ago equities went down two or three percent for like not really like a clear reason
Crypto followed and then gold went down for not really a clear reason.
It kind of just bounced off a technical level, like a little retest.
And then crypto went down again.
Yeah, I'm kind of just rambling here.
But I've been just spamming in my Telegram chat.
I think there's going to be just all assets down versus the dollar.
I keep mentioning this Base16Z tweet that I really like where he says,
you had 18 months to accumulate assets, and then everyone sells it all at once.
Personally, I want to bid gold on a dip, but if there is this looming, oh, all assets could just get completely shreked, I do want to stay mostly just in cash, which I am.
yeah i feel like this is like what the young people are all praying for right is just uh
a correction and then they just mass deploy at some bottom and they can just ride that up for
a you know a solid decade um but yeah I have no like sophisticated views on anything just based on pure
vibes I've been I've been kind of cautious on on on everything but yeah I
just wanted to like talk to you guys see how you feel yeah let me invite Rasmur up here.
How's it going, man?
Yo, what's up?
Nice to finally chat with you.
Yeah, no, it was good.
You have good spaces.
I didn't realize you would let me up or whatever.
It's kind of an instinct I just request.
But yeah.
Dude, I really didn't think we'd go this low.
Maybe it's naive retard.
Like, oh, you didn't think Bitcoin would test 70k again?
I really didn't.
I really didn't.
I didn't either.
I thought it was going to be 80k or 75k, now it's just like slicing through 70 like it's butter.
Crypto tends to like have this. It tends to like I've noticed that like it does tend to go higher and lower than I expect often.
I don't know.
I feel like the BTC all-time high was kind of weak, no?
Versus like 110
in January 25,
like definitely.
The rebound from the tariffs
was like quite violent,
quite quick. I guess just like in short time frames, was like quite violent and quite quick.
I guess just like in short timeframes,
it like moves a lot more violently than I expect.
That's what I'm trying to say.
But yeah, it's like unclear how low, um, this thing will go.
Like, you know, when I'm late at night,
when I'm like really just trying trying to procrastinate on sleeping,
I'll just look through these old price charts.
And whenever I look at gold, it's got some crazy moves.
From 2000 to 2011, it just went up 10x.
And then for the next 10 years, it did nothing.
It's so weird how to interpret that like people have known about this issue with fiat and debasement and
this infinite money printing for a really long time it's like but like because of just the supply
dynamics and other issues like these assets can just be in the dumpsters for a really long time.
Which, you know,
when I look at Bitcoin,
I can see that happening.
What does the unwinding
of ETH and
SOUL and XRP...
Are these dino fucking coins ever going to go down?
Like, actually?
Um...
What do you mean by down?
Well, like,
ETH is still
$250 billion.
SOUL is like, I mean, $70 billion or something.
It's hard to say whether that's too high or too low.
Do you think it's too high?
I mean, dude, Seoul never even flipped ETH this cycle, so I don't
know what the deal is with ETH.
It doesn't make sense to me.
yeah,
I think the ETH thing seems
too high.
You think ETH's too high?
I'm just surprised. I thought
Seoul should have flipped ETH. I mean,
why didn't it like you know
I feel like
I don't know
I think there are a lot of
like different fundamental reasons
but I'm trying to think on this question For fundamental reasons.
But I'm trying to think on this question.
It was never consensus.
I think a lot of people that... When you joined crypto, did you join crypto after 2021?
I would say I joined in the 2021 cycle.
I joined in the 2021 cycle. I joined in 2021.
I think a lot of that class liked Solana a lot more
just because ETH was pretty much unusable when they joined.
But just from a decentralized currency standpoint,
if the world were actually to go to shit I would be much more comfortable
with Ethereum than Solana
and I'd be willing to pay
I'd be willing to deal with the extra cost
Solana's a good casino
but in terms of
an actual decentralized
store of value
I guess in my mind I trust ETH a lot more.
Yeah, I kind of went viral for this clip today.
And I was like, if you're in crypto, why would you hold Bitcoin?
And everybody's like, they're kind of making fun of me and saying I'm an idiot.
But I feel like the point I made still stands, which is like, if you work in crypto and you're chronically exposed and chronically online in crypto,
and everything you do is in crypto and you're already consuming everything in crypto, why own Bitcoin?
You know what I mean?
It's just the systemic risk of the industry with none of the upside.
This is kind of a thing I was pondering.
I don't know if you have thoughts about it.
I think this speaks to an interesting point.
to like an interesting point um like whenever the like the newer generation comes around they
they can they don't they like look at things for like fresh eyes and if it doesn't make sense to
them they just won't play the old games of the old guard like i feel like when i first like became
sentient as an adult and i looked at like social security and I was like what
the fuck is this like I put my money in here I get it out when I'm 75 like just to save on a bit of
taxes like this is the most retarded thing ever it's the Ponzi scheme and I tell like all the
adults that I respect and my parents that like social security was a Ponzi scheme and they
they thought I was retarded but I just refused to put any money in there because I just felt like I was locking up forever.
And I mean, yeah, I feel like if the newer generation
doesn't buy in, that does reveal something like,
you know, wrong with the message
because then they'll just like create their own version
of the Ponzi and then no one can like sort of coalesce
around, you know, a common mission.
In Bitcoin's case, though,
the upside of Bitcoin is at least gold.
And that's like a 20x from here.
Does that vision not speak to you?
No, it does.
It does.
I think my perspective is someone who is already so max exposed, like career and life, internet presence, things like that. And it's like, if Bitcoin even went to 150, 200, it's like, I'm already making way more money.
You know? More money than what than i than i theoretically would now i'm already exposing myself to the industry to where if bitcoin goes to 500k it's like i'm
way richer the the new tech that's coming out there's more money flowing so it's like
why do i actually even need to own Bitcoin?
Yeah, I share this perspective with you.
I don't own any spot crypto.
I mean, I don't know if I ever will.
But part of it's just because crypto is going up and making so much trading.
There's no point.
It just completely outweighs the risk
or outweighs the opportunity just from holding.
But the balance changes as you have a bigger portfolio.
If you get huge, it doesn't make sense to trade,
it doesn't make sense to work that much anymore.
You really only can invest and you still need to grow so that your earnings don't get inflated away. So like the, the holding
thesis is not really like, you know, it's not meant for like retail to put in like six, seven
figures. Um, it's mainly meant for, uh, like as it gets bigger, it's appeals meant for as it gets bigger it appeals more for
larger institutions. I feel like this is different
than equities in some way shape or form
there's not really much of a point
in hyper-optimizing your portfolio if it's like 6, 7
maybe even eight figures.
Cause like most of your future growth still comes from your labor.
But maybe like after nine or 10,
like you,
it's,
it's hard to like make that much more from labor.
So you still have to,
you have to think about that a lot more.
I think this is like a effect of like the K shaped economy too,
is like wealth concentrates in the hands of like a few,
few people.
It's like a lot of things don't make sense to like 99% of the population,
but it makes,
it makes sense to 99% of the capital.
thank you.
What's up?
What's good,
doc?
yeah.
Okay.
I have a question so like all right
so like pre-etf right like btc was mostly catching the digital gold narrative it seemed like that was
kind of the main driver along with obviously like the coming etf flows but now it's like
that's like pretty lost it seems you know metals ripping and shit and uh bt looking like a shitty
tech stock and it seems like that's going to
continue uh so like my question is like where where does it go from here can it regain the
gold narrative is it just going to trade like zoom or whatever for the rest of time uh yeah
and what does that mean i guess for like the broader industry too if it's just like a bad
tech stock yeah i mean i don't like I mean, I don't have the best hit rate
with these longer-term forecasts.
I don't know if anyone does just because the path
you're trying to forecast is dependent on so many things.
Yeah, it could flip quick.
Yeah, but if you look at gold, right,
like people say it's up more than S and P over 40 years or something.
And it's true.
But like, if you actually look at the yearly gain,
it like lags at most years.
And then like, you know,
the one or two years you happen to be along this thing,
it just like giga outperforms.
It's like a very like narrative based thing.
And the reason for that is structural, right?
Like equities have buybacks, they have dividends, they have growth.
So, you know, the price action of equities sort of grind up.
And then when something happens, they'll kind of bark down.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They structurally go up and that's just a black swat.
Yeah, and gold and bitcoin are
just supply driven markets so they'll structurally just grind down unless there's like a black swan
in the positive direction so it makes it like hard to hold this because like you if you if
you're gonna like hold this thing like if you want to realize the expected value,
you have to be prepared to hold it
through a decade of underperformance.
And just the way that these things work
is they'll multiply very quickly,
and then all these turfs will come in,
and then they won't capitulate all at the same time.
They'll just slowly and gradually lose conviction.
And that's why, in my opinion, that's why like gold makes those like really long sort
of troughs.
Even like when the narrative is there to, you know, for it to get bid, if the sort of
like the tide of the holders and the supply and the distribution like isn't clean, it can really like stifle any reflexivity from building again.
So this is all to say,
like I think Bitcoin could easily just like fucking underperform for,
and be like a terrible,
boring asset to trade for like three or four years.
And that doesn't change the sort of broader narrative of what it is and what it could be
and where it's going yeah i agree but like you know if it doesn't do anything for three or four
years like what are we doing right like yeah yeah there's a whole cottage industry of people that
are just staring at this thing every single day for 12 hours like booming and taking over the
world and it's just like you're just staring at shitty coins all day yeah so I mean it's clear that like all that froth is gonna die and like
this is not normal like what we do is not nor it's not normal for like random
like you know like people just log on and make ten million dollars trading
crypto like that's that's that's that's not it can't be like that forever so
it's like it's like that the natural state is for it to not be like that forever um so it's like it's like the the natural state is for it to not be like that
so yeah i mean that's that's my base case for what happens is just like
a long period of of boring nothing sort of raw is there even any narrative for crypto for
like wild like i mean like stable coins but that's not really like it doesn't really have
a bullish impact on price unless it's like i guess circle equity or something you need more
than just narrative yeah like there's a lot of factors that need to align like the narrative
can be there but if like the supply dynamics aren't clean then it can kind of kill the narrative
because like narrative like gets formed through like reflexive,
like positive reinforcement.
And then that's why,
that's just how like the herd,
the human sort of herd works.
It's like,
it almost always has to overshoot because of that dynamic.
And the price we pay for these things overshooting or undershooting
is that like we discover price faster like the the mimetic sort of mechanism that we we use
it causes us to like reprice things very quickly but the price for that
quick repricing is that it often overshoots or undershoots yeah like silver just recently
yeah yeah i saw some like did you see a 16z drop some new piece about crypto today
i did not uh yeah i didn't read it at all but i plugged it into claude and and and uh
it basically said it was which was funny like it was like there i think the main argument was that but I plugged it into Claude and, and, and, uh,
it basically said it was bullshit, which was funny. Like it was like there, I think the main argument was that AI agency blockchains or whatever was like
the title. And it was just like, yeah, that's, that's, that's cap.
Like they can just do Stripe or whatever.
But it literally was like, they're just trying to spin up a new VC narrative.
It's like, yeah, pretty much. Just to add to your point of like,
you know, there's just like,
we just need a new,
more than narrative,
but we need like,
I don't know, belief or something.
I don't know.
Yeah, a lot of this like narrative
on like users and revenue and product.
