2024 in crypto: ETFs, memecoins, regulation and Ethereum

Transcript

GM good morning welcome to the milro show The Daily crypto show that'll boost your mood like the first sip of coffee on a Monday morning I'm your host Jay Hamilton and today we are joined by Kyle rehead co-owner and head of research for milk road today we are taking a look back on 2024 what were the major Milestones what were the highlights of the year we're going to have a bit of fun today and remind you guys of what an incredible year it was in crypto and what is it setting us up for for next year where did we get to in 2024 it was a banner year for crypto and what is it going to

allow for the future of crypto and for your investments before we jump in if you guys like our Channel if you enjoy listening to us please do me a favor and take a minute and subscribe or give us a like it makes a big difference and helps us get in front of more people which brings more investors and more knowledgeable people into the crypto space we're just going to take a minute to hear from our sponsors who make the show possible meanwhile is the world's first licensed and regulated life insurance company built for the Bitcoin economy they do everything in BTC you pay in BTC they pay claims to your family in BTC you take out policy loans entirely in BTC when you need liquidity protect your family from life's

uncertainty and a broken Financial system build intergeneration generational Bitcoin wealth while the cost of living skyrockets in dollar terms plus get all the tax and legal benefits of life insurance now in Bitcoin visit milkroom meanwhile to join the wait list and get early access to the world's first Bitcoin life insurance Kyle what's going on my man welcome back to the show Merry Christmas Happy Holidays happy to be here thanks man happy holidays to you too okay let's start off with a as you reflect back on 2024 how do you feel how do you feel with where we're at right now I mean I love where we're at I think 2024 was

probably a poster year for crypto a year that I think set us up to kind of change the the destiny of crypto we call it like the Golden Age of crypto has came out of 2024 and I say that because of multiple things have sort of come together to allow us to sort of take off from here uh I think the macro setup which we talk about a ton has really kind of formed to set us up for a big 2025 in terms of liquidity rates coming down all that kind of stuff I mean we've talked at Naim about that the political the regulation side I think has just been a poster year in 2024 in terms of trump winning the SEC getting replaced with Gary Gensler and just like everyone in the US basically in politics has come together and they're now all proc crypto

and so that's going to set us up for just a massive 2025 and Beyond it's not just about next year at this point uh and then I think the technology has really gotten figured out over the last year l2s have really had a moment and taken off especially with Bas salana has had its moment has been battle tested with all this meme coin activity um I think we've done so much on the tech side that we're actually finally ready for the first time for mainstream adoption I'm actually very grateful we didn't go mainstream in 2024 or 2023 because we were definitely not ready now it feels like I mean we're still not ready for billions of people but we're close right we're we're a lot more ready than we ever were and we're now ready for Millions let's say of people tens of millions maybe hundreds of millions and

so the tech appears to be ready the politics the regulation appears to be finally ready uh and then macro at least for 2025 or for a portion of 2025 is ready and so it's kind of all come together to set us up for what I think is going to be a really really big year next year an exciting year and then it's like look do I think that price just goes up for forever we have super cycle no but I think in terms of adoption in terms of like new use cases new apps and like actually integrating this stuff into life I think that does go up moving forward and it's a super cycle of adoption price action will still always go up and down and probably have cycles and whatever and that's all dependent on macro but I think in terms of just like

people finally not thinking this thing is dead and starting to really use this in life and have apps and things that are in crypto that actually change people's lives for the better I think we'll have a super cycle of that and I think that's really exciting that's really what 2024 and of course many of the years before this have set us up for but I I love that we're doing this review Jay because um one of the the best things you can do as an investor is to look back on how you performed when certain events happened investing is not just a hey I got an idea it's I'm gonna buy some Bitcoin and that's just it it is a journey and you need to get better and better at it every single day it's like uh your job or it's like weight loss or getting healthy right you don't

just go to the gym one time and then that's it you forget about you just keep going and you do the same thing every time absolutely not you go you learn how did you lift how did you eat how did that make you feel how can you get better matter day in and day out and it's a it's a process I've been working out for 20 years right and improving my health for 20 years and I feel like I'm better than I was 20 years ago but I'm still not perfect and I just keep getting better and better and you got to think of investing the same way and one of the best ways to get better in in in self-development in growth in health in whatever the heck it is you're trying to learn is you do things you keep trying things and then you reflect back and you

learn about how did you do Under Pressure how did you do when this news event happened when this opportunity came could you have done something differently there um should you have done something differently there or you know did you let your mental get the best of you right it's all these kind of things that help you learn so I love journaling and it's one of my favorite reasons of writing it's why I love writing Pro reports so often and writing a newsletter and having these podcast because like I can always look back every week on our podcasts together Jay or on my Pro reports and like see hey how was I thinking when that happened and I think I challenge everyone here listening to do the same look back on 2024 and figure out how did you do it as an investor what could you have done

