Ethereum versus Solana versus Sui: a framework for the next cycle

Transcript

What's up everyone? Welcome to Milk Road. What you're going to see today is a sneak preview of Milk Road Pro After Hours, which our analysts record after every single one of our rollup episodes on this channel. So, basically what they do is they talk for 40 minutes, record this beautiful podcast, and then afterwards, they stick around to actually talk about their moves and grill each other on each other's portfolios, pull up the portfolios and see what's in there and kind of, you know, discuss what their moves might actually be this coming week and into the future. It's where the real alpha is. And if you want to see these right when they come out, you can go Milk Road Pro for just a dollar at the link below.

They come out right after the episodes, but the one you're going to see today is a few weeks old, so keep that in mind. Otherwise, enjoy it. Guys, this is our first Milk Road Pro after hours on the crypto side. Uh, and these are going to be really valuable because we everyone wants to know what John is actually doing. Uh, so we'll give you a couple extra sessions here, but this is a special one. John, you had uh the famous Ravel Pal on the show and we wanted to kind of break down what he said. I think people always get really inspired by him. So, it's always good to have a little chat about how people can express that in their portfolio. He's said a lot of really great stuff. So, if you guys haven't listened to the pod yet, this is kind of like the postmortem show after

that pod. So, go check it out uh on the Milk Road Pro or on the Milk Road crypto channel. John, before we get into it, uh maybe summarize for us kind of in your words like what what R's message was this time, right? He's he's really great at kind of, you know, drumming the beat, uh, getting crypto going again and and tying that to AI. But I want to hear from you, you know, what how did what did you take away? >> So, the two things from this conversation that stood out the most to me were number one, Raul is first and foremost a macro thinker and a systems thinker. And I think a lot of the initial questions I asked him about his response was, "Yes, this has got some attention right now, but there's actually a much bigger game going on here. There's a much bigger thing at

play." That was his answer on the Clarity Act. that was his answer on like the recent AI dumerism. Um, and I think that his thinking on that is like I think really helpful to like always step back, take the bigger picture. Um, that stood out to me a lot. The other thing um, I think that stood out to me the most from this conversation was just like his focus and commitment to a very small number of high conviction assets in the crypto space rather than like, you know, trying to capture the entire beta of the whole space or chasing every shiny object or or pump that comes along. He's gotten very focused and concentrated on a few key assets that he's has high conviction in for a long-term thesis. And like as he said towards the end of the episode, the really hard thing to do in crypto is to

just get allocated to these assets, have that thesis and conviction, and then sit on your hands and let the market come to you. So those are the two things off the top of my head that like really stuck with me. Just zoom out and then high conviction, high concentration. Um, but yeah, there's just like so much in this episode and like I've already spent multiple hours like talking to his AI and like unpacking more of this for myself because like I you know I think I follow his content a lot and I know what he's going to say and then I'm always surprised and there's always more to to to you know follow up on. So yeah, great great episode, great guy, great conversation.

>> He had one line at one point that I thought was was a great visual and it's something that you kind of say sometimes John too which was the minimum regret portfolio, you know. And I was like, that's a good way to think about especially crypto right now and we're recording this. Uh it's just it's just before 1 p.m. Eastern uh on September 15th. So the clarity decision is coming soon, looking pretty negative at this point. Uh but I I think that that was in reference to, you know, the current the current turmoil. Um John, when you when you talk to someone like Raul, uh and obviously you've got you've got a lot of your own way of investing and and theories on the market and and obviously you're becoming a much bigger voice and and someone that people like Jordiv Vis and Raul are now listening to a lot,

right? like, you know, he he was excited to talk to you. When you listen to Raul, does it how does it affect kind of your thesis? You know what I mean? Someone smart like that, someone who's been in the game for a while. Does it does it change? Does it shape you? Does it give you more patience in times like this? Like, how do you how do you take that that in? So, I think that one of the things that it's a good reminder of is to try not to navigate these markets alone or in isolation, but to always be checking your thesis, reendwriting your thesis um with people that you trust and respect and people who have either opinions that agree or disagree with you because I think as an investor, you never want to get like too locked into something or disconnected from what's

