Are we entering a bear market? Milk Road PRO on reserves and Ethereum

Transcript

GM good morning welcome to the milk Road show The Daily crypto show that never gets ghosted unlike your text asking you up I'm your host Jay Hamilton it's Saturday March the 8th and because it's Saturday that means we're back with the milro pro research team that's right I'm talking about Kyle Martin and Adrien in the house why because these guys have got the best Alpha in the space because all they do all day every day is think about crypto investing now today's episode was recorded on Tuesday March the 4th in this episode we talk about is this the top what is going on in markets why is the pain continuing why are we not seeing the bump and the rise that

we're all expecting the boys have a great take what you can expect shortterm and long term we also talk about the state of ethereum some excited changes happening in ethereum's leadership also some tech changes are coming we're going to break that all down for you and then we're going to wrap with Kyle's the on why coinbase could become a trillion doll company currently market cap sits around 50 billion so that would be a 20x from here if they made it to a trillion dollar company you guys are going to want to tune in the end to hear that thesis and here the boys kind of get into a little bit of a discussion a little bit of an argument a little bit of disagreements on some stuff but that's what we love here at milk road is challenging each other now today's episode is brought to you by definitive

the advanced trading platform on every chain and coin shift powering top corporate treasuries with their yield bearing stable coin CS usdl if you guys don't know them you're going to hear about them later on in the show without further Ado let's hear from the boys at milro Pro gentlemen welcome back another uh Pro research meeting here in the books it's been a wild week I feel like I can say that every week in the space but it actually has been a wild freaking week this weekend was completely nuts uh and so we're going to talk a little bit about the the crypto Reserve although we're recording ahead of the crypto Summit so probably more information will be out on that Summit uh by the time we this goes live for um for free people of

course Pro people you get to see this the day that we record it uh so if you're not already Pro Go Pro because then you get the alpha early uh and then we're going to talk about have we topped just a little bit of discussion here on the markets like is this it are we going to a bare Market uh there's a lot of discussion around this right now and uh and then we'll get into some stuff on ethereum there's a bunch of upgrades and things going on there and uh and then coinbase sort of my thesis on on coinbase uh in in in the long term um what do you guys want to start with what should we discuss first oh we got to start with crypto Reserve crypto Reserve is uh it's this the hot the hot news right now uh okay so let's uh let me let

me share my screen and uh pull up Trump's tweet I'm sure everybody's seen it at this at this point but just in case uh anybody hasn't actually seen it uh let me share this okay so Trump said Trump tweeted um over the weekend uh I think he tweeted this on Sunday do you guys remember was it Sunday I think it was Sunday and he said uh um that he was gonna start a a crypto strategic Reserve including xrp Solana and Ada uh and that's all he said and then and then he followed up with a uh another tweet that said oh and obviously Bitcoin and ethereum and then this is the best he said I also love Bitcoin and ethereum classic Trump thanks Trump uh so the the

conversation that I really would love to have is I think it's quite obvious why Bitcoin will should be in a strategic strategic Reserve Bitcoin is going to be digital gold the US holds a lot of gold in Fort Knox as part of their strategic Reserve currently well if you believe that Bitcoin is going to be digital gold it would make a lot of sense to sell some of your existing gold reallocate to bitcoin so I think everybody gets that and the reaction to Trump's announcement would suggest that everyone agrees with that the part that now has come into question and there's a lot of people discussing on crypto Twitter and is okay

why put these other Assets in there why put xrp salana Ada and ethereum in there does it make sense to have other crypto Assets in there which I think is a very interesting conversation and yeah would love to hear what you guys think if you think these these other assets should or will be in there I mean it's tough to speculate but um yeah I mean it sounds like they will be according to his his tweets um I think that a lot of people are kind of mixing up what a reserve is this isn't a sovereign wealth fund they're not doing this to invest and make profits they're not selling this at some point to get put back into dollars a reserve for a government is the same

