Hivemind: Macro News Bearish, Crypto News Bullish & What We’re Bidding

Transcript

the thing I I think that that's happened with especially since since Trump is that just a lot of the corruption and scam minist that was like underlying this Market got exposed and then I think that plus the the announcement of the reserve last weekend having like xrp and cardano in it to me it's just like for me it was like the administration just doesn't understand crypto or just lumps it all in as basically a grift and so there's no differentiation between like Bitcoin and card and xrp um but it's like all this regulatory all the regulatory good news just can't seem to pump the market because I think a lot of what it's saying is just like people don't believe

that regulatory Clarity will lead to actual use cases they they just wanted the government to buy your coins nothing set on the hive mind is a recommendation to buy or sell Securities or tokens this podcast is strictly for informational purposes only and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our own opinions not Financial [Music] advice hi everyone and welcome to another episode of the hive mind podcast the goal of the podcast is to provide an inside look into what we like to call the deli hive mind bringing together some of our brightest Minds from each of the divisions to share insights Alpha

and [ __ ] posts today with us we have the usual cast cedus from our institutional res research arm Yan liberman managing partner of Deli Ventures and our vent and Duncan um also known as flood Capital our shitcoin scavenger and investor I'm Jose masedu and I lead Deli Labs our protocol R&D arm focused on incubating and accelerating new web 3 Primitives uh we haven't recorded in three weeks because the majority of the team was in was in Denver it's been a pretty eventful three weeks alts have been pretty much down only Bitcoin hit 78k briefly at the time we're recording now which is um Wednesday the 5th of

March at around 4M UTC uh bitcoin's trading around 88k um alts have have rallied a little bit from the bottom but still most of them down like 50 to to to 70 or 80% from the top um a lot of this is is well I don't know what do we think caused this people have various theories about it tariffs um no it's all it's it's all macro everything because everything there's been a lot of good announcements in like for crypto macro over the past month basically every case is getting ended um which is I guess like the biggest one

it seems like a lot of these ETFs are eventually going to go through um obviously there's talk about reserve and all that um the SEC seems like they're putting together like a pretty friendly team and so everything from crypto macro has been fine um but yeah it's totally driven by you know the top right the overall market and this tariff stuff is obviously been spooking markets a lot and it's kind of like going back and forth and so um yeah I don't really know what to like do when this is kind of the the situation you know yeah I definitely think that the macro stuff kickstarted it but I think there's like a lot of kind of

structural supply and demand imbalances like going into this and then crypto is like super far out on the risk curve which just causes like alts to to mega nuke like we had you know all of the the meme coin extraction um that was just like ramping to like a pretty insane pace and I think just like General exhaustion from like new launches and then like the macro stuff just kind of like tipped the Hat in one way cuz equities are only down maybe like you know less than 10% from from the highs so there's still like you know could be more to go on that way but I think like crypto you know is very liquidity sensitive especially like Al

to just like the furthest thing out in the risk curve and like the whole financial market so those things are kind of like the first to to fall off as as the market sells off and people get scared liquidity drives up yeah it's been I think the most kind of extractive bull market right and and that means it's it's a bit of a ticking Time Bomb um and when I say extractive you know you have pump fun right all every you always get those tweets about them selling soul like that's just money taken out of the ecosystem um I think these president coin launches you know uh have done it in massive size right like never before

have you seen low nine figs kind of just drained out and so um I you there's I think that stuff is really hard to that takes time for new money to flow in right like the market cap whole thing where you know market cap rips higher rips lower it's that like that I don't think that is necessarily extractive in the sense that um it's not as if you know the the amount of market cap that was lost is the amount of money that was actually pulled out of the system cap is just function of like marginal price times Supply and so um it's just if the bid dries up market cap contracts massively but it's not as if that's just Capital um flowing out that was you know unrealized gains just round trip

basically and so here these are actual funds that the idea isn't to reinvest this stuff into other things which you often see in crypto is if somebody makes money in one thing they're looking for the next trade and and so it eventually kind of gets redeployed this is is basically very much One Way flow at the moment and I think that can put a a damper on things combined with all the stuff you guys mentioned between macro and and increased Supply and launches yeah I mean the Malay scam and and the the all that stuff was pretty pretty bad for crypto too people finally got to see like behind the curtain of what's happening with most of these memes meme launches and this narrative that these things were for the people uh you know Fair launch compared to utility

coins is just like has always been kind of total [ __ ] I think though that this is what kind of happens when there's like a new game narrative in crypto is that it starts off like relatively organic like the early memes people bought because they like the memes you know like honestly for for the majority of it and then you know whiff I think whiff was like pretty organic you can say maybe there's some cabal stuff I don't know what going on with that but I think that was like mostly pretty organic and then you know some the earlier meme coins I think like Bowden and stuff like that but then like the further this game goes on the more and more of the later entrance who like

weren't there for the original original game either now try and like control this game right and then basically at the very end of it uh I don't think even we shouldn't even call these like meme coins right and I also think it's like somewhat unfair to to group like Trump Melania and Libra with pump fun because none of those are pump Funk coins and they're just like straight scams pretty much right um and so this is what kind of happens though at the end of every like narrative and once a game kind of gets run dry is that the majority of the profits are just now being realized by like a very small group right like that group gets smaller and smaller over time and you know I think the Silver Lining

on the Libra thing is it does seem like memes obviously everything nothing is really come back since then but I guess like people now more so understand the game behind the curtains and will hopefully be like less willing to I mean there's like that JD Vance coin that might have done really well like a few months ago and it kind of fizzled out like pretty quick right so yeah I don't know I think we're like it seems like we're moving on from the market we had you know in 2024 2025 is a very different Market like the common theme is dispersion is still there right but I think what will get bid is like changing

right yeah I return to Quality is probably yeah the the most rational thing and and the only way that the the meme stuff kind of ends is just when people stop bidding right and and once it got Max extractive right like pump fun was really good in terms of actually creating an environment where these things can launch in a in a a much less ruggable way than was previously set up um and so I think it created guard rails around you know launches for that and then these just you know ended up skipping the pump fund phase saw the market cap of the top memes and thought let's just teleport there and then we'll sell it all to everyone at that price which is you know completely kind of counter it defit what

