Catalysts for the next Bitcoin breakout, with Matt Hougan

Transcript

when crypto retail was really bearish. It turned out that they were just in two completely market different market cycles. Crypto retail was bearish because the bear was out. It was already winter. Assets down 70%. We just didn't see it in institutional land. And uh it made me realize that crypto winter was here. It then took down Bitcoin and ETH. What's up everybody? It's LG Ducet here and welcome to the Milk Road Show, the daily crypto show that doesn't hibernate even once winter has finally come. Today is February 11th, 2026. We're recording this late on February 10th. Listen, last week's events really turned a lot of long-standing bulls around. Even the most optimistic crypto supporter would have to have had accepted that the bear has finally arrived. But personally, I'm

kind of happy. The ambiguity is gone. The crash that some people said would happen has happened. And I feel like despite prices dropping so violently, we are still here. And we have many reasons to believe in the eventual maybe even quick recovery for crypto. And I couldn't think of anybody better to come on to the show and discuss that with me than today's guest, Matt Hogan from Bitwise. Today's episode is brought to you by some turn crypto tax chaos into confidence and bridge send stable coin payments instantly simple, global, and frictionfree. Matt, what's up, man? Welcome back. A different environment almost it feels two weeks ago we were at 84K and thinking that that was pretty good. Yeah, we were turning the corner, but now we're in the deep, dark depths of a fullbore crypto winter. As you

said, we have to accept it. It's here. It's chilly. Spring will come, but it's cold right now. I I just think it's remarkable how mentality changes where, you know, last time you were on, if I told you we were going to go to 70K, we would have said like, "That's crazy. What a terrible scenario." And then this week we start and we're like, "Well, thank God we're back to 70K. At least we're holding there." >> Yes. Well, it did feel that that $10,000 day uh down day did feel like the air dropping out of of Bitcoin. Easy to remember when Bitcoin was less than $10,000 the whole thing. So, to see that in one day was pretty shocking. Um and yeah, it's been nice to see it stabilize and recover a little bit. That's it. And even the fear and greed index, uh last

time it was in the single digits, Bitcoin was at 3500. So, this time it was at 8 or nine and we're at 60,000. And we're thinking that's terrible, but clearly when you zoom out there's a lot more there. Matt, um you put out a piece last week prior to this $10,000 crash day prior to February 5th. Um you wrote a couple days before titled crypto winter started in January 2025. You discussed that actually you kind of gave us like a little exclusive on that two weeks back on the show, but I want to know I I don't know if I asked you this last time and this is prior to the crash last week. So, so Matt knew Matt accepted this winter thing before the crash happened, before the flash crash.

Matt, what what was the factor that made you finally accept this reality, I guess? >> Yeah, it was actually a chart, believe it or not. So, the real story behind the scenes is I was preparing a uh chart on the market for Bitwise's corporate board, which I do each quarter just to give them an update on where things are setting. And I plotted the 10 largest crypto assets starting in January 2025. And you saw Bitcoin and Ethereum sort of trundle along for the year. We remember Bitcoin ran up to 126,000 and ended the year down 6%. Ethereum a little bit worse, but it wasn't bad. A modest pullback. But as I looked at everything but Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP, it was

down only starting in January 2025. And when you looked at assets that had no institutional support like Avalanche, Sooie, Cardano, etc., they were down 60 or 70%. What hit me is that that is a full-blown crypto winner. So these there were there were sort of like two classes of assets. There were assets that had ETFs where institutions were shoveling money into the fire and those ended the year down 5 or 10%. And then there was crypto retail and those assets ended the year down 70%. And it all of a sudden clicked to me. One of the things we discussed late last year was the duality of crypto's personality. I was saying institutions are really bullish and the