as like they have four currency reserves right they have commodity reserves and these are just hedges for the government in case um Supply crunches happen for copper for example or silver or gold right and they need that to you know build whatever they're building right if all of a sudden those Commodities oil or whatever like if all of a sudden these Commodities that are important for the economies to run if something were to happen to where those Commodities are made or happen to the price for whatever reason then they still have a reserve on us soil that they can use to like keep the government in the US going that's why they have that foreign currencies same thing right they have global trade Etc and if all of a sudden you know the Yen

or the the peso or whatever just goes through the roof up or down they're hedged on that because they own a bunch of these currencies they're not speculating that these currencies will go up or these Commodities will go up they're just there in case wild price fluctuations happen and if case that happens they're not impacted because they already own it and so it doesn't matter if it goes up or down and so people just keep to thinking that this is being done to like invest and that's not it it's a completely different thing so like remove the investing mindset out that's not what this is for okay this is a reserve and so it makes sense to have Bitcoin right uh because again similar reasons to to gold Etc um and I think it does make sense to have L1 tokens

because I think at least in my brain and and I think this is what they're they're planning for is we believe that the world is going to move on chain right and in order to build on chain or to transact on chain what do you need you need the token of blockchains right of L1 blockchains so ethereum you need eth if you are going to build on ethereum you need eth if you are going to transact on eth right and so for a government that might move their financial system on top of let's say ethereum for example well you probably should have that token in case it goes up like crazy or whatever you need to have that just like you were going to build the whole economy using oil you probably should have a reserve of oil

just in case something happens right uh and so I think we're still so early in crypto that we don't know which chains the world the the Global Financial system is going to move on to right the Global Financial system is [ __ ] massive and it's going to go on a bunch of chains not one right and same with the global Commerce right like every Financial instrument payments and Financial assets Etc is all going to move on chain it's not all going to move on bitcoin and it's not all going to move on eth and it would be stupid to think that right now do I think it's going to move on xrp or Ada like in my opinion probably not right um but like who knows right like we actually don't

know because it's still so so so early in crypto that we don't really know and I know crypto Twitter has their opinions on these assets and look I think uh cardano is nothing but a grift I think Charles hoskinson's a bum and I think everything cardono is doing is an absolute joke okay so like don't get me wrong but I think I can't wait to see the comments I'm sure that but but like that could change right and and I just think all all we know is that the world is moving on chain right that to me is pretty obvious and so if that's happening you probably want to own the currencies that allow you to build and launch Smart contracts and transact on that and so like I wouldn't be surprised if this crypto Reserve has not just eth

xrp and cardano but maybe even other l1s now which ones I don't know right like probably not BNB because that's a China coin and I don't think Trump likes China and so like they probably just won't hold that one probably Tron same thing that's a China coin so like they might not there either I'm not sure depends how strategic they're trying to get here but I would imagine it's a smart idea to hold any L1 token at the chance that it all of a sudden becomes a a legit powerhouse it's like they hold a lot of foreign currencies for e markets they are not Powerhouse countries so there's no need really to hold the currency and a lot of people in developed countries like well that country is a joke it's got a tiny GD GDP it's not really building anything like China's building

or us is building but they still go and hold those those currencies right just in case and so I think the same thing is is true here these are just economic um digital States and it's like in case one of those becomes the thing that everyone starts to build on like you might want to head your bet and hold some of that and so that's also why I don't think they're holding any like a or maker or like defi tokens because this isn't an investment they're not investing in businesses right they are hedging on currencies in case one of these economic systems becomes something big and important and so my guess is Bitcoin and eth are the biggest ones because by market cap they're the biggest and like by developer activity and apps they're the biggest and then I think they're holding xrp salana and Ada because one

it's americanmade and so they want to promote americanism and and things being built in America and then ultimately I think they're just holding L1 tokens because that's just what you should do if the world's all going to move on chain and let me bring out the conspiracy theory David SX the cryptar is certainly uh invested into bitwise via his Venture firm craft Ventures and the biggest Holdings of bitwise are PTC eth soul xrp and Ada so we know Trump loves his deals and he supports his budes so this could have also been a little bit of reason yeah but like see this is the thing where people so I got two comments on that one there's also what are the top

