Our 2025 Crypto Predictions

Transcript

from a macro standpoint um Jensen hang and Nvidia are more important than Jerome Powell like everyone will be watching their earnings and if that softens everything goes down like that is just the market is Anchor to that and that is the proxy you got to watch I'm not watching Powell I'm watching like yeah the treasury rate yeah if if the treasury rate holds five and is sub five the most important thing will be looking at Nvidia and their earnings and what that stock is doing because if that doesn't do well we're going to have a problem in our hands in an industry as volatile and vicious as crypto sometimes all you need to do is survive the amount of growth and money that you personally can make and your company can make if you're a

Founder is just this is the year however this is the year that can also kill you in 2026 and 2027 if you don't make the right decisions this year tired of losing track of all your tokens Unis swap wallet is designed to easily manage store and swap your crypto all in one place access thousands of tokens across ethereum and more than 10 other chains instantly by using Unis swaps wallet today download it today it's available on Chrome IOS and Android hit the link in today's show notes to get started uh what's going on everybody we missed you we missed you what's up Happy New Year everybody son to what's

happening man happy New Year can we all stop saying Happy New Year in every single chat and email please thank you very much now that we've got it's like uh I'm just anyways it is Sunday I'm very jet lagged I'm not saying this is a caveat that my predictions are going to be wrong regardless if I get ba like 12 hours of sleep or zero hours of sleep there is no upside ladies and gentlemen to doing predictions but as part of this exercise yeah I know this is sort of a tradition because we're going on in how many years here at Empire I think this is four year four no 2021 2 three four this year five five years that's it's like the Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hours we've probably done more than 10,000 hours at this point I ain't

getting better in predictions so I'll preface by saying it is a still a very interesting exercise to reflect like you and I were talking about like we obviously put out predictions in 2024 2023 2022 2021 uh so we've been doing this for a while should we yeah let's reflect on 2024 I do just want to say like a little housekeeping on Empire I feel like Empire's kind of been sleeping the last couple weeks like we've like it's been a little slow the last couple weeks and I just want to I think we're coming out with a bang this year that's my that's one that's my first prediction for the year so first off I haven't even told you this we are going to do a lot more inperson recordings in New York because I know you're spending more time in New

York so we're building a studio so I think that'll bring some some fresh energy and then the other thing is um I'm just looking at our upcoming guest list we've got like tether CEO we've got Richard the binance CEO recording this week we've got a very spicy stable Coin App um I think we missed a lot of the AI agent stuff so I would love to have like virtuals and some of those folks on um so yeah just appreciate everyone for for listening last year and I think it's a big year ahead absolutely um okay let's review 2024 um the big so our theme that we said I actually think these were our you never get predictions right because with predictions you want to kind of stretch your predictions a little bit so they seem like they're crazier predic right because if you just do like you

know high probability predictions it's pretty boring but I will say our big theme that we said for 2024 was this is going to be the risk on year and I think we I think we got that big theme so I'm looking through some of your predictions from from 2024 um I mean I can I can pull it I can share my screen if you want yeah you want to share your screen and let's talk through them and then we can talk through mine all right and I adopted this format from do this from the JP Morgan The Alchemist report which I found really good it just came out recently I think uh the first prediction the most important one you just mentioned and these are all color-coded for people that are watching so the green is obviously got it decently right

which was 2024 rates come down liquidity gets injected into the system um and it's a it's a pretty good year um I debated whether to put it it yellowish because rates have come up again uh after the election uh you know the FED uh you know just so so rates like technically 10year treasury is um up again um but throughout the year I think the the bigger picture there is still true yeah let's start with what you got right then what you got kind of right and then what you got wrong so let's go through the greens yeah the the one that I obviously got right was uh I predicted 10 at least 10 unicorns in the salana ecosystem and that was very much

true um a lot of it was to be fair not in the maybe areas that I anticipated like it was sort of like uh penu didn't anticipate that happening a lot of the AI stuff like meme coins um you know at the time we came out with these predictions like you know whiff and some of these like you started to see a lot of activity me connectivity but I would say that if you would asked me a year ago and said hey out of out of these unicorns what is the composition I would have said like more like Blue Chip type of protocols like the Jupiters of the world helium jeto um the one that really surprised me it was a radium actually it was sort of like something that I tweeted about the other day which was like you would have S you were sitting there and seeing all

this activity and like if you're using Jupiter everything's routed through radium so that was a trade that I really missed but anyways as a category that was that was very much right um the other one was I I was I was bullish on move based languages and protocols so that was I think categorically like you know movement just launched and that's been very well received and there's a lot of excitement there sui had a fantastic year apos um as well so just move as a category and move based protocols really um I think hit stride and the momentum is really strong going into this year and by the way I don't know if you want to add anything to that but feel free to jump in on these predictions no no you can do yours then I'll do mine your four your fourth one

that you got right my fourth one was yeah ethereum shifts narrative to monetary premium um that was really a point of like the ethereum community just had to like go through this like come to Jesus moment and like really revisit the narrative um I I wasn't as vocal so that was like right um where I sort of made a comment here that says like I sort of didn't anticipate Bas being like the saving kind of face of ethereum and that being like the ethereum community that being like a mechanism for the ethereum community to really rally behind that um you know a lot of the etherum community is very critical of the activity happening in salon and then as soon as it happened on Bas like it was like yeah like memes on bass are cool memes on Salon are not cool so that was like very much the

Anchor Point for the ethereum community and I think going into this year not to jump ahead too much but I think that bay combined with um real world assets like like you know bitwise sorry um like um what is it uh Black Rock really building a lot of their stuff on ethereum I think that has been like something that the ethereum community is really kind of reentered and and projects like Mega eth really kind of like really low latency stuff on ethereum has really I think helped um reorient and give more Focus to the ethereum community in spite of like Justin Drake's presentation which was like like 40 years out in the future kind of thing yeah what did you get kind of right we'll do green yellow red what

did what were the yellows see I just gotta say's great like normally I would have like gone like what did you get wrong immediately some more good stuff yeah yeah true true so so in yellow I was pretty much I was very bullish on salana coming into the year my prediction was that salana would reach 40% of eth's market cap and that the sold price in a very extreme scenario would go up to 750 like definitely break alltime high and I predicted that eth would be at 5K so that was like more of a price prediction uh it's in yellow because salana reached 30% of ethereum's market cap like it went from 04 to 06 it's 50% but I would have thought that um the market would

have woken up to that a lot and I think if you go and listen to the episodes with like aichel H we did a number throughout the year the number of activ VC activity in salana I think that the momentum like second half of 2024 suggests that like the activity I think really picked up especially after breakpoint uh but you know fire dancers still kind of I thought it you know still like haven't till my knowledge hasn't really launched fully yet um but anyways that was in yellow because so did break and touch all-time high but uh it didn't get to that level um the second one uh that I got

that was sort of a directionally line but is in yellow is Bitcoin layer 2os I predicted the Bitcoin layer 2 there would be many launches and then ordinals would continue to grow I actually remember this one it was slightly different it was there would be one Bitcoin layer 2 that launched kicking off a Renaissance of on of people building on bitcoin I I actually would have put this in screen for you um okay yeah to give you a little credit here I I remember talking about this you said there there would be a Bitcoin layer 2 that launched and it would kick off a frenzy of people building on on bitcoin right and I don't think the prediction was like you know tvl would flow on bitcoin or anything like that it was just that this Bitcoin Renaissance would kick off and I I I think that very much happened

and I we were last year I would categorize as like the fundraising year for and like the launching year for some of these companies I would say if if we're going to see this happen like this is probably the year we see right users and tvl and stuff like that yeah uh ordinals definitely came down the hype really came down so so without but yeah I guess you're right yeah you have Babylon you have Mezo a lot of activity on those protocols you have a lot of fundraising happening so yeah the other one I was perhaps really bullish I predicted AI coins would reach 100 billion in market cap um as of today it's like half of that so 51 billion per coin uh Gecko and and for context I think we started the year around 10 billion right