fear and greed index was like a 12 and crypto retail was really bearish. It turned out that they were just in two completely market different market cycles. Crypto retail was bearish because the bear was out. It was already winter assets down 70%. We just didn't see it in institutional land. And uh it made me realize the crypto winner was here. It then took down Bitcoin and ETH right in a major way because it eventually spread. But it was really that chart. It was just stark to me. If you didn't have ETFs, you were already down 70 and uh that's a dark dark winner, >> right? Yeah. I Yeah, I remember you mentioning that. So yeah, that's I mean that's I think we all appreciate you coming coming to that real reality

because like I said it's I think it's we were stuck in ambiguity for months and we discussed it many times with you guys and a lot of our other guests and and for me personally there's some there almost like some finality here. you listed in your most recent uh you wrote like an emergency memo from Bitwise um that you put out every couple weeks, but this one was an emergency one on February 6th was just last Friday about listing out the six reasons why that crash happened on February 5th. Which one would you say was the leading one? Because there's a few different ones there like the Fed and uh different like more more leveraging kind of chatter about uh the ETFs and everything. What's the one that stands out to you? Yeah, I mean, you know, there's never a monocausal explanation. It's always multiple straws that break the camel's

back. Uh, I think the conditioning straw, the big one, if you were span out over the last year, is OG's selling to exit in front of the four-year cycle. I think that is the biggest, that was the one that I that I led with. But in terms of what sparked it on a practical basis, why that day, I actually think it was a general riskoff trend in the market. So I think all the things that I added up before then OG selling, quantum risk becoming a concern, the October 10th leverage overhang, uh rumors in the market were there and then the the the match that ignited the spark was other assets pulled back, right? Software companies pulled back, gold pulled back, silver got crushed, and that just was

enough to push it over the edge where everyone was like, "I'm not touching this thing. Let it burn." And um and that's how you get a $10,000 down day. >> Everything you're listening to today is also covered in our daily crypto newsletter. And on Sundays, we even recap the best parts of the entire week's worth podcast. So check it out at the link below. But is that enough? Is that is all that I feel like that stuff sw has swirled often in crypto and it doesn't cause this like like who went and sold? That's what this who hadn't sold yet. That was like oh no all these factors finally I need I need to just nuke my stack. Like is that is it or is it that basic? Maybe it's not that basic.

>> No, I think you're right. And people are trying to point to like some hedge fund that was unwinding. There's talk of it's always is always an offshore hedge fund that no one knows, but an offshore hedge fund that was unwinding a complicated position and was a forced seller in the market. That may be true on the margins. Um but but I think without all these preconditions I think really what happened is 100% of buyers evaporated. All the buyers stepped out of the market. There was still selling. Maybe there was a little bit of force selling but when there no buyers when there is no bid it can just fall off the map. And there was no bid. Everyone was like quantum fears will get worse. Fears

about Kevin Worsh will get worse. Uh the market is going riskoff. AI is going to destroy all profits. Companies won't live for more than five years. There's like an apocalyptic sense and I think it was just buyer buyers vanished. So, I think it became a one-sided book and the price just fell into a vacuum. >> Which of these is is still the largest thread, let's say, cuz let's just let's go through them. You've got you listed the four-year cycle and that a lot of like you said, this is this is one of the ones you led with, right? is that OG's have been selling to the tune of maybe a hundred billion dollars worth of Bitcoin last year which is which is money is not even real anymore when we were talking about numbers like that u the the the move to AI and metals which

we've discussed with you many times and even last show we talked about gold quite a lot after effects of October 10th uh Kevin War's Fed chair that might not be a good thing quantum fears like you just said and just general risk off from here which one of these if there was any of these that was going to drive the price down further which one would it be >> yeah I think it's the four-year cycle I think the biggest risk is um is people will disagree with my view that this crypto winner started in January and they'll say quite reasonably I'll say you know I I argue that it may have started in January they'll say quite reasonably that no it's not start started in October Matt and the average winter is 13 months so talk to me at Thanksgiving all by then I think that's