going on. So, it's always helpful to like check in with trusted voices um uh on either side of, you know, for or against your current thesis to sort of like reunderwite what you're doing and how you're evaluating your portfolio. I thought it was really encouraging. Um it like was illuminating. It forced me to like, you know, think differently about, you know, how I think about layer 1's and that conversation I thought was really compelling as well, just how he thinks about economic and intelligence density as a part of the valuation framework for a layer 1 and for a layer 1 asset. So, there's a lot that was really compelling in that. I don't think it's like necessarily going to shift a whole lot for me, but it was one thing that was really validating is like I've been kind of pounding the table on Ethereum and he he says Ethereum is just

effing obvious. Um, and it like it kind of is and like I just that's the way I feel and I think that the market is kind of coming around to that slowly. Um but it was kind of validating to hear that from him and uh yeah just it's the other thing too is like his conviction hasn't waned and you know he got a lot of you know let's say like flak um for his whole banana zone thing but the the key to understand there is that the the timing is is different than he expected but the mechanisms haven't changed neither has his conviction um and so I think all these things are playing out maybe on a different timeline than people expected but they are still playing out um and it was just yeah like I said really encouraging and fascinating to hear it from him um from

somebody who has so much experience. He's been a macro analyst for like 40 years at this point. So yeah, great conversation. >> Yeah. One thing to understand about Raul Paul and I used to actually um uh do some contract work with Real Vision like 5 years ago. So I've I've worked with Raul and I' I've known him for a long time. But Raul Paul is a very long-term thinker. As you said, he's a macro investor, which is very different than like some of us analysts here and probably a lot of our audience too. He's happy with these huge draw downs and he's happy to hold ETH or Bitcoin or you know Sooie for for another example for for 10 years. What he sees and looks at is like these secular trends and then he wants to basically just buy the major assets within a secular trend and hold

it for 10 years and he doesn't really care what happens um in between that. It's very different than a lot of other people. And so I just want to make sure people understand the way that he's thinking is he's not necess whatever percent tomorrow or even ETH is going to go up whatever percent tomorrow even though he's bullish. He's bullish on a long-term view as as am I and as is John. Um and and he's okay to just kind of hold through that ad when you know when things are beaten down. Um and just see that secular trend play out over 10 15 20 years. This is something that he's always done in his career which is more of a long-term investor. It's very different than I think a lot of others you see on on X and stuff. Um so just he has a very different strategy than than

I think what a lot of others are are seeing. Um he's okay with that volatility and you know even if Bitcoin hasn't outperformed a bunch of other assets in the last however many years he sees well if you look at the last 10 years it's outperformed every asset and so I'm still winning is the way he kind of sees it. So um it's a good way to think and it makes it makes investing a lot easier if you want to if you want to do that as well. >> Just want to pause for a quick second to remind you all that the crypto bull market is back. I have been deploying capital into altcoins that I think are going to do very well this bull market. Some of them are already up over 2x from where I entered. So if you want to see what's in my portfolio, what's on my

watch list, and have access to me in Discord to ask questions 24 hours a day, join Milkroad Pro now. The link is in the description. It's just a dollar. I'll see you there. >> What is the Sooie thing? Like cuz it's I I'll be honest with you, like you guys started getting into Sooie and Salana and I was like, "Okay, we're talking L1's again. We're bringing this up." But John, like like Sooie kind of stands out because we don't have it in any of our portfolios. Um, to me it feels I'll be honest with you, it feels like it's one of the many parts of an ocean of L1's that could or could not be successful in this next cycle. And I think a lot of people are like, listen, L1 versus L2 debate. No one's talking about some of these things even as like popular alts.

You know what I mean? Like lately people talk about uh Venice, Zcash, uh, Near, you know what I mean? There's all these lighter, there's all these other kind of hot alts, but Sooie's I don't really ever see it on that list. What's his case for Suie, John? Like what? And I think he tied it to AI, right? >> Yeah. So I think that the the strategy there is, you know, he puts Ethereum in sort of this like very large, very um connected, very liquid, stable, secure network that a lot of Trady Wall Street is going to be gravitating towards. Salana, he puts in more of the the speed and scalability camp. Uh Suie for him, I think, is like making a a deliberate effort to try to make a play for Agentic Finance. So they've made uh stablecoin transaction fees on SUI zero. So those

are just free for anybody. So there's they're trying to remove that friction there and then they're trying to build towards 1 billion transactions per second per second and they did a live demo with I think 6 million transactions per second. So they're they're scaling in that direction. So the point of that play for him I think is like he wants to try to find an L1 an alternative L1 that he thinks has the technical capabilities to handle the throughput of let's say trillions of agentic actors doing hundreds of trillions of transactions on hundreds of trillions of assets. and that's what he thinks that infrastructure play is able to capture.