better yeah it's it's such an important uh thing to do but so rarely done reflection is not the it's not the fun sexy thing to do to sit and reflect in journal but man the you know it's like it's like eating healthy food it's not the tastiest or the best thing out there but if you got the discipline to do it it'll pay off in the long run when you talk about adoption and um one of the biggest things from the last year was definitely the year of the ETF like wow uh you know the ETF launched at basically at the start of the year I think it was January 10th that we launched uh which was a a a huge huge start to the year and if we look at this

like look at how the Bitcoin ETF I'm just going to pull up a chart here on the screen Bitcoin ETF is hovering around 35 billion in net inflows since the start of the year just an absolute incredible achievement by far and above the biggest ETF launch of all time smashing records like I think and I think we're just getting started the Bitcoin ETF I think will be larger next year uh I don't know what you have in your predictions Kai we don't need to get into predictions today this is about a reflection but I think it'll be even larger next year and I think this is one of the things that's really setting us up to have uh more adoption on the investment side

yeah there's no doubt that the biggest probably the biggest thing to happen in 2024 outside of maybe Trump winning the election I would say is the ETFs getting approved um and I think this is just the beginning um I don't know if we have better we'll probably have bigger numbers next year than this year mainly because we'll have a full year this these didn't go live until was it January February something like that it's Jan 10th so it's pretty close to almost a full year well that's gonna be interesting to see I don't know uh but I'm sure it's going to be a massive year but it just it was so big already this year but I just think that this already opened the door for an EF right uh and then it's already opening the door for all these applications for an xrp and

salana and whatever else we've had ETFs and so um there's a trend here that started in 2024 and I think that this just continues on further and we start to wrap a lot of crypto uh in in ETFs um I think the other thing outside of just these flows which by the way I think the Bitcoin ETFs now hold in total uh more than Satoshi Nakamoto they hold more Bitcoin than Satoshi so the biggest holders if you combine them all which is pretty wild but I think what really happened here is it just legitimized Bitcoin right um it let trafi know like this thing's here to stay we wouldn't wrap it in an ETF if it wasn't uh and I think we've never been able to say that before there was always this fear that Bitcoin was going to go away at some point not for those that were really

convicted like us but I think a lot of at least mainstream a lot of trafi they just didn't really fully believe in it they didn't really trust it and and I think the game has changed uh completely and I think ETFs were were obviously a big reason for that both for Bitcoin and I think ethereum didn't have as big of a a starting point mainly due just I think because of the markets of that time I don't think it had anything to do with like people don't like ethereum or something I think it launched in the middle of a of a downtrend that we had for eight nine months and um but now you're seeing ethereum fire back and it's it's crushing it the last few weeks and I think that only continues and I think we'll see that continue into into next year what's interesting about the

ETFs is that when Trad five people come and they look at you know ibit or they look at Etha these are the the Black Rock ETS for example when you look at the chart of those you don't see the same chart that you would see if you look at Bitcoin or eth on like let's say trading viewer coin gecko when you look at that chart all time you see these crazy swings UPS ups and down you're like what is this chart part I've never seen this in my life but when you look at ibit or Etha on let's say your you know in your Charles Schwab account or whatever it's just this chart of kind of like at least ethereums The Ether one is just basically straight up and then the Bitcoin one is kind of like it's up or goes kind of down and then up like this

like a swoop and um it looks very bullish both the charts but you don't see any of this like cycle stuff and so the the the perspective that trafi gets on these ETFs is very very different it actually looks very bullish and I think that's going to be very exciting for 2025 because they don't know the whole history of all the rest of what's happened over the last 10 15 years it's kind of like if you were to look at uranium stock right now you're going to buy some uranium you're going to look at like the spra ETF whatever you don't really know how to go and look at UR uranium's price and look at the history of uranium mostly are just going to buy the ETF and that's a very shortlived thing because it's also quite new in the ETF world so uh I think it's just an

interesting perspective that um that trafi has on these assets very different than what we all have that's for sure that's what we want we want trafi to only see a certain picture of the pie here come on and just fall in love with us just come on in uh you bring up eth and so uh as you said EF a not not such a great start you know we had Matt Hogan on the show back in the summer uh right right when the ETF launched he predicted 5 billion and net inflows by the year w w we did not get there I mean we're not at the end of the year quite yet uh but as of this recording we're at about 1.5 billion in net infos in the eth but it was basically at hovering around zero up until the election and it's just shot up

