The hidden risks of the 2025 crypto cycle: Dominic Ryder

Transcript

Once you understand the inner workings of like the financial and monetary system, you realize just how much of a joke it is. The problem with that is you know that the Ponzi can collapse at any minute, but you also know that they have to keep this house of cards up by any means necessary. And those two things are very hard emotionally to counteract. >> GM, good morning. Welcome to the Milk Road Show, the daily crypto show where Bitcoin just hit a new record and so did your dopamine levels. I'm your host Jay Hamilton. It's Monday, October the 6. We got the Bitcoin all-time high. Is Ethereum next? What about the altcoins?

Where do we go from here? Billionaire Paul Tudtor Jones was on CNBC this morning saying that he expects a massive market move upwards. He is euphoric. We're going to dive into that. Where we think the cycle goes from here. And also, tens of thousands of Robin Hood users are reporting that they are not able to access their accounts amid a surge in AMD's price. We're going to talk about that and so much more. Today, we're joined by Dominic Ryder, exfi, worked at one of UK's top 100 wealth managers, XVC fund manager. now spent about 5 years in crypto building Alvera where he is the co-founder and leading

the movement towards more tokenized stocks and tokenized equities and many other things. Before we jump in, if you guys did not see the pro report that the team put out this past weekend, actually two pro reports they put out. One is on the macro setup right now and why it is looking so good as we head into Q4 and how to position your portfolio accordingly. And the second is our October market pulse where we look at our expectations for October. We also allocated another bit of capital into the markets with this and we talk about how we thought about that allocation. So hit the link in the show notes and check out those two reports. They are killer.

Before we jump in, today's episode is brought to you by Nexo, the platform that grows your crypto without locking it away. It's also brought to you by Figure Markets. Grow your cash like a bank. No lockups, just real returns. With that, Dominic, welcome to the Milk Road Show. >> Thanks for having me. Good to be here. >> Pleasure to have you, my man. Okay, we got to start with the the news of the day. Bitcoin all-time high, highest weekly close ever this past week. How you feeling? >> Well, as an altcoin founder, it douff butter no parnips. Um, it does not it doesn't unfortunately do anything for me. I would love to be exuberant, but let's face it, 99% of crypto's mind

share really is not exposed to Bitcoin. I I feel bad about that fact. Daily, I think I do not own enough Bitcoin. I don't think anyone actually does because the alts are just a little bit nicer to look at. And there's Yeah, there's something to that. But unfortunately, it means that whenever you get an alltime high in Bitcoin, it's like, okay, when E. Um, >> so what that what that makes me say is exactly, yeah, when ETH like when ETH, what's your thoughts? We're close we're close to an all-time high. We're we're we're creeping up. Everybody's circled 5K, >> didn't we? As in um and then pulled back, but it was it was like a little it was a prophetic little nudge above.

>> Um, but we we celebrate. >> So, what do you think? I mean, let let me pull I'm going to pull up a quick chart here because this is where I go when when we talk about u Bitcoin hitting all-time high versus and what happens next is Bitcoin dominance is the chart that I always pull up here. And what you can see in this chart is Bitcoin dominance dropped and recently has been creeping back up to 55 56% depending upon exactly which metric you're looking at. Uh it got as it got as low as um I think it got down to uh like the it dropped a little bit coming

off of its high of we were you know up in the high60s and now it's been pumping a bit over these past two weeks and typically what happens is this this is the occurrence right we we retest Bitcoin dominance we see a surge in Bitcoin and then it flows into everything else and if we have another alt season like we had in 2017 and 2021 one, we would see Bitcoin dominance drop significantly and the alts would pump. What are your thoughts? >> I mean, I uh I think that al season maketh man. Um, honestly, the I think back to 2021 and the exuberance in like the alt market and I question