But it is a a small. It's like I don't know how big it is in his portfolio, but it's not like he's betting everything on this cuz he himself is pounding the table saying this is a high high-risisk bet. This is like not where you want to put all of your your chips. Um so he he understands where that is in the portfolio and it is higher risk than the other ones. >> Yeah. When you think of like secular trend, Ethereum we know is going to be part of that secular trend. I think you know John has beaten the table on that for a long time now. That's that's obvious. Bitcoin part of that secular trend. It started the secular trend, right? Suie, it's not a guarantee. It is part of the secular trend and that's why it's so much more risky than something else. Sure, they're going for agentic

payments. Doesn't mean they're going to get it, right? They don't have like they don't have like Ethereum has where if Ethereum goes, hey, I want to go for aentic payments. Okay, they can go win that because they literally have every institution already building on it. They have all the assets on it. They have I don't know was it 200 billion of stable coins on it. So, like they can do these things. Suie is nowhere near that. So I I am not bullish on Sooie. I don't act. So I disagree with Ra Paul on that. Um I I think it's a it's it's a coin flip. Not even probably. It's even worse than that chance of it becoming anything relevant. Um sure it can do whatever you said a billion transactions. Um but that's in a demo. Everyone can do that with any other chains on demos. So like

that is a number that means nothing. It's also like you know all these AIs compare each other versus intelligence but there's no real benchmark to compare them. That's how blockchains work too. You have all these random numbers. It's their own random transaction numbers. doesn't actually mean anything. They're not actually real benchmarks or comparisons. So, it's all kind of just like garbage there. The real question is, can Suie get adoption? Can they actually get assets? Can they actually get institutions? Can they actually get things to build on top of it? And so far, nowhere near Salana, Ethereum hype. Um, but if it does, sure, Sue is going to do very well, but there is there is no guarantee that that's going to happen by any means. Um, it's why I don't own it. He's also on the board, don't forget. So he of course wants to say

that this is going to be the future. Uh no I I I by the way I don't think he's a bad person. I think he's 100% believes in it. That's why he's on the board. I don't think it's an issue of people being on boards and shilling their their company. They're on the board because they like the freaking company. I would hope. Um but Raul is a stand-up guy and so I I do believe he he fully believes that Sooie will be. I just think it's not a guarantee. So it's a it's a risky bet. >> One more question on Sooie. John, it is one of two assets on your watch list. your t your price target is 65 cents. It's at 70 cents right now. What are you doing?

>> Uh well, I think I got to update uh some of those numbers. And I um I might want to add a few more things to my watch list, but uh I I would say like personally I'm much more bullish than Kyle, but not quite as bullish as Raul on Sui. Um I think that I I think that there's a lot of things working as tailwinds for Suie. I think it's a timing thing, though. I don't want to allocate capital until it feels like we are moving into an alt season where that that asset is going to perform. Right now, alternative layer ones are not really performing strongly. I'm more focused on other things in the crypto market that are getting a lot of um organic demand revenue right now. And so I just think there's better opportunities at the moment, but that doesn't mean that I'm bearish on SU or

that I don't think it it'll have a really strong performance if we do see an allseason come back. Um so yeah, I'm somewhere in the middle on these. The one thing that I really like that Ro Paul talked about, I think it's important for our listeners to understand is although we probably won't get clarity today, I think the votes in like an hour or something or whatever it is, um it's very likely we're probably not going to get it. What what Raul said that I thought was quite interesting um is even if we don't, it's really not the end of the world because you already have the CFTC and the SEC which are making their own regulations and guidelines around it anyway, which is ultimately all Clarity was going to do.

clarity was just, hey, we're putting in a law and regulation that you have to, you know, the the SEC, CFTC, etc. has to go and put clear rules in. They're just going to do it anyway without it being law. Um, and so they're still going to be regulated by the people they need to be regulated by. Um, they're just not it's just not in law for them to do that. So, I I think he's very right on that. I think it's still, you know, even if we don't get this like it sucks, of course, it would have been great to have the support of of uh Congress here. um probably it's not going to happen, but it doesn't mean crypto can't continue on. It doesn't mean Coinbase and Robin Hood and all these institutions trying to come into crypto can't come into crypto. Um does it probably delay some?