post election and also kind of a painful year for eth let's be honest let me bring up the e chart here you know we started the year uh around let me see Jan first we started the year at 2200 so you consider that you know I think people forget that we were at 2200 to start the year like we're up since then up about 50% since then so it's not like eth has been down on the year but in comparison to the other two majors Bitcoin and soul and a lot of and meme coins which we'll get to in a minute uh not such a good year for eth Kai how you feeling about East in 2024 I mean we're up 60% on the year year to date it's pretty tough to

complain about that but obviously I mean Bitcoin was up what 129% year to date so like if you're in crypto you're obviously like wow I I underperformed but to anyone else 60% gain is like holy that was my best year ever in history uh so it's kind of again we got to go back to perspective but look I think eth had a tough year because a lot of the investment coming in this year was crypto natives and crypto natives really hated on ethereum this year um and ethereum had to go through a very transition type year right you had competitors like salana and others that really started to pick up some of the the Mind share uh and then you had on the other hand you had Bitcoin which really dominated but this is normal last cycle same thing I again

I compare 2024 to 2020 and in 2020 it was the same thing that was when you had the famous eth eth death party right where everyone was like ah eth's going to zero we're goingon to have this big party because bitcoin's only thing that exists and it's going to be the best ever and and Bitcoin it was just that's what made sense in the business cycle was Bitcoin should outperform during that year and then at the end of the year and into early 20 uh 2021 eth just came back with vengeance and dominated and did a forx on Bitcoin in a matter of like four months and I could see the same thing playing out here unless we get the Bitcoin strategic Reserve uh then obviously I think nothing stands a chance um but to me 2024 feels like 2020 and I think 2025 will be very similar to

202 um in terms of like ethereum's Tech and ethereum like what they're doing I think they've nailed it they've succeeded in their road map uh to scale ethereum through l2s um l2s are crushing it they're launching all over the place you've got Sony and Deutsche Bank and all these others launching l2s and Bas and Kraken like to me it's so obvious that the L2 road map is working and it's and it's scaling ethereum and so I'm not necessarily concerned at all Yes it sucks to underperform um but it just kind of is what it is I think it'll over I think it'll outperform next year yeah one of my favorite episodes uh of this year was with Ryan Wyatt uh from optimism uh you guys can go back and check that out still a very relevant

episode because Ryan thinks in years and in decades not in days and weeks as so many investors do and he really pointed out how uh the eth scaling uh is working and how we are where we are now is very different than where going to be a year from now the thing is is that Tech takes time to proliferate out through developers and to impact app creators and also were as you said it was really a year where it was popular to dunk on E it just was the narrative was not so great unfortunately look since for the last month or close to a month anyway etherum is up 20% on bitcoin right so uh

I mean this is how it looked last cycle as well and U and so again this is one of those things those lessons where it was really tough for ethereum and so you could have tried to jump from one thing to the next and tried to follow the pumps of salana or Bitcoin or whatever else is out there or you could just continue to do the work try to understand that hey what's happening and what they're saying on crypto Twitter Is that real and you would learn it's not right it's a bunch of people creating fud and just like talking smack about something and hating on something and that's fine and dandy but when you look under the hood you look at the metrics you look at the fundamental stuff going on you can kind of go actually that's all just noise and ethereum is doing

exactly what it said it's going to do for many many years uh and then you can hold ethereum and not be scared uh and like what we did is we just held both salana and ethereum uh and in some cases Bitcoin as well and and we did fantastic with that and so like you don't have to jump into the tribalism that crypto Twitter will will do to you and you can just you can hold them all you know you can be happy with all of them and you can believe in all three of them and like just be happy uh crypto Twitter chooses not to do that but um you can choose the other way which is great too and which is which is also a great investment strategy diversification can often lead you to the best results if you try to pick the one winner you might

wind up with a sad face at the end okay we got to go to what was definitely the winner of the year was meme coins like what a year for meme coins something that just started off the year with whiff I don't know if you remember but whiff was basically at like 20 million market cap I think even around somewhere around there on January 1 it it nobody even really knew about it it had launched in November or December of 2023 but it was nowhere on anybody's radar to start the year and then by March 31st it peaked out at over four billion in market cap in three months basically like what a year for whiff and then all

of a sudden we saw the whiff dog on the Vegas sphere and it was it was it was with Mania to start the year and and mcoin Mania to start the year uh how do you feel about the way meme coins went this past year yeah I think part of this golden age of crypto was the tech improving and getting you know good enough where something like this can exist right we've had mem coins for years this is nothing new uh we've had Pepe we've had Doge we've had so many meme coins in the past and they've all gone to crazy high like way higher than what whiff has ever gone to uh and so like it's that's nothing new I think what was new was finally people could come in and trade these small market cap meme coins for the first time for like you know a