up yeah I definitely think zooming out um like on this cycle I think like retail is probably pretty exhausted because I think this cycle versus like 2017 or 2021 um if you if you frame it like that I think retail has like had way less of a chance to make money this go around versus in those past two cycles and I think that's what drives like a lot of the the Euphoria and in interest and like you know in 2017 you had like Bitcoin pull a pretty crazy multiple eth pull a crazy multile and just like you know this whole Ico boom and then like once that kind of extracted all the money that the cycle ended right once these icos extracted all the money the

cycle ended and then you had in 2021 um you know a lot of people were able to make money because it was just like helicopter money stimulus phase where like a lot of alts no matter like what you bought just kind of went straight up there's a lot of money in nfts for retail it felt like everyone had a chance to make at least some money whereas in this cycle like memein that was kind of true for memec coins in like early 2024 uh maybe late 2023 which is kind of like the sharp money that's all like oh these things like can rally a ton um based on previous cycles and then it turned into this game now where we hit like Max extraction and I feel like retail is pretty exhausted because every new

retail entrance coming into the space almost every new retail entrance coming into the space is losing money then that kind of like kills the virality effect that that crypto has versus like in 2017 or 2021 or early 24 like everyone was coming in making money and telling their friends about it and talking about it versus now like people are coming in and just like instantly getting like killed and extracted from so I think that probably puts in uh like a shorter term top for for retail for the foreseeable future just because like no new retail entrant is coming in and making money and telling their friends and family about it because it's just like impossible to do and then that probably is a shift back to to to fundamentals and quality for for the money that's uh still in the space is kind like andas

are talking about so I think I like I agree and disagree with that in like different ways I think in like all the retail that came in in 2022 and 2023 probably did well and probably did better than a lot of the ogs I think because they were using like salana and you know that means you're buying sold then you're getting the jto airdrop you're getting the jup airdrop like all this stuff and those kind of compound and but yeah like everybody not a lot of people coming in in 2022 or 2023 like you could still still come in like late yeah the majority still comes late yeah the majority that comes in late yeah realistically actually I guess if you came in like March of 24 yeah you like it's probably hard

because like Souls down from then obviously the memes of like employ only thing up is Bitcoin since since the only thing up since that is Bitcoin like in 2017 you could have come in like you know pretty late 2017 or just like anytime kind of in 2017 and done well in 2021 you could come in like you know summer 2021 you could have done really well um like you could have come in like relatively late into the cycle and now it's like okay like you had to be like pre-march 2024 to have done like kind of well as like retail investor for for most coins right so that's you know we're almost a year now and Bitcoin you know so like bitcoin's kind of decorrelated from from those alts I think well I mean it did it's not you

think they yeah like I I think as in it did decorrelate but like that's I think different than previous Cycles where we haven't seen this much of a decorrelation and it's like just as a retail participant it's so hard to make money especially when like everything's focused on these memes and then like Libra was just like the like the end game of that it's like okay this thing like rugs it tops in one hour and rugs in like two or three hours right at least with like Trump and milania like you had like you know a few days or like a few weeks or even like you know early Trump buyers are probably still on multiples but it's like then it just we got sped run to like okay this whole Cycle's happening I think the thing with the thing I I think that that's happened with especially since

since Trump is that just a lot of the corruption and scam minist that was like underlying this Market got exposed um whether it's I think the Malay thing was especially that like the you know the guy the the Kel adventure guys guy whatever was talking about how there was a pre-sale for the Trump coin at 500 million fdv and people got access to it um and then just hearing that guy on a podcast for an hour talk about you know how how how this game is played and how they want to snipe it first so they can at least let the punzi run for for a few weeks longer rather than it just dying straight away um hearing about the Trump pre-sale and obviously like the milania

coin the same weekend as the Trump thing done by these amateurs you know you literally have the president of the United States uh and his team who have access to you know the entire industry anyone they want the the smartest people in the industry working with with this dude right on on these launches um and then I think that plus the the announcement of the reserve last weekend having like xrp and cardano in it to me it's just like for me it was like the administration just doesn't understand crypto or just lumps it all in as basically a grift and so there's no differentiation between like Bitcoin and card and xrp um you know we just launch mem coins on this on this thing and and

and partner with these with these like snake oil salesmen to to do it uh and try and extract as much as possible and to me that's like I don't know I think there's some of that going on with with like the price drops and stuff and it's like all this regulatory all the regulatory good news just can't seem to pump the market because I think a lot of what it's saying is just like people don't believe that regulatory Clarity will lead to actual use cases they they just wanted the government to buy your coins and obviously this is like very negative view on things um like I'm still bullish crypto but I am seeing a lot of this sentiment and I do think the way the Administration has engaged with crypto has been well it's like a lot of

people view crypto as a scam and then the administration is literally like promoting that side of it and so I think that's the frustrating part where like I think all we all people really wanted was like to stop the regulation by enforcement and to kind of be hands off and kind of like lay some ground rules right but this is just going like too far in the other side and then when the average person sees you know when I have like friends and family you know asking me like about this and then they're like oh xrp and like cardano legit and stuff like that it's just kind of frustrating I guess uh like it's definitely gone way too far like cutting a bunch of jobs you know

like yeah yeah like cutting yeah you're cutting like Park Rangers and the cancer researchers and stuff and then well you want to buy like and it seems like they're not going to buy them which I guess is good we don't know yeah you guys are that's but that's the other thing but why are they doing these why announce it why announce it yeah that's the other thing like there's definitely an element of like just like Inner Circle stuff going on for sure announ coins and like whether you intend to or not it's just such a scam right like if if you intend to it's it's obviously a scam if you don't intend to then why announce it other than to enrich some people who who knew about it beforehand it's just like just terrible look are you necessarily like blaming for this

right like I don't think Trump himself has any idea what is going on with these things right like there's a lot of change happening there's obviously going to be good change and bad change and there's people kind of grabbing because there's so much change happening you know there's people grabbing to like make some money off of it maybe it's his inner circle or who who really knows who's actually like benefiting the most from this but I think this is just like part of of the growing pains when he's literally trying to like rejig the entire establishment and obviously it's like really shitty to see that people are taking advantage of stuff like that even like you know that hyper liquid whale went long like 300 million of like coins like you