can can that be achieved again? cuz we everyone was going pretty mental like and you think back about NFTTS and there's like a week or two weeks where you have this meta and this hype and this craze where anybody who launches into that meta will do incredibly no matter what. And it was just random people settling a 10,000 NFT collection like and that's like NFTTS are the measure. When you get Bitcoin dominance if you start seeing NFTTS pick up again that is going to be a big flag that the run is almost over. And I did get that a bit when I saw these NFT digital asset

treasury strategies launching. That made me wonder um because it's not the time to be getting that level of weird financial innovation. Um that comes usually a bit later when you start getting these structures that are meant to provide this everything go up forever and people start to actually buy it. Um. >> Mhm. >> And digital asset treasuries are yeah that I mean any tool that's put into a free market to try and control prices whether that's capping a supply whether that's capping the price of a commodity or um these sort of digital

asset treasuries. When the market goes well, there's no problem and everyone is happy and people get carried away and these sort of vehicles are a bit late market for me. >> But but we're not. But okay, so let me ask you this question. Let me ask you this question because this is a great this is a great topic to bring up. Where are we in the cycle? Right? Because like I I I I totally hear what you're saying. I don't like I'm guessing our our listeners aren't following this but like there's this thing happening right now with punk strategies which is this uh basket that somebody made where they go out and they if you as their token ra raise price raises they go and they buy

crypto punks right and then they have this like flywheel where as they buy more crypto punks if the price of crypto punks go up goes up enough then they sell them and they take the profit and they put it back into their their token and they they burn their token. So it's a very interesting like as you said it's a very innovative financial honestly could be considered a bit of a Ponzi like it probably crosses over into that category. I am not telling any but these types of things only happen >> day like um you know the whole monetary system is just >> is the definition of a Ponzi and so you can't actually well I mean if you think about it you you issue treasuries and bonds in order to refinance your debt because the interest on the existing

200% GDP debt is so high that you know% >> the the well that that's literally here um in like Japan is 350 um and that's why you're having these problems because inflation >> on that note did you see that Japan new new new prime minister and they are uh I I think I think this just happened is Japan >> voting is like really on China like anti-CCCP like and re re in rebuilding their military >> and and also very much in favor of of fiscal policy and wants to print more more money and inject >> she's taking the Trump playbook.

>> Yes. >> To Japan. >> Yes. >> Well, you know, Japan is the all father of the Ponzi. Um they are literally the creator. The Japanese central bank is the monetary wizard. He that is Merlin of the world. Like they come up they invented negative interest rates. They invented quantitive easing and then when that failed they invented yield curve control. And so all of these things are just how do we pump up a sinking ship. >> It's the monetary playbook where if nobody there used to be days bear in mind you got 350% GDP uh to debt ratio in Japan nobody is buying Japanese debt.

Nobody does. And so when the US government issues these bonds and securities, people buy it because they trust the US government will pay them back. The buyer stops stepping up in Japan. And when there's nobody to fund the Ponzi, you have two options. Either print tons of money in order to prop the Ponzi up and try and push it down the line. And so that's what they've been doing is that the Japanese central bank owns over 65% of the Japanese debt which they buy from the Japanese government which is then given money for this which they apply interest on and they issue debt which the central bank buys and holds on its

balance sheet and it's just the Japanese government trading with the central bank and the whole monetary system is propped up by that. there would be days in a row where not a single organic buy or sell of Japanese debt was ever made. Um, they invented the Ponzi. I >> I don't I don't want to go too deep down the macro conversation right now, but but I do let me just wrap up this by saying I think a lot of people think that this uh debt problem is a US problem because that's what the media talks so much about. But this debt problem is a global government problem.