quarter of a penny on salana and then pump. fun came along and it was like Hey anyone can launch these things for free it's not possible to rug anymore and again everyone can just have fun trading these things and punting them around and it doesn't cost anything right um we were never able to do this before and so memec coins were always existed it just not in this world because with the tech wasn't there and even L2 were around but remember earlier this year to start the year l2s were you know progressing but it was still a buck two bucks sometimes three bucks to transact on l2s right it wasn't until the dun upgrade I think in March um where all of a sudden it became you know negligible and basically you know free to transact on things like bass and now Bas and other l2s are

almost the same price to transact as as salana right but I think uh I think that was the big unlock there and then obviously pump. fun coming and capitalizing that pump. fund really reminds me of openc of last cycle uh and s were the big thing that came last cycle it really started in 2020 but it wasn't mainstream yet um but in 2020 it was crypto natives just screwing around with with nfts and having fun with it and Open Seas started to become this thing that was getting all this volume and all these users but again it was just crypto people people that were around in 2020 2019 2018 2017 Etc that never left and I think the same thing here with meme coins this cycle this year it's all been just Crypt native people punting around these meme coins and playing around with it and then

finally here at the end of the year we're starting to see kind of new people come in Tik Tock has started to like get into the meme world with chill guy uh but I think dog with hat was basically just all crypto native people and they were all just playing PTP against each other on this mcoin stuff so look new somewhat use case kind of just cool to be able to do that stuff did it touch mainstream like I don't think so I don't think it's made an impact like nfts made an impact nfts brought a whole new user base into crypto last cycle it brought the sort of like artists cultured type people into crypto people that never cared about Finance came into crypto because of nfts they all used openc and they all bought this stuff and they had to buy eth as a result and I don't think

meme coins has done that to be honest with this cycle um it's starting to now and maybe it will more I'm not sure uh there's definitely some younger people I think that are coming in because of meme coins um but I don't I'm not as excited about mem coins as I think some people are I really think it's just de crypto Deens that have been here the whole time that are just punting around money and they were bored for eight months of this year because we were literally since March we've been down only all the way until Trump won the election and when did memec coins really take off is during that time right uh and so I think it was just a game for everyone I think it continues though um but I think probably AI agents is going to be the bigger thing next year um which is kind

of the new the new meme coin as you guys talked about with Pierce kicks earlier this week or early this month sorry yeah ai ai agents is uh is really interesting because and I don't want to go too deep into it right now we got a bunch of episodes uh you guys can go back and watch uh to learn all about AI agents and the opportunity there and how to invest and how to get exposure but the thing that's interesting to me is they're like meme coins so goat was the first sort of AI agent meme coin right you had an AI agent that uh runs this truth terminal this Twitter account and it launch launched goat its own meme coin uh that's a mem coin that's really a meme coin that that that really fits the category but some of these other AI agents that are launching now sort of

feel like they fit a different category because they actually have utility and they do something social token token if I'm going to build my own media influencer business and now I have a token with it it's like the same thing as an a agent because that's what they are right or it's like or it's like launching a uh it's like launching a meme coin except if you had a a full-time team that was like working on that Meme coin and was producing uh like Community around that Meme coin that's what the AI influencer tokens yeah exactly it is so it it'll be really interesting and you guys will have to tune into our predictions episode to see what uh myself Kyle and the rest of the team think happens with AI agents uh in

2025 I'm gonna hold you guys in suspense on that one okay let's go to the US and political and regulation because that was such a big theme of the year and I almost want to go back even further than 2024 I think that people don't realize how big of a how big of an impact this operation choke point had on America first we had operation choke chokepoint from the previous administration which was from Obama administration which was when they were cracking down on gambling and gun businesses and marijuana businesses that was like operation choke

point 2.0 and basically what they were doing was they were debank a lot of these business businesses debank a lot of these Founders in somewhat of a uh un unconstitutional way to be honest you can go listen to Mark andreon recently on Joe Rogan talks all about this fascinating and then we had operation two operation Cho 2.0 which was really really happened more in 2023 but continued through 2024 and now that we have Trump coming in we're going to see this big difference that sort of leads me to like one of the major things that hasn't quite happened yet but which was just announced recently in 2024 was Gary

gendler uh resigning was definitely a massive announcement of the year and I got to pull up this uh this tweet here of him announcing and then Mt uh replied with the uh the Double middle finger from the kid who rugged everybody I can't remember this kid's name is uh but like what like what a what an impact this this is the thing that I I don't think people realize how much of an impact this current the past administration had on crypto in the past four years yeah people got to remember that the US is by far the largest economy in the world and the also the place where the most innovation in Tech