six tokens in all of crypto by market cap right excluding stable coins and excluding the China coins it's the five you just listed six you just listed off right it's Bitcoin eth xrp cardano and Solana those are the biggest coins and so of course those are in bitwise number one of course they should be in the reserve because they're the just the biggest ones right it's not for any other reason other than that right but people will make up other reasons but like ultimately it's that the other thing is like I don't want someone to make decisions about crypto that isn't an investor in crypto or building in crypto right so people always are like oh David Sach shouldn't be making decisions here because he owns soul and he invested in Soul and he owns bitwise and it's like what do you want here like

imagine putting someone in place to make decisions about crypto that's never owned or used crypto that makes no sense to me right like you want someone who's really involved in the crypto space to be the one probably making decisions about crypto right like to me that just makes complete sense but everyone just kind of likes to think that everyone's scamming everyone right and I just think I want the smartest people in position to do this and the smartest people are the ones that obviously invested in this stuff in the early days you know now to be fair he did tweet out that he sold his Bitcoin Ethan sold like the liquid amounts he can't sell his investment in bitwise it's a private company uh and so like he did the best he could do but otherwise like yeah he's still an LP in these things sure but like I don't see

any reason why you shouldn't be that you know yeah but nobody's perfect and there still can be a conflict of interest and when you choose these cryptocurrencies why not those with the most traction if you're thinking about sui for example uh transaction count and having something like a move-based blockchain also in the reserve that would be better diversification diversification than just taking the six biggest ones or five biggest ones agreed agreed but I think it's also like what does that do to the markets of those that are so small they're like these like they just launched like imagine as much as I believe in move being the next big thing like these things launched like last year and so like one if they were to announce that they were doing this that's pretty crazy and also you got to

remember that the thing with cardono and xrp and salana Etc is there's a little bit more decentralization in who holds these tokens because they've been around just for so much longer like don't get me wrong still think cardon's a scam but it it has a lot more centralized holders in terms of just like there's a lot more holders than something like suie or whatever move one that just launched like four days ago you know like probably they can't do those um because they're owned 90% by the team still right but all these other ones have been around for close to 10 years now it's like okay these things are a little bit better off the team still holds a bunch and dumps on people but like it's a lot less than the others you know yeah exactly exactly 100% so I don't know I

you can't really do this with a token that's worth a billion dollars it doesn't make sense you know there's I don't know 100 L ones at this point you can't do them all but you might as well do ones that have some sort of traction right uh the other point actually I heard the other day was um if you look at cardono and xrp who mainly holds these it's Americans right like anytime you talk to someone from the US that like isn't really in crypto they're always like hey I still hold like some Bitcoin and I hold like some xrp like should I yeah what should I do with it or or cardano I always hear all the time with people that they're like I just I just hold this cardo I've been holding it since 2017 like what should I do with it and so like I I got a feeling Trump

and and the team there just knows like a lot of Americans hold these two tokens so like H maybe we should include it you know which to me I don't love this is obviously very grifty and it's super annoying um but the idea of holding a bunch of L1 tokens does make sense to me do I agree it should be xrp and cardano like I obviously don't because I think that those are useless um projects for the most part uh but but not everyone thinks that way and so I got to like keep my bias and my thoughts aside and just think what here's what they're trying to do they're trying to get it like exposure to hedge in case any of these l1s really become the future of the financial um world right so anyway that's my take on it if you're only trading on centralized exchanges then

you're not going to make it the best Traders know the alpha is on chain definitive founded by coinbase alums let you trade any token on salana base or any chain all in one platform what makes definitive different is it's advanced order types you can execute limit teawap and stop loss completely on chain plus you get the best prices as your order is routed instantly through every deck and liquidity pool getting you up to 19 times lower fees trusted by funds whales and the Milkman himself now you too can trade like a pro milk Road listeners get a tasty glass of milk with zero fees on your first 25,000 at milro definitive ffi