As exactly as you were saying, it is actually worse in other places. And the outcome of this is the exact same story whether you're wherever you are in the world. Currency debasement is a runaway train. And there is no end to to that. There is no end to that. So that is >> in that way. >> Um but this is the thing. This is where you have these um we haven't experienced it in the west so people aren't as uh knowledgeable or think about it but people don't realize the speed that inflation can turn to hyperinflation because it's behavioral. If you become so used to the fact that when you next

go to buy something it's gone up in value. you are incentivized to buy as much as you can as soon as possible cuz you know next time it's going to be more expensive. So suddenly everyone is incentivized to spend all of their money as soon as they get it. So what happens? Pushes prices up. next time again they want to get in and it leads to basically economic hoarding where you're trying to get everything that you can because you know that it's getting out of control and it takes like a couple of months and you're using the currency for wallpaper like why my republic before World War II in Germany. People have no idea just how quickly it unfurs and it's it's scary to think about because it it's short. So,

let's um this question might might lead you down the macro route, but I I don't I don't want to make this too much of a macro conversation today. Uh although I do love talking macro and crypto is macro in the end, but let's talk about before we start recording, you said you're you're a little bit more bearish. You're a little bit more bearish than a lot of people are right now. And there's people on both sides. But what I'm really noticing is that every day it feels like the bears are coming over to the bull side currently. But just let let us step back for a second. What is what is your thesis right now when you look at this cycle where you know how far we've come in this bull cycle, right? When you look

at the rest of Q4 and the rest of this year, how do you feel? >> I mean uh there's a Frederick Nichch quote which is once you are awake, you shall remain awake eternally. And that's what working in finance does for you. It's it's almost annoying to understand once you understand the inner workings of like the financial and monetary system, you realize just how much of a joke it is. The problem with that is you know that the Ponzi can collapse at any minute. But you also know that they have to keep this house of cards up by any means necessary. And those two things are very hard emotionally to counteract because one part of you knows it it can all be so over so quickly. But you also

know that at that point in time they will throw the kitchen sink at it because it's what they always do and it's the only thing they know how to do. Print more money. That is it. Let's call it negative interest rates. Let's call it quantitive easing. Okay. Let's call it yield curve control. It's all the same thing. It's just how can we get the public to believe that this is okay again? That's all it comes down to. Faith, which is again scary. But so I'm always mixed because I'm always looking for signals that could validate the fact that it gets crazy. Like these bubbles get insane. And until you've experience your first bubble, you do not have any idea how certain you are that it is not so

over when you are in the peak and grips of a bubble. like you honestly believe no matter who it is that it's going to last forever. Um it feels like it it feels like you're early. You tell all of your friends how early they still are. Usually at that point in time it's no longer early. Um and so >> are we early? Where do you think we are >> overall? Yes. as in if you are buying solid established chains, tokens, L1s that you believe um and not just the hype like they have staying power, you know, cuz I was buying stuff in 2021 I thought had

staying power and 99% down like some of it and these were major coins, top 50 coins, you know, your alts can't necessarily protect you. You just need to check the temperature always of the overall sentiment in the market. But if it looks it feels too good to be true. If and this is why the financial engineering with like digital asset treasuries gives me red flags cuz people forget that yes, institutions are pumping our bags. This is great. More money flowing in. We're all feeling it.

Our industry is getting noticed. We're no longer as much of a joke. Even though we are god awful. Um, in comparison, we're not as much of a joke as we used to be. Let's not mess this up. But these treasury vehicles are just the definition of people have forgotten who the counterparty is. They've forgotten what the institutions are like and they've never dealt with the banking system. So, in 2008, we had these new products. Uh, I mean, I'm saying it like I worked there. I was like I I don't even think I was a teenager. So I was probably a kid.

I'm not saying we as in I am the financial system with this analogy. So the financial system did what it does and it securitizes which is that was the tokenized back in the day. Um securitized because securities could be traded on an exchange which adds liquidity. Um and that therefore just like crypto is a good thing. And so the bond department used to be the weirdos. like if you worked in bonds, you worked you were just like you weren't fun at parties. Um and then uh basically they started securitizing everything and suddenly all of these mortgages get batched together and all of these like debt obligations get batched together and they sell them as a security because

then it gets a rating and you don't see the in it. Um you just think it's what whatever it says it is. And the bond traders overnight started turning into rock stars. Basically what ended up happening was the Goldman started issuing these securities to AIG on a credit default swap. So it became a new product credit default swap. Basically meant if if something crash crashes then rather than you start to get paid the yield as the person betting against it, but if it goes well you have to pay out dividends.