happens like way more than anywhere else in the world and for the last four years that has not been on crypto side right they have not just choked out and and um debanked bed Founders in crypto companies which they did a bunch of in 2023 and in 2024 but they've actually just like pushed people away it was like Hey if you're going crypto get the heck out of our country don't be launching tokens here don't be launching projects here and so like you know a lot of people who could have been in crypto and should have been in crypto but didn't want to move outside the US just were not in crypto and then a lot of people who were and decided to stay in crypto or be in crypto they moved to Dubai or they moved to you know wherever else and um and that sucks because there's a lot

of obviously there's a lot of capital here there's a lot of um like living in New York living in in San Francisco is very different than living anywhere else in the world right the mindset you have in those two cities to build and like just work your ass off on weekends and evenings whatever it's so different than anywhere else in the world you don't get that and like that's the mindset you want your Founders to be building it and instead they had to go and like build in like Lisbon you know which is like everyone just wants to have a drink and sit by the beach you know and so you just don't have these like um the founders that want to grind as much you know and it's not to take away from anyone like I know obviously that it's a generalization but you want your

companies to be building in New York and San Francisco that's where the best companies are built always especially in finance especially in Tech and so we haven't really seen what that's like just yet it was the very end of 2024 where all of a sudden everything just flipped and changed on a dime like it was getting worse and worse everyone was getting Wells notices from the SEC all this year Unis swap got one this year openc got one this year coinbase Kracken like the list goes on Lio the list goes on and on and on all the best companies that were built in the US that were in crypto got this Wells notice and finally that's going to completely change and so from what I've heard is a lot of people are moving back to the US and opening up companies once again in New York some

going to San Francisco but I think New York is really the hot spot for crypto now and I think this is just a really big deal and I think this is really what accelerates us moving forward because the hive mind all the people building in crypto they don't have to just be on Twitter to meet with everyone now or going to conferences in Dubai they can just do it all here in the US where they live where their families are and where the other companies will once again be and I think that's just going to set us up for some massive massive success and it's going to allow all the US companies which are the biggest and best companies in the world to start building in crypto again we've already seen it with stripe jumping in and PayPal Etc and so like I just think 2025 is going to be massive

for this um because finally for the first time we're allowed to actually do it or at least Americans are allowed to actually do it so I think that's probably the biggest thing that came out of this year uh ETFs obviously are huge but like those would would have or will happen now because Trump's in So like um it was great we had them it would have been a really tough year actually if we didn't get those ETFs we didn't would have been freaking a it would have been a big struggle we would I mean we wouldn't have had the definitely would not have had the the q1 pump that we had where we where Bitcoin reached alltime Highs preh having first time maybe not even the Q4 in 2023 you know like liquidity says we should have had that pump regardless but I think it

definitely was very much accelerated um because of that for sure yeah and it would have been smaller for sure we can't we can't talk about the year without talking about one of the biggest I would say uh news events of the year not official yet and still some time but was on July 31st when Senator Cynthia Lumis announced that she was going to present a bill for a Bitcoin strategic Reserve in the US ironically Trump was at you remember Trump was at Bitcoin Nashville and it wasn't him that announced it it was Senator Lumis announced it and she wasn't even there I don't think it was like such a like a funny PR fumble it felt like by them but

anyways uh the and obviously that's going to be one of the things that we're doing lots of predictions right now for 2025 and it'll be really interesting to see who thinks it'll come in 25 2025 and who doesn't and I'm hearing all different types of predictions here but definitely this could and you could extend Beyond it's not just the US here there is other nation states Brazil is also talking about a bringing Bitcoin onto their their strategic Reserve you have some other countries Switzerland I think is talking about it maybe not publicly and it feels like some of the Middle Eastern countries Saudi Arabia I feel like are maybe I my bet is that they're already buying they're just

they're not announcing it and it's not public information yet uh but this feels you know what happens when a US strategic Reserve happens if it happens yeah I mean there's Russia is one that actually U this week they came out and said that there's a application for it in legislation so we'll see if it it goes through uh but even at the state level it's happening Florida and I think Pennsylvania are both now talking about doing this so look I don't know if it happens again Trump never said he was going to do this it was Lumis at the conference and then he came on and spoke like a couple hours after Lumis and um and he never even mentioned it and so I don't know why it's got getting so much attention and like there's people saying like this thing's for sure happening and