know yeah but that that that that was coming that looks like it was it came from a like stolen tokens so I don't know if that was yeah I'm just saying like we don't obviously we don't know any of these things but it was like kind of funny timing it's like the Market's like Mega nuked and this guy goes like 50x long leverage and then I don't know if you need so I don't know if you need to like I get it you're like who's to blame for this I don't know but you still need to you need to recognize the fact that it's like terrible what it's yeah it sucks that cardano and xrp it's better than what we would have had with a sure I don't actually know I don't know for sure dude that's the most naive opinion I've ever heard in my life we would have

had the God be like 45 everyone would be getting sued out of their ass but like the courts have people were winning like people were legit winning against like the SEC and in the courts like Ripple [ __ ] too like the people there are people that could win but there are a lot of people that couldn't even afford to fight yeah don't give me listen I'm not saying the other way would have been good and we would have been like rock insanely worse it would been really bad part here is that that that cardano and xrp got mentioned in the reserve right like that and then the the oh there's a lot more than that the loosened regulatory climate created opportunities for grifters to do more grifting but

like it was it was almost inevitable without creating a very strong regulatory framework right out of the out of the gate and that wasn't going to be possible because that has to go through legislation so just the environment of all right we're not going to be uh ruling by enforcement just open the doors for grifters and like grifters are going to grift right there there is no world where you could have had both and so like the the really bad stuff has just been announcing that that you know cardano and and whatever are G be part of the reserve if if they're you know cardano's like I think one or you don't think that was really I agree but like that's just a function of like the open nature of the the regulatory environment

I think people need to take responsibility for buying this [ __ ] it's like 100% OB defending it but I think it's just it's like it's much better than the alternative I I agree but like we do have legis like regulations around gambling for a reason right like it's not a socially valuable activity to have a bunch of people just like obviously there's the freedom argument but there's also like the fact that we have regulations around this stuff because it's not socially valuable for your entire populace to just be gambling on stuff that that also doesn't contribute to the economy at all right if you're buying stocks or something at least there's or or like utility coins I would argue at least there's there's some contribution to to people building real

[ __ ] basically with the window of we don't have rules yet but we're not really going to enforce and eventually put in the rules and in that period in between Max grift is kind of what happens I guess for me it's like Harris and the democ like Democrats just saw crypto as a total grift and wanted to kill it and the Hope was that the Republicans would see like the value in crypto and and promote it whereas I feel like Trump just saw crypto as a total grift and he was like all right let's party you know like let's they both too early it's too early to tell obviously there's people like I think how the conversation probably went is like someone R Trump is like we can make you like a billion dollars if you launch this token and he's like oh this is just like

selling my merch and he just says sure I'll send out a tweet it's like he never talked about it after that ever again right like he literally mentioned oh I heard the launch went well like I listen yeah I don't know we have to debate this too much I think I think we can agree that like okay it's it's yeah it's it's better than like it would have been if like camela won but I think a lot of people are kind of disappointed as how it's like kind of gone so far because it's just kind of EX it's it's really exemplifying a lot of the worst Parts uh of the space and that is the frustrating part and I don't think it's like there's a lot of people I think to

blame for this so yeah let we can move on maybe maybe a move one interesting thing you guys are talking about how this exposed memes and stuff so are memes dead now or what are you guys what are you guys thinking maybe Yan let's start with you I think it'll take a while but I think you'll see Resurgence when Bitcoin starts ripping again and animal spirits come back people forget quickly uh you probably end up getting like a Resurgence in some of the classics to be honest and some random new funny ones um that like I don't like I don't there's not going to be this world where I don't think celeb tokens are going to

be massive without some like really improved utility or access you know some of the kind of things that excited us early on about um athletes getting involved and and celebrities getting involved and and using it actually in a productive way that you know engages with fans and and rewards them um but like these pure memes like high fdv launches I think or toast because there's just not going to be a bid for him yeah yeah I think there's like a few categories of memes right there's like the OG whatever ones like Doge they're celebrity coins I agree celebrity coins were never memes they were always just like griffs uh I think like mother is the only C like Iggy that's the only

celebrity coin that actually she tried to like make something and it's still is just like down only um there's these like country coins which like those aren't meme coins but they're launched on pump or sometimes not they're just like I don't even know what the hell those things are uh there's like hot topic of the day coins you know like peanut mudang stuff like that maybe these like you call these attention assets maybe those things come back when stuff gets crazy again especially with this like Tik Tok thing right the Reddit guy if he's gonna actually buy Tik Tok and put it on chain um you can definitely see stuff like that come back right I think that was the pump funds Founders whole thesis right was like tokenizing Tik Tok and so if the red guy is going to do that uh put it on chain

then you know there's going to be assets with all that so you could defin see kind of this like attention trading stuff come back again um but I do think people are like you know looking past into other areas I think what's taken the meme bucket obviously the AI stuff took the meme bucket and like Q4 of last year now that's been pretty wrecked too um and right now it's hard to see what people want to bid right like because everything's down uh like I'm bullish TI but it's it's you know it it's like I'm you're trying to look for legitimate Tech now I feel like that maybe has gone hammered a lot uh over the past year or

so and for me I feel like Tia fits that bucket um and it's like you're trying to look you know you know you look through the top 100 assets it's like what do people actually want to buy out of these top 100 right uh I think it's I don't know there's not maybe actually going I don't know you guys want I want I wanted to actually go backwards to some of the to the macro stuff just to see how long you guys think this regime will will last right because if you take Trump at face value Trump and and his his cabinet um they're talking about like the the 10year specifically in the short term being the main thing they're they're focused on

right and with and I mean there was a great post by Dalo I don't know if you guys read it I linked it on Twitter about what you need to do to get the deficit down to to this like 3% of GDP Target which is basically like a 900 billion a year reduction um and I think the most interesting thing for for that uh or from that for me was just how much more effective interest rate reductions are than like literally anything else you know like um there's there's some numbers on it I I I don't think we need to go through them now I put them in a in a tweet a while ago but it's like way more effective than both tax spending increase and then a reduction in in uh sorry then a then a spending decrease or

