4 Ways Zoomers Are Being Hit Financially and With the Rise of AI

Transcript

Hi everyone, welcome to Unchained, your no hype resource for all things crypto. I'm your host Laura Shinn. Thanks for [clears throat] joining this live stream. Before we get started, a quick reminder, nothing you hear on Unchained is investment advice. This show is forformational and entertainment purposes only, and my guest tonight may hold assets discussed in the show. For more disclosures, visit unchainedcrypto.com. Introducing Nexo, the premier digital wealth platform. Receive interest on your digital assets. Borrow against them without selling. Trade a variety of cryptocurrencies all in one platform now available in the US. Get started today at nexo.com/unchained.

Quick note before we get into today's episode. Bits and Bits [music] now has its dedicated feed. We're spinning off from the Unchained feed and moving to a new podcast and [music] YouTube channel. So if you want to keep up with our weekly live streams and macro meets crypto breakdowns, [music] make sure to subscribe to Bits and Bips directly. We won't publish there until March, but subscribe [music] today so you can be ready for launch. Be sure to subscribe to the new feeds at unchainedcrypto.com/bits and bits. Today we have a two-part interview all around the topic of where is Bitcoin headed. Here to start the discussion are Will Clemente, investments at Stixs, and Joe Visani, co-founder and CEO of Lunar Crush. Welcome, Will and Joe.

Laura, thanks for having us. >> Great to see you. >> Yeah, so we're coming off a weekend that saw the US and Israel attack Iran, taking out its leader. This is at a time when it seems like Bitcoin just couldn't catch a break. Even as we saw other asset classes taking off, Bitcoin surprised a little bit this weekend. It actually jumped. It didn't dump on the news, though. Um, a majority of those gains have since evaporated. I was wondering what your thoughts were on what we saw there in terms of the Bitcoin price and what you think that says about how Bitcoin will perform for the rest of the year. And Will, why don't we start with you?

>> Sure. Um I guess we can go back towards uh the start of the year. I would say um towards towards the turn of the year I I became relatively uh cautious on on risk in general. I've been kind of shifting my focus towards commodities and and energy um since the back half of of last year um some of the you know oil producers commodities as well as recently natural gas over the past week. But maybe we can uh get into that. I think uh as it pertains to Bitcoin, I think you've kind of had a confluence of things. Um you know, you've had this overhang with the digital asset treasury companies which built up a ton of leverage and then um you know, as as

quickly as they kind of reflexively uh ran up and and benefited the price of Bitcoin, you you started to see, you know, some of the premiums to NAV flip negative or or unwind and and we've even seen in some cases um you know, some of these crypto dats even starting to uh sell crypto assets. So, so that bid is is out of the market. Um, you know, you have the quantum fears, which I think maybe are just, you know, is is just people ascribing a narrative to the to the price action, but I do think that that has been uh, you know, something in the back of of people's minds. But I I kind of think the the bigger one is just Bitcoin tends to kind of be the the spearhead for for risk assets. And um you know we saw this for example at the

beginning of last year heading into February. Bitcoin led uh the NASDAQ down before the the tariff crash as well as started to show relative strength around the bottom before everything bottomed out before heading back up towards the back half of the year. So from my perspective, I I think that part of this large part of this Bitcoin price action was just, you know, the the the far tail, you know, furthest end of of of liquidity, I mean, of of of uh of risk on the risk spectrum. Um and, you know, uh liquidity as well. Um Bitcoin was was sold down first and then now we we're starting to see other risk assets uh you know, kind of follow suit. Um I've been relatively cautious heading into the into the new year about uh

specifically the NASDAQ. I think there's some concerning things around uh kind of you know the broader flows regardless of you know your view on on AI specifically. Um and we can maybe get into this a bit further. I want to leave some some room for Joe, but um I think for the NASDAQ, I'm I've been concerned because the international or or you know external flows into uh you know these large cap large cap you know big tech companies which are you know the majority of of uh of you know where these flows are getting allocated to because there's so much concentration in the market those are slowing on the margin they've gone into emerging markets while at the same time you've you've had the domestic internal flows

within the slowdown because the buybacks uh have been slowing from these big tech companies that were previously these cash flow generating giants just piling you know this this cash flow into buying back stock those flows have also come down so I think both the domestic flows within the US have slowed as well as the international flows and I think that there's an argument to be made again similar to to last year or other instances where we've seen in back half of 2021 actually was another good example where Bitcoin tends to to lead risk and then I think maybe some of these other things are people ascribing narratives to to the price action.

>> Okay. So, but then does it sounds like that makes you more bullish for the rest of the year. >> Um, from here um sorry, I guess I just explained where we are to now without the the forward-looking part. Um, I would say, you know, I think at this point we we have seen a ton of selling take place. I think a lot of the, you know, systematic selling has probably already already taken place as we've gone down in basically a straight line from from 125 to to 60. Um, I think the biggest driver of of Bitcoin is is real interest rates. Um, if you look at, you know, 2021 or 2017, uh, this was a huge kind of tailwind for for Bitcoin. And if you look at, you know, kind of like the year-over-year change or however you want to plot it out, you can see that

this is a this is a big driver of Bitcoin's price action historically. Um when we look at you know like the 2020 2022 to 2025 period uh I think a lot of that was you know the institutional adoption uh ETF flows etc. Um but we didn't have that tailwind from from uh you know real rates uh going down. I think now uh at least you know on like an interim basis on top of you know a lot of the force selling having t taking place already etc. and you are starting to see dare I say some Bitcoin relative strength over the last day or two where you know you think Bitcoin would be down more today.

Uh I think the the outlook for uh real rates is is skewing in Bitcoin's favor. Uh if you have you know inflation picking up Wor is expected to to be cutting. I mean Trump put him in in you know in in the chairman seat literally for the for the sake of of cutting. Uh so you know you kind of have this this setup where the Fed is going to be cutting rates towards the back half of the year once PAL is out. the same time we've seen, you know, based on ISM and other economic readings, we we're starting to see the economy uh reacelerate and commodity, you know, we've seen commodity prices run up and now this, you know, geopolitical uncertainty on top of all that. I think that's a that's a recipe for for lower real rates, which should be a tailwind to Bitcoin or like at a minimum um you

know, give it some type of of uh you know, kind of relief relief rally maybe on like a midterm basis. So that's that's kind of how I'm I'm thinking about things. uh you know as we head into kind of middle of the year but from there it's hard to say so many uh moving moving uh pieces at the moment >> and Joe what about you uh what you know I I I guess it is a two-part question [laughter] as Will pointed out that you know I'm sort of wondering like what you have thought of its price action so far this year especially amidst you know what happened last weekend and then you know how that sets us up for the rest of the year. Yeah, well brought up a great a bunch of great points. Um I think you know whenever you have kind of negative