the probability is like 80% and I'm like whoa guys like I I don't know that it's that high U I think it's actually much much lower but that is going to be obviously the thing that changes the game for everything and um I'd be surprised if it happens in 2025 but if it does like it's game over right uh and uh you can take all your charts and all your cycles and all that stuff out and I think it's like charts don't matter that point because we're going up and up and up and up because once the US does it probably everyone else does it and really probably once any country does it everyone else does it right so it's um it's great to hear that it's finally like in the mind share of countries and states and so you can bet it's coming at

some point um I don't know when but um it's gonna be a pretty big deal for sure all right what about this is big news Kai this feels this is just a heartwarming story our buddy vitalic settling down he's got a girlfriend is this bullish for ether or is this is metallic distracted by love now uh I don't think metallic can be distracted by anything I think he's too much of a nerd and he just loves this stuff uh so I have no idea but I honestly don't I don't even know if this is actually true or like if did he actually get a girlfriend like that I'm not sure I don't know that we've ever seen this girl anywhere else other than in this picture so it's hard to say that this is actually true but um I I I feel like

vitalic vitalic the one thing with ethereum is we don't have this like one person that just like you know is loud like salana has Mt and mert is everywhere on Twitter and ethereum doesn't have that and I think um but that's just because ethereum and then Bitcoin has Michael sailor uh and um ethereum doesn't have that because it's just at this point it's too big there's too many things building on it means too many different things for different people you could say it's bass right it's Jesse poock from bass because that's what he's doing uh but it's a lot of I mean you got to remember what a theorum is it's a settlement layer so it's down below and everything else is on top of it and so you've got tons of vigilantes um but vitalic could have been it should have been it but he's just too focused

on researching and building so he's he's not going to be that guy um he's not find some time for love italic you know just you know find some time for love he also turned a little bit woke this year which I don't think the crypto group loved so he's kind of um he's not in the good books of everyone anymore but he did he did sing a great song at to to 49 for everybody remember one thing I hope for 2025 it's that he doesn't sing anymore uh okay another another leader that had a rough year is CZ CZ went to prison and then thankfully got out of prison uh what four months later or something like that um but rough year for cvz and for

binance and also I wouldn't necess say a rough year for binance actually they were able to manage it pretty well a little bit scary to see these large crypto Founders I don't know which side you sit on Kai whether you think they that that it's good that they are trying to be regulated in a certain country or whether we should be allowing them to operate sort of without a without a jurisdiction well I think that the reason they cracked down on binance was because they wanted to approve the ETFs and they needed to make sure that was kind of the one thing over looming the the market where like if they're actually Bad actors and they're doing something weird here then this could go really bad and they they already had like a close eye on coin base because they're in the US they didn't have

anything on bance the only other huge one and so I think they just kind of needed to do that I'm actually very glad it happened I mean sucks for CZ um but like a couple months in a probably prison for rich people like I'm sure he was all good it was more vacation for him and and now he's all good he's out and he's fine and he he had to pay some Bill or some fines but it meant nothing to him he's like a I don't know has 100 billion plus uh and so like it was a slap on the wrist for him really but I actually think it's really good because again one of the things that kind of set us free here in 2024 was this concern around binance has kind of gone at this point right they've gotten what they they needed to get and um I think

they've brought in a different team and um and now we can sort of like put that one aside and say hey look I think we're all good on the binance side now uh and I think that's really that's good news so it's one of those other things that just like there was all these things always that kind of were were sitting there like hey when is this going to happen like the mount gaw stuff we got rid of the mount gawk stuff Germany has gotten rid of their assets um it sounds like what I think happens is the Bitcoin Reserve doesn't happen but the US announces they're not going to sell the assets they hold so one of those other things that just like we got past that right we got past the grayscale ETFs like being able to sell all that for Bitcoin and eth right so 2024 really got

rid of all this overhang of supply all this overhang of fear um and so to me I see all these things as just something really good to set us up for a better future yeah let's go these are bullish Vibes it sounded so good I'm so fired up for 2025 cuz 2024 was was great but man 25 feels like it's going to be even better uh I got to touch on poly Market poly Market was another real winner in 2024 and one of the things that really stood up to me about po Market was if you remember on Election night you know the everybody's waiting for the media to call the election which is I mean we can get into the issues around media uh on a

separate conversation but if you remember it was pretty clear on poly market like probably three or four hours before the media called the election that Trump was going to win that was it was clearly going his Direction all the numbers were showing that this this future of Crypt based predictions markets these open predictions Market feels like something a trend that is just getting started yeah I agree it's one of the big use cases that came out of the year which I think we needed there's like there's all this excitement for people in crypto and then when really strip everything away and you think about it you're like what really is here that's going to make the world better that