probably the biggest risk to the market I know that's unsatisfyingly reflexive right like the market will go down because people think well the market will go down is like a six-year-old analysis of crypto. I just happen to think that it's probably true in this case. The other risks that I think will I actually think many of those other risks will turn around. So, I think quantum will turn from a headwind to a tailwind. I do think the Bitcoin community is now listening on the quantum risk. I think developers are doing calls on the quantum risk. I wouldn't be surprised to see some sort of roadmap or chatter emerge in the next few months that becomes a positive. I think on the Kevin War side, I think he's probably going to surprise to the

upside on the rate cutting expectation and I think the Treasury will do all the money printing it needs to do um effectively and he'll be somewhat constrained there. So I actually think maybe the war negative wars impact is at a bottom and is going to turn around. I think the biggest risk is still people assume the winner will last 13 months, started in October, you know, call me in November and we'll bottom there. It's possible that that happens. >> It's a self-fulfilling prophecy until it's not, right? I feel like that's that's the most Everybody saw that weird like 4chan post in early October that was like here's the amount of days and the amount of days of bear winter or bear and bull and was like there's no way some obscure internet post could possibly be right. And it was spoton

from the top. like there's no way all of this is that simple. And yet it feels like it's like maybe it is until it's not. >> It it absolutely is until it's not. Um I think people like me overintellectualized uh the market at the start of 2015 2025 and said it's going to be institutionally driven and the factors that drove the four-year cycle in the past are no longer as true as they are today. And that turned out to be incorrect. The institutional part was correct. massive inflows, $75 billion of inflows into ETFs and corporations and Bitcoin alone last year. It's just, as you mentioned, hundred billion dollars of selling by OG's and and that's a bigger number. So, yeah, you know, sometimes it's as simple as it is until

it's not. Again, I I'm not sure that it's right because I think the winter may be a little long in the tooth. Uh we do have the lowest fear and greed measure in history. We got down to five, which is, if you think about that, it can go to zero or it can go to 100. That's a pretty asymmetric skew. So maybe we're closer to the end than the beginning. That's my optimistic take. From an investor perspective, maybe it's a good time to dollar cost average in. Uh I wouldn't be trying to pick a precise bottom and assume we're going to V back up, >> right? Yeah. I think that Yeah, that's always that's always a little dicey. And I I think I think most people need to zoom out as well. And like if you think Bitcoin will go back to alltime highs in

200K or whatever in the future, does it does it really matter if you're buying it at 70 or 60 or 50? Probably not. But it's hard to it's hard when your fear and greed is five, man, it's so hard to think about that that very basic sage advice, right? Like it doesn't you can't really it's so hysteric still at this point. >> One one question I have for you is is when is the exhaustion going to really settle in? Because I feel like you know people like us who track this stuff every day, it's we're like, okay, this is you know, it's been four or five months now this like time to get on. But clearly, do sellers still have more in the bank to offload? And where where would we go from here if we were continue to go down?

>> Yeah, my my my basic view having spoken to some, but obviously not all of the OG crypto investing community is they're not excited about selling at these levels. Uh the flip side is I hate to be the bearer of bad news, they're probably excited to sell again at 100,000. So, we may be uh there may be some overhead when we get back um into that range. But look, I don't think we're going to see the kind of heavy selling that we saw earlier. I don't think people are giving up on crypto. I think I think it is going to bottom. It tends to bottom in exhaustion, to use your word. Um and apathy. It doesn't sort of bottom in excitement. So, maybe once people stop paying attention to crypto is is when

it's going to be a great time to buy. >> Has to be officially dead. has to be officially dead before it can come back. Why Why would OG sell at 100K? >> It's a round number. I keep going back to these. >> All right. The four-year cycle is definitely alive if that's if that's the reasoning they're using. >> It's so absurd. I mean, we have a you know, look, I'm looking in my my Bitwise office. We have a team of like 50 people here and you and I are talking about, well, it's a four-year cycle and they sell at 100K. But it is a behaviorally driven asset. And I think that is uh just just objectively true. We are humans. I think you know I don't necessarily mean that we'll bounce our