sentiment um but the price is kind of holding right or you have a little bit of uncertainty and the price seems to be kind of holding right this uncertainty with a you know a war in a region um you know I don't even know if you can call it much of a war or more of a you know a planned um you know removal of someone in a country um and then you've got you know the price kind of moving up a little bit here moving back moving up but not I would say any sort of major volatility. You know, we're back up to to 68 here. Um, you know, there were some talks around how, you know, people can mine Bitcoin for $1,200 a coin in, you know, Iran and what what would the, you know, how would that change anything? I don't really think that

that's going to have any sort of effect. I don't know why any of that would would change. Uh but I think the the overarching sentiment change that I'm feeling in the market is that there seems to continue to be negative kind of sentiment but the price seems to be holding where before um even good news the price would be dropping right and so I think that's the the kind of the big difference in the sentiment of the overall market that we're seeing. I mean that's what we look at you know at Lunar Crush is we're trying to understand like what people are feeling on a broad scale like how you know what do 50 million people think about this right and so that's kind of the the small change that I've seen in the sentiment is that people are bullish again there's um you know I would say Bitcoin and then kind

of the broader altcoin market you know you're seeing some new projects being launched you're seeing uh you know capital being raised you're just seeing a couple more sparks that are out there I think we're finally kind of seeing this convergence of AI agents and crypto happening, right? So, I think that that's going to take on an interesting form there. Um, there's going to be, you know, companies that are going to be launched and trading models and, you know, prop trading firms that are agent driven that are being launched. And what is that all going to mean, you know, for uh the activity in the market? What's that going to mean for, you know, stable coins, which a majority of this is going to be transferred and moved around with, but then also what does that mean for risk assets where people want to see,

you know, alpha and they want to they want to actually see some appreciation in their capital. They're going to be wanting to invest in these projects. So, I see a lot of uh those kind of small just on a small scale some of those things happening which I think is the driving this underlying um I would say you know holding for Bitcoin. you know, it's but we're by far from like overperforming in any way, shape, or form. Um, and then some of the stuff that will was tapping on a little bit here, uh, you know, with rates potentially coming down, I think, you know, we had like a a zer period, you know, where things were just kind of going crazy. When you have all this money influxing into a system, yes, you're going to see this kind of crazy appreciation. You know, rates are, you

know, it's still 6% to buy a house, right? Rates are kind of, you can tell that the banks are trying to get competitive a little bit there and they're trying to kind of bring rates down. you know, people are sitting on a ton of cash in their money markets, right? None of that money has flown back into into risk assets. It's going to have to. Um, and I think like a big wild card here is, you know, Trump got elected on the backs of Bitcoiners, period, right? And we really haven't seen anything um, you know, that would say, you know, hey, here, you know, we're going to try to help you. I know he's he's pushing right for the the strategic reserve, but I think we need and I think he will um do something big this year uh with regards to Bitcoin. Um and I think he has to uh just based on

the where the cards have all fallen, right? And when you look at even some of the I think the people that you know some of the some of the DATs and uh you know some of the Bitcoin um you know strategic reserve companies that have been out there that have helped you know with that specifically people like maybe a Naka right like a lot of these people helped lift someone lift someone up to literally get elected the president of the United States of America. Uh but you know it does feel like it's been a little bit of a one-sided deal thus far. I think they know that and I think they're taking their time and I think that's fine. But I think we're going to probably see something big. Um I know they're trying to push with the Clarity Act and I know you know Coinbase has

lobbyists and they they want what they want and I think that's fine. At some point we need a deal. U but I think that there's going to be something big there. So I think the the tailwinds of the economy um you know AI's injection into everything is really interesting, right? like that's probably all we're going to talk about, you know, for the next like 18 months of our lives is how that's changing everything and how we're all adapting to it. Um, but I think if it makes what you're working on better in a way, and I think it does make crypto better, um, that it's going to be really interesting. >> Okay. And just one quick question about the sentiment piece. Um, did you interpret that as like that means we're at the bottom if Bitcoin is at this price, but suddenly sentiment is like

more positive than it's been? Is that how you're looking at that? >> It it definitely feels like we've bottomed right >> based on you know even risky risk on tight news is not pushing Bitcoin down where even before extremely bullish news would push Bitcoin down, right? It just it means it was out of favor and people didn't want to buy it at that time. at this time now it's like it's it's kind of like shrugging off all this news or any sort of geopolitical um you know uncertainty that's out there and so that just kind of tells me that I think people are buyers again.

>> Okay. So um I do also want to ask about something that's a little bit I think puzzling. You know uh it's long been said that Bitcoin is digital gold. Um, but I'm sure you know that right now [laughter] Bitcoin is not acting like digital gold. Um, gold is acting like gold. And Bitcoin I don't know what what is it acting like or what do you think this means for Bitcoin's digital gold narrative to watch this price action? >> You want me to I can hop in first. You know, I I think man, if I'm Peter Schiff, I'm a happy guy over the last like 12 months. [laughter] That's for sure. Right. Um, but it you know, he's he's right right now. It doesn't mean

he's right long term. Uh but it probably feels good to be right right now. I bet. Um you know, it's I think this was a a really interesting lesson that we learned is that it's still early, right? There's still even though we got this ETF and we thought we were fully institutional and mainstream and it was going to be amazing and you know, Bitcoin's the new gold. I think Bitcoin is the new gold is a great narrative, you know, that a lot, I would say, the big exchanges were pushing to try and get institutional players to understand what Bitcoin actually is when in reality it still kind of trades like the most volatile like, you know, tech stock. Um, you know, which is fine and I think it just means that we're still a little bit

early on it. But, um, you know, when people want to flee to something, they they they fled to gold. But it's, you know, even holding the actual physical asset of gold is not like a plus for people, right? Then you have to like sell it somewhere or it's heavy, you can't move it. The people that did well were the people that bought the like an ETF of gold, which is like a digital gold, right? So it's like that's kind of like the juxtaposition of of that. U but I just think it's something for people to bet on, you know, when things go ary, right? Just like prediction markets are >> Yeah. It's just it's just a a fake thing that's digital that's out there that people agree on that they can invest in which >> in a way like you could say Bitcoin would be that too.