that's actually going to stick around that's not just speculative whatever and and this was one of them right I mean this is obviously still speculative it's it's predictions markets but like there's a use case to it there's real value to it and you can see this uh in many different iterations I think playing out from what I've seen from other VCS that I've spoken to they said this is like a big big big thing happen right now and there's all these different new iterations on predictions markets for different sectors and so I think we're going to see this play out even further in 2025 and it's going to become a really big thing but this is what we want we want more unlocks of why blockchain is useful right and blockchains are all about truth right it's like letting us know what actually is real and what is not real and that's

in terms of like financials on a ledger but it's also in terms of like prediction markets and things like that right and so it's just another way to find truth in in media which is needed more than I think most people realize and going to be needed even more as AI comes about which was another big story of 2024 was Ai and so I think prediction markets are going to be a really big thing and it's here to stay um what's nice is everyone thought that poly markets volumes in um in use was going to go down like a lot after the election and it's gone down of course but it hasn't gone down as much as everyone as everyone thought now maybe it's just taking a little bit more time for it to bleed out but uh either way I think um it's a use case it's here to say in

blockchain I think that's really exciting yeah let's go from uh predictions Market which to the the best use case we have so far in crypto everybody's the least sexy use case but damn it looks good and that's stable coins and look at I got Athena up here because we got to give Athena a shout out uh they became the fastest growing stablecoin in history reaching $3 billion doll in under what was it it was uh less than uh 100 days 200 days less than 200 days incredible yeah it's wild I mean Athena's at like six billion now today so and they've only been around for not even this entire year so its growth is unbelievable stable coins I

think the big story that no one seems to be talking about and I don't know why is that stable coins have reached all-time high uh and that to me is the most exciting thing it's now uh close to 200 billion I don't know if it's actually made it there yet it's not quite there yet I think it's like 195 last I looked so by the end of this year probably by the end of December we'll probably hit this 200 billion because I mean Athena's printing like a billion a month like a week right now it's going it's growing so fast and so um I think this is the best Innovation that we have outside of like decentralized money in terms of Bitcoin um but I think stable coins is is massive when I think at um when I think where adoption really comes from I

don't think it's from mainstream people mainstream people will come in and they'll speculate because they want to make some money um they'll get wrecked as they always do every cycle but where real adoption comes from is corporations using stable coins on their balance sheet to pay employees to pay for product and services um to get paid for stuff like it's so much better using stable coins as a company that does this we do maybe 30% of our financial activities are in stable coin 70% is in um is in Fiat and man I wish it was 100% today it's so much freaking better plus uh you can generate yield on your stable coins way higher than anything you can get in in the Fiat world I mean it's like 27% right now in Athena it's 12 a half% in maker to me this is the big

story and we had this last cycle because D did exist and you could get these kind of rates on D ter Luna also existed so you could get 20% if you wanted to do that but I think what's what what's interesting this time around what 2024 really did was say hey we've had these stable coins go through a bare Market the worst of all bare markets where literally an algorithmic stable coin went from 50 billion to zero dollars these things continued to not just survive but actually do really well and and start to get back to all-time highs and so um I think plus regulation that will come from Trump taking in I think 2025 is going to be massive for stable coin adoption and I think 2024 was huge for that to like make sure that these

things continued on they continue to see growth they continue to give yield even though treasury yield is going down right rates are going down right now in the US and other countries but actually the yield from stable coins in crypto are going up and that's the first time we've seen that and so that to me is extremely extremely exciting uh and I think that that's going to be a big story next year yeah if uh if you guys uh listening want to know how you can get yield on your stable coins you can go back and listen to a recent episode we did with uh um maker and Spark uh where we talk about uh ways to get access to stable coin yield through usds um that's uh maker maker uh stable coin similar to die uh but you can do that or

you can as Kyle said you can go to Athena and get even more uh yield on your stable coins look it's not going to get you the sexy you know 510 100x that you're going to get from investment but the stability of it and the the low risk of it it's almost why wouldn't you we also have a pro report coming out the first week of January all about stable coin yield so make sure to check that out Pro subscribers there you go there you go okay we can't talk about the year without talking about your boy Michael sailor and micro strategy what a year it was for micro strategy look at this micro strategy was one of the top performing stocks of the Year basically it performed every single company in the