And so after these were invented, Goldman basically started putting all of their like terrible debt, terrible mortgages, everything that was just going like written off, they would put it into a massive vehicle and they'd sell it as a credit default swap to AIG, American Insurers Group, I think is the acronym. Um, and Goldman then took heavy heavy short positions against the securities that they sold them. And so when they failed, not only did the whole like American Insurance Group collapse and go bankrupt, Goldman collected on the way down from the products that sank the ship. And so I was at this uh crypto fund managers event two weeks ago and on

the panel was MintMute, Laser X, um big like crypto funds and they were up there boasting about the fact that um oh the investment banks are the ones structuring all these digital asset treasury deals and immediately my alarm bells go off thinking oh oh no because I don't think any of these crypto fund managers remember what happened in 2008. I don't think anyone remembers the actual behavior of the banks in 2008. They knowingly destroyed like every bit of public infrastructure. They literally offloaded all of their terrible debts onto like public pension funds, getting

it off the books. And then once it was done and they were adequately set to make money from the collapse and they had enough bets against it, they let it all go. They collapse the world economy on purpose to get it off their books. And so now it's a boast that the investment banks are the ones structuring these deals. And so if you are the investment bank and you're structuring all of these and again uh the panel was saying, you know, you won't believe some of the tokens now that that we're seeing come through on deal flow. And if you're the investment bank and you know that what you're you're doing some digital asset treasury for some memecoin, why is the investment bank doing that? I wonder like why are they attaching their reputation to that

if it's not they can't surely be thinking that that is going to do well. they know it eventually it ends and people think that like the investment bank would not bet against the own like deals that they are making and people have just forgotten how bad the banks are and so people will be buying these because they keep going up keep going well and they're going to be holding the bag as the investment banks offload them onto everyone else once they have sizable enough shorts >> so it's it sounds to me I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna make a bit of some assumptions here and then you can correct me if I'm wrong. Uh it sounds to me like your view is sort

of similar to Paul Tudtor Jones, billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Tudtor Jones was on CNBC today and here's basically what he said. I'm going to I'm going to summarize what he said. He said that the current current stock market conditions mirror the 1999.com bubble. It's fueled by AI hype this time. Obviously a different uh different tech bubble, but tech bubble nonetheless. You know, he commented on the the growing US budget deficit and then the Fed rate cuts and the impact that has leading to what he believes is a blowoff the top bull market rally that's coming and that he thinks that the bubble will burst and there will be a a a crash similar to 99 where there

was a 78% crash in the NASDAQ. And obviously if if there was that type of stock market crash that would affect crypto as well because you know all the risk on side of crypto is is going to be very closely tied to that. >> Yeah. >> Is that I'm what I'm hearing from you is like you're bearish but I don't really feel like you're bearish like like now like I feel like you maybe have a similar view is that like bullish short term but you think that there will be a big crash at some point because of all this financial engineering that's happening.

you there's two things that you need to get out of the way of and that is a raging bull run and um raging hype as in you make more money buying tops than you ever will um like by being cautious and waiting for a dip. You know, time in the market beats timing the market every single time historically and evidence-based. There's a chart that if you um if you took out like the top 10 performing days of the S&P 500 over the past decade from a portfolio, then the effect on your performance just by the

compound interest alone is about you made 50% less money over 10 years just from missing 10 days. And people don't realize that, you know, you get scared. Everyone pulls their money out the wrong time. Um, and everyone holds on too long. Just whatever you think, accept that you're probably wrong and you'll do much better. As in, you just have to give yourself over to the fact that the market is the opposite of your emotions. It is for everyone. That's why everyone does so badly. And you when you finally accept that and you start counter trading your emotions, then you will finally do well. But it's so hard to get over that of I want to buy this, which