>> Yeah. >> I know. I was just going to say people would say the same thing [laughter] about Bitcoin. >> Right. Right. >> Well Will Well, what do you what do you think? >> I think uh I think you bring up a good point, Joe, about the uh transportability of of gold. Um you know, I think right now I have I have uh numerous friends over in the Middle East. um specifically over in the UAE and um some of these guys are looking to maybe you know switch locations for the next week or two and uh you know I'm I'm not saying that any of them are you know has have a ton of physical gold or something but just in theory if you if you were some like wealthy person in like this region of the world right now and you're like hey I want to I want to

move you know bring my assets and you know get out of dodge for two weeks you can't just take all your gold and move you know but you can just grab grab your Bitcoin wallet and and do that. Um, so I think it's a great point. I think I think the big thing is just gold has been around for thousands of years. It has, you know, this huge Lindy effect. It's, you know, throughout history, always been a store of value. This is something that people have always flocked to as uh, you know, a safe haven throughout history for a variety of reasons. Uh, it is, you know, provably physically scarce. Also, you know, we have to keep in mind that the people that are allocating large sums of money are quite older than somebody like me or or even Joe. So, I think, you know,

these people don't have a uh you know, uh level of comfortability with owning digital gold. And, you know, Bitcoin has has been around for a little bit, but it's still only been around for 15 years. And so, I think in the in the grand scheme of things, it really boils down to uh you know, kind of the the Lindy effect that that gold has. and you know the the long history it has of being a store of value asset whereas Bitcoin just doesn't have that. It just it hasn't been through numerous you know tests of geopolitical tensions or periods of inflation or deflation or you know whatever other reason that people flock to a safe haven asset. Um so while I absolutely fundamentally believe that Bitcoin is a better version of gold uh

than than what gold is um I you know while while that is you know on one side of my head the the other is you know I I'm aware that maybe for the next you know whatever it is you know next decade or so um you know the people that are at the helms of allocating capital don't see Bitcoin as this safe haven and that's okay that's not to say over the long term that it can't be. um a as Bitcoin is around for longer also you know there's this huge wealth transfer that will take place um you know wealth inequality is the worst that it's ever been but you know people aren't going to live forever not to be morbid but in you know 20 30 years that wealth is going to transfer down uh to to younger generations that you know are at the

helm of of allocating uh the capital so um I think you know part of it is just you know it'll just take time but I think it's very evident that um you know the bid the bid from gold has from mostly central banks, sovereigns, etc. Um, gold typically is very correlated to, you know, this real interest rate thing that I was just talking about a moment ago. It almost tick for tick throughout, you know, the last, you know, 50 75 years, uh, falls follows real interest rates. But after 2022, after the US froze Russia's FX reserves, I think that started to be a huge signal. I think that was a a strategic mistake personally to you know pull out this like nuclear button of of you know use using the financial system against

against Russia but you know all right after that you started to see gold uh as as it trended up decoupled from real interest rates so I think that's a that's a very clear signal that people are people are buying um gold because of you know this kind of like central bank diversification you know whatever you want to call it um you know people viewing maybe the US as slightly less of a a safe haven on the margin. Um you know the culmination of these things but that that hasn't that hasn't been to the benefit of of Bitcoin unfortunately but I again I think over time as that wealth transfer takes place uh at some point um it it will get treated that way. I know.

What do you guys both think about this notion that we've seen on Twitter that the quantum risk that um Bitcoin faces is also depressing the price? Do you think that's true or not true? I >> think it's a little true, but I think that people just kind of ascribe things to the price, right? Like the price does something and then everybody's like, "Oh, this is, you know, this is exactly why it may be a factor." um you know maybe maybe sovereigns were somewhat disappointed or you know that had been dipping their toes in the water you know supposedly um or whatever other large entities maybe had started buying some Bitcoin and then so I wasn't really behaving like gold and then on top of that you know there was this quantum thing and they're like all right forget

it like let's just get out of this for now. Um I think it maybe plays a role but I think people are probably like making it a bigger bigger thing than it is and just kind of you know putting a putting a narrative to the the price. Joe, what do you think? >> Yeah, I think the last time we heard anything interesting on quantum was when uh Google came out with a report and in their actual published report from the company, they said that they did a calculation that you know in this universe, you know, the universe that we have has not even been around long enough for them to complete that calculation. So that they think that some of that calculation was done in other dimensions, >> right? [laughter] So I think I think we're that's where we are with with quantum. So like I I think anyone that

you know is on Twitter specifically, you know, probably doesn't have a good grasp on exactly uh the effect that it it it's going to have on Bitcoin specifically. >> Okay. And Will, so I know you can't stay with us uh for the full hour, so I did want to ask you about a piece that you wrote recently which covered like different economic and technological pressures that you see as bearing down on Gen Z. And uh actually also I would say from the Catrini article we know maybe it's not only Gen Z. Um but talk a little bit about you know what these changes are and how you see that as affecting you know what would be the typical path to success for a zoomer

like you. >> Sure. Yeah. Um I kind of put this together a because I hadn't written in a while and um I also had just kind of a culmination of thoughts just you know talking with talking with my friends who a lot of them um you know skew skew kind of on the younger age of the end of the spectrum um about a lot of these ideas u I think it affects you know people in the US uh orn young people in the US as well as people around the world um but the idea here and and we could probably do a 30 minute segment so I'll condense this down into five 10 minutes Max um I basically wrote through a lot of the issues that um you know the younger generation is facing. Um I think every generation you know faces a slew of

issues you know their own unex unique set of challenges. I also think that Gen Z has a lot of um things that you know are to their favor. um you know unlimited access to information on the internet. Uh AI um you know the standard of you know the the average median uh median and and average uh standard of living continues to go up both in the US and and around the world. So you know I'm not I'm not to say that like you know oh boohoo the zoomers but I do think that there's the set of issues that that they kind of face. So that you know overall when you look at like the big picture that wealth continues to get concentrated um and you know wealth inequality continues to grow um that's that's mostly uh you know skewed towards asset owners non-asset owners but that's

also uh become this kind of older and younger generation thing. So um there's different measures you can look at it but the one I put in here is uh just the percentage of of net worth held by older people. The amount held by people under 40 is the lowest it's ever been. Therefore, above 40, but specifically when you get above the age of 55, uh it's se you know 75% of of the nation's wealth is held by this this older cohort of people. Um so you've got this, you know, underlying thing of this huge amount of wealth inequality. I think a lot of that has been driven by monetary policy, uh the bailing out of the financial markets in 2008, which was kind of to the short-term benefit of of asset holders. Um I also put in here the offshoring of labor and included you

know manufacturing jobs. Um so you can see after NAFTA and then China entered the WTO and early 2000s um the manufacturing jobs in the US completely dropped off a cliff. Um so you know that's that's one thing. Um the other one I put in here was the government backing of of student loans. Uh so I think this this one kind of ruffles some feathers but I think basically the government should not you know I'm aware that the government enabled a bunch of people to you know attend university that wouldn't have been able to otherwise. Um but it's my view that uh I think the you know deprivization of the student loan uh system uh was ultimately to the detriment of uh you know new students and to the benefit of