Like, I think that's just an extension of like 2010s like sass vc mindset that got
projected onto crypto when like it was never gonna be that it's just like by definition it's just
like everything is has to be shittier if it's gonna be like cryptographic yeah and yeah crypto has
more of this I don't know it like attention dynamic and the liquidity
is constrained I don't know it's just a weird place but um yeah I agree it's
like you can't yeah I mean obviously you haven't been able to that like model
these things like equities forever and people have tried and often have failed.
Yeah.
And I mean, you get a few products that can capture value
that I think are fairly priced.
You have Coinbase, Circle, Tether, Hyperliquid.
Just like as kind of trading casino gambling products.
And they're good businesses.
But yeah,
it's like,
is there a strong reason for them to 10 X from here?
Like their tradified counterparts aren't that much higher.
So yeah,
it's like,
I feel like it's like,
you know,
it's already fairly perfect.
There's not like much of an efficiency,
not much room to like correct that part of the industry.
But yeah, I mean, there is this like collective anxiety that I sense of like,
like, what are we, what are we doing here? Like,
what am I going to do next with my my life like i've spent my entire life i spent so much
my like five years of my life in this thing just 24 7 and maybe i'm like unhappy with where i am
um from it and i think that like sort of restlessness and unhappiness also like
tends to make like lead you to make bad decisions um
It tends to lead you to make bad decisions.
But, yeah, I mean, that's just life, isn't it?
All right, next person.
Hype Trader.
How's it going?
All right, Hype Trader's not here.
Can I give her up here?
How's it going, Giv hey sorry uh oh there we go there's hype trader hey hey how's it going man um yeah i just had a question like uh actually a couple questions but
um like let's say an extremely large asset class experiences a blow-off top.
Do you think the size of the asset, like, the larger it is,
makes it harder to reclaim those previous highs?
And then, like, if it doesn't reclaim those highs,
like, it takes longer to reach a new all-time high?
I know you said something about this earlier with gold.
I'm not sure.
Well, you know, it's kind of an obvious answer, right? You know the answer to this I
Mean I would say yes, but um, you know
Obviously like everyone else tends to disagree right now with like gold and silver
so I just what why I don't think they're disagreeing it's just I
Mean it's hard. It's just by definition the bigger is, the harder it is to move it, right?
That's all you're asking?
Yeah, but also I had a question about hype relative strength.
What do you make of the relative strength that we're experiencing in hype right now?
Because Bitcoin dropped like $150 billion in market cap and hype is still kind of chopping around the same range
uh why do you think
um personally i think it's because um just like the bullishness of it and the cult following of the people and like the holders I guess their conviction is a lot
stronger than other coins
you know there's like a lot
of reasons like they could be more
personally I think the
biggest one is like they move the unlocks
yeah it's only like
25% of it's floating so they just
like they cut the unlocks by a lot which you know
that type of thing always increases price in the short term.
It just has to.
And yeah, I mean, the fact that I did so much TradFi volume
shows that there's a lot of just speculative attention in crypto
and that's worth a lot of money and it doesn't have to trade crypto.
It can trade other things.
And because of that,
it's just less correlated to how Bitcoin and Ether are doing.
It's correlated more to volatility in general.
And you just compare it to,
I mean, it does like a third of the revenue.
It was like CME and CME is worth 100 billion
and it's the front end also,
so it owns the users and it's like Robinhood's at 90 billion. So you can just comp it to Robinhood plus CME is worth $100 billion and it's the front end also so it owns the users
and Robinhood's at $90 billion
so you can just comp it to Robinhood plus CME
and maybe there's some upside there
is the argument for
longing hype
but yeah I think it's just that realization that
it doesn't need to just trade crypto
it can trade everything else
so there's less a reason for it to be correlated to crypto
I think also people are betting on the team, though.
They're just delivering.
They're just delivering consistently.
And it's pretty impressive, honestly.
I think P3 was pretty successful.
It's interesting that Hyperliquid is the source of price discovery
of metals over the weekend. Binance and biobate each have their own sort of metals markets
but like the the way they charge their this is what um uh kyle of um he's like floods co-worker
brought up recently a point that i really liked was that like those two venues charge funding
based on the closing price of CME.
And so if it deviates too much,
like people that move it have to pay a lot more funding,
which is like,
it kind of punishes price discovery.
Whereas like on hyperliquid,
it's just,
it charges funding based on itself,
just like some EMA of its previous prices.
So like,
I actually,
I learned this the hard way.
Like two weeks ago, copper on hyperliquid just moved 4% above its glass closing price.
And I was like, this is retarded.
So I just shorted it.
And then when the CME opened, it opened 4% lower.
So I just got a free ARP.
And I was like, oh, sick.
These idiots on hyperliquid are just giving me free money.
And then this last weekend, the same thing happened. copper and silver like dislocated like three percent below the close so i was like all right i'm gonna long it like these guys are retarded and then like it actually opened
there and then went even lower so you know gave back some of the profit um well yeah it's like
yeah these guys you know it's not as retarded as you think it is, I guess, is what I learned.
Which is pretty bullish hype.
The fact that there's actual price discovery on... Yeah, and it's like everyone loves to have their money in crypto.
It's just so easy.
I don't want to have to deal with sending wires and waiting for it to settle
and all these stupid margin agreements and all that kind of stuff.
Can you think of an example where this has happened in the past where the majority of crypto is dropping and then we have an asset that's in the top 50 or top 100 that's just consistently not moving in correlation in correlation to the market yeah it's happened a
lot right last time was zcash okay i mean yeah like things don't need to they don't need to
trade together right like yeah yeah but like yeah it means zcash topped right like i don't think
it's i think hyperliquid is repricing um and you can make an argument it could reprice even higher
but yeah i'm not personally i have no personal views on where it's gonna go
thanks diggy yep how's it going giver enjoying your your ban
unban me i'm worried about you dog you're, staying up till 5 a.m. playing poker every night.
That's the only reason I'm here.
Unman me.
Giver is actually, like,
you know, one of the
best players in the group.
He's kind of
sick at poker.
What do you play, dog?
We're playing, you play, dog? We have a little
home game going online.
It's like 2550.
You get my Hold'em?
Yeah, it's mainly Hold'em.
We play some PLO and we have
bomb pots and shit.
You're welcome to join.
If anyone here wants to join, you're welcome to come. I here wants to join you're welcome to come yeah
i end up kicking out all the pros so i like kicked a few pros out like if you survive on poker like
i don't want you in the group but like if you're like a trader you just want to gamble like you
know you're welcome i think he is a shark and he is a bully. Don't listen to him. Giver is like one too much money, bro.
He's up like six figures in poker over the past couple months.
He's draining all the fish.
I had to ban him for a week.
Just let him get some sleep.
What do you...
Gun to your head.
Gun to your head, gun to your head, would you rather be long Bitcoin or gold here until the end of the year?
You know my answer.
Yeah, I probably know your answer.
Yeah, definitely gold. But what if, okay. What if you didn't have to hold until the
end of 2026? Like you were just playing for a water move like tomorrow. Yeah. Like you sell
tomorrow or a week from now. Um, you know, I don't know these kinds of bottoms like aren't really
like my forte at predicting. Like this is like, these are like my forte at predicting. These are like whale games.
These are billionaire old holder, ancient holders selling.
And then there's these other billionaires that are trying to buy.
With this kind of thing, everyone's looking to buy.
Everyone's scared.
And you're not going to be the guy that bottoms it.
The guy that bottoms it like the guy that bottoms that
he's going to like make a big candle in the chart and then everyone's going to like get a like you
know a sense of uh they just want to follow right they see some strength and they follow and that's
what creates that's how these bottoms are created and then like sometimes that like it does it and
then there's like like double it tests the bottom again, maybe a test it again. So like, you know, these things like aren't very good trades in my opinion, because there's
no clear like invalidation.
You're really just guessing.
Like, I don't like, I like just buying it when it's like coming up as opposed to like
trying to be the guy that like times the bottom.
So, you know, like tomorrow I could wake up and it could be at 75k and i would just be like
yeah like that was within the realm possibility and or i could wake up tomorrow it could be at
like 68 67 and i wouldn't bat an eye so um yeah i don't know it's hard to trade Yeah, I mean, I think most global bottoms have been preceded by really ugly look. I mean, I think the one that comes to 49.5, I think.
And people were very persistent to buy that.
I mean, I think you bought it, actually.
I remember around that time,
either you and I were talking or...
See, that one was a double bottom, too.
Like, I bought it, and then I sold it at 53.
You sold it quickly.
Yeah.
And then it retested it.
It actually made...
I think it might have made a newer low on the open,
but then that was like...
I didn't hit that buy.
I bought a little later than that.
But yeah, like...
I mean, another easy example is actually,
there's that one that comes to mind,
and then there's the BTC ETF post,
like post launch, post like one, maybe like one week after and btc had went from like it went up went
up 8k and then went down 15 i think it was like i don't know somewhere on 36 37 i mean this was a
while ago so my memory might not be correct but yeah the generally speaking i mean i probably
agree with you that one was that one was a tough bottom to catch it's a tough bottom right they're
tough bottoms because they're so ugly.
Like, there's no confluence.
I mean, it actually, I mean, something that I've been thinking about recently is that
the cleaner the slate looks for a bottom in a material downtrend, right?
Like, if it's chopping, then maybe people are more akin to buying the range.
But on these, like, really serious downtrends it's actually very
rare that you get a nice look like just if you look back the last like four to five years it's
very rare that you get a really nice looking bottom yeah i mean if it goes down like 10
percent in an hour like yeah sure i'll buy it and I'll sell it back you know but if it's like
a slow grind yeah if it's like a slow grind like this like I just kind of stay away like there's
something going on I don't know and I don't have like the conviction like other people would so
they're willing to pay more at a higher price than I am so yeah I just I don't know if I have any edge
at like trying to picotick I know everyone's like worried about that don't know if I have any edge at trying to picotick.
I know everyone's worried about that
because if you're already in a long,
you're trying to figure out
how much more pain am I going to have to endure.
But yeah, that's the tough part
of holding these types of longs.
You really do have to stop out at zero.
You know what's interesting?
I saw Xelux had posted really do have to like stop out at zero um and you know it's interesting i think i mean i i saw
zealox had posted i don't know maybe a few hours ago around uh eth being potentially oversold
because of cyclical selling around trend research and garrett. Hard to disagree with that in isolation.
I think it's interesting though,
that Solana has actually moved in lockstep with Ethereum
pretty much over the same time duration.
I mean, ETHBDC has obviously went down like 12% or so
over the last one or two weeks.
But I mean, Solana is actually kind
of interesting here. I mean, and I say this as someone who has generally just liked Solana
for the entire time being crypto, but it's pretty near the unlocked prices. Sorry, the
locked, vested estate sole from FTX. I mean, I think CalSamanis' departure from the fund was pretty interesting as well,
because presumably LPs had known of this before today took place.
And likely requested redemptions, which were probably one-to-one with selling of Solana in terms of fund size reduction.
So if you believe that Ethereum is oversold, but Solana's price performance has been pretty identical,
and there's also a driver that explains some of the idiosyncratic price weakness with Solana itself,
I think you can make the same principles, probably hold weight around Ethereum.
It's also, today's actually really interesting as well, because this is probably like the
first day in the last, I want to say, even 60 days.
I mean, you can check this if you want, but it's one of the first days where since U.S. opened,
BTC has actually performed worse than Ethereum and Solana.
And the last time I remember that happening was maybe like 80K in February of 2025.
I'm just rambling.
These are just interesting observations
that I've made in the last few weeks.
Yeah, I don't have any particularly strong views
on ETH or Solana.