means you've been led to that decision at some point. You've read enough, you've seen enough, you've looked enough, you're carried away enough, you've got yourself there, and you have been influenced um by the market in general. And so usually at the point in time it's reaching you, the smart people have already seen it. And that's not to say that, you know, the view is not being smart. This is the reality of the situation. um these like you know crypto ICOs Chad invented all of this this low float you know how like they launch with like 1% of the token supply people think this only happens in crypto it's not that's the reason why this is happening in

crypto is because it's been the model of stocks and IPOs for ages it's just you don't have a clue um and it's true it's literally just once you are awake you are awake eternally you see it for what it is and what it is is disgusting, but you can't fight that level of greed. >> Um, you know, if you bet against it, it's not worth shorting because the the upside is is capped at 100%. If it goes bankrupt, the the downside from shorting is infinite. It can go up infinitely. And these bubbles can do 10x. You could think this is a good time to short and

it'll do another 10x the next week because once exuberance takes over, it can go anywhere. Don't try and short. It's never going to work. Just if you just buy stuff, like honestly, that's the best advice you need. Like long only funds are a reason for that because shorts you can get caught with your pants down real quick. >> Yeah, it's it's it's very true. And I think one thing feels clear right now is we have not reached the euphoric stage of this bull market. It does not yes there are signs but it still feels early. The other thing is, and I know you have you've commented on this on

your ex before, is at this point in the market when Bitcoin starts to hit all-time highs and and other other tokens are hitting all-time highs and gold's at an all-time high and stocks are at all-time highs, there is a real uh bug in your ear saying, "Hey, you're not making enough. You're not taking advantage of this enough." And so is there is this like real chasing mentality that comes in where you start to chase, right? You start to chase the next 10x or the next 100x. You try to over uh over overmanage your portfolio when really patience often wins. What's what's your

thoughts on on positioning your portfolio and as we head into these euphoric times? you do just unfort it's really boring that's the problem it's the advice here not financial advice although I did used to be a financial adviser but I'm not technically authorized to give financial advice by the regulator so not financial advice right now so labor that point a bit much so it's it's super hard to not get carried away with euphoria like And it is so boring to say, but honestly, it's, you know, buy spot. Don't play around with leverage. You're going to get hurt.

Everyone does. You know, everyone is smart. Um, but the be the best saying is if you don't know about the fool in the market, then you are the fool in the market. And just remember that because if you're still learning lots and lots of stuff, then you're learning that from people who know far more than you. And it is hyper financialized capitalism markets. Like no one's going to be nice to you. You will be used for their convenience. Even as like a retail buyer coming in, like you don't realize quite how much you are the exit liquidity. Um, and I am as well. Like I'm the exit liquidity. like I'm not holier than

thou. I am just aware of all of the which ways that they will come for me and they will try and you know get my capital because all financial markets is is I am taking your money and giving it to myself. You're just taking bets against everybody and unless you know enough to think that you will win the majority of those bets cuz your opponent is not as smart as you are then you're not going to win you. It's so PvP that you need to be taking yourself as an average against investment bankers and thinking do I know more than them and and apart from arrogance almost certainly the answer is no. So just play things safe, you know, and some don't don't take these like

gambling like, you know, I made a millionx on this meme coin seriously because every story that you hear like that there is 9999999 millions who have just lost everything and they won't tell you about it because they're embarrassed. And just don't get embarrassed. It's okay to not like go gung-ho. just make money and you'll always be happy. Just just make a bit of money educational seminar. >> That was that was very nice. I mean it's it's so true. It's the very hard to take that put into practice. But there's a lot of truth in what you just said.