10 yeah I said this is like a 10x yeah um I put it in yellow because obviously didn't reach 100 it did a 5x uh and more importantly the composition of that like a lot of it like especially recently you mentioned virtuals like the AI meme AI meme coins is something that I definitely didn't see happening um but yeah yeah this get to a broader te that I want to talk about with predictions but I I'll save that right so I'll keep moving faster now I said paralyzation becomes a hot narrative I I think like it wasn't like a narrative it's more I don't know it's I I didn't think itd get any hotter than 2024 because you ended 2024 with monad raising back ground um

obviously a lot of these move based Protocols are like like Avalanche like paralyzation is is a thing but it wasn't like talked about as much you know I mean um more so like infra on the backseat and like people not really thinking about that as much um the one I got yellowish or really wrong was like Cosmos getting more traction this I would actually put in red cand the prediction that just kills everyone every it's a Widowmaker to be fair like Celestia I think Sovereign rollups I've spent a lot of time over the last couple weeks like just exploring that and I think that for that reason I put it in yellow injective I didn't hear as much like I I single hand I pointed out those two protocols um I also I will make a point here I missed Avalanche because AAL I think

like has adopted a lot of really like mechanism design and stuff from Cosmos but it's just a better implementation tell you the truth like I didn't even have Avalanche my predictions in 2024 I remember do you remember the price predictions from last year you I included Avalanche in a price prediction you said why are you including avalanch right yeah youan I think it's I think there's something interesting happening credit to you so uh the last one was I was very bullish on I said coinbase would surpass alltime High it would reach hundred billion do valuation so that would imply $500 per share coinbase did break alltime High prior alltime high but it peaked at 350 and it's now in a 200ish level yeah so I think that's really it the on the things I got quas like like in yellow the ones

I got really really wrong so let's start there these are the ones I love the most I predicted there would be a huge wealth effect in salana primarily a lot of aird drops and that would flow into nfts I think the nft as throughout most of the year just didn't get much law of a lot of the flows just went into a AI me like a mem coins um but like just for context like madlads which is probably the premiere before P I guess you want to include Penguins there but I think mad Lads as a category just like nfts like peaked in January of 2024 and then is down 61% on the year so if you would have gone long nfts in Jan you would have gotten crushed sorry folks none of this is we did have one we did have one good nft

prediction because the nft trade of the Year sell your board Apes by pudgy Penguins yeah pudgy Penguins that's right yeah yeah and and I'll credit you for that actually you and Mike but you guys really and then luuka coming on the Pod but like you you were talking about this way before anyways um the other one I got really wrong was uh in a good that I'm happy I'm happy didn't happen was I I I think we were very nervous about reaking and that having some like major bug um thankfully it not happened to my knowledge um but I still think it's something to look out for yeah but I I'm happy that is in red and not in green yeah uh I was very hyped on svm the salon virtual

machine um I think it was it has been delayed like Eclipse um hasn't you know I more so on the sentiment side I think it's come down I think it was a lot of hype in 2024 and now it didn't really kind of truly materialize as much as I wanted to so for that reason it's kind of in red could argue it could be in yellow but I put it in red and then the last one this is probably something that is worthy of a discussion after you go through your list but is I would have thought and it's tied to the salana price prediction that the ethereum tvl would drop dramatic like from 55% at the end of 2023 to 25% and uh it's still at 56 h i could didn't really change and you know guess

you could argue it's a lot of L2 activity black rocks of the world like Rd are you counting the L2 activity in there yeah yeah very much so yeah it's it's a it's like a coin gecko Mark so I use the exact same yeah yeah yeah measure but yeah that that really surprise me I'd say all right so how many predictions you have here 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 so we got four out of 14 are green we've got six out of 14 are yellow we've got four out of 14 are red all right we'll we'll take it to be fair I think you just need to get one prediction very very right and you said at the beginning of the episode is it was going to be a good year you go long do you want to talk about any of these

what surprised you the most yeah I I do this a lot in reflecting but um the Divergence of returns was pretty uh interesting right if you weren't in Bitcoin memes or AI or salana you you were just on eth like good luck and I think I see that in the returns of a lot of funds that I'm an investor in um yeah it was it was very much a Have and Have notot so you had to get specific things right whereas in Prior Cycles prior years probably wasn't the case right yeah uh so that was I I by the way think that that continues to persist as this asset class matures more and more so like I think you see a lot of dispersion right like and and not this cycle but it probably take many years but like there will be a time

where like Bitcoin doing its thing is uncorrelated very like less less less the correlation between bit the tight correlation between Bitcoin and other crypto assets will come down over time um the second one was in a good way the US election and the rapid change in mood across the country like I spent a lot of time in New York during the election and just traveling and talking to people like a complete 180 top to bottom like people like in crypto not just in crypto but like in the tech industry in Wall Street in in Main Street every I I just felt that the country really kind of whether you voted for Trump or not like people just were in a position where it's just a breath of fresh air and it's like really

exciting to see that because for me the the US has always been an land of aspiration and I feel it again and I didn't feel that for the last four years which is really tough and maybe it was Co tied to that but like Pro Innovation right and and obviously the El the how Trump has um made key um cabinet hires Doge you know all that stuff really really surprised me in a good way and at a personal level it just kind of come into terms that um investors can be Builders too and investing like in building an investing firm that I've you know obviously was a big part of Pari but also just like a lot of it was like you've heard me talk about time and time again here in or last year about the build the founders podcast and that was like super instrumental to

my like re underwriting of of seeing myself as a builder and obviously starting something new at the end of the year good 4 for 14 we'll take it all right all right let's look at mind 2024 predictions um look at this yeah we got a big old dock here um okay so the first one I said was l2's pivot again actually we both had this I don't know what we were thinking with parallelization said l2's pivot again Rebrand is parallelized EVMS they add native yield um I said l2s would follow blast and add native yield and that this was gonna I remember talking about this this is going to get out of hand really quickly um I I don't think that ended up happening I don't

think a bunch of L2 went and added a bunch of native yield you just saw this with like you know polygon's Bridge like they're adding some yield on onto the bridge it seems like but um yeah I don't I don't think you saw a bunch of l2s follow blast lead um uh let's see Bridges start offering yield we we didn't see that this year we might I would guess we'll start seeing it again this year um by the way on the on the yield thing I think Athena just took took the World by storm and it was like blast really kind of faded yeah kind of comment but I just think like the no I think that's right um I said uh people will not solve interoperability um between chains I think that was generally correct and I

said ZK will not have the year people think it will and I think that was generally correct as well very correct the second prediction that I definitely got right was uh prediction markets I said monster year ahead for prediction markets this is the year they go mainstream um and I said the thing that's going to drive this is actually less about uh the prediction markets being being so so good but more of a lack of trust in traditional markets and uh I said traditional prediction markets I meant in traditional media um is going to bring them mainstream um the thing I got wrong was I thought someone would launch the ability to launch your own prediction Market which was going to drive this market like a hundred times bigger like I thought you would be able to go on poly market and launch your own