head off of it and come back down. I think that will be context dependent. So in other words, if we have a rip roaring equity risk on market, if the Clarity Act passes, if wars actually cuts rates more aggressively than people expect, if Japan stimulates the way people expect, if China's M2 continues to grow at the rate it's been growing, I think that's enough catalyst that we could push back and actually go to new all-time highs. If we have a more modest series of developments, if the S&P 500 is middling along, if worse doesn't do anything when he takes over, um if the Clarity Act fails, then I think that $100,000 will be a pretty um a pretty hefty uh head uh for crypto this year. So, it's really

context dependent on where we go. >> What is your take on this crypto being bucketed and with in with in with software, right? because one of your listed reasons you listed was the kind of loss of narrative to AI and metals. Um we have a separate AI podcast where we talk about AI capex is increasing for all the mag seven this year right and which the market is kind of unsure about and there's this massive narrative last week that software is like dead you know that all once the new code comes out the new whatever comes out and basically all software will be useless pretty soon.

Um, and for some reason crypto is part of that. >> Yeah. Well, my actual take is that the reason it's part of it is largely because of a chart crime. There's a there's a chart there's a chart circulating that plots Bitcoin versus the software market. The unfortunate piece about that chart is it uses two different y-axis. So, Bitcoin is measured on a scale that goes up 600% and software on a scale that goes up 100%. If you plot them on the same y-axis, they actually look remarkably different. You could pull up Bitcoin versus IGV, which is a uh a software ETF, and plot them since 2024, and you'll see that they look they look

nothing alike. I think I think >> it is it >> I'm seeing a few of them. Yeah. >> Is this >> Yeah. Yeah. Like like you have to take into account that the chart the the Y axis are just on completely different scales. This one may three different axes which is >> um a chart. >> That's a lot of different stuff. Third order. If you actually plot these like a normal human would on a percentage return uh they look nothing alike. I think what happened is Bitcoin was trading similar to all tech stocks until October because the market was in a general riskon moment. Bitcoin is a riskon asset. And then in October two things happened. Bitcoin had 1010 and Claude destroyed the software industry.

And those are separate events and they both caused the market to go down, but they're not correlated at all. I can't tease out why the discretion of Salesforce should be negative for Bitcoin. It doesn't make any sense to me. I don't think it's in the data. I think it's uh I think it's chart crimes run a muck uh that is that is putting this narrative into people's minds. Stable coins are reshaping the financial order, but most companies don't have the opportunity to participate in the rewards they generate. Plus, launching a stable coin means wrestling with complex regulations, building bespoke infrastructure, and burning endless developer hours. Enter Bridge and its new product, Open Issuance. Bridge lets companies send, store, accept, and even launch their own stable coins instantly.

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reports that will help you pay the least tax possible. Oh, SUM is also the official tax partner of Coinbase and MetaMask, rated 4.6 out of five on Trustpilot. Turn cryptotax chaos into confidence. Get started for free at milkroad.com/sum. That's sum.com. Milkroad listeners can also unlock 20% off their first year subscription with code milkroad 20. You told me something months ago, I think on one of the first shows that we did together, and I hope hopefully I'm not misquing you, but you had said that Bitcoin specifically and maybe cryp the rest of crypto tends to frontr run the rest of the market. And that if you look at the last couple years, that's what kind of happened is that as markets started to recover and and price in a change of government and

everything, Bitcoin really started to run with that first and then you had the stock market now follow. Do you think that's happening again? >> Yeah, I wonder about that. You know, I think uh it it it was definitely true and I think it does work that way in specific market regimes. The specific market regime that it works that way is a steadystate market regime where monetary liquidity is growing or shrinking at a great rate because Bitcoin is more sensitive to those monetary liquidity changes than other assets and therefore it's a leading asset. Yeah, a part of me worries a part of me worries for the broader ecosystem that Bitcoin has been quite so crushed.