an increase in in tax revenue and this doesn't even account for the second order effects right where these things are are are deflationary whereas um a tax whereas an interest rate reduction is is is inflationary but if he does have to get the 10e down and do these tariffs and and raise tax revenue reduce spending like it's going to take a while and it's hard to see assets do well in that environment at least that's the argument we're seeing a lot from from macro people right there's uncertainty you should go to cash I mean Stephen Stephen Cohen was bearish for the first time in in in a while there's been a bunch of people saying this what are you guys thinking um and how do you how long you think it last and and how are you positioning for it I

guess yeah I've been talking to a bit about this last week in Denver but I think that it's going to be like kind of a short-term pain for for long-term gain type type sort of deer so with the interest rates trying to get them down I think there's a massive refinancing also like yeah so on30 billion of debt at 5% interest rates that's like 1.5 trillion you know which is like 7% of GDP or something obviously not all the debt is at that level and fed funds rate has come down to four and a half percent but it is like a massive uh line item on the deficit so getting that that down definitely helps I think like there's a lot of debt coming up for refinancing because like if you think about 20 20

that was like 0% interest rates and then like you know this is the fiveyear term where a lot of that debts coming up for refinancing so trying to get the 10-year down you know both to refinance like the US themselves and then also just like the the private sector refinancing you know going from like refining at like 1% to like 5% you know is a massive jump I think that's why you know quite a few people are bearish and then kind of just like the divorce with China in the rest of the world you know throwing up these tariffs um Trump had an executive order where he's like Banning Chinese private investment into certain like critical Industries in the US uh basically taking like private like Chinese private Capital like leave the US so some people

have talked about fears around you know China's basically been recycling their massive Surplus into US equities the past 15 years so if that flow were to to start to reverse um that could be bad so it definitely feels like there's there's a lot of risks think that Trump's probably going for kind of like short-term pain for long-term gain I think like one of the craziest things is you know the US Reliance on China on like defense Tech and just like like manufacturing I guess more more so defense manufacturing we see this like Russia Ukraine thing as maybe like a trial run for a China Taiwan type type event and um basically like with the US

pulling out of Ukraine I feel like China could definitely come in and take Taiwan and I've listened to like Paul mer luuy the CEO of andrel talk he's probably talking his own book a bit but he's saying like you know China can make as many missiles in a week as the US can make in a year they have 350X like the um ship making uh capacity you know uh Mark Andre since talked a lot about you know how all the US drones like for the military are bought from China so I I think like a lot of people like in this cabinet kind of understand that the US is like beholding to China on a lot of these like real things and maybe things got a little bit more real during covid or or Russia Ukraine so to to reshore

some critical manufacturing is going to take you know a big shift in in how the world has has been functioning the last 20 years so yeah that's probably short-term bearish for stocks and like Besson has even said you know wall Street's had like a really great 20 years we to put Main Street ahead and US manufacturing ahead so I think I'm definitely pretty cautious over the next let's say like three to six months depending how things play out obviously like all roads lead to printing eventually and maybe this is like okay let's frontload all the pain and bad news make all the hard decisions try and uh set up the US for like a longer term um like in a better position and then like you you know you turn on the printer you do some massive infrastructure Bill where instead of

sending like 350 billion $50 billion to Ukraine to like you know have weapons blow up you you like invest that in like bunch of factories in the US right so I think that it's probably shortterm pain for for a longer term the government's not gonna invest in factories though right yeah they could they could do massive infrastructure builds like what's the difference between sending you know all this money to a foreign country for a war versus actually spending it on like factories or like you know something within the us or like giving incentives um so that's kind of how sending Like Us weapons though right there the many's invested in Like Us weapons like us defense

company weapons and then sent to the to Ukraine but but yeah I know it's still like money that's being government pays for those and those blow up and are nothing for the economy versus you build a factory it's actually productive it's not a productive use of capital if it's just going to go into missiles that are blowing up right um so I think I could see something like that happening and um so I'm kind of in the Tamp where it's like short short-term pain maybe like three to six months maybe longer and then eventually something will get bad enough or or they'll have their ducks in a row where they can do this like you know massive stimulus into maybe midterms or or the end of Trump's term or something yeah what do you guys think

maybe Yan on the the macro side or how you how long you think it last how you preparing positioning yeah I mean I'm I'm in the same camp I think it's it's short-term pain I think it's probably just consensus at this point um the yeah the tricky thing is is kind of like how long it lasts and then you know how people want to play it I think what you'll end up getting is a bunch of chop here and there right headlines people trading a lot of buy the rumor sell the news type setups um a lot of kind of uh Traders coming in when when one side gets blown out right if

there's just like you know poor positioning and then the market moves against it and you have this kind of blowout move I think you you just see trades around that but um yeah I guess the you know what you end up trying to do is is find good alts and and and get good entries in them um crypto tends to front run a lot of things and I think alts tend to front run BT on a lot of this stuff so you know we've seen some degree of bottoming on on some of these alts um where you know Bitcoin takes a leg lower and they don't really move um the tricky thing is you know whether they'll you'll see a bid into them and and it's it gets harder and harder as

less money comes in and and people tighten up their per strings I think um the it's it's it's gone into a just you know extract Pro Prof mindset versus you know long-term conviction hold mindset which is very reflexive right if if everyone's as more and more people start to do it then that's really the only way to to play it and that makes getting in and out of this stuff very toxic you end up know on a move higher you think we're breaking out and then you buy and then you end up getting chopped up so I think it's like a it's a tough Market to trade if if you're not good at it and it's you know not everyone's good at every market and I think it's it's important to understand

where your strengths are are and and make sure you're preserving chips if this isn't an environment for you and I think it's not the environment for most um if this isn't for you then you're you're probably better off waiting for very clear entries versus uh getting impatient and trying to catch a multi-day move kind of thing because unless you're ready to trade out of it chances are it's it's going to reverse and then it just there's like the mental component too I think if this you know takes weeks or months it just drains and demoralizes people so um yeah all that being said we are you know like sentiment can

reverse very quickly and we saw it like after 78 right we moved to 85 and then a reserve announcement happened and we pumped 10K in like no time and so um I do think that there's still a lot of dry powder that's that's looking for reason to buy um particularly on the Bitcoin side so I I do think the reserve is a big one right so if like reserve the initial deadline was 180 days so that puts it into like August and then the the um the sovere wealth fund which we haven't heard much about that deadline was early May um I I do imagine there's going to be you know some rumors around what can happen with that and whether it