Market but um yeah I would say I got this one right monster year for prediction markets um institutional adoption beyond what you could have imagined um and I broke this into a couple categories I said you're not bullish enough on the Bitcoin ETF um I said eth so I got that right at least one more country buys Bitcoin publicly I don't think I got that right um I I'm pretty sure some other countries are buying Bitcoin like I saw Bhutan bought Bitcoin but like I was thinking like one major country is going to publicly announced that they're and and that did not happen um and then I I I got this one wrong I said eth has a Paul tutor Jones moment but for Tech investing gets seen as a tech platform as users flock

to crypto apps I did not get that right and then I I also got this one wrong I said most of the big CI and trafi players launched their own stable coins so I um and it's kind of tied to 2025 predictions but yeah I got that one wrong um I also got this one wrong I said defi ogs help take us mainstream I said uh there's a Resurgence of defi ogs cane with infinite X Lesner with superstate Stan with avara um and then Mike and I had a similar one I wrote Mike's thing here but Unis swap has a breakout year um wallet ends up being a sleeper hit 2024 is the year they turn on the fee switch uh that would say most of this did not happen I think I mean

Kane had a big year with infinex and raised the 50 million and of the patron nfts but yeah I I don't think this was the thing that took took us mainstream um okay nfts compared with that like you could say the ETF was kind of like flows of it was mixed I'd say yeah yeah certainly not like Bitcoin effect okay I got this wildly wrong I've said nfts have a monster here as crypto natives make lots of money I said nfts are one of my highest conviction bets going into 2024 I want all I want exposure to all parts of the ecosystem uh sometimes it's good to just have a little egg on your face um you remember I was going to put on that trade oh yeah oh yeah

go longor boy I'm happy I didn't do that cont called me one day and he's do you I mean do you want to share what you're do you go for it I mean Sant called me one day he's like I'm thinking about Levering up all of my salana and just moving the whole salana stack into salana nfts like madlads and torans like bar against my soul stack go long nfts because I thought like nfts would have higher beta like on the upside but it dis was like it actually did the complete opposite like madl went down 61% I would have been very much in the hole there yeah yeah so I said nfts M to major comeback they become the rotation trade after L1 start to really run again pfps Aren't Dead they will still be the

dominant use case oh my God this is the worst said music nfts make a comeback uh token gated playlist song royalties membership friend tech for music happens salana nfts outperformed nearly everything in crypto okay so I'll just period at the end of that sentence that was wrong what I got right was I said pudgy penguins have a big year anyone who raised a boatload of money Yuga Doodles isuki Moon Birds Etc does not do well um companies adopt nfts to reach Crypt natives not to reach their existing audience Crypton natives become one of the most sought after groups similar to Henry's Henry's are high high income what is it high high earners net whatever it

is curious what are Henry it's a very sought-after advertising group I should know this cuz we High earners rich not rich yet High earners not rich yet they're like the most sought after group for finex and Banks and stuff like that um and then I said PES have yeah massive year okay so and then I said by the way I will give you credit here because I I know that you were very big on E and you expressed that very uh the pudgy Penguins a great year like and with the airdrop like you would have killed it and I think it was again a lot of dispersion right you had to get that right for nfts everything else yeah yeah and we also talked about we said salana airdrops would drive wealth into that

Eco and have a huge wealth afflect effect which would flow into nfts and then the last one and then I actually want to talk about six again is um and I said there would be this new wave of media companies in crypto and some of the Legacy players would go downhill and there would be new players that started in the bare Market they would hopefully do things on chain and I I would call out a few new New Media companies I'm watching like uh block space media I think is do good job the roll up Andy the rollup are doing a really good job um yeah there's just cool things happening so um any okay so one of my biggest takeaways here Santi is we actually got a good amount right I know yours was four out of 14 and mine was I

you know had egg on my face reading those we actually got a lot right thematically like airdrops would drive this massive wealth effect but then the actual second order impact of that we got wrong and if you just said if you picked the actual coins that we were talking about on January January 2024 and you like a AI I was like I think you called that like render AOS like bit tensor things like that that was actually wrong but you nailed AI um or like nfts like would do well madlads didn't but Pudgies did but Pudgies did so it's like atically these predictions are interesting and I think it's

something for people to remember as they're listening to these episodes and reading people's tweet threads and things like that it's like think about it thematically and then make your own decisions on how you will allocate based on that strategy don't just blindly F blindly follow people's um token picks and then make sure you are comfortable this was actually probably the biggest lesson of this year investing for me was make sure you're comfortable readjusting do you remember I went into the year I was like I think you just want to sit hold for the year you're like no no no you you you gota always readjusting yeah to be fair I think this was a year where I was way more agile yeah in the public in the liquid stuff on the Venture side I just um I was fortunate to um I kept

investing to the bear last three years and I'm just sitting on that I'm not like I'm not like jumping out as valuations have come up this year was more like I feel really good about the Venture side of the house valuations have come up like I'm not jumping out of my seat to invest above 100 million vals like that's not my thing but on the public side I was way more agile and it was a year where it paid it paid to be agile like if you were paying attention if you're for me A lot of it was just paying attention to sectors that otherwise I would have probably just kind of been like lazy to jump on but I mean we got a lot of like thought was gonna happen right but it but the the the tdrs it flowed into memes it didn't

flow into what we thought yeah I think we just said out Dov tail and just say you know none of it matters if you don't get the asset right so like you be right about the theme so like it's just this the nature of the game it's not meant to be easy but I think you you have to you can't be dispersed like if you were to pick AI like it pays to be there and just paying attention and like there's always like one or two there's always two or three like bets that you can make and the nice thing about crypto being Venture is that you can express that view in a liquid Manner and like quickly rotate if if it wasn't the if it was the the viral competitor and you had a position in both virtuals and the other one you could have like probably cut the other

one and like just adjusted the bag so that you're you mean but expressing The View on both I I tend to do that a lot it's like all right AI then I'm pick two and then see those how they perform or like goat and the other one or like you know what I mean like whiff and bonk yeah these sort of things right and the last thing was our price predictions um which will tie into my other takeaway so you said 100K BTC I said 80k BTC so we we both got that you said 6K eth I said 8K eth you said 750 soul I said 600 soul and I said 250 Avalanche which hopefully did not take that that um because that was wrong avalan probably around 40 bucks okay

what made you say that by the way I had I I remember saying this I said I had just had like six different conversations with people who uh they were all there like six different institutions because we were like doing D we were talking to a lot of the institutions they were all uh they were all doing things with Avalanche I was like wow that is so yeah yeah Avalanche was at 30 34 bucks I mean it's flat flat on basically flat yeah um and it traded down to like 20 I think and then came back up but yeah that was that was wrong um my my other so one of my takeaways was we got a lot right but if you listen to the actual coins that then then we were wrong um but like the theme was right the other