The question in my mind is is it crushed because of this reflexive four-year cycle that we talked about or is it crushed because at least US uh monetary liquidity hasn't been as forthcoming as people thought. If it's the latter, then that does pretend poorly for the rest of the market. But it's a it's a question we're debating here. It was actually sounds like you're in our research channel today. We were chatting about that a lot. >> I'm feeding your own words back to you from a couple >> No, but I learn a lot when I talk to you. So I'm just I just want I I'm coming back like a student with questions be like you said this you said this in November.

>> Yeah we're thinking about it. I think there's a risk that it happens but there's also the potential that in this case Bitcoin's pullback was not driven by monetary liquidity but rather by idiosyncratic Bitcoin factors but it is on my mind. It does make me at least a little worried about the broader equity market. >> What else do you guys talk about in your research meetings? >> We talk about we talk about everything. we talk about what are the new drivers. Uh we've been talking a lot we've been getting a lot of questions about the quantum risk and how people are responding to that. Uh we're to we we're trying to tease out what new assets will lead us out of the bare market. You know those are those are the kind of things we talk about chart crimes.

>> Chart I love the term chart crimes that that's a whole that just like gold. That's a whole other podcast I feel like we could do together. >> Totally. Um I want to ask you um while we're kind of talking quantum risk and I don't know if this is exactly correlated but I'd still love to get your thoughts. Another piece of news um narrative that from last week is Vitalic coming out and saying like listen I was wrong L2s might be parasitic to the Ethereum ecosystem. Um a lot of people coming out saying be like we told you that four or five years ago and he said L2s would be great and now he wants to refocus on really really propping up Ethereum. Is that could that be due to quantum fears that he feels like he needs to return and really help, you know, refortify the the ecosystem?

I'm I'm not sure. I don't know enough about that, but I figured maybe you'd have an opinion there. >> Yeah, I think broadly it's just a recognition of what happened and what went wrong and a desire to make uh the L1 the most uh decentralized core force in Ethereum. I do think Vitalik cares a lot about decentralization and he might imagine it's easier to do on the L1. Ethereum has also been a leader on the quantum side. There's been an element of that as well. I think it's a big deal for what it's worth. I wouldn't be shocked at all to see Ethereum be one of the leaders out of this bare market. I I called it the Steve Jobs moment uh for Ethereum uh returning to the mothership to relead it on a new a new era of rebirth. I think

there's probably an element of that going on here. So I think it was a big deal. It had some association with quantum but also just a reflection of what's changed in the market and concerns about centralization and um yeah again I think it it it puts a narrative catalyst behind ETH makes me pretty optimistic it will do well coming out of the bear. >> Smart too coming back at the bottom so that when things recover it's like well thank god you come back man because >> exactly we needed you and you delivered. Uh, so you wrote also this great piece which I thought out of out of everything you wrote in the last two weeks, I thought this this was best because um it's titled crypto's new narratives and it really summarizes a lot of the stuff that you discuss on our shows um in

terms of where crypto is going, right? And I and I feel like this is a really great way to zoom out and remember like here's all the stuff that's happening in the space that is irrelevant to price. These are all the developments and um you really summarize it for us really well here in terms of like here's the reasons to still be bullish and the things that that are coming. Matt, like what? Take us through this a little bit for people who maybe haven't read it. >> Yeah, sure. I mean, part of what I'm doing here is, yeah, giving you a view of the long-term positive drivers, but also reflecting what I hear from the smartest people in the industry, what they think will sort of lead the market out. Um, you know, I could just go from the top. I think that first piece on