Sure. But I think they can still build. They can still do what they need to do. And I think ultimately it's still fine. Um so thankfully the C SEC and the CFTC are like, "Hey, screw it. We don't care. We're going to build these regulations anyway." Um so I think he's totally right on that. >> You know, one of the weird things about crypto is that the longer you're in it, the more accounts you seem to end up with. You buy in one place, trade somewhere else, earn yield somewhere else, and if you actually need capital, you end up having to sell something that you probably wanted to keep. That's why we at Milkroad are partnering with Nexo. These guys keep the whole thing under one account. You can buy, trade crypto, earn interest on what you already hold, and even borrow against your capital

without having to sell it all in one spot, all in one account, all on Nexo. So, if you need liquidity, but you don't want to give up your position, or you're already holding crypto and you want to be able to do more with it, I think Nexo is worth your time. We love working with them. I think you will, too. Tell them Milk Road sent you. >> Uh, speaking of clarity, and this is a question back for you, John. Um, you've spent the last two weeks just absolutely nuking your cash position into some of your favorite alts. Some of them some of them may be dipping back to entry today, but generally most of them are up, especially your uni call from a couple weeks ago, which I think you bought in the high fours. Uh, touched seven at one point and that was that was an excellent scoop up, John.

And again, people, if you haven't seen that your first time, if you don't even know about this portfolio, just go check it out here. I'll give you a little sneak peek, but here are all of John's uh purchases lately. John, with with clarity, I mean, at this point, let's just assume that it's not going through, unless there's some major surprise. If there's a surprise and it does go through, then I'm assuming everything goes up. Uh but let's assume it doesn't. What What is your what is kind of your strategy going forward, John? Because I think that's the big question. People are going to ask you that in our pro community. They're be like, "John, what do we do? We're gonna panic." So, uh, to wind this back a little over a month, when the big short squeeze on Bitcoin and Ethereum happened, um, I I was kind

of expecting a pretty sharp pullback from that if we were still in a bearish period. Um, and like I was thinking people were going to be looking at that as a opportunity to exit and to get out of their positions. For like basically a month now, we've been ranging sideways on all these assets and we haven't seen that major retracement. we we we may still um but I think at this point it's more likely we see a higher low on these assets as opposed to like a full retrace on the move and new lows and uh you know you said I've been allocating to some alts I think that there's been a lot of demand and adoption and activity um in a lot of places in crypto right now that's driving dispersion market dispersion in other words there are places in the crypto market that are moving up rapidly

and with size um at the same time that Bitcoin is just chopping sideways here which is kind of what you want to see so I'm kind of of the mind that we've seen the bottom. I deployed the capital because even though I think that you know I disagree with Raul on this, I think we might see some more market weakness here than he expects. Um he's a little bit more bullish on me in the short term. But uh in any event, I think that regardless of of how steep or how severe any of this pullback ends up being one way or the other, I think that the bottom is kind of in. It's kind of close enough. And I'm off the screen and now I'm back. But uh the bottom is kind of in. It's close enough for me. And I I just think I want to be deployed into

this market. And then like like we've said before, hold for the long term as opposed to like worrying about trying to time the short-term chop that I I don't know how deep this pullback will be. I don't know, you know, whatever. I I have the position. I have the bags packed. I feel good about that. I'm happy to just let this play out at this point. >> K, you can pull up your chart if you want. >> I've been chirping John all day uh about this chart here where I think what's going to happen is uh Bitcoin is going to do its famous Bart. So, if you guys have ever seen the the Bart Simpson meme where they put Bart's head here, and this is the the side of the the head, this is his hair, and then it comes right back down. Bitcoin is like it's

known for doing this so many times in its history. Um, it's very frustrating when it does it. I got a feeling it's going to happen here. If it does, I am a buyer of crypto and I can't wait. I don't know if it's going to happen. Um, but I I'm actually really hoping it does. Uh, because I think it's going to be a wonderful entry point. So everyone, if the BART happens, buy. What do you buy? Whatever the hell you want, just buy. That's what I'm waiting >> though. Kyle, what level here? Like you don't think we'll go as low maybe down to that last kind of top or like that last resistance there. So where are we going to go if we drop? And at what point are you going to unload whatever cash you got?