I do think how Simone's departure is interesting,
especially something like one of the staunchest supporters
of Sol, and presumably they had a large bag of Sol. It's unclear whether they've...
how much has been redeemed,
whether they've rotated
out of it before or after they made
the announcement.
Yeah, I don't know.
I believe I saw him say he's still like
gigalong Sol,
gigalong crypto, or whatever.
Don't quote me on that. I think I saw
him tweet that.
I don't know. You'd take
that with a grain of salt, obviously. I don't know
what that's worth. Yeah, so that's why I find
it hard to come up with a flow
based
thing around the timing
of his departure.
But, I mean, yeah,
I mean,
it's hard to say whether it's undervalued or overvalued at 90 bucks.
Who knows?
use case on dot hl's um price price uh price earnings multiple model that he used for hype
to evaluate solana it's here maybe i feel like in times of like distress like this it's really just
like the vibes of whoever has money on the side and whatever they care about.
And like, yeah, I don't know.
It's hard to say like what the, you know, they're going to care about.
I don't know.
These bottoms are more of like an art than a science.
I can't say I'm like the best at catching them.
I can catch them from like a, like a price action standpoint, but from a fundamental standpoint, I don't know.
What's up, Elias?
What's going on?
How we feeling?
You've been trading much? I have been. I've been trading a bunch lately actually just scalping around all day long so any
interesting trades oh nothing too crazy just buy a lot of licks and selling them 50 bits higher okay yeah ah just like some shit
around e3tc's been fun nothing like particularly snazzy though
caught the I think I was first on the sole one today was just pretty fun
Okay, yeah
Hasn't been like that much I used to my end like
I've had a lot more success just trading metals than
And crypto I feel like on the crypto side
the winning thing has just been holding her short.
Yeah.
It doesn't move that much.
It's so small.
I mean, there was a big fucking ETH move
two days ago, but
it's not very volatile.
The metals are so, so volatile.
Yeah, they're a lot more PvE because it's like...
You're fighting against a shit ton of people.
As opposed to in crypto, it's like one dude moving it back and forth at a time.
It's a bit harder to just trade.
Yeah, like... I've got a good time trading metals.
And, you know, that's what kind of comforts me about all of this
is that at the end of the day, like,
all markets have a lot of similarities when it comes to, like,
price action and,
and,
and vibes and like distress around the extremes.
Like there's a part of human nature that's just fractal.
So because of all the experience of like we've developed trading crypto,
like I do think a lot of it,
depending on like what you do,
like a lot of it does translate over into other things.
So like,
you know,
I'm like, Oh, okay. If, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, other things. So I'm like, oh, okay, as long as things are volatile and I can make money,
then I just don't feel that particularly attached to whether crypto trading
in its current form will exist in a year or two.
Just because there's always going to be trading to be done somewhere.
There's always going to be a use or a need for just capital on the side
that's paying attention that can just reason reasonably. And I think hype kind of accelerates
that trend. It's kind of like vampire attacking the speculative crypto energy and just channeling
that towards other assets and it's getting paid to do so, which is a very like good case for just being long hype and you know the long hype
short crypto trade that flood put on was very um good theme amidst all of this uh commodities
volatility and yeah like Yeah, like I think crypto traders have actually a lot more edge when it comes to like cycles and how rotations work compared to a lot of other macro investors just because like we've seen three or we see like three or four lifetimes in just like one year.
Whereas a lot of these people that are trading now, like the secular trends last, you know, three, four, five, six, seven years.
All the old people maybe not be like the people with experience might not be as tapped in.
And yeah, I just think there's a lot of edge.
I see these rotations going on across metals and equities and crypto.
And it's really interesting when you use crypto.
Because for me, for the longest time,
I've just been focused on idiosyncratically,
like what is crypto doing today?
And I barely pay attention to maybe just look at what equities are doing
every now and then.
But being able
to use that as
a signal for everything else
has been quite good. A lot of times
crypto moves on the weekend does signal
where
equities will move over the next trading
day. I think that
part is useful.
It's actually an edge for other assets to trade.
And the nice thing also about other assets is I can share an entry or an exit
and not have to worry about it getting hunted just because it's so big.
In crypto, if I'd say I'm long something and my stop's here,
it's getting hunted.
It's kind of an unpleasant experience like i don't
like telling people my positioning in crypto just because like it takes so little money to like move
it now especially now especially now holy shit how's it going nico nice uh nice to get up on
the stage thanks for having me on i completely agree agree. I feel like crypto is, I've always said, is like a 10x speed simulator of what it means to trade or like work in any
other industry. I had a bit of a question or like discussion I think might be interesting. I was
speaking with Mia who's building Street Foundation to try and tokenize like startups and build out more like real
companies in the space and he feels like you know there's a lot of I mean we all know there's a lot
of shit in the space of stuff that has way too high of a valuation than it should have and there's
probably a lot of that that still needs to like dwindle down and unwind but how do we actually go
about bringing this space to a better place where real projects that are, you know, almost like taking the three out of Web3 and making it only the projects that actually kind of like make sense as opposed to poor beta recreations of what's happening in the real world outside of crypto?
what's happening in the real world outside of crypto yeah i think there's like some sort of
teleological um like assumption or difference i don't share here where like people are always
like how do we make crypto better and more legitimate and like i guess i don't view any
need or reason for it to like it feels forced almost to like try to make like if it's if it's a
good product it's a good product and it turns out most of the good products are gambling because
most people come here to gamble that's why like i don't i don't really see a need to like make web
three happen it i feel like we gave it a fair shot we allocated a lot of capital a lot of attention
and it didn't work out and i guess yeah like anything that tries to fight the tide like
you know like i just i just don't i don't see why we need to force it i'm curious if you have
any response or rebuttal to that i i completely agree like i and by the way what i was just saying is is not because
i think like there's anything necessarily crazy wrong that the gambling side is is bad in any way
like i'm as much a dgen as the next guy and you know like i i used to work with sue and other guys
and like you know the strongest thesis with him and jez and all these guys for the longest time was
like you know long degeneracy and hyper gambling and all this kind of stuff.
And like that will always be the biggest PMF in crypto.
And so like now, as we kind of have been and probably going deeper into a general crypto
bear market, like staying in those pockets of outperformance.
And if you think about what kind of projects you can work with for um for your like you know personal benefit and everyone
else is like where the money is going to be is the fees in the gambling side right you know and
liquidations as well so any kind of trading platform exchange whatever and hence why you've
seen all of this continued hype and appetite for farming these up andand-coming Dex's but I do think it like you know
of course on the side of the gambling stuff you know would be great if there
was like a rise in these more like legitimate projects and aside why in the
why just because because I guess for us as gamblers it will grow the space and
you know basically increase the size of these markets for us to trade.
So the end goal is still to gamble more.
More gamblers.
I guess, yeah.
I guess I don't see that as a worthy cause.
The purpose of something shouldn't be to just increase more gambling.
Like, I think we've like tried different, we've tried like eight different like simulacra
of that where it's like, oh, it's not, it might not be gambling to some people and that's
why they put their money in.
But at the end of the day, it always reduces down to, down to oh okay this is like a fun thing to to gamble on there's nothing like wrong with
that like i do think that speculative energy like helps bring price discovery yes it like distorts
things but it's that's just like how capitalism works right You need to incentivize people to do labor and organize bits and atoms for you.
So, yeah, I guess I view that as just a capitalistic process.
And a lot of it was directed in crypto.
A lot of it was directed in AI.
And in AI, it actually resulted in something.
In crypto, the question is still open.
What will this thing result in?
And even in its current state,
if crypto were just...
How do I put this?
A lot of people, when they look back
at their work or an industry,
they like to think that,
oh, how much human capital and time
and effort was like wasted on this thing and it produced nothing for us like what has it done for
society it's a waste like that type of thinking i think has been proven wrong time and time again
i've said this in the last stream as well, but like the ways we,
the civilization progresses,
the tech tree is like very hard to perceive unless you're looking at it in
hindsight.
I do think the discoveries of certain truths we've made from speculating on
crypto will eventually result in something that will,
you know, make it all worth it. And just like every technology has always like had that effect.
People don't complain about selling ads or short form video anymore because it was,
or social media, because it's like so abundantly obvious how that was beneficial
and unnecessary part of the tech tree forantly obvious how that was beneficial and unnecessary
part of the tech tree for ai but that was a very common complaint in like 2019 how like all of our
brightest minds were spent you know selling ads and like building ad infrastructure so yeah i
don't think even if crypto if like no quote unquote more legitimate products come out of it i don't think any of it will be
for a waste what about the by the way i'm just playing devil's advocate like yeah yeah please
growth in the space being good for you know people in more like developing nations where
like their currencies are debasing for whatever reason and like cryptos are a good you know or blockchain more more
generally is is like partially a solution to that or kind of ownership of
things from from various people on chain and in some metric and and yeah the
modern digital alternative to the way that most of these governments and
tried by things are still half operating
on paper and things like that.
Yeah, I mean,
I feel like this has been the traditional
argument for crypto and
Web3. And I don't want to
sound like an asshole, but also I'm just like
if I wanted to help
people in developing nations, I would
donate to a charity.
In many ways, crypto has been a charity
to these people in developing nations
to earn an exorbitant amount of money
from retail savings of well-developed countries.
So it's already been a sort of redistributive effect,
which has been most most of the, you know,
most open border policies, most of like the progressive sort of policies of the West has
had a redistributive effect.
Globalization is very distributive.
You know, it's just been like the trend over the past 30, 40, 50 years.
And yeah, like, you know, there's drawbacks and there's benefits but like i'm not interested
you know like we're not here to like run a charity right we're here to like in the short
term make money and in the long term like advance civilization um so yeah like i guess that argument
it's not that's like it's not very compelling to me.
I guess it's a good narrative, but on an individual basis of we're all just here to make money, yeah, fair enough.
We don't really care that much.
It's a very 2021 Ethereum utopian communist narrative where like oh the reason why eth is going to go to five
trillion is because it allows like people in argentina to to bank better like bro like if that
had if you try to measure the economic value of giving everyone argentina the uh you know the
it's not worth that much it doesn't advance society that far, maybe from a humanitarian perspective,
but from a growth or a knowledge discovery perspective.
Again, I don't want to sound like an asshole,
but I guess I don't see that as a very compelling narrative
from moving the frontier of society forward.
But let's have Mia up here so they can...
Maybe they have a rebuttal to this, my argument.
Yo, what's up? What's up, Tiki?
I actually just joined right now, so I don't have full context of what you're saying.
But I also think, like, I don't know if you saw my post, which is just it, but it's looking really, really bad for crypto right now.
Like, for all the VCs, they're just either unable to raise new funding or they're
just funding the same slop again and they're they're getting their lps like nothing in return
i mean if you look at this cycle like there's not a single altcoin which kind of paid off apart from
maybe athena which was largely vc funded so yeah yeah i kind of agree and i i mean i don't yeah i'm
So yeah, I kind of agree.
And I mean, I don't, yeah, I'm, I guess like, I don't, I don't feel any sympathy for them
at all.
Like, that's just the, that's just the nature of the nature of the game, right?
For VCs to lose money.
Yeah.
I mean, if they like, there, there has been like such a, such a risk appetite and like
overall venture.
If you didn't invest in blockchain, probably no VC lost a lot of money in the last few years apart from crypto VCs.
And it's just so laughable.
If we look at the sector and LARP that it's on the frontier of technology,
we're building the system that replaces banks and then not a single venture investment pays off.
It's just laughable.
But yeah, I don't feel bad about them as well.
It's just like...