universities and also you know to the detriment of of uh taxpayers. Um you know over time we've seen uh the cost of of tuition continue to go up. Uh you look at you know debt for student debt as a percentage of the median salary fresh out of school that's gone up only over the last 50 years uh since the government started subsidizing student loans. Um you know I think in in a perfect world you know in the privatization of of student loans the bank underwrites you as if they underwrite any other loan. They look at the you know your ability to uh you know do well in school and get a job after. They look at, you know, the type of degree that you're getting and then they underwrite you based on that. Whereas the government just has been writing, you know, blanket loans to everybody

based on whatever tuition and it's very clear that there's a big bifurcation in the ROI by degree. Number one being computer science, engineering, nursing and computer science maybe now as well as finance, you know, maybe we'll get hurt by AI. Um and then when you get into kind of more of the you know the fine arts, the philosophies, the sociologies, films and media, you know, there's just very clear it's just the data have have negative ROI. So it doesn't make sense that the government I think is doing this blank underwriting of everything. Uh and then the uh the monetary uh debasement piece I put in there. Um another one I think is important is um the amount of time that companies are are are spent in the private market and the lack of price discovery in public markets. So, go back

to like the 1980s, you know, you could have bought Apple pretty cheap. I think this as a penny stock. Um or, you know, Amazon in the early 2000s. Um I I just don't think that there's as much opportunity to uh get exposure to great American companies at at you know, cheap prices or at least, you know, we kind of have this fractal that's come about where, you know, the company IPOs, bleeds out for two years, and then kind of, you know, finds a bottom and then continues up. most of the price discovery leading up u into the IPO process has has all got shifted into the uh private market and you know with Ananthropic and OpenAI and SpaceX which is going to supposedly IPO at like almost $2 trillion and um you know I I think that's to the I think

that's to the detriment of of the average American. You know, I think it'd be good if if everybody, you know, and I understand why there's investor protection laws. Um, but it doesn't make sense to me why uh you have the proliferation of um, you know, uh, sports betting, which has now got like fully integrated into like, uh, entertainment networks as well as, you know, prediction market u advertisements getting shoved down the throats of zoomers. I think if if you're going to enable these things, then, you know, from a double double standard uh, standpoint, you should also be allowed to invest in these great uh, private companies in in the US. Um and you know if you're able to get these people uh you know uh more involved at an earlier stage then it would it would it would be to their benefit you know wealth

creation for everybody as well as just you know aligning people with you know the long-term uh you know fruits of of the country and and that also ties into the wealth inequality piece you know getting getting priced out of assets because of the backstopping of the system etc. Uh and then the last one I put in here was uh the the rise of AI and robotics which I don't really need to get into you know the AI models if you look at it um you know on on like a uh you know time action u you know amount of time spent per action basis that the models are basically you know going exponential um and then at the same time we're we're expected to see you know the buildout of humanoid robotics China is ahead of seem seemingly ahead of the the US for now

but over the the you know, 10 years, 10, 15 years, I'd expect that that would also ramp up as well. Um, so you have, you know, the combination of those those two forces. So, you know, if you if you want to go into the into the the depths of it, um, feel free. It's it's my pin tweet, but that's kind of the the high level of of the issues. Uh, and then I just, you know, put for, you know, potential things that people can do, uh, as as a Zoomer to, you know, combat some of these issues and set yourself up for success. I just put, um, you know, assess your degree deeply. does it have like real ROI? Are you know for example I dropped out of school. Um I I you know frankly didn't you know do my my best work in in high school and didn't set

myself up to go to a great university and I had I was very fortunate with the Twitter stuff and had a you know personal distribution that I could use to to you know build build a business or you know meet people etc and find employment opportunities. Um, so I'm aware that I'm, you know, like a one-off thing, but, you know, I dropped out of school largely because I just realized that, you know, the the the ROI wasn't wasn't really there, at least, you know, based on where I was going to school at the moment. Um, the other thing I put is embrace AI. You know, you can you can basically have it code anything now. Pretty much almost anything that that it, you know, touches software will probably be um, you know, somewhat displaced by AI in the next, you know, couple years. Um and then I also just

put um you know seek to build advantages in personal distribution if you can build out a you know niche social media presence you know that that'll be a huge uh competitive advantage if if you know code is basically getting commoditized and you know the the competitive advantage becomes distribution and uh the final ones I just said uh stay nibble and pay attention and the world is is rapidly changing. Yeah, the two things that struck me were the bit about the student loans because yeah, once um you kind of like guaranteed these colleges they were going to make money no matter what. Like it just in a way like kind of created a grift which I had never really thought about until you pointed I I read that. I I don't know if this is like a common

thing that because you know I I tend to really pay attention to crypto and not so much the wider world of finance. Maybe other people already had seen that, but that was new to me. Um, but the other one really was like I remember that Jeff Park came on the show and he talked about how, you know, I forget what he said, like I think it was like before, you know, some some world war or I don't know, it [laughter] was like a long time ago, like the 1920s or whatever, but he basically said that like at that time most businesses were like small businesses. Like very few people worked for these gigantic corporations and stuff. And like when I read your essay, I was like, "Oh, this could lead us to go back to that where everybody kind of, you know, has their own little business and it's just around

them and like their AI agent or multiple agents or, you know, whatever." And there's less of this like gigantic corporation type of job. So, um, anyway, well, that was super interesting. Thanks so much for sharing. Um, I know you I know you have to run, so I'm uh just so happy that we got to hear your insights and we will catch you next time. >> Sure. Absolutely. I don't think I've done a podcast in I don't know, three or four months at least. So, um, >> do more. Well, that was really good, man. >> Thank you. Thank you. Hopefully, I'll talk to you guys for longer, but uh, appreciate you having me on and I'll be back soon.