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I want to touch on Robin Hood's outage today. Uh let me just pull up the uh the news here. So, um news broke uh earlier this morning that tens of thousands of Robin Hood users reportedly were unable to access their accounts as there was an outage. And at the same time AMD uh was surging as a result of a announcement of their partnership with Open AI. And so there's speculation that the reason this outage is happening is because AMD is surging and basically Robin Hood is protecting their relationships with their mark with market makers that they partner with. Uh which brings back memories of GameStop uh and actions that Robin Hood has taken

in the past. What what are your thoughts on this? >> I think it's like a bit like um with this one in particular, it's a bit like a bless you like like you think you've taken it down, have you? Like your like your your small like portfolio that you have on Robin Hood, all of you have got together and and this is like one of the biggest chip manufacturers. This isn't like some bankrupt um you know dealership like when they like do Hertz or you know AMC or like you know we like the stock you know you're starting from a base that is very very low and therefore you get this effect that comes with it of we were

first and we knew this and we're early and everybody else will think they're early etc etc. This is advanced micro devices. Um, you know, Taiwanese based semiconductor manufacturer that literally sells like some of the top chips to the top companies in the world. Like, give it a rest. Your po your your 10 grand, the 30% you made overnight is not breaking the bank. Um, it's it's true the overall sentiment. I get it. Um, but there's a line between knowing, you know, just how bad the financial industry is versus knowing that your size is not size. Like it's that it's AMD 30% increase like calm down.

You that's not wiping out huge exchanges. It's not even on the level of GameStop. So people have got a bit um suspicious. Um the reason why like GameStop was so concerning that they did have to do that is because of the fact that it had a heavy short um lending positions against it. People were betting that the basically betting it would go bankrupt within like two weeks. That was what the market was saying. And from that base, it's quite easy to get up. You're you're pretty at the lows there. Um and so you lift it. But this is, you know, this is one of the most well-known chip manufacturers in the

world. Like this is no grassroots movement of there, you know, stopping the people like calm down. Like it's not that it's not that big. Um if there's not the short interest, then they're not going to like get keeled over by people being 30% up on a chip manufacturer. Like not everything's a conspiracy. Although I see conspiracies in absolutely everything. And don't get me wrong, GameStop was this. But this is just like, you know, guys, bless you, but nah. >> Okay. So, uh, a bit a bit of a a bit of a nothing burger.

>> The teacup. >> Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well said. That's well said. Uh, okay. Final thoughts before we let you go, Dominic. Um, I want to talk a little bit about tokenized stocks. I'm going to bring up uh a tweet that you put out uh maybe about a week ago. Um, and you commented on how NASDAQ filed with the SEC to tokenize stocks and how everyone is excited, but tokenized stock is still stock. And as Commissioner Pierce will remind you, tokenizing stocks only matters if the market is global. Talk to us about the the current state. A lot of people in in crypto love to talk about tokenized stocks and the potential of tokenized stocks, but there has not been

a big uh uptick in the actual uh volumes of tokenized stocks. Where are we in and maybe you can talk a little bit about Alva and what you're building there and the vision of where you where we are right now in the the story of tokenizing stocks versus where we will be in the next 5 10 years. So it's um I mean it's on one side it's good for for us at uh you know Alvar being the fact that we do you know baskets of tokenized assets or if it's crypto or whatever. Um but on

the other side I do know the financial industry and in fact um I think pinned on my ex actually is uh I wrote uh medium about solving capitalism. I think it's a pretty good good plan. Um it basically allows for income tax to go and corporation tax to go and be replaced by a 1 or 2% tax on derivatives. um cuz that will cover everything that everyone has ever had to pay. Um global taxation solved by just a 1 or 2% uh tax on derivatives. But it sounds so easy, but it's not because the problem is is regulatory arbitrage.