I mean, a lot of venture funds have returned a lot.
Like the top ones, A16Z has extracted a lot of money out.
Yeah, sure.
But first of all, they didn't extract so much as they used to.
And especially like all the venture funds, which are not A16C,
which are not the most prestigious,
which have access to literally the best deals.
They haven't returned anything,
which is why they're unable to raise new capital.
Yeah, and I guess I don't see why there's anything wrong with that.
There's nothing wrong with it morally or something.
It's just showcasing that this space is at its end point of the blockchain innovation.
So yeah, nothing is wrong with it.
It's just we might have to act against just continuing the slop of the same assets over and over again and
like scapegoating like some random actors like we're i don't know like if you go on twitter like
everybody's just trying to find like a scapegoat for this like trump is at fault uh it's all
biden's fault like cc is the is the bad actor like no none of these like all of these actors are
like contributing it but there are not the reason why this space is down. Like the reason the space is down
is because there's no innovation at all.
It's just all flowing towards AI, robotics,
and crypto has just,
it's just this weird space.
Nobody, no talented founder wants to go.
And I think that's a bigger problem here.
I mean, I think we will look back
at what we've created with a lot more.
I don't think we'll think that there's no innovation.
I don't know exactly how we'll remember this.
I do think it's very interesting coordination technology.
We're all here from all over the world to talk about this exact one thing.
They work together to contribute towards price discovery
or whatever on this one thing that is completely made up.
I do think there will be something,
some sort of, if not technological innovation,
then a financial innovation or a cultural innovation
that we will remember this for.
And we will look back at it much more favorably
as opposed to like, yeah,
this is a complete waste of time.
Yeah, I mean, it isn't, right?
But like the innovation has been achieved already.
Like stable coins exist,
like the cross-border payments,
which you just mentioned,
like stuff like that has already been done.
And it's like now where people are just kind of trying to force like a new innovation like they're just trying to force
something new coming to crypto which is like prediction markets you know like um how polar
market and calci um how they have been kind of created where it was essentially a polar market
which kind of was a front runner and uh then culture you're like mega funded by like the silicon valley
cabal to try to vamp off the um yeah the early investors which were like not that prestigious i
think um the early investors of polymarket were i mean one confirmation for example which is like
i think polymarket is like a good product i i think yeah it prices knowledge into the system very efficiently.
Like before, like the people in politics are very poor.
So, you know, you wouldn't have to pay them that much for them to like share insider information with you.
So like in the days, I saw this tweet recently.
It said like in the days of the past, some billion-dollar hedge fund would pay some politician,
and they would put on a billion-dollar position.
Basically, they would charge the market an exorbitant amount of money for pricing knowledge into the system.
Now, the politician just insider trades in Polymarket, and then the entire market gets the information in an open, democratic way.
So I think it's a lot more efficient of a price.
It just cuts out the middleman.
So I think it's a good thing what Polymarket does.
I think it should completely allow insider.
I mean, obviously, it's up to the jurisdiction to like persecute leaks,
but it's just hilarious to see these things being like leaked for like 75 K
or something. And it's like a, a huge market moving event. Um, but yeah,
I do think, I mean, you, maybe you could argue their valuations are too high,
but it's an, I think it's I mean, maybe you could argue their valuations are too high, but I think it's an important innovation.
Like markets as a whole are very good knowledge discovery, truth revealing coordination mechanisms.
And crypto markets are clearly some of the most efficient,
at least the technology behind them,
are the most efficient markets in the world.
They're 24-7.
It's open source.
Anyone can access the data.
All these old models for getting equities data or something,
it's still so backwards.
It's so inefficient.
So yeah, you could easily point to that
as being the contribution of crypto
without having to have some token
and some new sort of category do particularly well.
These things kind of come up organically, I guess.
I don't see really a need to force it or something.
But would you argue that all the the all the energy all the capital
all this attention we we put into crypto in this space like is is all of this worth like the ability
of politicians to insider trade like i feel like that's like uh i mean it's it's obviously like a
good information discovery technology but like i i i think it's it's not
sufficient enough to validate like all the all the energy we put into this sector
from like a civilizational perspective it's like not that expensive right it's like
it's a small asset you know maybe 50 100k people a few hundred k people spend their times keeping
it efficient.
It keeps a lot of froth out of other assets and it channels it into this one thing that
serves as an indicator for everything else.
World War II killed hundreds of millions of people.
It's hard to say this is a waste when there's something productive coming out and it's just
a few hundred thousand people just battling on the order books.
There have been a lot more inefficient uses
of human capital than crypto.
I'll say that.
For the earlier argument about
why crypto and different arguments,
since 90% of crypto users are all net long
and our goal at the end of the day is
to make money you know it doesn't like a rising tide lift all ships which is therefore good for
us so like you know advancement of the space better perception of the space um and therefore
like bringing in also new participants that bring more liquidity and grow the space as a whole good for us as well
i think most participants in crypto should not be here like this is this the the quality of
participant here is just like the worst least sophisticated some of the least sophisticated
um like i think they need to be culled out of the pool. So I think this whole market experiment
has gradually taken money away from the hands of people
that don't deserve it,
and they give it to people that do deserve it.
Not always.
People get lucky.
I'm just saying, for the most part,
that's the process that's happening
with the capital formation and crypto.
So yeah, like these events are good, right?
Because they like cull the bad traits and they reward good traits.
So like that's just, I mean, I guess I view it as like, no, it's actually not good if
markets just go up continuously because it reinforces bad habits.
It like reinforces misconceptions people that don't
deserve to make money suddenly make a lot and it's i think that's not maybe it's good for the
short-term attention for the space but it's not good for the long-term sustainability
so yeah i think these events are healthy, right? Like, you know, everyone, like forest fires sometimes can be good for the ecosystem.
Are there any other mechanisms other than, you know, forest fires in the market generally
like dumping that you feel like are ways of like filtering out these low quality people and if you get rid of these low quality
people like you know does it just result in a purely more technically advanced pvp kind of
nature like free-for-all market or is it you know something else yeah i think i think it's the most
efficient way to to call them it's like no no one's getting physically harmed. It's just like numbers
on a screen. But yeah, it's like if they can't afford to spend all day doing something poorly,
then they should do something else. And what was your second question again? I've noticed that
my working memory with questions is really subpar.
It makes me feel stupid.
It was something along the lines of
if you get rid of a lot of these dumber participants,
then does the whole space just become even more efficient
or just massively more PvP?
Does it become this free-for-wild west in a good way or a bad way?
It depends on who you ask,
but I think it's always good for things to get more efficient.
From a human perspective,
the philosophers say it's very de-territorializing
because it strips away your traditions and identities,
and it's very ruthless.
The process discards you as soon as as soon as you're no longer
as soon as you no longer provide any value the the system just ruthlessly discards you
and you know that part sucks if you're the person getting discarded but like
that's just like that's just natural selection that's just evolution that's just natural selection. That's just evolution. That's just life.
It's like a fractal of life.
So I think, yeah, you have to accept it, I guess,
if you want to not be so disappointed with what's happening in the world.
But it's motivating, but it's also two different ways to view this truth.
You can view it positively or negatively.
In a positive light, you have to have a growth mindset.
You always have to be continuously improving.
But the negative light is like you can never stop.
You can never chill.
The world is constantly trying to make you redundant and get rid of you and not need you
anymore and disempower you and the world is quite cruel to people that it disempowers
so there's just a constant like your life is just a constant fight against this entropy
against this the rising tide of efficiency that you always have to be useful if you want to
be treated well.
It's like very like,
you know,
that realization drives a lot of people to like denial,
which is like why I think it's like the driving emotion behind communism and a
lot of like the egalitarian sort of manifestations of it where like they just
don't want to like fight that fight for the rest of their lives like it's not very utopian right
like one could argue it's like a form of hell there is no rest um but yeah like i do think if
you want to live a happy life in a capitalist society with a lot of
abundance in material resources you have to uh
be at peace with that reality did you have something to say about it eliz
yeah just reminds me of what matt used to say of like you know it'll never be as easy as it is today so fucking go grind today because it's gonna be harder tomorrow it's kind of the same but
how do you structure your time to hedge against a lot of the stuff you were just speaking about
i'm like a very disorganized undisciplined um it person. So I just do what I want to do when I feel like it.
I don't have an alarm. I just wake up and sleep and do whatever. This is just all I like to do,
unfortunately. I try doing other things, but I just have this part of my personality where if I do something, I have to be the best at it.
And it doesn't really translate that well
when you don't have either the natural talent for that thing,
or if it doesn't have a fast enough feedback loop,
or if it's not high stakes enough,
or if there's just not enough people around you
that are all doing the same thing.
So that's why I'm just like, I don't want to say stuck.
I used to feel like I was stuck here, but now I feel like I'm just happy to be here.
I can just sit in my underwear in front of my computer and just not work when I don't want to.
It's such a nice feeling.
I get to play a high-stakes game with the smartest people in the world.
There's this constant information to be processed.
There's just constant amounts of atoms and bits that need to be organized.
And if you do so, the world rewards you with a prize that everyone covets,
everyone respects, everyone wants.
And you can't,
you like not only can help yourself,
but you can help
all the people that you
care about
with that reward.
It's just such,
I think, yeah,
I mean, for me,
I just find it very rewarding,
which is why like,
even if I like get a billion dollars,
10 billion dollars,
like this is probably
what I'm going to be doing.
You'll still be on Spaces.
Yeah.
I mean, a lot of times, I don't know why I do this, because sometimes I share some things that would benefit me not to share.
But yeah, I like interact, socializing with people in this medium.
I like interact, socializing with people in this medium.
And by the thing that you love, obviously,
I'm assuming you're talking about crypto as an industry, right?
No, no, no, no.
Not crypto as an industry.
Just markets.
Because you seem pretty well-read, right,
outside of even just crypto or markets in general.
Maybe relative to the average 20 year old but like in the grand scheme of things i'm very ignorant
but um i just yeah i just like playing the game dude that's all i've done my entire life right
like people there's a lot of like funny, funny threads, like, mocking East Asians for spending 15 hours a day playing League of Legends.
But, like, that's basically, like, how I spent most of my childhood.
So this is, like, the only life I've kind of known.
And I used to think that was, like, depressing.
But now I'm just, like, I'm happy.
You know, there's not much out there.
I realize it's not that, like, I'm missing out on stuff. I realize this is just's not much out there. I realize it's not that
I'm missing out on stuff.
I realize this is just all I like to do.
What do you think you'd be doing
if you had to not be
in crypto and markets? What do you think you'd be doing?
Depends on what era of history.
You mean in present day?
Yeah, let's go with present day.
Well, if I were like physically talented,
I'd be playing a sport.
I don't know.
Some type of PvP game, probably.
Maybe a video game streamer.
I don't know.
Maybe poker. You play much poker? Yeah. I don't know. Maybe poker.
You play much poker?
Yeah, I play a lot of poker.
Yeah, professional poker player for sure.
Giver's got some experience on me.
But, you know, I'm going to beat him one of these days.
Are you spending much time studying the game?
Because I feel poker things like poker
chess etc like you can play like all you want i mean even trading but like almost sometimes i
feel like it's better to spend like 80 80 of your time like studying how to actually get better than
just playing and yeah i like want to study but like when I do actually study, it feels so similar to trading.
And I'm just like, bro, like I could just be studying the markets
and make a million times more than this.
Like what am I doing?
So I'll like watch like videos and stuff.
And I have like a coach that I've been working with,
but like I refuse to do like any like, you know,
anything that feels too much like my job.