[Music] meet CS usdl the stable coin built for institutions and Dows don't just hold basic stable coins earn yield all without compromising security backed by regulated real world assets and secured with institutional grade risk management fire friends at Stak house Financial put your treasury cash to work earning native yields and protocol rewards built by the team behind coin shift which is trusted to manage over 1 billion in business treasuries on chain including a gitcoin and hundreds of leading institutions cycs usdl is gaining traction at milo.com coin it's starting to feel like a

huge Ponzi we have ever seen yeah and like I do agree and like for me when we are talking about crypto reserves I I think of it as now we use gold and what else should we use to kind of back up our dollars that are out there so goal is fine and now like are we really considering these like cardano I don't know Ripple like no should we consider e Soul no like we don't know if all these layer ones will be here in like five 10 years these are all experiments we are all like haing them we love them we use

them that's fine but those are still like very early days protocols who are like you have a plane and we are doing different things and like changing the parts while we are still flying and like if I'm country and I should think about like what assets should I hold that like my dollars are backed with some real value then I should probably choose like something that's like very secure and I'm not risking that there will be some client back or something that will send everything to zero and like with Bitcoin it's it's a different story the code is

done and like we all agree what Bitcoin is good for and that's fine I agree let's use Bitcoin but don't use anything else it's starting to feel like all these conversations we are having it's like I don't know if we would if we would have this conversation three years ago we would be like no way you should be grateful if we are even considering Bitcoin and now we are talking about Ripple and cardano like really remember that we're not we're not holding this to back the dollar that's not what this Reserve means right I agree a Reser I agree with Kyle's commodity thesis right like to call it that like if we're considering that these are Commodities

and they're going to run the whole financial system and you need the token of the blockchain in order to execute then I agree with that I just don't think we're there yet though that's the isue so to me for E I think we're probably there probably not why not wait like like there's no rush on it that's the thing right like you know like I think to me here's the play and and and let me just say uh I am recording immediately after this call with Jake travinsky who is probably the best crypto lawyer policy maker he's been involved in was waston he he was the lead counsil at compound so go listen to that episode because we're

going to really break this down from a legal perspective but um to me I think I think he might be overswinging so he's saying hey I'm gonna put in five I think he might even go up to 10 tokens I wouldn't be surprised because once it comes to Congress and actually pushing this through I think it's going to be very difficult to do anything other than Bitcoin and so I think he's overswinging we're only going to get Bitcoin in the end and might set up for later down the road five years down the road as you're saying Kyle ethereum salana are proven to be the chains that the financial system is on it makes sense to hold those Commodities the same way it makes sense to hold the currency of another country that you do trade with

constantly well you're now going to start doing trade constantly with the ethereum network or the salana network okay I can get behind that I just don't I don't think we're anywhere close to that yet yeah I think it's like I do agree maybe it is a bit early all these things are you know multi-billion dollar assets like how early is it xrp's 100 billion cardano's somehow 30 billion so like it's not that early the valuation but it's not up to them to decide that right I just think they're trying to send a signal like hey crypto is going to be a thing we're going on chain and so we want to have a reserve of the the assets and like look why does the coinbase 50 hold xrp and cardano why does the bitwise thing like all the best and most reputable companies in the

world still hold these Assets in their like things it's because it's market cap weighted that's just what you do right it's just how financial instruments typically work and so I don't know it's not up to the side but I also think like when all the other like there was a time when we only had one currency in the world or like a few currencies right and then all of a sudden we started create all these Fiat currencies every every country started their own currencies the US just held a bunch of random different currencies because that's just what you needed to do you didn't know which country was going to make it right back in the day we had no idea was it like was North Korea going to make it or was like you know what I mean like was Germany with what they were doing back