Uh, and not many people know this, and I I'm probably going over like the head of of listeners here, but essentially with these tax policies and with these changes and with these treatments, it doesn't matter if the US does it, it doesn't matter if the EU does it, it doesn't matter if the UK does it. It's if they all do it together. Because the reason why um you know a one or two% even though derivatives as a market is worth like quintilions because all a derivative is is I'm an authorized counterparty. You're an authorized authorized counterparty. Let's make a bet with each other on the price of an

asset we don't own and we'll charge each other fees for this. What a racket. Um don't need to own anything. Don't need to spend any money. You just need to make an agreement with another person and speculate against each other. Both put fees in. Where did the fees come from? Well, they're from the derivative. Oh, you bought the asset. No, we just owned it and speculated. It's charging fees on money that never existed and they never even had in circulation anyway. So, it doesn't make sense. And so, therefore, if you were to tax that waste because it's just banks billing other banks over and over and over again and their balance sheets getting bigger, you know, nothing is owned, transacted, extracted. It's a complete leech on uh the economy because there's zero gain.

There's no efficiency gain whatsoever. It's just banks making money with other banks. It looks good on balance sheet. And so one or two% tax on that would mean that nobody in the world corporate or uh or employee would ever need to pay tax again. Sounds nice. But if if if one person goes first, if the US says uh 2% tax on derivatives, everyone, let's solve tax for everyone globally in the world. France comes along and says we're going to do this too, but let's do 1%. Okay, suddenly everyone is going to use France because our 2% is being undercut. So everyone goes and starts

just not using the US banks for this anymore because they're trying to enforce this global tax law. And so everyone goes somewhere else and then another one comes up and goes, "Okay, we'll do this for half a percent." And it doesn't matter if because it's regulatory arbitrage. If you can't do it somewhere, you'll do it somewhere else. Um, and so without global agreement and adoption, it's just going to be little silos just uh, you know, it won't get the full huge rush. And that's not necessarily a bad thing for those who work in tokenization. And the reason why is that, you know, you're trusting public servants and a public regulator to catch up with the times to

the point all around the world, okay, well, there's going to be a huge vacuum to fill for a huge amount of time. Um, because they're not going to get their act together. Like, they're not going to actually be the grown-ups and get this globally enforced. So, that's what we've got to do. We've got to be pushing this and we've got to make sure that this can get aligned and you know people discount the role of industry in this sort of regulation a lot and that's the part where we as a sector crypto community is finally getting some weight. Um we can actually throw some weight around. We actually can influence politics.

That's how big crypto has gotten and that is why this cycle isn't necessarily like the others. I would love for that to mean that everything goes up 2021 style alt season, you know, let's buy monkey pictures all day long. Amazing. Um but the capital will flow. However, there is 99% of the market that is utter, you know, just irrelevant, unneeded stuff. And the the adults are coming into the room and they're going to be using the adult stuff. And that's where there's going to be a push is actual infrastructure. That's all

that matters. like people have built for the user and it sounds lovely, but the current user of crypto now is not the blockchain's end user. The blockchain has all of these promises to make finance more efficient, to save huge amounts of costs, but where are they? Like, they haven't come yet. And so if that is finally solved and they can get around like the safety concerns because the regulation is gone, you know, they they didn't come to take part. The banks take over and they will grab this from under us and they'll forget that we ever existed. They will

do with it what they want to do with it. And so position yourself accordingly. Be aware that the grown-ups coming into the room. When you're looking at what to buy, think, "What would my dad buy?" And unfortunately, your dad's probably a bit boring. And he's going to buy what is nice, safe, and cheerful cuz that's what dads do. Um, and you can innovate around it. You can convince your dad why, you know, he should be using this new phone. you can work on him, but if you leave it down to him, he's going to buy what is safe and he's going to buy what he understands. And if that's where the capital is going, that's where you go.

>> It's it's it's it's simple, boring, but it is true >> in in this in this market context. >> There's there's always the importance to look at riskreward, right? And to look at who the next buyer is. and the next buyer. The riskreward of the top 50 tokens is for good reason is, you know, lower risk, sorry, lower risk and lower reward, but than than trying to go down down the stack, but you take the advantage of that lower risk. And then at the same time, yes, you're right.