can be a trojan horse for for uh BCC ownership it is a tricky narrative though right if you're really emphasizing cost cutting then how how do you kind of reinvest some of the the cost cutting Capital into speculative assets that enrich a certain portion of the population um maybe there's a world where you're swapping gold for it right that becomes I think a much more palatable uh way to deploy that money into Bitcoin um and then yeah the I think there there are going to be quality alts that that end up gradually being more and more uh where the supply

gets gradually more and more cornered into higher conviction uh owners and so that like a bottoming process where BTC dips and certain alts don't really dip is is indicative of that where you kind of see some true seller exhaustion I think seller exhaustion only happens in these like just prolonged downward markets because you have enough data points to to show that all right maybe we're actually seeing a bottom here and the the marginal seller is gone so I think like yeah finding plays you like and and looking for those opportunities is probably the the best bet you can do right now to to Really capitalize on explosive moves higher and I think if you've been in crypto for any length of time you know it's really hard to catch

these buttoms and like once what generally the crypto like reacts so much quicker right at bottom comes first and then the generally crypto buttoms and then macro gets worse and then all the macro prognosticators come out you know like more pain ahead type people and generally at that point it's like pretty close to to a bottom and then it it it it pumps off that and like leaves a lot of people behind you know happened to me many times over the years especially initially you know it's very easy to rationalize selling a bottom in crypto uh which is why I think so many people do it and why the why it pump so quickly off them um on the macro stuff that's interesting I don't know I know people don't come to us for this uh but it's it's interesting

like from the article like just how much we need to cut I just wanted to like um kind of go over it quickly so from the doll article He suggests like you need to cut basically 4% of spending which is about 250 Bill and increase tax uh by like tax receipts by about 4% which which is about 180 bill um spending like 70% of of government spending is the stuff that that you can touch and that they promise not to touch right Social Security Medicare Etc um which which means that the 4% actually becomes more like 133% right that you need to cut off the discretionary stuff like defense and

discretionary which is quite a lot um and it's going to be painful and then raising tax revenue that's the other one where tariffs like have been projected to bring in about 180 bill but if Trump does his his tax cuts um that's going to cost like 400 billion or more in in in in in Revenue so there's still like a $200 billion hole basically um even with even with the tariffs which just means either you need to cut even more out of out of spending right um or you need to lower interest rates more which which I think you can only do by really cutting spending if you're the government at least like fiscally uh and then I'm I'm curious like with Doge

how many of these people can get reemployed productively like you know the people who are working at USA like the all the Washington um complex like all the nonprofit people like they they kind of relied on a system that doesn't really exist anymore so I'm wondering how much you just have like I don't know I do think AI is going to like structurally increase unemployment um and I wonder if like these 400,000 people whatever Elon wants to let go if if they ever like f find another job and if and I think all this leads to basically like my my main thing with this Is It All Leads to rate Cuts you know uh the question is like how long it takes but the the the end game is always just like rate cuts and and money

Printing and I don't think there's really another way out like none of that is the original Bas basically Bitcoin and crypto thesis hasn't hasn't really changed I do think like Ian you know what he's doing is really good for America on insuring production yeah reciprocal tariffs like the this you know there are costs with de globalizing but the resiliency is it is a monster benefit and and it also just brings back a lot of jobs that that left and and in like left parts of the country that were are have been hurt the most right and so having these tariffs and these foreign country or foreign companies now building uh on Shoring production is is I think a really strong Catalyst and

we've seen how quickly those things can get built up right like Elon spun up these factories and having him to some degree involved um I think will be really bullish and and so like yeah there is pain but I don't know if it'll be as long as possible because like once there you're starting to see some glimmers of it markets will begin to price that in right right now it's just it's like especially gloomy because you you just have no concept of time on on this pain but I think once there's like some degree of of certainty right Markus hate uncertainty and this is like Peak uncertainty on on so many levels yeah but like on a relative basis

it's definitely going to be structurally more expensive to onshore stuff right like but I think that that's the trade-off it's like the resiliency versus you know when everything's fine in the world it's like okay yeah like let's max out um you know how cheap to make things and profit margins and all these things but then you know Russia Ukraine happens like something where happened with China and Taiwan like anything like that where or like covid where like all of a sudden it actually matters where things are made and like manufacturing you know something like things get real then that's where like that cost is you know well worth it but in kind of like the peaceful times it's like not really it doesn't seem worth it at all and that's what's going to like

kind of bring down stock markets and stuff because it's just there's no way it's good for for numbers in in the short term but you know if [ __ ] were to hit the fan it would be very very bullish America which I think is you know probably the right thing overall but it's just going to be hard to see I guess like how long it takes and and for the market to adjust that because it is like a massive regime change of like you know since 1971 the whole you know Reserve currency status of of the dollar has been we'll send you dollars you send us stuff and that's just like hollowed out the whole country so it's a reversal of that Trend that's been in place for like over 50 years is is pretty big so I I don't know how long it's going to take

but yeah I agree with Jose all all roads lead to printing eventually I mean the the bare case is like the last time there were Terra Wars like this it led to the Great Depression and so that was a different time when you didn't have like the US dollar wasn't the reserve currency so if it got to that again then you just start I guess turning on the printer and like reversing 2016 no like Trump no no I'm saying like to this level and they he tariffs against like China stuff right it's it's different these are like blankets on allies and everything so yeah I don't know it's like I'm not the one to navigate this really like I I'll keep looking for like things I like

are you selling any crypto or are you just holding just what I have what I have I don't think I'm changing like my stable versus nonstable and I'm not selling like other assets to buy more crypto you know what I mean um I'm kind of just going with the flow at this point because I really have no idea um like I'm still I think as I said at the beginning like all the macro crypto stuff has been good right and I do think AI will still be a driver for crypto as well over the next few years and so there's like these two competing forces and the the one the the macro

stuff the ter stuff all that stuff I have literally zero Edge in and so it's it's like I there's nothing I can really do with that yeah on the good announcement front for you know these cases so I think there are certain things that move price and in certain things that don't necessarily move price or rather move price immediately in certain things that don't so I think those cases you know the the the more prominent effect is the Builder appetite which I've kind of heard anecdotally from various people both in terms of actually building and just existing builders that want to take more risk like seeing cases dropped against people who you know might necessarily