takeaway is um I think we did the classic overestimate what happens in a year underestimate for 10 years it's like you know like the like coinbase your coinbase call was right and if someone listened to you you know they could have bought coinbase of 50 it's trading at what 250 now but you said a 10x not a 5x right so or or so you did get Soul eth right you just it wasn't as bullish as yeah yeah it would have a lot of other stuff but yeah you're right the other thing that we totally missed was dinosaur coins like Ripple yeah like my God you know the thing that surprised me the most all loud one thing is the Tik Tok effect Tik Tok is a new new flow to crypto that is very important You could argue it's been

important in priors but I think a lot of the flows for ripple just come through that channel yeah yeah I I agree with that let's do 2025 predictions you want to go first yeah sure my first prediction I think there will be a continued growing distinction between Have and Have Nots particularly like l1's and that will show up in real usage like I think this year will continue you know we've been in uh storytelling everyone says they have the best kpis the highest throughput decentralization security whatever I think it will become more tangible to

really just say okay there are clearly certain chains that are getting a ton of adoption so all all that is predicated on I don't have a concrete number but I just think that there will be far more users coming into crypto um that are um an activity coming on like whether it's AI agents or just institutions um and users through a combination of largely stable coins and deepend and I think it will become you know you're already starting to see that like where Black Rock decides to build where like um and that leads me and I singled out a few protocols that I think will be the Haves and that includes

salana Avalanche Celestia particularly Sovereign rollups bar chain and mega eth the only one there that is um you could argue also like move as a as a category um I know it's a lot of protocols um but I do those are the ones that I think particularly Mega like across all of them I think low latency is a is a common is a very important component there um I'll credit uh H came out with really good predictions that I agreed to with a lot of them um so um I would agree he also had like low latency being a key thing a lot of the projects that I'm investing in in mega eth are like Mega eth is like that low latency thing in ethereum so I think that really lends

itself to really interesting applications so all this to say is that the user will the the Loy y on l1s and l2s largely goes away it's more of all right where where can real usage start happening and I think this year I may be overestimating but from where I sit and what I'm building I think that and in my process of going through rfps of going deep in which like which chain can support like millions and millions of users through that exercise I think that's my biggest prediction it's like there there's I think a very clear divide in Tech loyalty doesn't matter but you it'll be very clear of like put the kpi discussion away it's like I have 30 million users and you

don't or I have 100 million users right now a6c puts out a has a report saying there's only 30 to 60 million like active monthly wallets um where do you think the next 100 is going to be and I think it'll be that is what uh I think I'm excited about I think it will start to happen this year and it will be very clear where they go um is going to be a very big indicator of like which you want to be in those ecosystems yeah yeah do you think the returns flow to those chains or to the apps on those chains excellent question more so the applications interesting like I would I would say it's a lever bed

right uh now you could say for instance like if everything is on we can go in a discussion how these things are valued I think it's all relative valuations like everything is comped to ethereum mhm so you know what's eat now eth is a $437 billion uh protocol and you have sui at 40 Avalanche at what is it 18 yeah like I'm looking at fully diluted right 18 you have APS at five 10ish fully 11 fully diluted

movement at 10 um so again if you if you believe ethereum should be valued and is that's a comp automatically that compresses like now you could argue ethereum is overstated and then you know that's like um cuz there is this effect like the maker effect as soon as you start seeing real usage and cash flows it's like was like is training out like a really absurd multiple but let's just say that that's a promise internet settlement you know layer the internet kind of stuff then that's a number yeah and there's there certain protocols in there that are at least a 10x a 20x that you can do in size yeah including you know yeah so let's call this our chains prediction so

that was your chain prediction my my chain prediction I have a couple like sub bullets here one is that um general purpose chains are dead um I think that uh you will see a lot more chains that become hyp specific uh what' you say no intend no yeah exactly actually that's related to another one um so thing but things like abstract which are like the consumer chain now I don't actually know what they've done in the chain to make it a consumer chain I think there are some things that they've actually done to make the wallet experience better on abstract than you can do anywhere else um so it's the consumer chain um you know Atlas and like uni chain doing things to make them like the defi chains

um there are actually things that you can do and I think you will see a lot more uh very specialized chains um and do well and the general purpose chains will not do well on the back of that I think this is actually the year you're going to see an app chain really break out whether it's hyper liquid or Athena's chain or uni chain I don't know what it's going to be but instead of saying hey there's these chains and now there's trying to build apps on top of them I think one of the apps that builds their own chain will become a breakout chain um and then the third the third bucket of like my subchain related predictions are I think you will start to see crazy forms of native yield um and some crazy crazy crazy incentives in

the form of fees insane apys grants to applications to come build their uh fee switch is turning on uh Mike had a good prediction I think which is that uh defi calls will increasingly hypothecate customer assets as a business model including Bridges lsts Etc I think a lot of this yield will end up flowing into just like it'll just be like General chain yield where if you move on to insert chain you will get that yield um and so that will be a new thing that will probably get out of it's it's actually very similar to my 2024 prediction which is people will follow blast and and and offer native yield I I

I would just double down on that prediction for this year yep general purpose I want to go back to something you said uh so so like if you're sitting here in a portfolio of 100 bucks like that you that you would include salana ethereum as general purpose um yeah I would I would include them as general purpose I I I mean I think some of them will still do well but I think the the ones that will do I think there will be the ones that will start to do better will be the uh specific chains I'm I'm going to add on to that just by saying that what you saw in Ripple this year is very indicative and is a strong strong signal that the market likes specific narratives yeah Ripple is the this is the def normies think of Ripple

as payments yeah and it's very easy to understand that you can yeah you I went through this ex go go look at the Tik Tok commentary they take the clip from you know uh what is it Brad um Garling house yeah yeah and on CNBC and it's like it's like the for Normie it's like it's easy to wrap your head around that and the in most of my conversations around crypto people hate the abstract it's like the the generalized stuff yeah so all right those those are the chain think yeah rip rip what I'm trying to say is Ripple the phen the the strong performance of Ripple last year would is makes me excited to see okay what else can I around this sort of theme and and I would agree with you the application

specific stuff is going to do well Unis swap wallet is designed to easily manage store and swap your crypto all in one place access thousands of tokens across ethereum and 10 plus chains including base arbitrum optimism and more Unis swaps wallet has built in me protection and zero gas fees with swaps that go through Unis swap X you can also swap with the peace of mind that the code is completely open- source and independently audited downlo download it today it's available on Chrome IOS and Android yeah all right let's do um do you have any stable coin predictions because I have I have a couple yes you

want go first yeah sure I I'll go first I have four stable coin predictions my first one is that um at least one major bank one major tech company and one major fintech launches their own stable coin um and this will be what this will do is it will the payment narrative will start to go mainstream for the first time since I mean I don't know when when pay when payments was really the The Narrative of crypto probably 2013 or something like that there's going to be real businesses adopting payments and it's going to be very boring to crypto natives but the stable coin market share is going to go parabolic I think and this will have this second order impact of uh increasing consumer trust and increasing mainstream adoption of all

crypto and I think will actually be one of the best best things that has ever happened for crypto's brand so prediction number one on stable coins is that a major Bank a major tech company and a major fintech are all going to launch their own stable coin so I would say maybe it's Black Rock maybe it's Robin Hood maybe it's Facebook again tries It Whatever the second is this is going to become the best thing for crypto's brand the third is that this is going to help get stable coin legislation passed in the United States which is going to have this nice flywheel which is going to cause more stable coins which increases the brand which gets Regulators happier um and then the the fourth thing is in terms of the the landscape I think that um tether will keep doing really well because of