Like there is that's why I like and the Milkro team likes the revenue meta so much, right? And >> I hate that it's even a meta. That's like that that gave me such like ick about the industry. The fact that we we gave it our own word of rev >> and then like guys, this is supposed to >> we have to celebrate >> the businesses that are actually making revenue in order to make them noticeable to investors. And I think that that is that is to me I really thought look we were we were we were a little bit wrong so far this cycle and that we thought that that meta would take off earlier in this cycle when really it was like the Bitcoin and the memecoin meta that absolutely crushed Bitcoin makes sense.

the memecoin meta that crushed 2024, nobody really expected that to happen. And but now I do think we are in a place where we will finally see DeFi apps and L1s that have real revenue. You know, you look at something like Salana and real users and obviously Ethereum as well. Those are the I think those are the tokens that will do really well for the rest of the cycle. Now, that being said, we're also entering the euphoric phase of the cycle when quite honestly, everything will go up. So, I also will say to you, if you're listening to this, have patience and don't try to overtrade your portfolio. If you've been in something for a while, so long as you

are looking at it and you can say, "Yeah, I still think that we are in that euphoric stage," then I think that, you know, be patient is really the best advice. >> I've got one for you. This is a good one. Go to some of the top. Let's say that you got down to the top 50 cuz even some of the top 50 like you know you could you could end up with people buying Polka Dot here if you're not careful. >> Yeah, there's some ghost there's some ghost chains in there for sure. Yeah. >> What's very important I find is to look for the top tokens because a lot a lot of times unfortunately these are propped up valuations. In fact, uh you should look at like uh you know some of these dinosaur coins like no one uses them.

Like BSV or like even Bitcoin Cash, no one ever uses that. Like Litecoin, like nowhere. So what's important to do is to basically go on to the L1 that you're looking at page. Go back to when you had these trends. How quick were they to embrace and jump on just the next big thing that people were talking about? And that is a sign of a unserious business that does not have a reason to exist and is desperately trying to find one to stay relevant. And that's not someone you want. It's like uh Tezos or Nar like I' I've never met anyone building on NI in

my life and yet you know the it gives this in oh another one do no one I even spoke to someone at Boson protocol once and I asked them can you tell me what what you guys do they had no clue like like I have no clue to this day what Boson is they keep on reinventing it metaverse then a payment exchange in the metaverse what like money. Yeah. But but VCs own ours and then they were RWA and like you know honest the messaging was just there and and the market caps are never justified.

You just need to find someone that's been building a vision and they haven't actually changed it. They're still building what they liked. But, you know, I think the biggest token that or coin that I can give that you can see that they've they're trying desperately, but people haven't gotten on yet is Avalanche. Always going after the meme meta, like trying way too hard, like launching like a cultural fund, which is basically a memecoin fund. Like, you can see that they're clinging on for relevance desperately, and it's just gone over that line of desperation for me. Like there's nothing wrong with a bit of lip service to a trend or meta, but to actually like pivot your whole business model and you know throw your

weight around, make people know you're in this and for it to always fail like NFT is and everything you know to me unfortunately avalanche is no longer I used to compare it to Salano and there is no comparison now. >> It's a very interesting take Dominic I'm going to end it here because I think you and I could keep talking for a while but really appreciate you joining us today. Thanks so much for your time. >> Thanks for having me. >> Thanks for listening in everybody. Got to remind you as always, none of today's episode is financial advice. I'm not your financial adviser. Dominic is not your financial adviser. You should speak to a professional if you need help with your investments. Today's episode is for educational andformational purposes only. And as I mentioned at the beginning of the show, you got to check out the two reports that the Pro team

put out this Saturday. One is the October outlook for the market and the other is the macro setup and why it is truly unlike anything we've ever had before. Check them out in the link in the show notes. Have a wicked awesome day everybody. We'll see you back again tomorrow. We're sending Kyle Reedhead, our head of research to the UK's largest web 3 summit. I'm talking about Zebu Live happening October 21st and 22nd in London. Want to join? Use our code milk to get 20% off your tickets. Hit the link in the show notes and say hi to Kyle for us. 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 risky. Never invest more than you can afford to lose.