should might not necessarily uh need to be dropped or or shouldn't be dropped um I think really opens the door for people who are thinking I'm going to be doing something much less risky but was previously deemed risky because of the the regulation by enforcement but now it's you know if that if the case against XYZ was dropped then what I'm doing should be totally fine and so but again that operates on a lag so you know you're not going to see the effects of that for a bit agreed all right let's move on to crypto stuff um you guys all went to e Denver I didn't go I was in Mexico chilling what were the Vibes like edieth Denver like give me the update yeah yeah so I've seen a lot of people talk about

how depressing it was and everything um I have a different take uh I think ECC was depressing when I was there in the summer it was basically all the same talks from a year before everybody was talking about like solving and like intense and um l2s and the it was the exact same talk exact same people from a year before there was nobody at the main conference uh and it was in I guess a depressing city so I mean overall ECC I felt was really bad vibes I think with e Denver it wasn't I think maybe the reason why I don't think eth Denver was as bad is because I'm not an eth maxi right and like reflecting on it yeah there

weren't I didn't go to any you know ethereum specific events or anything a lot of these I was going to were AI events um there was like a Searcher event which is definitely more theorem focused but it still had like Anisha and and other teams and everything and so I think for especially the AI stuff there were a lot of people that were pretty enthusiastic um about that and that kind of brought like a new form of energy uh I think you know people understand that the Perpetual infra thing is not going has like is basically over uh but I don't think that's depressing I think

that's like a good thing right to kind of shift the market Dynamic so I don't know I don't know if people have other takes I didn't think it was is I didn't think it was as uh you know depressing as people are saying on Twitter it wasn't as electric as breakpoint but like breakpoint was also basically the top of Salon of the cycle um it's just like why does eth put Max Resnik like it's it's like weird cuck Behavior right you just you just want to watch your your chain get abused like what what is you know what I mean like salana breakpoint you would never see you know I don't know who the biggest salana critic is at this point but they

would never like put him on a stage Gabe shapir exactly talking about salana like yeah I don't know what the what this cuck ethereum thing is but it's weird yeah Yan Duncan any any other takes on on E Denver no I mean uh it was definitely very at least the events I went to very AIC Centric um so I I guess I avoided the the most depressing elements of it um yeah it seems like with eth it's like bullish the ecosystem bearish the asset kind of thing or um and so that that

makes the environment like you can cope your way into being compelled about stuff but but it's hard when number kind of continues to go down consistently the the operation was a success but the patient died right that's the that's basically how I view ethereum these days so yeah maybe people are disappointed because of that I don't know I don't know if yeah I don't have much more to say on E Denver I mean the focus was definitely AI right so as much as all this AI stuff sold off a lot it got pretty wrecked uh I'm sure that sector is going to come back relatively

strong at some point you know yeah maybe let's go into that like what we're what we're all bidding in this like what we're all bullish on in this in this market um I I wrote a post on on on Twitter I ended up having having a fair bit of cash after this decline just because of the USD farming that I was that I've been talking about for a while and I've been bidding uh more aggressively than than in quite a while recently and I kind of focused it around what we discussed on the hive mind few few episodes ago where we said uh there's like a light moaning in the background gone now it's drilling upstairs all right okay my roof yeah a light moing yeah just a little light

moaning going on in the background um um focus it around like I think there's three apps like crypto things with p m f token issuance stable coins and exchange and kind of want to own the leaders in in each of those and to me obviously I don't think I'm going to go over the the en thesis again I think they're the leaders in in stable coins they just had the unlock today which is what a lot of people have been waiting for um I actually think it's going to end up being a being a bullish unlock but it's a very big one so we'll have to wait and see um on that um for for the reasons kind of yeah I just think what are the conditions for for bullish

unlock it needed to be telegraphed like big price drop leading up to it ideally a lot of secondary volume an asset that people actually want obviously is a it's kind of a must um and then and like negative funding and price drop leading up to it kind of so it there's only a few of those in crypto but you kind of SE it with like Aptos and uh I think sui Ando recently was was one of those um yeah I think this could have the S didn't have a s didn't have a bullish unlock though s got wrecked on its unlock did it yeah it was last it was last June and I know because I was holding it and I didn't think it would be too bad and then it got destroyed but then all the like it pumped a ton after right uh through the summer and

everything okay interesting the actual unlock was very bad you can go look at the the dates wrong okay yeah yeah it'll be interesting to see how it goes anyway but I'm I'm looking to I have about 50% of my exposure that I'm looking to acquire post unlock just because I assume there will be some some sellers just given the size of it um and then yeah like I think soul is still the leading candidate to be the winning generalized execution layer and there's and that's like a big time um even down like I think 95% nearly on on rev uh it's still leading ethereum on on on fees most days and it's like definitely the leading L1 on on this um and definitely on app revenue and stuff like

this so I think it's a good bet I'm looking at others too start starting to look at doing some research on others Sonic and and a few others I'm definitely interested in suie 2o curious if you're still holding that actually um I just don't see that many apps there yeah I yeah yeah I still hold it not as much as I did um I still like the tech but yeah there's still not a ton of apps there I think like for me there's nothing super obvious right now uh it's like you know I think salake Eco is kind of interesting I think like Bara is kind of interesting just because it has like a ton of incentives going on right now um for like actually bidding a

specific asset the only thing I've kind of changed my mind on is is Tia just because I do think that like the environment has changed a lot like the Market's changed a lot I think there's going to be a pretty big opportunity for them over the next couple years uh pretty much base right now is taking like half of eth blobs I think they'll continue to take most of them uh ethereum is doing like some upgrades uh pectra test net today which ended up it went through a bit of a hiccup uh for like five hours but I think that was like a specific to that test net so I

don't know if that's going to delay the update on mainnet or not um but regardless like I think that over the next couple years I would expect ethereum I mean I would expect Celestia to start taking more and more of like the da market and I just think it's been like hammered so much I still have a lot of questions on like the long-term viability of like da only as a revenue driver like you need to you kind of need to dream a lot um you have some pretty big expectations for the amount of transactions you're doing but I don't know there's a lot of things it's like looking specifically a revenue for Tia is kind of mid curve because they can like 100x their the cost uh today and