>> Okay, great. >> Thanks, guys. Have a good one. >> Thank you. So, next up everyone, we'll have part two of our discussion and that will continue to cover where the Bitcoin markets are headed. But first, we're we're going to take a quick word from the sponsors who make our show possible. Step into a new era of wealth. Discover Nexo, the premier digital wealth platform. Manage your crypto portfolio with confidence and control. Receive interest on your digital assets. Borrow against them without selling. Trade a wide range of cryptocurrencies all in one platform. Now available in the US with 30 days of exclusive privileges for new clients. Experience Wealth Club Premiere. Access enhanced interest

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[music] You can find the new Bits and Bips channels at unchaincrypto.com/bitsandbips. You can also find us by searching Bits and Bips on [music] YouTube, Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Back to my conversation about the Bitcoin markets. This time with Marcus Woo, market strategist at Deli Digital, joining me and Joe. Welcome, Marcus. >> Hey, nice to have nice to be here. Thanks for having me. >> So, we've been discussing what's been going on with the Bitcoin price, and we cover so many things. Um, but I'm just curious what's top of mind for you when you're watching this price action amidst, you know, um, obviously war and also these rumors around Jane Street

and, um, you know, people talking about the ISM metrics or, um, you know, Bitcoin miners maybe like Bitcoin miner Mara maybe starting to sell some of its Bitcoin or or at least considering it um, etc., So there are so many things. Uh the fear and greed index is obviously very firmly in the fear range right now. So what are you watching? >> Yeah, sure. So I like to touch on a little bit more about the Jane Street piece. I think it's um it's interesting how uh this news gets released when Bitcoin is down like almost 46% from its all-time high. Uh I mean it's just a coincidence, right? like um a lot of people are attributing the current um you know small upside move for Bitcoin

to Jane Street >> but I think it just so happens that Jane Street's news gets released near the bottom range right so so that could be easily like a bottoming process from this news itself and and then this this to my view ties over to what we're seeing in in the Middle East right now um just like similar to how Bitcoin has topped in the past Um we we got a slew of good news um last year and Bitcoin's price didn't move anywhere, right? We were hovering around 125 range. We had a lot of positive movement on uh several fronts such as the uh you know more more uh direction under Clarity Act. Um and we didn't see any move continuing the

the to go to the upside. So I'm seeing similar things to the downside too. um we had this new tensions come up this week and Bitcoin has held steady above the 60K range. This to me is also like um just some signs to look for in terms of uh the general uh local strength I call it in Bitcoin's market right now. So that to me is pretty surprising. >> Okay. So um I did actually want to ask a little bit about the Jane Street thing. I I had actually meant to ask um Joe about it when Will was here. Well, Joe and Will, but um it didn't get a chance.

You know, that came out and then it created a huge stir, you know, went super viral. Um, and you know, just to fill in anybody who didn't see this on Twitter, basically um the theory uh by author Justin Beckler was um that because Jane Street is an authorized participant for the Bitcoin ETFs. Um he wrote, quote, "The firm has every incentive to use its privileged position as an authorized participant to suppress the spot price, trigger liquidations, and harvest the spread." And what he was pointing out basically is like it has to make certain disclosures, but overall those those disclosures don't show what its real net exposure is to Bitcoin. So,

he was kind of like pausing that they're sort of like dumping on the market to profit. But a lot of people who are much more um or I shouldn't say much more, I just mean they're they're very kneede in the ETF world um like Eric Balchunis of Bloomberg Intelligence who he just covers ETFs. Um and then some others like Jeff Park from ProCab, Rob Hadock from Dragonfly, they all said this didn't seem plausible to them. Um, but what was interesting is like even when Jeff Park wrote his response, he wrote, quote, "No AP explicitly suppresses the Bitcoin price. What the AP structure can suppress is the integrity of the price discovery mechanism itself." So that was

that was interesting because he's basically saying well actually he finishes. So he says um he asks quote whether a regulatory frame framework built for traditional ETFs is the right one for an asset whose entire value proposition rests on being outside the reach of exactly these institutions. So that was fascinating to me. Um, yeah. So, curious to hear you guys like do you guys think this theory is plausible or do you agree with like I think a lot of people that it's not or I don't know what what are your thoughts?

>> I mean, you know, when you look at any Wall Street firms, you know, especially ones that are involved in quote like market making, right? They're they're making the markets. They're the ones that are creating the order book and, you know, they're they're still competing. Uh but if you do if you do it right, I mean you're it is an infinite money glitch, right? And so I I think, you know, is it plausible that a company that is one word away from Wall Street, you know, maybe acted in a way that they shouldn't have? I'm not implying that they are even at any point. You know, I know it's still going to be under investigation, but the history of Wall Street is that they cut corners and, you know, they're trying to find any way

possible to make a profit, right? We saw this obviously in 2008. You mean the downfall of these major huge institutions that no one would have ever thought you know were you know it was a basically a collaboration between you know ratings a agencies and creating collateralized debt everything right we've seen that already so is it do I think it's beyond them to you know manipulate an asset that can be manipulated absolutely not right and when I say them I don't mean Jane Street I just say mean Wall Street or anyone that's trading um so if there are you know I I don't think a suit would be brought forward in a way if there wasn't like some there there. But again, um we just we just don't know obviously until

things come out. But that being said, you know, there there was definitely and everyone I mean every you know uh podcast I went on all the Twitter spaces, you know, I've done a ton of like the town hall Twitter spaces that are out there and for months everyone's like like what is happening, right? Everyone was like this is so confusing. you have like a like everyone under the sun just scrambling to like buy Bitcoin to buy the ETFs. Everyone you know is doing this and you know somehow the price has fallen right somehow. Wait, wait, just for the time frame, are you talking about um only post1010 or are you talking about even before 1010?

>> Even even before, you know, it took a minute. I think I think the DAT rush drove Bitcoin up to that one kind of 26 mark, but even before that, we were kind of hovering in some of these states and we're like, what? Like, how is this even possible? Like, who is selling Bitcoin right now? Um, and so if they found some some sort of way or some trade that was out there to, you know, hey, if we dump at this point, we can push the bots to do this and we can make this spread. Of course, that's what they were doing, right? Whether or not like it's illegal, right? Like it's not it's probably not illegal to know that, hey, if you're selling and triggering the market to do a thing, right? Like I don't think that's insider, but again, like what did they know? Who were they talking to? I'm

sure there's a lot of emails that have gone through. Um, but you know is it's great to have people if they're if they are acting like that out of the market. And so I think that's why you saw the price actually move up because people the market might have agreed that something was happening that they weren't comfortable with and now maybe they're a little bit more comfortable with entering the market knowing it's not being manipulated. >> Marquez, what what do you think? >> I I generally agree with what Joe said. Uh, halt takeick here. I think 1010 would have happened in some way or another regardless of what Binance did or whoever was responsible for it. I I think for example companies like Jane Street can do what they do because a narrative exists, right? And we have seen like massive selling pressure coming from Bitcoin OG holders. So I I

mean I do believe that there may have been some sort of price suppression going on with what J&J was doing. But, you know, we just looked at the facts here, like ever since we've peaked in in October, there's just been massive amounts of selling. So, I think Jane Street was able to write this narrative wave of um you [snorts] know, this cascading of like uh Bitcoin sellers and then find spots of weakness to to to do what Joe was talking about. Um but I I do think where we were at in October left us in a pretty precarious spot, right? we we generally saw macro conditions not as strong as before and um liquidity wasn't flowing in crypto right so like it or not whoever was responsible for 1010 I believe would

have manifested one way or another right be it Binance or some other event triggering this massive liquidation um because I I do think back sometimes and think back like what would have happened if 1010en didn't happen like where would crypto be I I I've slowly came to the realization that maybe the question is not what if tent Tenten didn't happen, but you know what? If something else replaced Tenten entirely because, you know, if there's an exploit to be found, like it or not, this is crypto, it's open source, whatever. Um, somebody would be there to to extract value. So, I think building off from here, we're we're, you know, we're generally in a in a healthier spot than we were in October. But, yeah, that's my view on Jane Street and stuff.