Like I just want to like listen to principles and like detect patterns and like reason through them from first principles instead of like
you know let's say looking at a database and and stuff like that but yeah it's like it's like fun
it's like it's nice to be able to get that energy out via another means as opposed to like, because a lot of times I think my mood affects my trading.
And I think it leads to like some unprofitable decisions.
So like having another outlet to express those moods can be quite helpful.
Do you feel like exercise as well helps you on the mental side it used to like when i was younger
nowadays like it's kind of distracting i like a hard time like actually it breaks like my flow
and like i don't really like yeah i don't know i i've like lost that positive reinforcement loop
with exercise so like yeah i'm not as like do you guys exercise
like do any of us shut the fuck up yeah i do you realize it's like a professional like bodybuilder
level of of uh physique that's my brother that's my brother oh i was a i was a power lifter and
then more so on the bodybuilding side and then got kind of bored of doing those
like one-dimensional movements and moved into MMA and stuff and like that's more so my main focus
these days and I think I have such a reinforcement loop with training that like if I don't train I'm
just so I feel so scattered and like underperforming. And although I do completely agree that if you overdo it,
it is a distraction from the markets side of thing.
I feel like I'm happy to compromise a little bit more energy there
because outside of markets,
it's probably the one hobby that I enjoy the most.
Kind of like you said, if you weren't in crypto,
you'd be a professional athlete or whatever it is. i kind of like always like to keep that ball rolling and uh
you know for whatever reason if i had to like step out of the markets i could always go focus
on that which i enjoy that's good yeah i i'd like to have that positive reinforcement loop back
again but yeah i don't know man I like playing like competitive sports
I'll get
really into that but when it comes to like
just in like a room
training like lifting weights I'm just like
if it like helps me get late I do
it but like it's like less of an issue
now so I just yeah I just have a
harder time getting myself
to do it but yeah
alright let's get some more questions up here and
it's getting late soon so I'll have to sleep soon but those are good conversation topics
Nico appreciate you coming up no stress thank you very much these markets are so
anytime it like rips like a little bit
it just gets completely beaten down
somebody's on the vwop dude one's on the vwop bro
just every every single time it just bonks it's like it's just clunk it's ruthless dude
it's so ruthless i figure like i don't know i've been short since like two days ago and just holding steady i think we probably see like 1-800 before anything
close it bro bro when vitalik posted what you posted like how could you not short youth bro
it hasn't been that this bad for like in my entire career it hasn't been this bad. Just looking at the chart.
Really? I feel like there's been worse times.
Okay, I think 2022 was when it was this bad.
It's funny you say that, because if you look at the charts from 2022,
and the range, the kind of like bull flag that we just broke down from it looks identical to 2022
yeah someone read the burry tweet
actually it wasn't from the the burry tweet i saw there's a guy there's a trader called
trader mercury who i had on for an interview recently and i think it was he who actually
shared it and i was looking at it i was like damn and that's why i felt like there was maybe
even a little bit more just a little more downside to be squeezed out i'm willing to take that bet
it's crazy how quickly ideas like spread when it comes to this kind of stuff. Though I will admit the fact that you're shorting makes me think we're closer to the end.
1,800.
Patience is an aquatic trade.
Maybe we won't see 1,800.
No, but like...
I'll see you in the order book.
I think we will see 1,800.
I think we'll see zero.
No, I can't say.
Every time I call for a price target,
it ends up just bottoming it.
Exclusive.
What up?
How's it going?
Dude, that was one of the funniest things I've ever heard.
About what?
If it doesn't get me laid, I'm not going to do it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. If it doesn't make me money, it doesn't get me laid i'm not gonna do it yeah yeah yeah if it doesn't make me money it doesn't get me laid i mean the honesty is hilarious because this my motivation's been completely fried i don't know
if it's maybe it's always been like this and and now I'm just not worried about saying it because I have no one to appeal to now.
But yeah, that's just how I feel.
Right on, right on.
So what's your thoughts?
On this Bitcoin. Tell us about us about yourself man how old are you
how old am i i'm not gonna fully dox myself but i'm uh i will say this uh
the last time i played football was like in 2001 wow okay you're old in the nfl or no no no no no uh college would have been like uh
do you trade do you trade crypto full-time
man i have some crazy stories about crypto but no i don't okay crypto back in the day was wild
Crypto back in the day was wild.
Do you trade crypto now?
I was in it for a little while.
I got in when Dogecoin was like $0.04 and it went up to $0.52.
And then I wasn't paying attention and it went back down.
Because I was working on other things and I wasn't looking at it the whole time.
Oh, what are you doing in this space?
Did you just see it randomly?
Yeah, how did you find this niche space? did i find this space no i mean i do trade
crypto but i mean i don't trade it like i don't trade it daily i'd like to get back into it the
trade you told me was from five years ago oh yeah yeah yeah no i mean that was a long time ago that
i got into i mean you're talking about dogecoin yeah that was a long time ago that i got into i mean you're talking about dogecoin yeah that was a long time
ago that was like back with uh was that like 2021 something like that uh 2022 yeah
but the original i mean the original paper dropped for actual bitcoin dropped uh what was that
for actual bitcoin dropped uh what was that it's like halloween of 2008 how much crypto do you own
how much crypto do i own i don't know i'd have to go look you haven't checked on me a lot
no no i mean you got to remember back in those days like uh you would sell crypto on like
craigslist and like that
nobody would really buy it so you you could only get what somebody would pay for it so a lot of
the ways that you were able to like so crypto was like through silk road is it is it a substantial
part of your portfolio uh not as much anymore because i don't have a job. Oh, okay.
That's why I'm trying to get back into it.
Okay, what did you do before?
I mean, I've done all sorts of shit.
Okay, you're just chilling?
No, I mean, I'm actively looking.
I'm doing a lot of AI stuff.
So, trying to figure out exactly what the best move is.
Sorry, that's my security system.
But yeah.
Okay, interesting.
Yeah, yeah.
No, I mean, I see there's some crazy movement.
What about yourself?
I mean, it sounds like this is all you do, right?
Just crypto? It's all I do right just crypto it's all i do dog mainly all i do it's it's interesting how um
the algorithm it just connects us in interesting ways like i don't think our paths would ever cross
you're uh you don't even follow me he just routed you to this space i know it's pretty wild that's
why when i saw it i was like, oh man, I'm gonna go
check it out and see what it is.
I was actually in
ClaudeCon space
earlier. ClaudeLive space.
Do you know what that is?
Not really.
It's just like AI
agents that talk to each other.
Fuck all niggers and nigger lovers
okay well yeah was that thingy uh it sounded like me though but yeah i appreciate you coming
up and i hope every hope good luck with everything um shining umbrereon and twink twink salon chain
yeah i was gonna ask like your comment you made about east asian like you being this successful
because you're east asian was pretty funny um what do you think separates you apart from like
a lot of the other striver east asian type of people like i know a lot of friends from
like middle school or like challenger and like these guys that go to like MIT and you pen like they're
not as smart as you I mean it's my dad is British you right so like what do you
think separates yourself from them if you ever noticed like there's like an
there's like a striver accent yeah yeah i noticed it
you have a you have a kind of a strong one giver doesn't really
actually eli's doesn't have one either
incredible save dude
yeah i think she's like you're like speaking chinese and then um now like i don't even know how to speak chinese like only knows how to speak english you're like speaking Chinese. And then now, like, I don't even know how to speak Chinese.
I only know how to speak English.
You're like from the, you're from the Bay.
I live in the Bay now, but I grew up in New York.
Okay.
What was your question again?
Oh, yeah.
I was going to ask, like, what do you think separates you from people that are, like,
basically more strivers?
Like, they're probably, like, higher rank and league than you.
Like, go to better college and whatnot, but you're you're like a lot more rich than them right yeah I I always thought like I was like decently
talented but I like there were like always so many kids that were much more more talented than me. And I think,
I wouldn't say it's like an issue,
but it's just maybe like a cultural remnant of the fact that
for Chinese specifically,
their parents had to live through the cultural revolution.
So there's just a lot more
scarcity baked in
and because of that
they're a lot more risk averse
which is the reason
why they're less likely
less financially stable
and less likely to take
risk
than let's say their counterparts
like their talents counterparts
here but yeah i think that's just like an artifact like their children are probably going to just be
on par with that so yeah that's what i think i i mean for the most part like
i was on i don't think i i had much aspiration beyond just having a you know upper middle class job i i kind of just got lucky with
the people i interacted with they kind of like opened my mind towards what was um possible and
yeah i mean i think a lot of it's just luck to be honest with you
to be honest with you.
But also, like, I mean, other things, right?
I just think a lot of what you said,
especially about, like, your thing with poker,
where you think poker and trading is so, like, similar,
but I know really, really good poker players
that are really dog shit.
Like, for some reason, they'll, like,
take really, really bad trades,
or they'll take trades
that are solely based on
a gut feeling or emotion
but then they don't apply that same concept
to poker
right so like what do you think
is the cause behind that
thinking about this question
i think if you're good at poker you have the capacity i think i think with trading like the thing i learned that like
in poker there's like everyone has their own like sort of way of making money
and i think the same goes for trading so yes there's some like unifying skill sets that make
you good at trading and make you good at poker but like a lot of the times like two people can
take completely opposite trades and both of them can end up making money just the way they they monetize
it and i think the same thing goes for poker so it's hard to say exactly why like they might have
found a winning iteration in one game but not the other but i do think like if you have enough
just raw talents it and the right direction it's like inevitable you figure both of them out
but yeah that's that's my answer to your question
okay yeah um that's pretty interesting i also made a comment i don't know if you saw it but
i think like almost all crypto traders tend to have the same like they play poker they do mma and they weight lift and
um like scoffers i was in space with him and he just said the same thing as you guys
yeah well i mean i feel like all like a lot of young men are just kind men are doing the same thing in this generation.
They're all just gambling and vaping and lifting and watching short-form video.
People have become more similar, it seems, in the ways.
There's more of a
efficient build i guess
that's like more apparent now because of the internet than there was before is my read on it
but yeah like i think a lot of the things you learn in poker like naturally leads you to
trading crypto well all right last one last question Let me go to sleep. Shining Umbreon.
Yeah. I have a question about just kind of how Bitcoin bottoms or tends to bottom during these cycles. And I mean, previously it touches the 200 week, but would you say that's like just too small of a sample size?
Because we touched it in 2018, we touched it in 2022, actually went below.
Would you say that's like a reliable spot to buy Bitcoin or is it just not enough data?
Man, I haven't even looked at the 200 week.
That's four years.
People look at that.
A four-year moving average.
All right, I'm plotting it right now.
Let's take a look at this four year moving average.
Wait, EMA or SMA?
SMA.
Let's see.
200 weeks.
I was just seeing that.
I'm retarded.
I don't see it.
Do you see any of those?
Just go to... Do you go to...
On trading view? Do you just go to moving on trading view do you just go to like moving averages and it's like too hard
it's probably like hidden top left i don't see the line show up anywhere
oh wait i need to zoom out Yeah, the drop down on top left.
What's the tune your week at?
It's at 58K.
Okay, it seems like it's pretty low.
Yeah, I don't know.
You're asking me like,
it's like an objective,
objective truth,
what these things will bounce at.
And like,
yeah,
if some billionaire cares about the 200 week EMA and he buys it off that line,
then it could bottom there.
Yeah.
But it's kind of like a,
the guaranteed long.