in the day going to be a big thing turned out they like completely screwed up and their currency went to zero right they had to reset it back in whenever that was the 30s or something but they didn't know that at the time in hindsight it seems obvious but back then we didn't know and so they had to just hold all these currencies just in case you know and so like I don't know to me I think that's probably what's going on but maybe I'm just um overthinking it and they are just it is definitely grifty there's no doubt that which is what leads me to our next conversation I don't know if anyone has we'll let Jake trinsky give the the um the real lad down on what's happening there but like what this feels like I put out a tweet say I was like and I'm just kind of

thinking about the cycle or the markets crypto specifically and From crypto's perspective there's a lot of top signals that are existing right now that make me go okay it feels like the cycle should be cooked right and I say that because you have like the Trump and the Libra token that were launched like that is super toppy right pres like how much more high profile can you get than presidents around the world launching a meme coin right like that is about as top signal as you can possibly get you've got pump. fund Revenue just completely cooked we talked about this uh last week I think it very much looks like the chart of openc right which is we had this thing that was like all the excitement of crypto that now is going like is going close to zero will that

return um and then you got whatever the freak Kanye West is doing and like the there's just so much grift in this space right now you got the bit hack it just feels like from a top signal perspective which is more like the the weird stuff the the the nonobjective things um that just feel very toppy to me and then even this crypto reserve and like all the [ __ ] that Trump is doing feels so toppy but then you look at the macro side of things and it doesn't feel like a top or it doesn't look like a top to me it's like the ism just past 50 that usually signals where like midcycle and like really going to move into the the more important like faster more volatile part of the cycle Global equility has not really had its big move yet so I

think there's still unfinished business there Financial conditions around the world are still pretty tight and they're like slowly getting less tight but that's taking time uh and so like from a macro perspective it looks like we're not topped from a top signals of just things happening in the space it feels like we're definitely at the top and so it's like well where are we what are we I'll give my opinion a sec but just do you guys have any strong opinions on on this on this take maybe also crypto specific typically a total stable coin market cap is growing and growing that's typically not a sign of a top I I don't think that that indicator is relevant anymore actually this that's a good that's a good so that used to be the sign because back in the day you couldn't do anything with stable coins

so like the the sign the bull market was continuing was people buying stable coins because that's how you'd get your fee out into crypto world and then you'd go deploy that in ether whatever but remember now we have a bunch of people just actually using stable coins like for payments and things and so the growth of stable coins to me is now it's own metric and I don't think that it's actually a sign of bull or bar markets I actually think stable coins will grow through the entire next bar Market we have um I don't think that that metric's no I think it's no longer relevant I don't know if anyone else agrees on that one I agree I agree with that I just recorded yesterday with uh Toran Gupta founder of a coin shift and we were talking all about he did a deep analysis

on stable coins and it's it's being used by argentinians to hedge against they inflation these aren't investors it's being used by Merchants around the world to to to to send money it's being used by you know a kid in us to send money to his grandma like it's not it's h it's its use case is definitely different than investing and speculating now yeah how much percent of the stablecoin market cap is used for payments any idea that we don't know that we don't know that's a good question it's a great question yeah but I I think the clear thing is it's more and more and more right over time now how much until it's the majority like I I don't know that we can even I don't know how to figure that one out anyone else though thoughts on on top or or Market in general I think

we are overthinking everything and we are just like finding reasons to why markets are not pumping and our bags are still in red Mo for most people and we I think it's still pretty simple and like we need that liquidity back in the markets and it's still not there we are just yeah it might feel like kind of boring times nothing's really happening you know Trump trump launching mcoin then on Sunday night like Trump sharing uh tweeting about like crypto reserves like that's that's all we are talking

about like week by week and it's like these are topics uh for a like for the sake of the conversation but it's not like I I don't know like I don't I'm pretty sure that we haven't top yet and we are just now getting rid of all the paper hands and once like most of the people will leave and sell and everything then you know like maybe in three six months we will have more liquidity flowing in and then when we will see prices going up yeah it feels like um it's kind of just a deleveraging