Howard lutnick and his position and proximity to Trump I think that usdc will lose market share this year um because of a couple factors one is you're seeing the rest of the market launch stable coins um Le whether it's leveraging folks like Agora or like Anchorage and uh I think it was Anchorage paxos Kraken partnered uh Robin Hood I think will launch their own um un and the only thing that I think Circle could do to counter this is rapidly launch on a bunch of other chains because they have that competitive Advantage but the other thing is um they're gonna have to give the a higher amount of the you know quote unquote fee switch back to to folks they're gonna have to pass back a

lot of the yield um yeah so uh I think it will be a interesting competitive year for for stable coins I think usdc will everyone is a winner in stable coins this year but I think usdc will lose some market share yeah can I add to that yeah definitely agree stable coins explode from here you have currently looking at coin gecko 20 12 billion in market cap that includes all the majors um so that's roughly shy of six 5.8% of the entire market cap of crypto is stable coins that that grows to like 10 you think stable coins make up 10% of

the crypto Market they should I think just in terms of flows right and and and I think to your point the dominance has been fairly well defended by tether like throughout the year tether really kind of that the sh composition didn't really move like tell was like like three quarters of the market cap like if you look at dominance and coin geeko it's tether is like 74% throughout super flat and I would defitely agree with you where where this bucket really changes o over time is usdc um I think tether will continue to could dominate X Europe obviously because I think with M coming on like I think tether is no longer supported uh tether but nonetheless I

mean I think the usdc share goes down that that's the one and usdc currently is 20% of the market cap so that that I think um May grow as a whole but I think the percentage definitely I would say comes down like 15 as you see more uh you know paypals of the world other fintechs what you just said I think that the one to lose the most is usdc yeah all right those are the stable coin predictions anything else there uh it it the only thing that is not quantifiable but it increases to your point non-speculative adoption in crypto like payments e-commerce like stuff like that that is really

I've just noticed even at like just on this brand of the brand of crypto is still really bad I would say like if you're dinner parties or holidays or whatever the thing that that hits and that like people do understand getting those bcas in oh you know trying to get trying to get to your level uh if you stable coins are the thing that really people understand they're like oh yeah that that makes sense so I I just think it's like deep in it's it's like an no-brainer right especially again offering dollars Tok dollars to the world is like if we just stop there that's a massive Market yeah all right um next bucket I had do you have any Bitcoin related predictions 150k clean and

simple that's it all right I have I have uh I so I agree with that I think Bitcoin ends the year around 150k that's what I put as well I think there there are I don't know if it ends it will touch 150 at some point during the year oh yeah yeah okay better that's I I agreee with that I don't think it ends I don't know what the price is on December 31st okay I think one thing that uh I think one thing is going to happen is a corporate Bitcoin treasury purchases heat up not because it makes sense but because it moves the stock price do you remember when like Long Island IC te became like the Long Island blockchain Ice IC or whatever it was um I think that you will see uh I'm looking at some like like similar scientific announced a $40

million Bitcoin coin investment their stock surged 30% wow uh there's a bunch of these kind of like I think it was a rumble like a video company oh announced a Bitcoin purchase their stock went up so um yeah Rumble plans to buy 20 million in BTC and new treasury strategy uh cooler technology announced a Bitcoin treasury with 21 million investment genius Group B like I I think you'll just start to see if if if you're a CFO and you say hey I could take 20 million of cash and turn it and move it into 20 million of BTC and I could move my stock price more than 20 million like I think you'll start to see some CFOs do that um

I think a Bitcoin strategic Reserve actually will happen that is my far out happens I think a Bitcoin strategic Reserve will happen but it will be much small smaller than people think um like Quantum wise but it's like lumus is I think lumus says we should go buy a million Bitcoins right it's like 5% of all the Bitcoin outstanding we should go buy a million Bitcoin I think a Bitcoin strategic Reserve will happen but it will not be a million Bitcoin might be 10 thou it' be much smaller maybe 1% of that or 5% of that or something and then the last thing is I don't know if you listen to the Bitcoin uh episode that that we did um that that you couldn't make unfortunately but I think a Bitcoin

Fork will become contentious for the first time since 2017 um there will be something it won't be as big as the big block small block uh debate but there will be something about like should we add this op code this op code into into Bitcoin or uh there'll be some sort of big debate in Bitcoin I'm not smart enough or deep enough in the weeds of Bitcoin to to really know what it's going to be but I think there'll be some contentious debate in the Bitcoin world yeah interesting yeah um I I didn't AI pred let me ask you one one thing if the Strategic Reserve happens in your fan of returns 150 200

250 250 if if a strategic Reserve happens bitcoin's hitting 250 uh yeah I I I think so because of the game theory of other countries are you kidding me yeah it's off Off to the Races other country you remember when Paul tutor Jones in May 2020 announced that Bitcoin is going to be the fastest horse in the race and the thing that that did was it removed all of the career risk of a hedge fund buying Bitcoin if the US government announces a Bitcoin strategic Reserve now we're talking kind of like you know there's probably a small lik predictions so it it cuts all the career risk of a central bank I would argue how much of that's priced in no but the fact that it's being talked

about go back five years yeah seven years and what it does it it takes out the career risk for everyone in the world to buy Bitcoin it's like oh the US government is now doing this so okay you're an endowment okay boom you just got the gold stamp of approval the second order effects of that are just huge yeah so great um okay any fundraising or like deal related predictions uh Ekko continues to be a major Central Hub of how for those who don't know what echko give a give a little cont yeah eeko is just like a a a crowdfunding platform basically it's uh for the community to invest u in these projects like in the more not noticeable

raises recently as Mega eth they raised at a I think the exactly the same valuation as what most institutional investors including myself invested in and they offered the community uh a very a decent size I think it was like 10 million or so or five I think it was like a pretty decent slug um but yeah it got sold out like within seconds or minutes and so I think you'll see more of that like it's not pure on the extreme like I in my predictions like icos make a comeback um I don't think like there there may be some icos but I I would say that perhaps this is a prediction that I want to talk about which is I think the

extent by which things change there's going to be disappointment there is yes a lot of like you have president that launched an nft connection he he talks about crypto he is pro crypto but I still think that you know perhaps people are just it's very exciting but I think the way rul making and lawmaking works is that that takes time and even though like you have like there's a separation of power kind of thing like you have talking about icos or talking about regulation or it matters because if you're like your lawyers are not gonna say yeah go do an Ico like not like Jason gab actually sent a very good email to folks like when Trump got elected and he was just like yes it's it's obviously super you know important that you know there's a

there's a shift in the tone and the St but be cautious right like there's still certain things that your lawyers are going to tell projects like hey guys like yo there's a way in a process so I'm not like advocating and I don't think it's going to happen where we have like fullon Ico Mania like you did in 2017 no I'm I don't believe that I don't I think it will be more so expressed in Echo funds Echo uh coin list um and that just changes The Meta around how fundraising Works uh I don't know how much it I I still think institutional rounds are going to be a thing I think you know vs are still going to be very much a big part of this industry like that's not going to go away but it might just change the Dynamics yeah I also had something