It's the guaranteed line how do you know
to the fabric of reality um yeah i don't know like maybe
i mean i'm just mentioning it because uh a lot of traders who trade cycles,
especially the four-year cycle,
use that as
a big pivot point
to kind of
just put in their buys.
I'm just kind of
a little bit skeptical
if it's going to hold this cycle
or if it's just not going to matter.
I like it.
I mean, I like the idea.
I guess, yeah, four-year cycle, four-year
EMA or SMA.
It's reasonable.
I like the idea.
Yeah, maybe
58K is a lot
lower than here.
20%.
Wow.
Yeah, I mean, it seems like a decent thesis.
Yeah, I like to keep it simple.
I don't trade too much, so I like to just take the best spots.
take the best spots how long have you been trading crypto for i've been trading crypto since 2015.
How long have you been trading crypto for?
wow wow are you are you have you made it uh yes okay are you just getting oh do you hold bitcoin
Do you hold Bitcoin?
Yes, I do.
And you're wondering if it's time to fill more.
What percent of your portfolio is in Bitcoin?
It used to be close to 100%.
Now it's a smaller portion, like 30 to 40.
I see.
And you'd be open to getting back to 100?
No, no way.
I'd be open to getting back to like 60 to 70.
Or I'm not even sure if I want to hold that much
But uh potentially that would be like my max risk limit
Okay, I see yeah if the opportunity presents this is like an interesting like cohort of trader that I have like very little insight into
are these like
multi-cycle Bitcoin OGs.
It seems like a lot more of them are tapped in now.
It's the Donalds.
It seems like most of them are tapped in to sell right now is the worry.
Maybe more of them coming to buy I mean generally the way that I look at it is
if you're like kind of close to the previous cycles all-time high and you
want to like start buying or get more exposure that's generally a good place i mean we're kind of like at the area now and
if you look at 2022 um when we hit like the the 17k area i mean that was in late 2022 but
uh that was like a pretty good spot so i do think it's better to be buying than selling.
Yeah,
I see.
I was going to ask you a question,
but I forgot what I was going to ask you.
Hmm.
Why do you think,
are you worried about quantum?
Yes.
A little worried, yeah.
But not enough to not buy Bitcoin.
Wait, not buy Bitcoin?
I'm not worried enough about quantum to downsize my Bitcoin position.
What do you attribute from this PA? It's like 50k, right? Let's use a round number.
What percentage of that would you attribute to this being quantum led fear?
I mean, I would attribute a good portion of it. Actually, I think I have a lot of friends who were selling in 2000, even in 2024, but definitely all over 2025 because of Quantum.
If you remember, there were a bunch of like old wallets that were opening up and they were just selling.
And these were wallets that were 10 plus years old.
So the speculation was that these were bad security wallets
that were already being cracked by quantum.
I don't know if that's true or not.
Yeah, but I do think people are generally scared of quantum,
which is why Bitcoin didn't really get a nice bid in 2025.
It's just a pretty prevalent fear among everybody.
So I think the answer is very little.
I think there's probably three things.
And the first is that people always retroactively try to explain, you know, two sigma, three sigma plus price action with specific reasons and variables.
When in reality, it's probably a consortium of a lot of things. And so quantum, I think, is just like a very easy way to pin the issue.
The second is even if you think, okay, like in five years or eight years or whatever,
10 years, right, the value of BTC because of quantum is zero, right?
Actual zero, 100% probability that it is zero, right?
Like your opportunity cost or not your,
just right, like one's opportunity cost of being in crypto.
You know, if you want to measure it by BTC's implied vol
or some sort of risk proxy relative to the volatility
that's exhibited in equities.
I kind of have it in my mind as something like 40%. So, I mean, it's not the right method, but I mean, if you look at alts, right, on any
given year, I mean, the average alt is probably down by more than 40%.
So that's probably one empirical reason.
But the short of it is that if you think that the price of quantum is leading to BTC to be zero in like five to eight years,
and you discount that back, the impact that it has on today's price is quite low.
So that's kind of the second down that I have. The third of which is that like,
quantum is always going to be this pervasive issue that is
non falsifiable, right? Like if the argument is that there is
partisan allocation, especially by people like entities of
an institutional nature, you're just the data just doesn't show
that because you know, one way to track that is through, for example,
if you want to use microstrategy or BTC inflows,
I mean, if you look at the dollar per inflow or outflow
that's been across the ETFs relative to
and then you try to match that to price discovery or velocity
relative to any other given time period.
The clear end of it is that the capitulation has mostly been within leverage.
It's within leverage, their spot, but there's not that much evidence to show that ETFs are a very natural big seller, at least in that instance.
Is this a give giver response?
Yeah, I know it's a giver response.
I'm going to fire my alt, dude.
Yeah, I mean, I just think that it's like...
I just don't think it's really...
My concern is that people don't
think like this.
I feel like if it's like, oh, this could be an issue.
I've been in this for so long.
I've made so much money.
The problem is the Wences could just be firing off
a quarter of their stack off of it
and just be irrationally scared of it.
Did you see the Nick Carter,
how he quoted the Novogratz interview?
Yeah, it was funny.
Like, oh, we had one client sell $9 billion,
and one of his reasons was the quantum fears.
Okay, what the fuck materially changed in quantum?
He recanted that later, though.
Yeah.
He said that was an incorrect interpretation of what he was trying to say.
But, yeah, Nick disagreed with it.
Anyway, what were you saying, Eli?
Just like, what has stoked this?
Has there been actually any dramatic advances in Quantum in the last year?
I know there was a mini bubble in Stonks,
but what is actually driving it besides Shkreli getting raped?
Yeah, Price went down,
and then a few quantum guys got interviewed.
But yeah, it's true.
The last six months,
the timeline for quantum affecting BTC
hasn't greatly changed.
It's always been something
that's been a six- to seven-year-old problem.
I think it was just because
one of the Nobel Prize winners won,
or it was like a quantum guy, right?
Or something like that?
Like that was what actually sparked this?
Sparced the meme stock move.
I assume that's what sparked the fucking Nick Carter article
and all that jazz.
I don't know.
I mean, that could be a plausible reason
where just like memetic apophenia kind of causes it, which is kind of funny.
But yeah, it only matters to the extent that these people that sold because of that will rebuy.
Do you get the sense, Shining Umbreon, that most of the people of your friends that have sold because of
this plan to rebuy again like have they permanently been invalidated from the bitcoin narrative or are
they just planning on coming back to it once these fears subside well a lot of these individuals i
would say are pretty high net worth by now And generally, they just start allocating a smaller and smaller percentage of their net worth into crypto because it doesn't really make sense taking on that much risk, especially, you know, these people, they probably have families now.
Like, you're no longer a bachelor, you're no longer in your 20s.
Like, it doesn't make sense to just have
all your money in crypto, but
I do think they would increase
their percentage.
They're still long-term Bitcoin
bulls. I just want to sit out
the volatility.
Volatility is a gift.
Volatility is a cyber hornet.
Yeah, I'm still pretty bullish.
What do you think about...
What do you think the people that you talk to think about gold?
Yeah, I mean, gold is great right but uh it's like like yeah
you can you can buy the ETFs and people do that but if you if you want physical
it's like a huge pain in the ass like you gotta sign up with a vault you got
to pay storage fees you got to like pay like
big spreads when you get in and get out and you also got to do a lot of analysis
on like what's actually a secure place like a lot of people choose Singapore
it tends to be like a fairly neutral good spot to store your physical gold.
So there's like all these hurdles.
Yeah, I mean, it's kind of funny.
I was talking to my friend.
First time that I opened a physical vault was 2018.
And now the price of Bitcoin relative to gold is actually the same price at which I opened the vault.
So it would have kind of been the same if I just held the bars in 2018.
Interesting. Yeah.
Yeah, it's just physical gold is a huge pain in the ass.
But if you don't mind that, then it could make sense for you.
I have a quick question. This might be irrelevant. Thanks for giving me the speaker access.
Is anyone going to East Denver this year.
You first.
I will not be attending East Denver.
Fuck, dude. It might be fun.
Just to see what it's like.
I'd have to go.
I've been to a couple,
but typically when the market's not so much in a good place,
it's a lot less fun.
I was going to go if he went, but since he's not going anywhere...
I'll just quickly if I am I
cool to upload a clip from the space for sure what are you gonna upload I don't
know just like some of the chat from earlier or something I need to talk to
this Umbreon guy I feel like I need to understand that I'm gonna DM him yeah I
need to understand the mindset of the Bitcoin OG better.
I get the sense that
it's a bunch of
kind of
not that
plugged in,
not too
sophisticated, but very rich
people that are all going to
move in and out at roughly
the same time.
Are you already talking to me?
You just got to buy the 200 week, bro.
I think you just got to buy
the 200 week, dude.
I think you convinced me. It's a strong thesis.
Yeah, I mean,
I do think that's the spot that you want to buy,
but it's going to take probably a while to get there, I would guess.
I don't think we're going to go straight down to 58.
What if we got there tomorrow?
Then, yeah, you just got to buy then.
You got to close your eyes and bid, and the OGs just pray that they have your back.
You're all looking at the 200-week.
I guess it goes to show how little I've been trading.
My longest EMA is just the 200-day.
Yeah.
But there is the sample size problem.
It's one for one it's a hundred percent no it's it's actually uh it's more than that uh i'm not i'm not sure if that strategy worked in
the 2013 cycle uh i would have to go back and check but it hit in 2018 it hit in 2022 in 2022 it went a
little bit lower but ultimately it was like a good spot to buy um and i i do think it will be a good
spot to buy later this year that's fair it's kind of funny how like the four-year cycle like
to me it like means nothing, absolutely nothing.
But to this older cohort of capital, it actually means a lot.
Yeah, I mean, it's all about the mind virus.
Yeah.
It might take a whole year to get there.
Okay.
This is very useful, though.
I appreciate you coming up and sharing.
Yeah, thank you for having me.
Yeah.
All right, that energized me a little.
Let's get a couple more questions.
Wait, I want to ask you guys a question.
I am.
Do you think there's anything saucy Sailor can do at earnings tomorrow?
I didn't even know MicroStrategy earnings were tomorrow.
Wow.
Uh-oh.
That's kind of bullish.
I think there is a lot of things he could do, yeah.
There's a lot of things.
I think he could have a surprise.
This guy's like a sneak, crafty guy. Dude, he's a lot of things. I think he could like have a surprise. This guy's like a sneak crafty guy
Dude, he's got hands
stretch could be in Trump accounts by the end of the week man and
You're fucking sideline. Oh, dude. I shouldn't have tp my my long
It's actually like I'm not a bad long thesis to just be long into the mic of strategy earnings
Hmm Actually, not a bad long thesis to just be long into the microstrategy earnings. I have to go look at the data.
My recollection is it's always a bullish thing.