>> Yeah. Another piece to it really quick is you know like this is um like Terraform Labs and Teruna going after this right and so you know that I think that's even the bigger question for everyone is you know did something happen there which you know eventually created a downfall and you know if we don't have you know Terara Teruna happening right then maybe we don't have FTX happening right FTX you know has a liquidity problem. But, you know, they did invest in Anthropic and Robin Hood and at you know, if they if the lawyers didn't take their billion dollar cut and they just let it fly, right? It we they would have everyone that owned anything FTF would have like

a 10 or 20x now. Um, and then a lot like we don't know what would have happened. So, it's like that's a that's an alternate like universe. Like we don't live in that universe, but I think that's kind of where a lot of people in crypto are kind of like wow we like we might just be living in an entirely fraudulent system. right like that that you know for from outsiders and so it it's an interesting thing to think about obviously you know we are where we are today um and yes I I completely agree anything that can be exploited will be exploited in in the system but maybe it would have just not happened in such a um you know waterfall effect on some of these days and I think that's the the scary part for some people in crypto you know if the stock market starts to fall

there's breakers that go off it can't you know everyone take a deep breath like you know are sure you want to be selling everything. That doesn't happen in crypto, right? It is just a cascading domino effect when things happen, which is I think is good. Um, you know, I think too big to fail is not a great thing for society in in whole, but you know, that's just the market that we're in. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I it's like it's funny for me. So I, you know, I mean, we're all of this also is happening around the same time as like the whole Epstein Files thing and all that and um I sort of feel like um so I can look at people like Eric Belchinis and I'm like, okay, this guy, he's been covering ETFs for so long,

like you know, he doesn't see this. Um and I can give a certain amount of weight to that. But then, you know, when you see such huge revelations coming out about some of the most publicly visible people on the entire planet who have been holding up some kind of charade or whatever for decades, [laughter] like [gasps] you're just like, "Okay, well, how much, you know, credence do I give to the so-called experts who think they know what's going on?" like, you know. [laughter] So, um I'm not saying anything about the the Jane Street rumors themselves so much as just like um I almost feel like we live in an

environment where you just h you end up questioning so much how how can you know what you think you know and how much of what you think you know is actually true. like um so th so those are you know um some things that I think are just sort of in the zeitgeist and maybe fuel the virality of theories like that. But um one other thing that I wanted to pick up on from what Marcus said which was so interesting was just this thought experiment of what if 1010 didn't happen but like what's interesting to me is like it would have happened in some respect right like there would because so if we didn't have like those mispricings or whatever on on Binance it just would have been smaller. So like instead of what what was it like um was

it $190 billion in liquidations that happened? Was that the >> 40 40 billion that was uh I think >> oh sorry it was 19 billion not not 100 I was like [laughter] okay 19 billion thank you for jocking my memory anyway point is just so you know then what would it have been like would it have been three billion or you know I I don't know what I don't I don't even know if anybody's tried to do a calculation like that but um but the point is just that um yeah it sort of feels like there there was some sort of comeuppins for for crypto that would have happened. Um but due to you know

some Yeah, it's funny. I was going to use the word errors and then I remembered because Binance had publicly signaled that it was going to change how it was price. I don't even remember all the details. It was like something about how they were pricing something something and in a way that uh provided a window when um you know the person who made a lot or the entities that made a lot of money from from that uh were able to make even more than they probably would have otherwise. So anyway, all I'm trying to say is um you know first of all let let's let's just focus in on 1010 a little bit. So, as I'm sure you're well aware, there's been five million theories about what happened since then. And I'm curious to know what

you think happened um and you know how quickly you think Bitcoin will recover. >> Go ahead. I think um so about 1010 I think what happened just based off the sequence of events was that Binance said that they were going to upgrade their USDE contracts like they were migrating from an old version to the new upgrade. So they they let everybody know that like this is the period I think it's internally it wasn't even public news that they're going to do this upgrade and just space of theories right some somebody or some group got knowledge of this upgrade and was able to exploit the uh USD contract by by deping it

basically and that caused the whole you know charade that we we we know about that you know some of the blue chip assets like you know like XRP and a bunch of other stuff dropped like 40 to 60% and just like a handful of minutes. Um, I think because of that that really caused a lot of problems and that really unraveled like what everybody feared the most, right? Like uh nobody's actually buying your your bags like um the demand for these are just market made, right? Like it's just bots or companies trading back and forth to to to generate to simulate like this assets we're trading.

So I think that really opened everybody's eyes for the first time like holy you know maybe maybe get buying like like a illquid coin with a lot of money isn't the best idea. So that in my view was number one a capital destruction. A lot of people got liquidated. Number two, it opens people eyes to you know see what what you know without these market makers what volume would there be? And number three if you look at a lot of these charts that put in this massive 10-10 wick, a lot of them actually came back down to retest the wick. So uh I remember my experience 1010. I was actually on a plane and uh that liquidation happened when I was flying. So thankfully I had Wi-Fi and uh

my exchange allowed me to actually put some orders in to to buy when the 1010 wick actually happened which I was pretty fortunate but it's in my view that whoever was able to buy those 10 10 wicks you know like you know what they said like you got to fill the wick so somehow or another I think these market makers or whoever is responsible for pricing these these assets or contracts sort of drove price down back to those wicks. cuz you can't just let people right away with a what five to sixx gain in in such a short time. So I don't know if you take a look at all these charts like pump and and and several others uh most of these charts are back at the 1010 wicks where we actually filled the

wick and some of them are even below. So going on. >> So that's why you think that Bitcoin has just been dropping and dropping and dropping since 1010 >> and and so I know so I don't remember what was the low of the wick on >> uh Bitcoin's low for 1010 wasn't even close to where we are right now. Bitcoin hit I think uh around 100 >> 104 >> and then it bounced from there. Yeah, it bounced from 104 to 115 and then from there we we fell off the cliff and we just rolled over. I'm I'm I'm talking about the altcoins because the altcoins had like catastrophic draw downs. Yeah.