nobody would notice it's like you know it goes from like 02 to like O2 or something per transaction so it like doesn't matter um and they're starting to talk about that more I saw Mustafa had like a forum post on that I think some of the supply side stuff they're doing uh which I would never buy something just because like of changes in the supply side alone uh but I think combined with like me expecting Celestia to see a lot more adoption over the next couple years is also good and I mean listen it's like a hundredth of the valuation of eth right I think you like me personally I try and look for relatively I like the tech is good too like the Celestia team is really strong and I believe in them as a as a team

right and so agree and so it's like I when I look for things I always buy stuff with you know one twoyear kind of timeline like when I was buying soul in 22 23 I wasn't expecting it to like pump right away right I was just started to get very interested in it because I thought I had a good chance of like coming back and I kind of feel like Tia is in that boat now I think for infra like abundance and just a lot of throughput is kind of like the only long-term solution you can really do uh and like Celestia and salana are just kind of like different ends on that Spectrum but kind of doing the same thing with like beefy Hardware right um and you know Celestia gets uh like they just need to win

rollups basically over the next year because they get a lot of economies of scale when they start and a lot of good Network effects when they start like adding more and so the left Cur it's like a it's a pretty big left Cur thesis for Tia for me it's like it's 100th evaluation of eth I think it's going to get start to get a lot more rollups I can see it doing like the majority of rollup data in two years and if all those things come true I don't think the revenue matters too much in transferring it from like a 100th of the value of eth to like maybe a tenth or something right uh and like that's a very you know that's a trade that I think is relatively attractive at these levels so that's kind of like the

nwork it has to do with like bridging mostly so like when you use the same da layer with bridging uh it's a lot safer obviously because you're not trusting all the data is on the same shared layer right and then they're also working on stuff like like the ZK yeah exactly right there's also this paper that was released by The Bane guys which was you know you can actually use a DA layer to verify computation and so what this means is that you can basically just have like ZK rollups are just all like verified by Celestia right instead of just posting their data there um so that could be like a potential kind of cool unlock um it's just like when I look at the what

what I consider legit assets right it's like Bitcoin sure yeah bitcoin's great do I think Bitcoin I'm not one of these guys who thinks Bitcoin is going to be like 500k in two years I just don't okay I think like maybe 1 15 200 and like a good Market eth I don't know it's eth is like I think eth is a fine asset I don't I'm not like a major eth bow Soul it's like do I think soul is going to a th000 no do I think it's going to 500 uh maybe like I don't know maybe but that's like what a 3X from here uh and then you know you look at all the other stuff and a lot of these L ones I'm not interested in a lot of the defi tokens I'm not interested in and so it's kind of like what's a relative what's like a legit a

legit uh like product right that is at a good valuation and that's kind of what I see Tia and like listen it's uh uh I'm still very skeptical as I said of like the longterm purely being a da layer if that can be kind of like sustainable but I think you know that matters more when T is training at $20 versus when it's trading here post unlock and as like it looks like some underlying fundamentals are getting better so that's kind of how I view Tia I I was uh I did the invested in Tia and didn't didn't sell any of that and I'm I'm one of the big things for me betting on

projects in crypto especially now and I'm trying to consolidate into things that I think are long-term winners is just the team and I do think the Celestia team is just like one of the best out there and has been since we first invested back in in 21 or whatever um Sim feel similarly about the about um Athena and salana like just teams we've spoken to for for years know really well and have have a lot of faith in uh the last one I'm I'm I've started to bid finally is is hyper liquid um I'm curious yeah like yeah I mean obviously exchange is the most profitable business model in crypto but I actually think they have a decent shot at doing all three like exchange L1 and stablecoin which is basically the

three biggest business models in crypto um all in in one platform and it's yeah it's sort of like if if salana had like radium integrated right into the into the L1 one way of I think thinking about it or but something a lot better than raum obviously like in order book based uh plus plus d a lot worse than salana but also a lot worse than salana yeah but I mean yeah it remains to be seen how they're how good their all1 is the main my main rence with aping this ins siid is just that I don't know the team I've never spoken to them and they take a lot of shortcuts like throughout everything you know from the beginning with the with going close source with the number

of validators with the Bitcoin Bridge um so I think there's a lot of like Risk that's hard to quantify um but I I do think at at the valuation which I'd consider it's like around 11 billion or whatever right now because 30% is in is in treasury it looks pretty decent um yeah like they're making like even this past week it's obviously been volatile but they've been making like two million bucks a day straight to the burn so I like 700 million a year on Jose's adjusted market cap of 11 ion um is still like pretty attractive for you know one of the best businesses in crypto growing really fast you have the call option of the L1

assets are going up consistently yeah I can't really speak to the security staff but they've had no issues so far and you know they're holding a lot of money so I think there maybe a bit of like Lindy in that but you know that's not my area but definitely on a multip like a multiple and growth perspective and just like core business model It's seems to be really attractive hype is still like yeah continues to be my biggest position I think like BTC hype Soul Ena you know maybe I'll look at tsus has been pretty good on those infr plays he was bullish Soul early and uh Sue so yeah maybe we'll take a look at that but I think like those four or five names seem to be

pretty like you can have like pretty good certainty that they'll be around in in a few years I think yeah just look for for stuff that should continue scaling and isn't hyper Reliant so it's like fundamental businesses that aren't hyper reliant on on unsustainable speculation um and I think those are because the like they they make money on just broader demand for the space um so yeah those are kind of kind of the one that I've been bidding uh and then I have some TOA but like the crypto is a graveyard of of relative value I think that stuff is is uh not super foolproof particularly because that you're

assuming that the other leg is actually properly valued right rather than it being over and and maybe it compresses the other way but or or like what's baked into the premium right like ethereum isn't fundamentally based on fees it's it's like the moneyness and the the status is like the first um prominent smart contract layer um so yeah I mean I I i' I've bought some TOA just because it looks like it's actually bottoming out around this $3 level um and you've you've turn through a lot of unlocks and you have catalysts in in an environment where you don't really have too many so yeah know the CED shell worked on me um and other than that kind