These MSTR buyers are just so despairing,
and suddenly their hero, Michael Saylor, comes on
and talks about how bitcoin
is this immaculate battery and they just like slam bid mstr
beautiful this is a useful space i got two trade ideas for me mstr and the 200 week ema
all right um Baza and Adrian
I think
I don't know if it was me
that came up first but yeah
I'm just going to go ahead
great space so far been an interesting
conversation i just want to add like little bits um of what i know concerning the old quantum
versus bitcoin did you come up last week yes yes i was up here last week i was the one who asked
i asked you specifically about like what you knew about
quantum and like yeah you said you don't really know much about it okay well uh i i like i i don't
think like i don't think quantum is like is like the the main threat to bitcoin i think the threat of like quantum to bitcoin is bitcoin's community irresponsiveness
to it's like okay fine it's something that is like is kind of going to break bitcoin for sure
but like it is it's very very preventable like there's there's technical means to prevent it
there's technical means to like safeguard bitcoin network for making that happen but like they are not being
responsive to like that it's like okay some some some of the orgies are like saying oh it's not
going to happen soon it's like something in the timelines of 20 years yeah 10 years and like i
i think first and foremost that estimation is like very very wrong because um i think quantum
even add like much more faster innovation than ai like we've had ai for like since the 90s right and
ai didn't see your background my background yeah are you a quantum researcher or
a quantum researcher or nope i'm actually a philosophy student but like i got interested
in physics and like yeah i came into crypto and there's like the topic of quantum yeah
it's like really interesting so okay gotcha yeah so
Did you have like a
did you have like a yeah
You don't think
You think quantum is
The fears are overrated
Giver also gave a
Three part
Thesis on why it was overrated
Also if you were listening earlier
I don't think
Like
I think it's like
majorly being seen from like
the wrong way. Like the people who are seeing
are kind of giving too much like
were doomed. Like the people
who are seeing it enough are like
Yeah, I mean I think it's less
so like what the reality is and like
more so how people perceive it.
I wonder...
Wait a second, hang on.
I wonder if at least some of the sell-off this week was like...
Because Saylor was against it, right?
He had the big tweet that all the fucking OGs hated.
Maybe that's probably a meme, but... you know what I'm talking about?
where he's like, you don't make changes to the chain
yeah, I remember seeing that
it's definitely going to be like a source of volatility
sometime in the future
yeah, maybe it's like
maybe there's just some anti-correlation
if quantum stocks do well
it's like bearish for Bitcoin and quantum stocks do well, it's bearish for Bitcoin.
And if they do bad, it's bullish.
Even though they have the same retail momentum factor.
I've not been keeping an eye on it.
I've always dismissed it as,
this is just some stupid shit.
But I don't know.
If it's
adding some sort of
perturbance to longer
term flows, then maybe it's something worth
paying more attention to.
Alright.
Is there any Baza
call of steel?
I should probably start trying to
filter these questions.
Yo, can you hear me?
What's up?
For whatever reason, I'm pretty much hearing everyone twice.
Can you repeat that?
Like everything's delayed.
I'm speaking and then I'm hearing you double speak like 20 seconds later.
Later, later.
It's always interesting, like the people that come up here and what they decide to say.
What's going on guys.
I'll,
I'll pop in.
It's kind of interested.
let's listen to,
what was it?
A shining embryon,
agree with a lot of the stuff.
he's saying,
for sure.
And,
and you guys,
you know,
I, tell us, tell us about yourself in like two sentences. For sure. And you guys. You know.
Tell us about yourself in like two sentences.
Yeah. So just been a lifelong student of the market, I guess, since about 2009.
Got into crypto in like 2014-15.
And got into commodities and,
physical,
physical commodities.
and,
just now I,
now I just built shit.
Okay.
But what do you want to talk about?
So it's,
it's a little complicated.
But yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, I'm here to bring value if possible.
Okay.
Yeah, so essentially, you know, it sounds like the 200-week moving average is actually like i'm 100 percent on that
um but that's kind of the same thesis that i've that i've been looking at um
i think my account got i'm on a backup account right now because i think i was in a recorded
spaces recently that didn't like what I said but
very similar to to what I'm beyond was just saying it's you know I think have you guys
looked into like the Epstein files that just dropped what did you come up here to say?
Nothing, really.
Oh, okay.
I see.
I've been waiting for something.
I mean, I appreciate... I have looked at the Epstein files.
This is ridiculous, right?
One guy comes up here to say he has audio issues the other
guy just spends like three minutes stumbling over himself to say that like have you looked over the
epstein files like what is going on fellas like am i in a movie like what is going on
dude i'm gonna start hiring people on fiverr for like one dollar to just come up here this just various
scripts see how long we could go for this is crazy all right um it's kind of funny though it's good
it's okay jj snackler hey what's good i got a real question for you. So like people talking about quantum is kind of fun to listen to because it seems like everyone has an opinion and no one's done any research.
But I wanted to get your trader perspective on like specific to crypto markets, how people tend to reflexively price in fears about things that they don't understand, but they kind of heard through the grapevine that they're supposed to be afraid of.
about things that they don't understand,
but they kind of heard through the grapevine
that they're supposed to be afraid of.
So like quantum,
like if you just think through the game theory of it,
there's no shot that it would just come out
and just wreck crypto overnight.
Like even if like there was some breakthrough
in some like Microsoft lab or something,
it's not just going to like automatically
all of Bitcoin's invalid and everyone panic sells.
Like it's going to have some lead time. And that's Nick Carter's
whole thing is that he's talking about how it's to scare people into preparation. But like we just
heard from Umbreon, there's at least a non-zero amount of people in the market that really just
got afraid because they saw some old wallets moving coins. And that was enough to get them
to at least price in some amount of selling or risk.
And so I see a lot of this.
TetherFUD is a good example of this,
where it's like people don't have the skill set to prove what
is or isn't true in the rumor mill.
And I wanted to know how you think about that for pricing
in during downside periods.
What do you do to approximate risk just based on the game
through people thinking other people are going to sell,
even if there's no fundamentals to it?
Yeah,
I like the question.
I mean,
I can't say I'm like an expert in this,
but I,
you know,
I feel like when you hold a position for a long time and like you're ready
for it,
you can kind of just find any excuse to like take off risk.
Like it could be anything, just like one little rumor and you're like, ah, shit.
Like I wanted to get out anyway.
My conviction's kind of shot.
Like I'm happy with the money I made.
It's going down very quickly.
Like whatever.
Like the reason I need to take risk off is always going to be a lower bar than the reason I need to put risk on.
And yeah,
like,
like you said,
these things are pretty reflexive and it kind of gets reinforced to like,
the guy who panicked about quantum three months ago is a lot happier than the
guy's panicking about quantum now.
And you know,
it's still an issue.
So like maybe it's not too late to sell now and you know it's still an issue so like maybe
it's not too late to sell now and then buy back later um i mean question for you is like are you
a long-term bitcoin holder like oh no i'm i'm a turbo weirdo um i'm like a really really old
head when it comes to crypto but i never believed in the bitcoin thesis
so i never bought bitcoin i always just traded alts okay you trade all full time or do you is
it a part-time thing for you i mean i'm i'm i've made it so i'm like retired and i don't day trade
um which is why i wanted your perspective on this stuff because it's curious because it seems like
this cycle more so than any other cycle has been more of like a trader friendly environment i'm
more of like a buy and then make like two to three trades a year sort of thing or like if you see one
narrative that's really hot like i was in d5 summer era like i played the own ponzi's all that in the
last cycle um but yeah it's i'm not i'm not a big coiner even though i'm from that class um it's just
yeah the market is way different now than it used to be.
Yeah, I see.
Yeah, I mean, it does seem like this is an opportunity.
At least for me, I still believe in the thesis.
There's nice properties to Bitcoin.
That's why it's useful.
And there's a good amount of upside as a fiat alternative.
good amount of upside as a fiat alternative.
And if this truly is a factor for why tens of billions of dollars are leaving the space,
and it's like tens of billions of dollars from people that are actually convicted that
will rebuy some of it back again, then it just presents a pretty clear opportunity.
It's not clear what the path is to like sort of dispel this misconception that's
been reflexively reinforced amongst the market participants um yeah i don't even know what that
would look like besides like an actual upgrade which might which i mean the fucking upgrade is
just going to take could take five years so maybe it's just like there's not much to be done yeah do you think that there's maybe a chance that it's even worth
counter trading like the same way that tether fud is because it tends to come out at the lows
you know when people are looking to point fingers at stuff i think quantum might be like the latest
iteration of that style of thing where like it has no fundamental impact at all in my opinion on
um like the actual threat to crypto so there's no real risk it's only the perception of risk
for like people selling on a belief that's faulty yeah i mean i do think there is like
some edge in like being like okay like this is just enough. Too much flow has come out.
It's like a two-sided thing.
There needs to be a reason for them to come back.
Is that 200 a week?
The 200 a week is a good reason for them to come back.
I think it's always something just completely arbitrary.
In my time in the markets since 2012,
like every single BitConer I've talked to,
everyone who's like achieved whale status,
they always have these like really weird beliefs
about what causes, you know,
like what a value zone is for crypto.
And like, I think even now it's lost on people.
Like you said earlier in the space
that you don't care about the halving,
but I actually think that's like one of the few fundamentals that actually does matter in our space because
it literally is a supply shock that's predictable and that you can plan around and i think the
mining dynamics like impact at least how miners behave with their buying and selling activities
but the way that people approach that is completely different like some people
up until this cycle believed that we always ran after the having. And like this cycle, we had a run up beforehand, probably because the ETFs.
I think people just underweight like fundamental drivers more so.
And they rely on like their old heuristics for like saying, oh, it always touches this EMA.
Or like it always does this.
Or like we need a bounce here because it always bounces when you're like this many weeks out from the top.
And they don't look at like who's selling or what the flows in the order flow looks
like. But I find like among Bitcoin whales,
like the OG class, they're like super stitious.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's, it's funny that you mentioned. Yeah. Yeah.
I think you're right.
I mean, I have like a pretty have a pretty contrarian take,
which is that the cracked wallets that started opening up in 2024 and 2025
was probably some kind of basic quantum.
Because I can't really think of another explanation explanation i mean can i give you can i
give you a counterpoint yeah like a possible other explanation is that i mean aside from the fact
that they might just be recovered while it's like left to people in wills or something is that
there's other ways around cracking bitcoin wallets that don't involve quantum computing
and i would lean much more likely that it's something like, you know,
someone able to recover a seed phrase through like a password vault than it is like designing a whole
new computing system. Because if you look at the mechanics of quantum, like this is where it's
misunderstood. That sort of technology is like a military secret. You're not just going to have
some kid in his garage invent like a new quantum computer. And then even if they do make meaningful
like strides towards it, like the reason that kicked off like this whole quantum fear is because
Microsoft actually did make some breakthroughs that like 10x the efficiency of existing quantum
but like their best scientists in like the best funded labs in order to crack like a bitcoin
old password it would take still like years.
So it's just people getting afraid of the scaling.
But realistically, if someone like in a Microsoft lab in secret, let's say they're lying and they're like, actually, we have something, we can crack it.
It would take them months at like the best case scenario to crack a single wallet just via brute forcing.
And even if they did, that wouldn't be the best use of their funds because Bitcoin wallets have the special property of being completely transparent and public.
And so like you said, like everyone knows if one's cracked,
it's undeniable and there's ways to detect this
circumstantially, it would be a much better use of their time
to use that for like governmental purposes,
like cracking, like espionage stuff, like, you know,
code cracking for like anti-China, anti-US,
like real uses that aren't just recovering a couple billion
dollars at a time.
And on top of that, what I'm saying,
you can check out yourself.
But if they did do this and they were using this as a test case,
word would get out very quickly.
It wouldn't just be like a couple people had a hunch that it happened.
This is a thing that is so important
because you can break other things with quantum computers.
You can break Amazon shopping
and E-mails.
It's not a thing you want to announce to the world
if you have it.
Yeah, sorry.
Maybe I misphrased the semantics.
Maybe it's not like the canonical definition of quantum,
more so just someone who was able to recover the seed phrase.
And, I mean, that could also be helped, you know,
with like modern AI and stuff like that.