>> Yeah. Okay. >> But where we go from here for Bitcoin, I you know I think we range for a while like um I built some models around this to to try to see where we are at in a current cycle. >> Wait, is this the same as your allocation framework or different? >> Yeah. Yeah. This is the game model. Yeah. Describe this. >> Yeah. So I I basically built a model that uses game theory to look at Bitcoin's onchain metrics. So what this does is basically let us know in in in game theory there's uh two modes. It's cooperation mode and then there's defection. So when when we're cooperating technically what what classifies cooperation is generally low volatility and a bunch of other onchain metrics that signifies to signals to

people that you and I are working together. So the base assumption is that Bitcoin is a scarce asset and corporations and and hedge funds and important people want to buy more of and in order for them to buy more Bitcoin they have to work with one another because if you don't work with one another what's going to happen is you're going to have massive price spikes. So in game theory in different regimes, right, based on, you know, people's preference, you either cooperate to to buy Bitcoin cheap or you defect, which means I buy Bitcoin first and then because I buy Bitcoin and you're afraid that my buying would spike coin, spike the price of the coin, you frontun me.

So both parties just front run each other and that's why we see those massive spikes. So anyway, in this model, cooperation is low ball, defection is high ball. And uh right now we're in defection. So in each regime there's different ways of trading it. So in defection regime because it's high ball and what I found is that in this regime it's very mean reverting. The average mean return for this regime is around 0%. But then we have very wide standard standard deviation bands. So that basically just means that price is going really nowhere. So in order for us to go back into cooperation, we have to first exit this regime in defection and then there's all the numbers on that.

what's the average time for defection to end blah blah blah but uh TLDDR is um cooperation has to first persist and that persistence I found is to be around the 20 to 30 day mark so right now we're nowhere in corporation we're still in defection so that leads me to believe that there's still some more time to go before we we actually see like uh a meaningful rally doesn't mean we can't have a relief rally it just means for the rally to be sustainable and believable it has to be in a confirmed med cooperation phase which takes time.

Um and I I Yeah. >> Wait, so I'm sorry. Go ahead and finish your thought there. >> No, I was just going to say like um I I have a research piece coming out soon via Deli. So um if anybody's interested, you know, that's where I I dive into the mechanics and the math and all the stuff. >> Okay. Well, you said that you're using onchain metrics and obviously now we know that a lot of the activity is not happening onchain and there's like derivatives in the mix like there's just and people are talking about this about how this is like um just creating some difficulty for the Bitcoin price. So how kind of like confident can you be that the on-rain metrics are going to be useful or you

know how do you think about that issue that um we have you know this whole other world that's not happening on chain that's affecting the bitcoin price. >> Yeah. So for the onchain metrics I look at a bunch of stuff like oi oi open open interest um volatility I look at exchange balances what a whale wallet's doing. So and then this is not just from a dayto-day right there's like a normalization period that I apply. So this goes back you know a couple months and I've looked at this data for the past six years. So this model is built on six years worth of data and uh you know where where this model goes like there's still some limitations right like you just said what if um you know the US just passes more laws on on you

know per taxes in the US and push you know perex volume over to those centralized exchanges then we won't have those kind of tracking available so there are still limitations in this model but just based on what I found these onchain metrics are still you know providing a wealth of information that we can look at like we usually see when onchain balance spikes two or three days prior price that follows usually is to the downside like that relationship still hasn't changed like we've seen big sellers selling on Coinbase and Binance those those sellers have to deposit Bitcoin onto those exchanges so you can still run away from that part unless you know they're trading paper Bitcoin or something. [laughter]

>> Oh, got it. Okay, that makes sense. Um, and then one other thing that I was going to ask you was um, so is this something where like it's um, just more for research purposes or is this something where like people can use some kind of dashboard or yeah like what form format is going to is it going to take? >> We we have so I have the dashboard live on Deli's site and it's free for everybody to to go visit. I I'll share the link with you later. And uh what I'm personally doing is building trading strategies and deployment strategies basically allocate allocation strategies on top of this regime. So the first layer is just identifying where we are

at right now. What regime is Bitcoin operating under. The next layer is to then layer on okay if we understand that Bitcoin is in a defection regime. We do not want to be holding spot Bitcoin for a long position. You want to do that when we are in corporation. So where in defection is scalping. So you you you know you can make use of when Bitcoin's price is way above the standard deviation returns and you can take a long or short and write it back to the mean. That's totally fine in that regime. So so that's what um I've been working on for the past half a year or something.

>> Okay. Wow. So interesting. Um we're at time but I had one last topic. I don't know. Do you guys have time to just cover this? I wanted to talk about what I was going to call the AI apocalypse. Um do you have time for I don't know fiveish more minutes? Yeah, sure. >> Okay. Well, I'm sure you saw the Catrini article. You heard about blocks layoffs. You know, everybody says this is sort of like the first big public company to do massive layoffs um due to AI. And I was wondering like, you know, how you're looking at all of this and how you think this will affect crypto.

I I think it's going to have a huge effect on everything, you know, our personal lives, work lives, um corporations, you know, building everything. Um you know, when everything kind of really changed, when uh the the most recent models changed from Claude in December. Um that's really when everything kind of started to change and you know, people were all of a sudden kind of messaging saying like, "Hey, can you build this little thing?" and all else it would like come back pretty good and you know it would have like colors and you can like click click around and you're like oh my gosh this is crazy. Um, and then the implementation of clawed code locally on your computer. Obviously, the open claw thing went went crazy. That's

just really clawed code like on the cloud, right? Um, no, nothing big there. U, but it did just go crazy because a lot of like verality over on NX, but um, ultimately it's just clawed has been kind of the huge breakthrough recently. Um, but I would say every founder and CEO that I know, you know, has now gone from, you know, typing on the computer 95% of the time to talking to it 99% of the time. Um, you know, they have found incredible ways to create efficiencies at their businesses. Um, you know, a great example would be there's like this company called Whisper Flow. They've raised like $81 million from like Andre and everything else. and you could just, you know, tell Claude to rebuild that

and it's, you know, cost you 50 cents and you're done in like six minutes, right? And then there's like all the that's like that entire company. It's like you're just really hoping I'm sure there's a lot there there's a bunch probably a bunch under the hood. I don't know, but like that scenario is happening all across different, you know, any reporting tools that you have, right? Like you're just kind of hitting your like your original systems and grabbing the APIs and um now you're just kind of like talking to your computer telling it to create these things. So the efficiencies are there. Now I know a lot of people think that there's not going to be a bunch of layoffs from this and that we're going to, you know, create this kind of like AI utopia. I I think we do, but I think it's going to