revenue is a pretty big one. Uh, we've been tracking the revenue that blockchains generate very closely. Uh, Blockworks is a big leader in this space. They have some great dashboards on it. The industry is currently churning at about 7 to8 billion dollars in annual revenue, but that has the potential to skyrocket if the things we mentioned below like stable coins and tokenization go up. I think part of what will lead crypto out of this bare w winter is is more real world use. Uh some of the other things that that you know I called out here which are worth talking about AI which is a term that makes some people uh sort of choke in their mouth. um but is is a term that I've heard recently. But by that I mean

that you know there's this huge boom in AI agents. I think it was hard for anyone to keep their eyes off off Moltbook or whatever it's called these days. But if you think of the world in the future of having billions of AI agents operating on our behalf, they're not going to go to the local Wells Fargo branch and open a a bank account. They're going to use crypto and DeFi. And actually, they don't even care that DeFi's UX is is imperfect for them. It's perfect because it's rules-based digital logic. And so, I think that is a huge driver that actually may be one of the big narratives that comes into the next cycle. And then there are all these good pieces of news that we just forget when there's a bare market. You have uh Ray

Dallio effectively saying that fiat currencies are dead. you have strong institutional adoption, right? Um, you know, we had all the major wirehouses approve Bitcoin ETFs in the last three or four months. We do have strong regulatory progress. We have stable coins that the Treasury Secretary says is going to, you know, $3 trillion. We have tokenization, which could be hundreds of trillions of dollars. We have Vitalic returning to ETH in the Steve Jobs moment. There there's a lot to be positive on. If you think about p back to previous bare market cycles, what sort of led us out of those bare markets, if you go back to uh 2018 and 2019, it was really the emergence of

DeFi and DeFi summer that gave us a new thing to focus on. If you go post FTX, it was really the hope for an ETF and institutional adoption that gave us a new thing to focus on. I think there are all these many positives underneath the surface, but it's easy to imagine what we focus on in the rest of 2026 and 2027. We focus on stable coin super cycle. We focus on tokenization really taking off. We focus on agentic finance or AI if you can stand the term. Um and we focus on institutions coming into the space. That's like those are those are really good catalysts. I've heard all this chatter. There no more catalysts.

What are you talking about? Stable coins at 300 billion. They're going to three trillion. Tokenization is 20 billion going to 200 trillion. What cat? Like they're the catalyst. They're just they're just apparent. We just can't focus on them right now. >> It definitely feels like the market broadly is is is catching on and starting to price in this this AI effect. I think for a while, you know, especially tracking this stuff, it's like, well, AI has has, you know, the Mag 7 and everybody's increasing their spending and and starting to find revenue and whatever. the market worked on that for a bit, but now it seems like zooming out and even kind of hearing what you're saying when we talked about software and crypto and even this is like listen there's AI is going to be important in every single aspect of all this right that it's like AI is not just

open AI doing an IPO the later this year you know it's it's way more comp complex than that and that it's it's whether you like it or not something like AI is here and it's going to be part of the things that we do all the time and that we're going to be programming our agents to do a lot of these transactions and as a result they'll the the opportunity for so many new apps and protocols that kind of follow that like there are recycles. That to me, Matt, sounds like a pretty good narrative and and something to be excited about for things to pick up again when they do, right? For something to to lead and and for for for fresh >> uh even retail capital, if I if I if I dare say it, to come into the market when things look greener, even if it's

even if it's not this month or this year. >> Totally agree. I mean, it's easy to to write the story in backwards. Fast forward 5 years from now and imagine you're like, "Well, of course AI agents are using DeFi and stable coins. What did you think they were going to use? They were going to use bank accounts." Like, it's completely ridiculous. Like, it sounds absurd sitting five years from now to imagine that AI agents aren't primarily transacting over blockchain based networks, over digital finance. I do think that's and and it's not something that's broadly discussed. So I think as that narrative becomes broadly discussed, you could have that be the equivalent of DeFi summer a few years ago. Not saying it's definitely true, but there are a number of major crypto