of being patient I don't I don't know that there are any other obvious home runs like you can do these virtuals AI coin you oh yeah sorry go ahead maybe finish with yeah maker has the interesting thing of of just like it's got that million doll buyback I forgot I need to I forget the specifics of it but there's a world where something like that makes sense um it's a game of hot potato though so like that you just need to be kind of aware of of the trade you're going into where it has a a a finite uh length and you obviously want to be getting out with buffer room because everyone else is thinking about it similarly um maybe like liquidy and and a AO or

you know Jordan constantly shows it on yeah I mean if if like your position size goal is 100 bucks then yeah like some of those make sense but if you're trying to put anything with a K in it then like good luck yeah I mean liquidy you can you can liquidy yeah that was mostly a D in Kubo yeah yeah as is a um I with a obviously they've they've absolutely crushed it it's just I feel like cash flow turning on for them could actually just like not be super bullish because people realize how little they make it's just a net interest margin game and it it like it's not super

exciting especially if the demand to borrow isn't high right then like the spread can't be high yeah yeah they do have like the stable coin and stuff and like other areas that they could they could P push into but uh and liquidy how do you feel about that it's like it's trading like 80 mil fully diluted I honestly haven't done too big a dive on it I just want to go read read our report on it yeah I don't have a good opinion on it dunets have you guys looked at it any of this no I think one thing though is that like in crypto more than other Industries uh like yeah a is a fantastic product Fantastic Team they're like the Pinnacle of e

defi but that's not a reason why their token should go up at like this point with the price it's at right and you know I saw someone today was tweeting about like Leo why is that not you know pumping more uh because it's like a legit project and like I get it but it's just those there's it's hard like defi there's no reason to value a defi token on anything other than pure fundamentals right um and I just think a lot of these are probably priced pretty appropriately yeah and the reason we're giggling is um we're going to start making a list of all the things setus

pronounces uniquely and Leo being a a popular what else what else uh just like cabal how did you say it cabal no no no that's not how you said it cabal cabal maybe I say maybe I say it both ways yeah definely no I say eth I say eth no there's there's other stuffs just like not coming to me well uh yeah I say bonance I know that that that Ang bance is a good like old money Finance guy bance I don't know and and yeah so what about your eye bags then Yan are you adding are you

yeah uh I mean I'm basically just kind of holding what I have I I'd like to wait for a more prominent reason to buy right now other than them being down that's how I kind of felt with them uh like I did put in some money the other day I ended up keeping most in Stables because the market ended up like ripping during that time and I was like am I going to to buy more and it's like I don't know the thing is if they rip they have a lot of upside and it's just I don't know those things are I get fooled on those like every day pretty much it looks like they're going to start breaking out again and then it's right back uh it's like a guillotine Market you know not a chop market so I

do think though like once BTC starts catching a bid whenever it's like I'm not in this of the mindset that the Cycle's done right and cycle is just determined by whether BCC is topped like once that starts going people will buy all sorts of random [ __ ] for absolutely no reason so I think like as quickly as people are are saying it's over uh they'll be saying we're completely back and and just start full boarding into random stuff so I mean at some point yeah like I I agree I'm POS I'm positioned that way but I I do think at some point the the alts have to prove themselves and they won't just like forever be baed to BTC right like because BTC is proven itself um at this

point and then it's like okay I wanna I want to get rich like I think AI being such a strong narrative could end up also stealing some of this mind share from from crypto where it's like you know alts were kind of the way that people thought to get rich and and speculate and in 21 and and even even 2017 and stuff like this but now maybe it's like palente or AI stocks you know and yes and no like yeah it's just like it's it's hard to get rich on AI stuff if you're retail yeah or it's hard like it's it's it's it's it's also hard to get rich in crypto now um but I think it's easier for people to imagine a path where they

can get rich in crypto versus like nailing Nvidia early on kind of thing yeah it's true just probably markers just don't have enough juice left in them yeah which is like why pullbacks are good right because it actually does kind of you need a pullback to get a meaningful leg higher because then the risk return is really solid and people start piling in that's not drilling that's just the guy upstairs now that's just me drilling a door for my prisoner upstairs I think the uh just talk about hyper liquid I think the be case I'm like neutral on hyper liquid K

but it's probably seems like I'm a big hyper liquid hater um and like disclosure of of a Monet Angel but I think that like with both Monet and mega eth coming to Market soon um and you know I think a lot of the hyper liquid uh the price in the token is because it's becoming you know an L1 it's doing the hyper evm and all St I don't think so I don't it's yes absolutely has man right now the price is on like circulating Mark cap like 5.5 billion and it's burning 700 million a year on like okay okay we'll see we'll see I think taking market share from buy like it's 8% of binance market share 20% of

buybit 20% of okx like it's actually like it's getting up there into the big leagues yeah I mean so Mega eth and Monet aren't going to be competing against that like P's product and so if they continue to like dominating that then it'll probably be fine but yeah I think like what big thing for for them obviously and I think the big product that's not really available now is kind of like a a coin margin per product that is actually accessible by everyone right like that's what they're building towards Sexes have that no dexes really have that there's no way to kind of have like easy access coin margin which I think is really what's the one of the biggest unlock right now because

everyone is deep in alts and wants to bid majors and can't and so if you could actually use coin margin to bid Majors like that I think is is a pretty big unlock um so I mean they're building towards that right building spot BTC liquidity which allows for BC to use this collateral and then you kind of go further out on the Spectrum but um yeah I think the other thing the other other than the shortcuts the other thing is like how big is this no kyc trading market like H how much bigger is it than what are you guys laughing at is it it's big big Market I think one of the bare cases is that like uh you won't have a lot of professional

firms using it especially because like North Korea has used it right and so think Prof firms on it but maybe not like CAD why I guess it and stuff but like why would you use it as your main trading venue versus like a a bance as our friend would say or uh you know or buybit or whatever like it just seems like you know what I mean why would you use it well it's where all the like a ton of retail flow is there yeah it's true uh uh it's like since they have so much retail flow that doesn't make it very enticing to professional Traders right um that's

kind of how you get professional traders to use anything right use a venue uh anyway should we wrap it we've been like over yeah let's wrap it let's do it all right guys it's been another episode of announcements on Friday yeah maybe we should do a we suggested doing a live show during the Friday conference um well it's gonna be late maybe we'll do another episode next week we'll see yeah all right thanks for tuning in guys see you maybe next week or in two weeks for another episode of the hive mind bye see you thanks everyone bye [Music]