around Ico I I it's funny I okay on the regulatory side of things I said Trump's impact on regulation ends up being less than people think bingo so I agree with you I did say Trump's impact on the US Renaissance ends up being much larger than people think so the impact on Reg regulation is less than people think the impact on this us Renaissance is larger than people think um so that that is related to what you're saying on I point oh sorry finish that thought on icos I said my my predictions there will be an Ico of more than hundred million uh there will be a hundred million Ico the difference from icos from 2017 to today is there going to be

slightly more regulatory they're they're GNA be like more buttoned up icos like ha like if you if you sign up for for Echo like the echo onboarding is pretty thorough it's ACC credit investor questions it's are you aware that you're probably going to lose all your money there's going to be greater in you know investor protections I think they're going to be subject to strict regulatory scrutiny but I think they'll they will still happen and I think this could be seen as like remember those crowdfunding platforms that like none of them worked like outside of crypto this could be seen as like a kind of golden moment for crowdfunding again right and I think the difference is uh it you know back then it was like there were B basically now I

think the VCS will actually also participate in these icos like I think you will see VC's signing up on Eko and Legion or at the very least just participating at the exact same terms um and so that will bring a lot of capital it will also demand that these projects have higher stand standards and better due diligence I would say that last part I think is the most important like like to be fair like go back to 2017 like some of the larger icos were done in this manner like you want to do like file coin definity um um basis base coin um tasos all of those that were really large though all

of all of those required like this onboarding and you had to like kyc yeah but it was more so like maybe on this point icos and we when I say icos and I think it's what you when you classify them as icos it's like it's just everyone under the same terms bigger rounds one round and the token is launched and there's higher float out of the gate and that has healthy Dynamics from an information disclosure standpoint I think there will be a standard and a lot of that will be enforced by folks like Echo right which is like submit the deck like when you invest in angelist and I appreciate not everyone can do that but I think the combination of you have a way to fund a deal which is called the stable coin

that you have to onboard through some sort of way combined with some kyc ml which is only becoming easier to do right proof of identity and source of funds and all this stuff all of that you can do bigger raises everyone on the same terms and launch a token and by the way it's like it I I think that that phenomena is going to really what Ian yeah I I agree with all that what I mean by icos 2 is just it's less about big raises or anything like that it's more just um the ability for the general public to participate in something right yeah accredited uh yes us yeah yeah does that include us persons or not well e is e Eko is open to us people or is it not interesting not sure

actually I got to go check STS like are exclude us anyways moving on from that one moving on no comment anyways uh I I do think so some other fundraising and transaction related things that I that I put down for predictions I think we will see a crypto company acquire a non- crypto company for over a hundred million uh for the first time ever I may maybe it's you I don't know who's going to do it no but I think I think what I wrote is I'd guess it's going to be an L1 or an L2 because they're the ones with the big treasuries um and this is going to get really interesting right because The

Regulators are not going to know what to do with it uh the both both sides will really want to do with the deal um they'll be like weird compliance and regulation like the The Regulators will just have no clue if they should approve the deal or not um but it'll be really interesting and I I think it'll start an interesting trend of I mean what you've talked about with uh with with what you're doing which is like bringing traditional businesses on chain I think that someone will probably beat you to the punch and if you're an if you're an L1 or an L2 you should be probably thinking about this um because there's actually a a really crazy valuation discrepancy um like if you were buying I don't know like media like media in

traditional World trades it like I don't know yeah nothing um but like I don't know to tokenized Media trades it a lot like so there's actually just a valuation mismatch there and um uh that's that's an easy it's like an easy opportunity so I think that will happen absolutely right um I just leave you with this historical anecdote which is AOL at the peak of the.com bubble used its stock to buy the first thing they did when they saw how much their stock was worth was they went out and bought a real business called Time Warner yeah yeah one what a massive acquisition right it was massive they swallowed a

like Time Warner it was like a a there were yeah it was uh and you gota know that that is 18282 billion acquisition back then back then that's crazy they used an inflated stock to buy a real business and grow into that valuation if you're sitting on a bill 2 three five some of these treasuries are sitting on L1 or L2 Treasures are sitting on like sizable amounts like 10 trillion 10 billion 20 30 billion who has 20 billion Solana's treasury's got to be up there Solana's treasur Solana's probably got just yeah I mean a lot of this they typically own like anywhere between five

and 10% of the total token Supply now is it liquid like is it can they sell yeah but do the math right collectively these foundations have massive amounts of Treasury value and they're not doing anything with it yeah yeah like like they uh I would uh I don't want to say activism is going to be a thing but you know the how how projects and Foundations allocate resources is uh one of the biggest opportunities to your point in in crypto yeah it is uh yeah so definitely I'd be doing it I'd be doing it in a much different way if I yeah so so I think I think that will happen I I do think you're right like something around

uh buttoning up how these treasuries are managed will probably happen um but yeah I think I think an L1 or an L2 this is my prediction L1 or and L2 will acquire a non- crypto company for hundred million I also think there will be another billion dollar crypto acquisition we saw a stripe um do the stable coin acquisition for a billion uh the the biggest one before that was Galaxy acquiring bito for 1.2 billion but that deal fell apart that fell apart yeah that deal fell apart I think you will see another billion dollar acquisition I also think you'll start to see I'm just continuing with my predictions of uh fundraising and Deals and transactions I think you'll see a lot of funds announce big raises uh in the first half of the year but it will be smaller than their last round uh

their than their like fund three will be smaller than fun two right um but I think by the end of the cycle you'll see The Return of the mega Rays right L1 and L2 is Raising 300 million 400 million 500 million and then the very last thing I'd say there's a lot of predictions on this bucket for me is I think you will see a lot of successful companies um with small like sub 10p person teams that don't ever really raise Venture maybe they raise like a seed round on Echo but they never really raise Venture and you mentioned hb's predictions um I thought one of the most interesting ones was around software uh engineering agents right um and I I think he's dead right about this he said in a post AI

era instead of having to raise Mill millions of dollars for a seed round you'll be able to launch an application with 10k of AI Cloud compute um and so I think what this will do is there are projects right like hyper liquid and Jupiter that never really raised either much venture or any Venture and they just have these small teams I think that will start to be the norm um and uh I think that's a really interesting exciting opportunity you're just going to see 100x in the number of companies that chain so agreed what's your next category any AI predictions yeah uh one is tied to just crypto Focus the other one is more macro okay um AI as a narrative and projects continue to

grow you will see some of the more exciting and dominant projects in in the category of top five top 10 the composition of the top 10 AI projects in crypto will change a lot of that will be newcomers that launch a token that have been working but don't have a token yet um and I'm biased because obviously like I see it from my portfolio I think some of the best quality AI projects haven't launched the token hyperbolic I mean obviously unbiased but like projects like hyperbolic Mell Cusco look at those three I'm very excited on and obviously look have a position but I think that the quality of

those they don't have a token but eventually if they do I think those type of projects along with others that I hav backed um I think will eventually launch and once they do they will be they will they will become more like top five or top 10 AI projects the category grows as a whole currently it's what 50 billion we said yeah yeah 50 billion so that grows probably to 100 and a a bucket is not just infra not just but a lot of this AI agent stuff that you're seeing like powered by virtuals and other projects yeah um the last thing I'll say on this bucket is uh from a