VCs who believe this is the direction of travel. There are early signs in the in the agent universe that this is how they're actually interacting with the world. I do think it could be one of the narratives that lift us, not the only one, but one of the narratives that lift us forward. >> And how does it tie in any way, especially in your world kind of, you know, in all these meetings? How does it tie to the institutions kind of moving into all this stuff and into into the stable coin? Cuz those are in a way they feel like two completely different things, right? Where it's like you've got the dev side that's like, listen, here's how we're pushing AI forward and crypto forward and and you go on what used to be crypto Twitter and now it's like here's what I'm doing with

Claudebot. Here's all these people really doing these cool things every day, programming agents. And then on the other side with you guys, it's like institutions are still interested. Stable coins are coming online, trillions in RWA coming on. There must be a through line there between >> I mean yeah in in terms of how you talk to institutions the through line is that when you're talking to an institution you need to show them concrete things and then give them long-term dreams and so concrete things are like stable coins tokenization warehouses buying ETFs those are all very real and you can imagine you can almost touch them right but if you don't have like the long off dream as well the story is much less compelling because people people want to draw line to where you're going. And the

reason the reason uh I think AI is a is a nice version of that is it's obviously true long term. The reason it's not good not like as concrete is how long is long term? I have no idea. If you had asked me a year ago, I would have said 20 years and today I might say two, right? Because we've seen this massive explosion. So I have no idea how long-term is. That's why it's like a a long-term option. But but for us talking to institutions, it's like, oh yeah, this is coming too, right? You have all these reasons to invest now and this is coming too. And I think that's a pretty powerful um story. Warbucks is the easiest way to start trading crypto. No deposits, no wallets, no complicated setup. Choose your path, one step,

instant target or instant funding starting as low as $40. Trade, stack profits, and withdraw on demand in crypto or USDC. Blow the account, you only lose the test fee. Reload and go again. With Warbucks, you can profit from crypto moves in any direction, up or down. Get funded today at milkroad.com/warbbucks. When are you going to do like an AI agent ETF? That's what I need. That's what I need. I don't have time to do all this homework, man. Just give me something to buy that I could just I want exposure to everything. >> Push the button. We'll get to work on it. We'll we'll we'll start the uh we'll ask AI how to build it. And >> there's a lot of slop out there. I will say I I went back I've been checking in like my old the streets you know that the things I used to check the discords

and everything when I was more den and I look at it and I'm like h there's a lot of kind of fake stuff still going on in the in the crypto circles for you know people just trying to hop on that but um it's definitely something I'm I'm keen to to follow and that's crypto will always have that part of it. >> Yeah. Yeah. I agree, but it's actually a good call out because it will be a place full of slop and it will be a place uh full of nonsense and then full of some very real projects and the real projects may be really boring. Um but but yeah, it is that it is that kind of combination.

>> Absolutely. Yeah. Great. Um well listen Matt I always save a bit of time at the end of our shows uh to talk about our favorite uh topic in common and you know where I'm going with this which is poly market and uh we'll check back on some bets we made recently or some stuff we looked at clarity act down to 56% chance um so not looking amazing right now for 2026 but I feel like there's a lot of other stuff going on in the government that it's just it's just so hard for this to be uh you know at the top of the narrative bucket let's say for for for what's going on. Any thoughts there? Like clarity? Do you have any insight there? What might happen?

>> Man, I wish I were taking the bullish side of that bet. If you forced me to though, I'd be fading it. I I I worry a little bit about clarity. I think I'd put the odds in the in the high 40s. It still has a good chance, but um there's a lot of politics involved. Uh sort of anti-Trump politics, anti-coinbase politics. I don't know. It's pretty messy down there in DC. So, um yeah, we'll see. I'm I'm surprised it's still at 56 if I'm being honest. I I would think it >> it'd be it'd be sub 50. >> Okay. And then let's jump to the other one. Your favorite, the presidential election winner 2028, which is like it, you know, the more we talk, the more I'm like this is actually going to come faster than we think.