be really rough in the interim. And I think, you know, Jack's way out ahead of it um at Block and he's making those cuts, but I think other companies have kind of been making those cuts, you know, in different ways. like Amazon kind of tried to force everyone, you know, to go back to the office, but really they just made you go to a Wei work near you that was like kind of annoying and hoped you quit. You know, there was like a lot of like that stuff going on as well. So, I think it's it's happening, but I think this next 18 months is going to be really dynamic for AI. And I think um you know, I think crypto is actually built for this in a way. You know, there there's a been a couple really good articles about, you know, whether or not your business is

going to survive this. you know, does it make your product better in some sort of way, right? Can you build upon it? Like at Lunar Crush, you know, we we have all this amazing social data and now we can like unlock it with AI, right? And like, you know, people can query these massive data sets and they never could before. Before you'd have to like create this UI in your own specific way and talk about the colors and where you want the buttons and all of these things to showcase a cool view for someone to understand what's happening in the market. Now someone can ask any question on the on earth and have like a perfect beautiful representation of what that is. I mean even Laura before this I just you know sent a little HTML file about like your topics and questions and it

was like whoa like and that's all real time. Um so that's it's just going to disrupt everything and anyone that I know that um you know is is interested in this and has started to use it is never going back to the old way of working. Um, and even, you know, Will, who was on here before, G gave that great kind of talk about Zoomers and the disruption there. And, um, you know, I'm really hoping that that generation takes that in stride and, you know, continue to use it. >> The one thing I was wondering is, you know, I think it was you who before you mentioned this will really push the adoption of stable coins. So, I guess I'm just wondering like will it really benefit crypto or or or maybe it does, but like not until, you know, two or

three years from now. I don't know. Uh that's the one thing it's sort of like >> that's a quick >> Yeah, sorry to to kind of jump in, but I I think it has a like in the short term stable coins um smart contracts, these things um are programmable and I think you can build really cool interesting things like you know people will build um you know automated funds or they'll you know there's all this cool stuff with agents that are now trading you know on hyperlquid um and they're kind of going back and forth with these models and they have their own strategies. and they have their own context. Like right now, you probably wouldn't give open claw access to like your bank account, right? And I don't even know if like Chase is going to create like a perfect API that I can

then move money in and out constantly. And then what is the another big thing would be like what is the tax, you know, consequences of something like that. And so I think that they're just far away from adoption where, you know, stable coins and dexes are like primed and ready for like the agent takeover. And you know, if you're like me and and the other people that are working like this today, um you know, your head's going to explode when you realize what's possible, you know, six to eight months from now. And it's changing so fast. So, yes, it's going to be super disruptive, but I think it will ultimately be bullish for everyone. Um but I think that there's going to be a 12 to 18 months of some or maybe even a little bit longer of headaches. I mean, when you see someone like Elon Musk, you

know, the suns setting the Model S and the Model X to even go and and build robots now, right? Like the Model X, like you just like tell it kind of where to go and like it opens the door and like drives you to where you want to go. He's like, "Nah, we don't need that product anymore." It's like the most amazing product on earth. Um, and he's sunsetting it because he's like, "Oh, this other thing is going to move faster." Like that's what's going to happen is these like huge big decisions by CEOs to transform the way that people work. >> Yeah. Yeah. I think um the one thing um that you said about sorry I just lost my train of thought about the AIS um is that oh oh just like um you know when it comes to crypto I I worry that um there

there's going to be so many mistakes along the way. There was already that one where it gave away like a quarter of a million dollars by accident because the decimal was wrong. And so, um, the like it's one of those things where you kind of make this calculation of like, oh, this seems like a really good thing to experiment with, but then it's like if it goes wrong, it can go like really wrong. So, >> um, Marcus, what about you? What are you thinking about how this will affect crypto? >> There was a you brought up a pretty interesting point. I saw on X, I think it was last week, there was an account that was able to convince one of the agents running one of their tokens to donate like 30% of its token supply to him. And you know, it's a typical like,

oh, my dad has like, you know, cancer, please help. And then the bot was like, sure, here is 30% of the supply. And obviously the guy dumped it. >> Um, >> that was the one. Yeah. >> Yeah. But I so there are some speculation that was you know people were were hypothesizing that this was all a marketing stint you know and that the the dev wanted to exit but I I I don't really know what the truth is but to your point you know there is some sort of risk here that people are obviously not flagging. Um but yeah going back to your question about AI and I'd like to touch on the block thing for just u a couple minutes. I I think what Block did was was, you know, people on X were saying block has been bloated for a while, right? And and we we see the

numbers and yeah, I know Block has been bloated and it's been like that for a couple years, but then you got to ask yourself how many other companies that are like like Block, you know, that has hired a bunch of people that has resisted not firing and then now that block has developed its own AI in-house tool called Goose and that actually enabled them to automate a lot of the processes. So there was a very good ex post on somebody who works in block. He was basically saying that these this tool that they have developed basically streamline about 70% of their workflows. So if you're a software dev, all you got to do is you know ask the the in-house tool and they'll build it for you. And it it does code testing. It does deployments. So you got to be we got to be asking ourselves like how many

companies have seen this playbook play out? You announce massive layoffs. you get your stock popping 20% on the news and and you just got to, you know, some CEOs are going to be like, "Hey, is this a viable strategy? Could we actually build our own in-house AI tool and save some of the cost and streamline some of our workflows?" Uh, you know, I I think there are going to be people considering this and and to Joe's point, I think the unemployment side of this is still pretty much not talked about, right? like I I I still do think there's some turn that that's going to be had in in the market. And um where this goes in the long run, yeah, maybe it will help create more jobs like the internet did

or or like the railway did, but as of now, it's much easier for a company to replace somebody with AI than create more jobs with in this current market posture. So that's just my two cents on the whole block thing. Um, now to crypto and AI, I I think crypto and AI is in, you know, like I think I agree with what Joe has said, there's a lot of developments on the agents front and uh, you know, AI agents are not going to go through like a gated bank account or something to help you transact. Now, maybe that could work in the future, but as of now, the open-source open network blockchain is is probably the answer for now.

>> All right. Well, um yeah, this has been such an interesting conversation. Thank you both so much. And yeah, it um it's just so interesting because it just feels like so much stuff in the world is just converging. [laughter] You know, it's like we covered like the war in Iran, we covered gold, we covered, you know, kind of intricacies around how Wall Street and markets worked. We covered AI and it generational stuff. It it just feels like it's all coming together in an interesting way. Um, but thank you both so much for coming on Unchained.

>> Thank you so much for having me. Yeah. >> And thanks to everyone for tuning in to this live stream. We will catch you tomorrow.