macro standpoint um Jensen hang and Nvidia are more important than Jerome Powell like everyone will be watching their earnings and if that softens everything goes down like that is just the market is Anchor to that and that is the proxy you got to watch I'm not watching Powell I'm watching like yeah the treasury rate yeah if if the treasury rate holds five and is sub five the most important thing will be looking at Nvidia and their earnings and what that stock is doing because if that doesn't do well we're gonna have a problem in our hands like that was the only thing that derails my super bullish we're both super bullish on 2025 I'm positioned that way I think it'll be a

breakout year you look at like I was reading JP Morgan's The Alchemist report that came out um he draws on two like histologies like or one which is I think useful which is uh we've had two years of the you know S&P in NASDAQ go up like plus 20% the probability the odds are stacked historically speaking like once you have those two break like really strong years like third one starts to become like the historical precedent is not strong there but again a AI I think is the Saving Grace it's the thing that like pushes us forward I'm worried because um on AI specifically you in crypto we all know what the hype cycle is right I

think AI will go through that too like the amount of savings that you can realize the amount of actual tangible results like it's you're already seeing the cost of h100s go down a lot this year um this is like the you know for people tracking this throughout the year like for a while there it was like all the supply you know the constraints around getting your hands on these chips to do inference and training and all this stuff like companies like Tesla and others like were just putting in massive orders right for h100s now that price has come dramatically like really really low people should go listen to the episode I just recorded with Sam from Cusco so the question is like okay like throughout the last year and a half or so people bought all these chips and what do you

do with them and how quickly does it show up and I think that might be the the only thing that really kind of derails us in 2025 like you know it just doesn't materialize as much it will happen to your point around 5 10 years absolutely but people need to see the p&l impact and I just don't think it's going to come to fruition as much and for that reason I want to have liquidity this year I'm not jumping on like if especially if the rate is 5% [ __ ] man I don't get paid 5 per to just chill I'll do that I'm still super long on crypto I don't have to be super exposed but from a positioning standpoint like just taking a AI is the central most important thing that I'm focusing on this year because if that doesn't do well then we have bomb on our

hands what say more about what that means means for for how you position like AI is the number one thing you're Focus I'm just I'm not a macro guy but I just think that like again if if treasury rates don't blow up they're at like 4.6 right now 10year treasury something like that if it if it holds that line it doesn't blow up above five there's something very psychological above five and I think the market just agrees on that if it doesn't if it holds that level and there are reasons why you should be worried like inflation might come up with some some some of the policies that Trump has been vocal about like tariffs right that has an inflationary impact right um but you know you could you can argue that there's like other things that you

know technology always is disinflationary so AI could be disinflationary in way so like again it just needs to show up in the p&l yeah and if companies I you know everyone's excited because you can rip and replace stuff like you you companies become more efficient but I think usually humans just tend to overestimate with technology the in in a short period of time and I think we've been in those like three two years of like massive ramping up of like the hardware and the and it's like okay well so what and it's not to say that like the benefit is not going to be there it's just like a difference the spread between the the actual expectation and and how much and what is actually realized so for that reason that's my takeaway like I'm very focused on I

think the treasury rate is at a point where I feel comfortable like getting that 5% holding liquidity because I am worried about just Ai and Nvidia not just performing as well this year and if that doesn't do well nothing nothing will do like just just an yeah can you imagine a world where Nvidia goes down 20% and Bitcoin goes up like and crypto as a whole goes up 50 it's an interesting take that every you know the last couple years is everything was trading on the rates and now everything is trading on I mean when I think the next earnings is like mid-February so it sounds it does feel like that's what the whole Market is watching and by the way like that might be a great opportunity to put in a multi multi like a cycle trade which is man if if assets go down 20

30% that's and you have liquidity boy I mean that's that's great because you have a four-year Administration that is like very much Pro Innovation Pro AI Pro crypto you've never had that but if but doesn't do well we're gonna end this by talking about this this the cycle um by way any comment on that like from a I'm just trying to be concretely tell folks that I am I'm of the mind that I'm bullish 2025 like none of these predictions matter really we're going to get them wrong I will like you know this it's all on the margin I think the most important thing for me that I want to get right every year I want to get one or two things very very right and for me it's the setup for crypto's never been better in the history of this asset

class I believe it you've never had this Pro stance you've never had the setup of Bitcoin you know the excitement there the administration the regulatory stuff that will take time but it's just it's a big inflection point for for the industry but I'm very mindful of macro and I'm not an expert and and I'm just holding some dry powder to really jump because if you see Bitcoin at 70 or 50 could happen you would love to have you know I mean so I don't feel super compelled to like I don't I never advocate for leverage ever because as we all documented like our predictions were very wrong some of them like last year and there that's just the nature of the

game but liquidity is just essential to to bid when others don't want to yeah I um I wrote this piece it was I mean just talking about 2025 I wrote this piece um like 2024 Reflections that I'll send to you was was like a look back on the past year and while we're aiming it was Reflections from our seventh year in business blockworks just finished our seventh like full year um and I wrote this thing I said um said uh Folks at block works are sick of this story but I'll tell it again three months into starting block Works Mike and I met with a successful entrepreneur at his office in New York we wanted his advice how could we compete with the incumbents like coindesk and coin Telegraph the upstarts

like the block and decrypt and the institutions like Bloomberg and Wall Street Journal and I remember very strongly feeling like this was just an herculan task and he gave us this one piece of advice which was in an industry as volatile and vicious as crypto sometimes all you need to do is survive and this this became and continues to to be a foundational principle for Block works and as this relates into what you're saying we have run block works very differently than many of our competitors which is instead of chasing every last ounce of growth we in we've intentionally made decisions that sacrifi sacrificed allout growth to stay default alive and that is how that is like what I'm thinking about a lot going

into this year is like the amount of growth and money that you personally can make and your company can make if you're a Founder is just this is the year however this is the year that can also kill you in 2026 and 2027 if you don't make the right decisions this year so like I want to make as much money as possible this year personally and I want blockworks to grow as much as possible but I'm not willing to let either me personally like my personal you know portfolio or more importantly block Works die in 2026 and 2027 so I will start to think about how to be a little more risk averse than I was in 20 2023 and 2024 I was very risk

on and this is the year I will start to think about how to get a little more risk averse even though I know I will leave a lot of money on the table man you nailed it survive I'm of the mind that I'm never going to capture 100% of the cycle 80 I'm happy if I capture 50 all that's just something that I've adopted and boy do I take a lot of risk like I'm not shy to take it I've thankfully was in a position to really really allocate to private deals like early stage stuff when you know a lot of VCS were not showing up during it during the Luna boss during ft post FDX it was crickets man you'd send a lot of deals

that I you know you and I were looking at and a lot of VCS just didn't didn't do them and it was a lot of them were just composed by you know smaller funds or that have just raised capital or just a lot of angels and I I think right now like you always want to be bidding when no one wants to do it when everyone is turning down that deal and you're like okay it just it feels uncomfortable but we're not in that position so you know I think it's wise to to trim to be prudent to just be cautious and all I don't want to be sounding the alarm I don't want to be a can you know Canary in the coal mine kind of thing but it's like there's always things that you don't foresee and um I think there's a lot of reasons to be really excited