>> Um listen, JD Vance is his his numbers are down in the last couple weeks, man. I don't know if he the booing at the Olympics or supposed booing or something hurt his chances, but he's down a couple percentage points. and your buddy, your your boy, let's say Josh Shapiro, uh, breaking away from the pack, catching up to AO AOC now as a as a as a runner in the the on the Democrat side. It >> it's it's going to happen. Remember, I'm selling him at 12 cents. I'm selling it at 12. I'm not saying he's the winner. No, >> I'm just saying he's going to get to the point of being. So, it's still a triple from here. I'm I'm sticking with Josh.

He's he's an incredible politician uh and an effective leader for what it's worth. So get him >> a 3x from here and only 6% for the for the um nominee as well. So not huge there. >> That's goofballs. That's that's going to be double digits for sure. I guess there's a chance he decides not to run, but >> um at some point I think he'll run and he'll win the first debate >> and uh that that'll be the point to ring the bell. >> He was at he was at 7% at one point. So that's that's pretty good. Is this a does do production markets come up in the research rooms for you guys?

>> Completely. Yeah, we're obsessed with them. Uh, so we use them as a as an input in terms of what people are thinking. I I probably look at the poly market on clarity every day. >> Um, and then we of course think of what we can do in the prediction market space. I don't have a good answer for that, but I bang my head against the wall all the time. Um, I think they're only a fraction of what they will eventually be. Uh, I still think there is there's and they may not even be in their full final form, but I love that they exist. Um yeah, just imagine there was a few years ago where we wouldn't have an answer on what's the probability of clarity passing.

>> Uh it's pretty crazy to think of being an investor and not having that data point. As a crypto investor, that's a really important data point. Instead, you'd be relying on like a few people like me telling you what lobbyists are telling them. >> Um it's not as good as what we have now. I think it's I think it's it's really remarkable how far it's come. I will also say I will always say that you know that for me the bull case came after the the last president presidential election in in the states where you looked at all the news channels and the polls are so close and they're so tight but then on poly market you know you had Trump winning at 70% plus for months ahead right and it was like well who's doing that like somebody manipulating that to make it look like something was like no

actually those people just banked and they knew they knew something they they were bit the top analysts were on there something happened but they were they were far ahead you know that is far more accurate than your regular news channel and and I'll always say that that's you know there's a lot of value in that even if there's a lot of weird manipulation like we're seeing last couple weeks like you know Giannis and Tedakmpo and the Bucks with Kelshi all this weird stuff that's going to happen you know it's in the infancy but I feel like there's long term is a lot of value and even like you guys were saying it's a great gauge of the market >> totally agree I stand by my my view that uh poly market should have won the Pulitzer Prize for covering the the presidential election was the best

coverage of the election it told you what was going to happen months ahead ahead of time and no one else got it right. I think it I think they were robbed if I'm being honest. >> Maybe I could make a career being a a professional commenter in the poly market bets, you know, just in there. I could become a a known a known commenter or something like that of all those things and edge my push push my way into the conversation. >> Um Matt Hogan, a pleasure as always. Thank you for all your thoughts. Um I don't know where we'll be next time we chat with you in a couple weeks, but um I guess I hope we're at the same place.

Yeah, remember we we round out of of bare markets. That's my general view. But we'll see. >> Who knows? >> What was the line you said earlier about we don't we don't hit bottom when people are excited. >> They die in exhaustion and apathy. That's my experience of bare markets. Um exhaustion and apathy, not of excitement. So um yeah, when no one cares, that's when you want to buy. >> Perfect. Okay. Well, hopefully we get there soon. Um appreciate it, Matt. Thank you so much, man. Want insights on what's moving crypto markets and how we're trading each event? Subscribe to our channel and join the Milk Road daily and pro newsletters and start investing like the top 1%. This show is for educational purposes only. Nothing we say is financial advice. Investing is

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