S&P 500 including Nvidia and and and Bitcoin uh like what a year for micro strategy obviously it was a good year for Bitcoin so it makes it sense it was a good year for micro strategy too but you got to give it to him like Michael sailor keeps on doubling down and keeps on pushing and he is really uh he's he's he's shown a new way which what's what I to me what's really interesting here is we're now seeing micro strategy CopyCats in other countries we saw one in Japan uh we've seen um where was the other country where we saw one I can't remember off the top of my head but we've seen that that Playbook is starting to become more popular uh and then we're seeing other corporations start to put Bitcoin on their balance

sheet no major corporations yet but we might see that next year yeah I mean the Bitcoin miners are starting to do convertible notes as well so Michael sa's got to them and then think you said uh similar scientific meta metaplex I think it's called or metap Planet whatever it is uh there's some companies now in Canada doing the same and so yeah this is this is all sailor just pushing this in in the corporate world uh and um I think that's just been a massive massive story this year the amount that this guy's bought is just crazy especially in the last couple months here because there's finally demand for it like he was trying to buy more I think earlier this year but there wasn't tons and tons of demand uh I think what's interesting is a lot of people thought that this would die off when the

ETS went live because it was like well why do I need to hold micro strategy and just hold ibit and um and he's only gotten better and stronger the premium's only gotten more expensive which was a call everyone said it was going to be the opposite and if you took the opposite of that bet then you did extremely extremely well um which was quite interesting to think about um and I think the reason why is you get a lever bet with micro strategy there's no fees right there are fees to to when you use Black Rock ETF or any other ETF there's no fees to hold micro strategy uh and not only that but he's selling his his Equity to buy more and more of this stuff and so that's why this premium has gone so high so huge story I think it's got a lot of people in trafi

talking about crypto um and I think that's exciting in my opinion I would not be buying this thing in 2025 I would be starting if you held it in 2024 kudos to you hell of a trade to buy this thing early 2024 um and I would not be buying anymore though I would be selling it into Bitcoin right I'm not saying you got to get out of the market but you might want to sort of drisk a little bit as we get further into the market here um but s's just been a massive massive person for adoption of Bitcoin and crypto in general even though he doesn't want it to be for crypto he wants it to be just for Bitcoin but I know people go they look they hear him they learn about Bitcoin then they go down the rabbit hole and learn about the rest um but

this is what you need right you need people that are just Allin and they're going to be loud and they're going to make a splash and that's exactly what he's done since he's been here in 2020s when he came in um and he's been just probably the biggest impact on crypto at least at least this year I think we got to wrap today's episode uh with a huge shout out to everybody listening in today to all of our listeners to all of our viewers on YouTube to everybody that uh suffered through the bare Market of 2023 you deserve 2024 you guys did it you're still here way to go and let's look forward to 2025 because we got a big year to come and we are so excited and

so grateful that you guys have been with us on this journey but we're just getting started and we're going to continue to be with you guys every step of the way in 2025 and Beyond and hopefully guiding you to some unbelievable profit and gains in 2025 I think the best line I heard recently on the show was somebody said I think this was Lark said you're going to be so rich you had no idea it would even happen uh and then you're gonna and then Lark also said you're gonna it all [Laughter] up but we couldn't do without you guys so thank you so much Kai any final thoughts as we close out 2024 yeah I think um listen to what we just talked about here in this episode and go back to how did you um how did

you react to all this news right when the ETS went live did you try to trade it did you move into something else you know did you did you fomo in like what did you do with each of these moments right with mem coins did you kind of like be shy to it and say hey this is stupid I'm not even going to think about it and then you missed out on a bunch of memec coin gains are you still in that mindset even though like it's so obvious that it's a real thing now like of all this stuff did you try poly Market at all this year or did you just kind of forget about it right like these things that we just talked about these big moments of the year were all allow you to look back at it and see how did you

react as an investor and as a user to this um and if you missed it all then you weren't paying enough attention if you decided to kind of like hide from it all then maybe you need to open up your your mind a little bit and be more Curious right there's a lot to learn here and that's kind of why we went through all this so um take a moment Journal is your best friend if you're not journaling you got to get one of those I love it I love it Kai the the the journal man the journal man coming in with the journal advice it's so true it's so true everybody I hope you guys have a fantastic holiday with your friends and family enjoy whatever time off you are taking uh if you're like us you're probably not taking much time off because crypto never sleeps so we're

still pping out content you can still listen to The Daily Show every day even on Christmas Even on Christmas day we'll still be here we'll still be showing up for you guys uh but until tomorrow have yourselves a wicked awesome day as always if you liked today's episode please hit subscribe and make sure you follow us so you don't miss out on the next one there's also a link in the description to our free 5 minute daily newsletter where we simplify crypto for you while making you laugh and if you're willing to step up your crypto investing game we're going to also leave a link for milk Road Pro you get access access to our portfolio where you can see exactly what we are buying this is your

number one resource to help you invest successfully in crypto one final note this show is for educational purposes only and nothing we say is financial advice investing in crypto or any asset is risky and you should never invest more than you can afford to lose thanks so much for listening in my friends have a wicked awesome day