about this industry I think we the the share of speculative activity that crypto has right now is at an all-time high like it's just really high I think one of the things that we haven't really touched on is deepend but deepen and stable coins for me is really what shows the world that this is not a piece of abstract technology it is like concrete it's useful and you start not even like leading with crypto the word crypto becomes irrelevant the word ethereum becomes irrelevant the word salana all these brand names that we talk about scripton nates become absolutely irrelevant it's like you have a tokenized dollar and you're earning yield and you can punt tokenized stocks like let's go like drop the tokenize you can punt stocks and that's just the way to do it and it's why I'm so excited

about why I'm building an inversion is because that's our that's our Focus it's like you know I want to take what deep in the proof points you have there and I never want to build distribution I think there's really good business in the real world to your point that could really you could tap into that distribution and do a pivot or just layer on crypto and the setup is good yeah but honestly there is we have really as an industry it's a call Action really I know there's fantastic builders that have been really building relentlessly and the drive is there but we have really kind of four years to prove that this is actually you I mean the the reasons why we' got the golden setup now is the time to to Pro you got a penalty shot you got a free throw like

you got you're in the whatever Red Zone you whatever anal Sports anal you want to use you gotta score you have four years to figure that [ __ ] out so we should be as an IND really aggressive and I think a lot of people are but there's always uh reasons why I could be derailed but yeah I think um it's time time to really go at it hard yeah all right wrapping up with my last predictions U my my AI predictions here is are I'm seeing a lot on the timeline about like if you're in meme coins pivot to nft if you're in meme coins pivot to ai ai is overhyped Pivot back to memes sell your you know sell your AI for for for pangu um I think that both I'm actually very curious to get to see if

you agree with this or not uh both memes and AI agents will win this year I think it's not a sell all your memes by the AI agent sell all the AI agents I just don't make the distinction I think it's just they're all like memes and within memes like hey I I think well I guess you could argue they're like non- meme AI agents is right they're trading like memes so yeah that's a good way to put it there's nocoin a meme everything everything in this asset class trades like a meme I think it I think it I think they all work um I do think AI agents are the metaverse of this cycle um it is both very correct long term and people will make a lot of money this

cycle but also most of these are just chat gbt rappers and most of them will go down 99% in the bare market and it will look it will be the the the top thing at the top of the cycle where it's like I mean AI agents like probably rip like 10x from here five I don't know like they probably are a great trade but you probably get smoked on the downside um but if they have liquidity like reason why I've been vocal about some of these coins is as a category memes have a lot of liquidity so um you know you want to make sure that the door on the way out is pretty wide um to to be able to capture you know 80 70 50% of of of the return

profile right because you're gonna tick top it but um so anyways as a recap um we are not oracles ladies and gentlemen as you can tell from 2024 uh I think we're thematically very right obviously um it all really just uh it pays to be in the trenches it pays to be focused I think um but also express your view which is one of the things that I find to be one of the more interesting features of this asset class is that it's Venture with liquidity and so that allows you to make multiple bets on a particular sector and category and I've always thought that like the ability to put on a construct your portfolio as a way to like where you're going to focus your attention understanding that it's fairly limited but like going into this year I think um you know I

I'm my focus is on obviously my portfolio my Venture portfolio and seeing how that performs like we didn't talk about Barra but you know bar for instance is about is well you know there's interesting phenomenon happening there I mean they've just probably going to close on a billion of yeah commitments proof of liquidity as a concept is fascinating you know talk about like the a lot of the work that Cosmos has done we want we want to be right about Cosmos it's just GNA be right with like Avalanche and like Bara or something or Celestia but I think uh super interesting stuff like uh i' I've spent a lot of time with layer zero guys like the interoperability like the the tech is very much there as what I'm trying to say so now it's like you know really um will be really interesting this year

uh uh on the application layer and what happens there both on the Venture and the like the funding stuff like and the projects come out of that not just like your TR because I felt like over the last couple years there wasn't like a a a ton of innovation there was a lot of coping from ecosystem to ecosystem around nfts and defi but I think as you have like really low latency protocols like Mega and um you know others like I think it's like there's there's some really good projects out there that are like trying to do really new stuff yeah so yeah I have one more prediction I forgot to say which is centralized crypto companies are going to start launching tokens no chain no Tech just a token and it ties back to this mismatch

and valuation multiples um and specifically I think it'll be a lot of the 2021 2022 cohort of overvalued crypto companies that where their back is basically against the wall they raised at two high valuations and the way to get out of that is to launch a token and I think there's a lot of eyes actually on Kito right now not saying Kito isn't overval they're they're Kaio is a great company for people that don't know is like the Mind share it's like a social analytics platform yeah and I'm I'm watching that very closely because they have uh they're just a research and Data Business basically like they're just like they should just be like a SAS business but they've got these yaps and they've got the Yap leaderboard and

there's a lot of hinting that they're going to launch a token and they drop these nfts and they're trading it for eth right now and I think you know just talking to a lot of Founders and different chats and calls over the last couple weeks there's a lot of people looking at what kido's doing because if Kido launches a token kaido doesn't have a chain they don't have a there's no Tech like they're just like launching a token right and I mean there's Tech on the actual business yeah but no no the business is Great Tech like yeah but like there's no there's no token to secure a blockchain or anything right yeah yeah no no no it's a token as a financing mechanism not a token as a way to secure a network right great yeah I mean that's the promis that crypto always has been like

it's just like it is a very good way to like make your customers uh stakeholders and like serve for customer acquisition scale like scaling your business funding your business like it's just a it's it's an more efficient market presumably because it just is a global Market uh I I think there's a lot of I just want to add to that very quickly there's there's a lot of to your point a big cohort of companies that raised and just are kind of not going to raise another round but could go this route but the the other one is um like maybe you see a lot of these projects like earn like launch their own Rewards program is how I think of it like and it's just a token like it may not just be it may be an nft like like patrons for infinex and then maybe that more since

something else but like I think there there's like already interesting experiments happening and and they've been well received like kinx raised 53 million for their Patron sale that pretty good yeah so node sales too you know there's different things but yeah Big gear ahead man yeah you know we're gonna be here in this chair whether you like it or not I'm very excited to have you in New York more um we're building this like podcast studio um so we'll do more inperson showings maybe we do like a live podcast at the blockworks office that'd be fun oh that'd be awesome yeah I I commit to doing that at least once a quarter at least at least maybe once every month or two I'll believe it when I see it but yeah sure dude what let the record show so you got you got an office

right yeah yeah but let the record show that I when I was in New York I text y say Hey man can we do an in-person recording I be on crickets crickets all right that one was on me that one was on I yeah but anyways big your ahead guys like uh no matter what happens we'll be here we'll be uh bringing some of the best people to talk about stuff and if you do want to hear about now that we have that telegram group I think it's been great addition so hopefully more imperson events uh and and some great guests right so if you have any ideas around that please drop us a line a comment on YouTube telegram um and and yeah thank you everyone everyone for listening it's it's a real trait honestly as I was reflecting on 2024 people ask me what

are the best things that I do it's like this is like top top two or three Yeah by far because yeah so thank you sir cheers everyone yeah let's make it a big year indeed [Music]