I'm not sure exactly how it works, but just with the new technology, they're able to get this heat freeze somehow.
Not sure.
So I think that's a good point, too.
Like meaningfully, there's no difference between like being able to crack it with like a secret quantum computer that people don't even have versus like brute forcing it because you're sitting on like a big big data
center that's just doing the old style of brute forcing what matters is the new supply of old
coins that people assume were taken off the market coming onto the market but even that i don't think
is a meaningful fear because if you look at the wallets that did like suddenly move coins it wasn't
size like we had a huge amount of og selling in the last year but it came
from like the german government recovered coins or like it came from known quantities like otc
and galaxy it wasn't um it wasn't like the public coins that people were afraid of or like suddenly
like 20 of the new coins on the market it was like a fraction of a percent. I mean, there were a bunch of like 100 to 1000 BTC wallets that were
opening up. Yeah. So like, once again, I think it's more about the perception of the fear,
right? Like if they cracked like a couple thousand, like people start selling because
they anticipate the next like few thousand coming on the scene. It's not because of like
the existing supply.
But even that, have those slowed down?
Do we still see an acceleration in those wallets being cracked?
Those are the things that a reasonable analysis
would lead you to make a trade decision on, in my opinion.
But like I said, I think a lot of whales
are very superstitious and stuff like this.
Or they tend to lean on expert opinions,
because this is outside of basically everyone's wheelhouse
other than quantum researchers.
Could you imagine if Microsoft
made a quantum computer
that was going to revolutionize
how fucking compute worked
and then immediately used it
to commit crime by raping Bitcoin?
That would pretty so sick
it's a way better fucking north korea should be trying to use quantum dude that should be their like north star trying to put a fucking nuke in the world like that should actually be what they
should go for well that's the irony of it is that like north korea is probably responsible for like
a hundred times more supply of bitcoin being sold on the open market just via normal
traditional hacks of exchanges and private wallets than a quantum computer even if it
did exist it was doing that nay nay sir they are buyers of bitcoin oh yeah they're they're a supply
sink well just sell your alts get into ether, and then you figure it out after that.
Oh, yeah, but they don't hold on to the coin.
I'm pretty sure they're not sailoring everything that they convert their alts into.
Yeah, you got to go to Iran for that.
Okay, so that was my next question before you guys kicked me off.
I didn't want to take too much time, but do you think there's a geopolitical angle
to what's the new supply that's coming on the market,
or do you just think it's like a bunch of disgruntled OGs?
Because there is evidence that Iran mined a fuck ton of Bitcoin with their oil.
And like a chief example is that when we bombed them, when I say we, the U.S., bombed them last year, literally the mining hash power dropped like overnight.
literally the mining hash power dropped overnight.
So do you think there's an angle here that's like the market can't price in
because it's hiding behind high-end intel around geopolitics?
Or it could just be China's central bank selling or something?
Yeah, short answer no.
I did hear a fun conspiracy theory, though,
that basically that Shen Xi guy that got arrested,
the pig butchering
compound running 16 billion
Lou Bain hacking guy
was actually
much bigger
the conspiracy theory goes that he was much
bigger than
the reported 16 billion and that
makes sense why
the US was able to just
apprehend the 16 billion
because there's actually like tens and tens
more behind that
China got to keep and is
presumably selling to go fucking buy
gold or
short treasuries
that was a pretty conspiracy theory because they also
like brought him to China in like
by the fucking throat dude
I don't know if you guys saw that video of
Shenji getting carted out
but it's pretty dire
there's like 10 dudes all
with like guns at his head like
razor blades at his neck
anyways he's gonna get
the death penalty there but yeah
that happens
I love that
thanks for having me up
those were good questions
I haven't considered the geopolitical angle
I tend to usually discount
those kind of things
but it's also so hard to prove
what the truth is
It usually never comes out until much later
Thank you, I I like question for you
sorry my brains moving slow I'm like pretty tired but yeah like I mean on
this OG stuff I do think it is like there's a good amount of edge and just
thinking through how these people think.
Because I do think a lot of the flow is from these people.
Traders on CT, especially that have joined since 2020, 2021,
have just very little understanding of.
I appreciate you guys coming up here and sharing context on
that it's an interesting thing to think about i'll have to do on it more all right um john k
hey hey so yeah my question is i think a lot of chat here is about trading and yeah, it's assumed like as an advice for someone who's not a good trader,
but they still want to allocate.
And I think the worst trader you are,
the less USD you should own and you should just allocate long term.
Do you have any thoughts on if someone was looking at a say,
five year time horizon,
how they should allocate between crypto bitcoin gold us
equities and say that they're like seven figures and they're still working
um it's hard to say because i feel like my answer on the i'm just like a i'm just like a trader
like a pure trader like i i if i give you investment advice it might shift in like a trader, like a pure trader. If I give you investment advice, it might shift in like a week.
So yeah, I don't know.
I think it really benefits everyone to just think for themselves
how much risk they want and what they truly just are convicted in and believe.
Because like,
it matters a lot less like what you actually do and it matters more just like,
are you not going to make mistakes?
So you're not going to panic out at the worst time.
And like,
can you hold something with conviction?
So yeah,
I think I would just examine your own beliefs and just think about what you
think is going to happen in the world and then allocate that way.
That would be true if you thought everything would go up, right? Because if everything
goes up, then I guess conviction matters most and not selling it at the bottom. But do you
think, yeah, everything just goes up against USD or do you think some things will do well?
Like, do you think crypto should, for example, be part of someone's portfolio and at what percentage?
And same question for like gold and US equities.
I think you can find your own conviction on that.
There's a lot of material out there.
I don't know if I can provide advice for
that but yeah I think you know what you need to do I want to go to sleep but I'm
also kind of addicted to this it's gonna be be fabs I love be fabs
what's up
do you have uh anything you want to talk about
uh yeah on the topic of quantum i think like
oh i just like to pick your brain about this
do you think it'd be a good idea to monitor like bitcoin core developers with uh regard to like a
quantum upgrade if we're going to if we're going to conclude that there's a margin of this selling that is associated with this quantum fear um or or does that just not exist because i've i've heard like
like i've heard blips about a quantum upgrade but i don't know how uh how much that's gonna
yeah i think it'll be like a fundamental catalyst for sure but there's be so much like
lead time to it uh yeah i don't know I feel like it hits the
200 week moving average before
any upgrade gets talked
about so we'll see
true
if I was a Bitcoin core developer I would
probably want to time that announcement around the
I don't know if they think like that
I mean I
I have a feeling this is going to be more of like a rounded bottom than like the 200. I don't know if they think like that. I mean, I
have a feeling this is going to be
more of a rounded bottom than
a V-shaped bottom.
So I guess I'm not in too
much of a rush to make sure I get
the best price on this thing.
I think you'll have
time, but yeah.
I don't know. I think you'll have time. But, yeah.
I don't know.
I'm surprised, like... I'm not surprised, but, like,
if quantum is, like, a real fear, like,
it's a reasonable
thesis to, like,
shift Bitcoin into ETH,
shift bitcoin into eth which is what a lot of these like chinese whales have done
which is what a lot of these, like,
Chinese whales have done.
is that just because eth is considered like more quantum resistance or resistant in regards to
like an upgrade potential like is it it's like harder to upgrade bitcoin it's like less ossified
oh yeah i guess It's ossified. Oh. Yeah.
I guess.
Shout out Fagnar.
All right.
Well, appreciate you guys listening.
It went on a little bit longer than I expected,
but it was a fruitful discussion.
Yeah, thanks for listening, guys.
Take care.
Do you guys have any parting words, Eli's or giver? fruitful discussion. Yeah, thanks for listening, guys. Take care.
Do you guys have any parting words,
Eli's or Giver?
Unban this man.
Unban me.
Unban Giver.
Wait, are you in the poking room, too? No, ban him for life, dude.
Fuck out of here.
I just want to be a fish in peace.
Yeah, I thought you liked him getting banned, Elias.
Yeah, no, no. I take it back.
Ban him again.
The issue is like, Giver is actually
good for the game.
All these other guys, I've realized,
are just straight bum hunters, dude.
They'll only play
when there's a fish playing, and as soon
as the fish leaves, they just immediately
go away, and the game breaks.
Brutal.
I know, but Giver will...
Because Giver is better than everyone,
he will just keep playing with everyone,
and the game never breaks.
And he'll probably just heads up.
Oh, shit.
Oh, did him...
Giver, did you and...
Who were you fucking measuring dicks with?
Was it Max?
Who was it?
There was big talk of a heads-up game.
Oh, Victor.
It was Victor.
Victor, that's right, yeah.
Did that end up happening?
No, I think I'll defer to him, but...
Damn.
Let me buy some action, dude.
No, I mean, he just... I mean not gonna i'm not gonna say much about that he just hasn't really um he just hasn't really responded
based uh true around around that time where i think he posted the first
pnl leaderboard he stopped responding but I think I said it's probably a coincidence.
Victor hasn't been back in a while.
I mean, he just hasn't played in a while.
He's probably just having more fun playing live, honestly, which makes sense.
He was like my favorite player to play against.
He would just like overbet huge.
They just have like the craziest like
River bluff lines
Everyone else kind of plays I don't know I feel like I got a kick there's like two guys
I just like I just hate the way they play
Kick out black
I hate the way blad plays and I hate the way how TBE plays. I just need to get them out of here.
Just can him, bro. It's your game.
Just invite him back in like a week when they're
when you not hold. I feel bad for Blad
because like I canned him
before and he just like spent every day
like in my DMs
like begging to get in the games
again.
Yeah. I don't know.
I feel bad.
He's a good guy.
He gets tilted so easily.
It's so funny.
Just flip a coin for if he's banned or not every day
and you're good to go.
That's fair.
It's funny.
Ideally, if there's no one playing,
they can play, but as soon as a fish sits down you kick them
I think it's like a weird user
experience I still need to experiment with that
yeah
I don't want to ruin your games by saying
this but I had a friend join one of my in-house games
with like a vibe coded solver and he was
just using like comet browser like on the table i think if someone tries to use a solver
they're not going to make much money it will also be very apparent the way they play and like they'll
probably get kicked but yeah i'm very gay like most of the money's not made from playing gto is from like
playing exploitatively so it's like hard to you know you're not gonna you just have to know how
to play poker we also play this is why you're always big stuck away we play very deep so it's
not like i mean the 100 big ones is more solved but we play like 400 plus.
So deep.
I fucking love it, dude. Oh, I gotta get back in there.
I need some more training before I go back. You guys have been leveling up
pretty hard. We can't play that
deep anymore because if we play 1,000
blinds deep, it's like 50 grand.
Dude, you gotta lower the stakes.
It's the problem. I think I raised the stakes too high.
Yeah, you gotta make it
back to 510, and then it's like... cuz then it's just not as big of a center
but you still play fucking deep and it's fine I just like can't care about it that
way I feel like like I can't go back to playing lower stakes dude I don't know
I've seen you fucking make some nitty ass folds against bets that weren't that
big I think you care that's It's more so the principle.
I feel like I'm exploiting that.
I feel like I'm exploiting you
if I make a super nitty fold versus you.
Yeah.
Yeah, but I think...
Well, you're just exploiting the fucking
bum hunters by playing smaller.
It already didn't matter, the size wasn't important.
Yeah, I think the solution is just to get more people, bigger players in the group that are like victors.
Yeah.
Anyway, it's a fun group if you guys want to join just DM me
and I'll vet you
but okay
I'm going to call it a night
take care fellas
see you guys
GNGN