event which honestly is actually very good I know it doesn't feel very good right now but like deleveraging event means we can continue to go higher for longer uh and I think what happened was in November when Trump won you know there's all these people here that were in crypto that were like just went levered to the nins like they just went Max risk bought everything we were had so much leverage because they expected that when Trump won all these institutions were going to come in and buy our bags right that was like the narrative in November if everyone remembers how pumped everyone was and what happened was no one came there was no new capital that came in there was no no new liquidity in the markets and just

no institutions actually came in and started buying crypto yet yes except for Bitcoin right obviously Michael sailor kept buying there was some buys from like the Sovereign wealth funds and some banks and things like they've put on some there on bitcoin but basically nothing else and and so I think what's What's Happening Here is we're sort of just um in combination with the confusion and uncertainty around what Trump's doing with tariffs and everything else uh I think we're also just kind of deleveraging from everyone being levered to the tits in November uh and um and I think that makes sense because I don't know why everyone expected that because Trump won November whatever it was 4th like institutions are just going to start piling billions of dollars in like the next day like of course that wasn't going to happen like

what yeah right it takes these people long these institutions a long time plus like they weren't going to do it in December because they all take two weeks off right for for Christmas and and holidays and it's like January they're kind of just getting back to work they're like okay let's set up our committees right they got to get all the stuff approved like it takes months and months and months especially to deploy capital of like billions and billions of dollars and So like um I think even today it doesn't make sense that they be doing it it's going to take some time right uh and so I think we just got over levered uh off of everyone just getting too excited so do I think that we're a bare Market though and we're going to be like like the bare markets in crypto are

like a year plus long I there's no way that by March of 20126 we're still going down imagine that March 2026 like couple months before um the the midterms and markets still going down that doesn't make sense to me um with everything that's going on here in this space like to me it just feels like a deleveraging event which like ultimately is good although obviously shitty if you didn't happen to have any you know you didn't take any profits which which I didn't um and if you don't have any cash to like be buying here if I had a [ __ ] ton of cash that I could still be buying that'd be great um I obviously dollar cost average but I wish I had like a big a big amount but otherwise I don't think I don't think the the Cycle's cooked by

any means yeah I think I think two things that that stand out to me one is uh we should have expected Trump to create a lot of uncertainty coming into office I I'm kind of surprised that that wasn't more of a theme when heon uh obviously he was going to do a 180 shift on everything obviously he was going to do what Trump does and like be a a um a bully that just like yells and screams and creates a lot of noise in order to cause a lot of confusion because he's a master negotiator and that gives him a lot of Leverage when he's negotiating so like we kind of should have expected that we should have expected tariff stuff to happen sooner I

don't know why we didn't so like I think that has caused Market wide uncertainty like all markets are are struggling right now it's not just crypto right like it's across across the board and we all should have expected that so that was kind of a Miss but now that we see that that's not going to happen forever like he is he he even knows you said yourself March 26 midterm he needs to win the midterm he cares so much about that he's going to make sure he does that's long enough away that what he does right now nobody's going to remember right as long as we get higher by then so he he is super strategic he's creating this uncertainty now so that he can get the deals he wants but he wants the certainty and he wants the Markus

Doo well so he'll he'll solve that I have no doubt there and then the other big thing is we don't have liquidity right QE has not started yet right so I I recorded with Jamie CS from real Vision the other day on Friday and he said he said he predicts 20 trillion in liquidity still coming in this cycle peing sometime q1 2026 we're at about 100 trillion right now he thinks we're going to get to 120 trillion so like if that happens boom everything's going up and we're just we're just not there yet that hasn't started yet so we just we're just all impatient just just be patient and remember this happened in 2021 as well right like we had this like we had it was even worse actually in 2021 I