>> So the low in this chop right now is 75,53812. Today we dropped to 75,538 in 1 cent. So we actually put in a new low, which is kind of hilarious. But anyway, um I don't know if it'll actually continue to go lower, but if it does, um I I don't know. It could go all the way down to 65. I'd be quite surprised because I think there's a lot of people who are also waiting to do the same thing. So I I would assume it doesn't even get all the way down to this like full BART. Um but I think if you're getting anywhere near the 70s, it's time to be buying. Maybe it goes down and does hit that 65. I honestly have no idea. If it does, it's an absolute treat. Um, if not, you know, if you can get it down in the low 70s or

high 60s, um, I think you're a very happy person for the next couple years. And by the way, this is I'm looking at Bitcoin. Everything will follow it. So, like ETH, Coinbase, Galaxy, however you want to, uh, you know, Robin Hood even will probably come down along with it. However you want to place your bet on crypto and on the onchain world, you can do it. We just want to see Bitcoin go down before you do that, you know. Um, but it might not. Maybe we're at the the bottom of the of the range right now. >> If that happens, cop, we dip to like 69. Like like you're gonna have to change the rules for Milk Road Pro and give John more portfolio money.

>> Everybody gets an extra 10K in their portfolio. >> I think Melvin would buy. I think even Melvin would buy at that point at like sub 70. I think I think he's almost convinced at this point. He's looking for an entry. >> Well, he'll buy Galaxy cuz it's kind of like half It's half AI, half half crypto. John, do you How much cash do you have? Do you have any left? I got about a grand left on my milk road portfolio. But if Bitcoin actually does go down below 70K, I will be skipping meals and putting my rent on credit cards and uh you know, we will we will be sourcing funds somehow. Yeah, exactly. Well, just for the record, wait, I just want to say one thing. I do think Kyle's wrong on this. I don't think there's enough support. There's enough I don't think there's enough

strength from the bears to actually bart this. I think if you see 74K, you know, anything like in the low 70s, that might be as low as we get here. I just I I understand the thesis. It could happen. And if it does, like I agree with everything Kyle said, definitely buy it. But I don't quite think there's enough strength on the bear side to get us back down that low again. I think we're going to see a higher low and then a continuation. >> You know, one thing I learned when I was still doing Crypto Pod, John, too, even talking to people like Matt Hogan, is that it's like listen, everyone's been anticipating that clarity wouldn't go through anyways, right? It's like for so long it's looked bleak and then today might confirm it. So this isn't something that's that's suddenly not priced in that it wouldn't go through.

It's like this has been the possibility of enough passing has been priced in for a while. That's probably why you've seen price suppression as well. >> Correct. Yeah. And I agree with that. And I also think that the CFTC and the SEC will be like extremely quick to step in if this bill uh doesn't move forward. And by extremely quick, I mean like this week they will probably announce regulatory clarity for crypto, innovation exemptions for crypto. There will be like um not like 48 hours won't pass before regulators step in with with an answer for the market here. >> All right. So buy the dip. Whatever the dip is, get in and then and then let's ride. Um, all right guys, I think that's plenty. 20 minutes for a nice little after hours. Hope you guys enjoyed this.

If you're listening to this, uh, drop us a comment. Drop us a comment on the platform or, uh, in our Discord community. We want to hear from you. We want to know what you guys think of these cuz it's kind of a new series, a new way we have offering you guys some great some great stuff in Milk Road Pro. So, make sure you let us know what you think. If you had extra questions, ask them. Put them in the comments. Ask them for John or for Kyle or uh, for me if there's anything you want to know about that I said. Anyways, uh Kyle, John, thanks for joining. John, great job on the interview, man. Uh fantastic. I love listening to you uh do these big interviews and we'll keep doing these every time we have a we have a really big guest like Re because I think it's a

lot of fun to do a little postmortem. So, we'll see you next time. Kyle, uh good to see you over in the crypto channel again, man. >> Great to be back. >> We got to get you back, man. We got to get you back. >> Kick me out. John kicked me out a few weeks here months ago. He's like, I don't think I want you back on. And I was like, fine. >> But now he's letting me back. So, it's nice. I appreciate it. >> It's almost time. It's almost time. >> Thanks for listening to Milk Road. If you enjoyed the show, make sure you like and subscribe. And if you're struggling to find winners in the market, that's exactly what Milkroad Pro is built for. Our analysts have called some of the biggest winners early, and Pro lets you see what they're buying next, every

trade they make, and the research behind every position. Check out Milkroad Pro at the link below. Everything you hear on Milkroad is forformational purposes only. These are our personal opinions, not financial advice, and we may own some of the investments we talk about. Always do your own research and make the decisions that are right for you.