think Bitcoin came back by 50% right like Bitcoin still isn't even down 30% yet um imagine a world like this sucks right now like eth down 50% sold down 60% or close to 60% Bitcoin down 25 or whatever it's gone down um imagine doubling that and Bitcoin going down 50% not 25 right that means uh Bitcoin more like the 50 60,000 range uh imagine that kind of pain is possible right I mean it happened in 2021 but it feels like that's kind of what we're doing here it's kind of a deleveraging event hello we go honestly no idea um but I think you just keep buying these dips because I think there's no way that we're we've bottomed here um and and ultimately as annoying it is of what Trump's doing I

know people are very frustrated like I still think that they're doing all the right things and they're going to do a really good job here and so like I haven't I'm not bearish by any means um but it's just there's got to be some pain to to they're changing so much in how the US government works and how the econom is going to work like there's a lot of change and that generally means pain yeah but it would be a big surprise if BTC goes below 70k because the old typically is a good B aged did did anybody look I haven't really looked at this but it seems like okay so 70 was before when we when on our way up we blasted past 80 we we didn't really have

any buying around 80 we went from like 70 to 75 and then we jumped to like 90 so we never really saw if 80 could be a floor and over the weekend what I sort of saw was oh wow a lot of of buying happened around 80 we got as low as like 78 I think um I'm wondering if 80 has a strong floor moving forward I don't know if any of you guys looked at that yeah I mean like 70 honestly there's there's nothing there is no FL there's nothing until you get down to 72 or whatever so we'll see free fall down Traders would say the CME Gap had to be closed yeah yeah right which happened uh I mean it's probably tough to get that low when you have Sailors

still pumping billions into the market so as long as he keeps doing that we're good the moment he stops though we're [ __ ] saor said that Bitcoins going into 200 trillion market cap don't worry everybody we're all good the key for me is ultimately you don't want to trade around this stuff like no one knew that this deleveraging event was going to happen you could have maybe guessed and I mean we did call a pullback was going to happen when it did happen did I sell anything no because again don't think the Cycle's over right um we'll take profits when we think the Cycle's over don't think we are so for now you just you just keep adding um and you kind of treat this as a as a treat more than anything else rather than getting scared um that's that's my best advice here uh

because look you could sell right here in case eth happens to go lower or Bitcoin goes lower down to 72 or whatever but like look what happened on Sunday one little piece of news can reignite the markets right if all of a sudden we get a little bit of liquidity China announces oh we're going to do a trillion dollar stimulus like look at how fast we went from you know whatever we were at 70 something to like back up to 96 and that's you're going to miss that move if if you're a sideline So like um I just don't think it me it makes sense to be sideline you just kind of got to ride this stuff out right um unless you're a Pro Trader then hey all the best to you the Fe and greed index of 10 is not the point in time to sell

typically yeah yeah yeah exactly exactly bye um all right speaking of change let's jump into a little conversation around uh around ethereum um Martin I'll let you uh start things off but A lot's going on in the ethereum world right now I know the numbers the chart doesn't look good on ethereum but fundamentally and like what's happening in ethereum uh it's starting to actually we're seeing a lot of change there's been a lot of shitty things going on in the space with the foundation Etc um but they're making some moves so Martin why don't you walk us through kind of what's going on there yeah do you want to share a screen yeah yeah I can do that yeah big changes coming to EF eum foundation and I wish more people and more attention is on

these news rather than you know Trump doing his things and uh we had a conversations last year where we kind of uh we eum has been often criticized for you know being slow and the leadership was kind of questioning whether it's still good enough and if they progress enough and if they are kind of listening the market feedback and uh also like ethereum doesn't really have any kind of person who is communicating like all the things like you know toi for Solana or or mer for Solana so we don't really

have anyone in ethereum and I feel now like this weekend a lot of things changed in ethereum land and yeah first one here is we have a new uh co-executive directors for EF um one of them is uh I don't know how to pronounce her name I guess he's Asian Asian woman and he has been around uh like I believe she is seven years working for etherum foundation and now she's stepping up and becoming a executive director alongside with Thomas stanach um that's the founder of

nethermind which is uh you know client uh ethereum's client and now I believe they have around like 200 people or something so he was able to build a pretty huge and successful company and you know he he was also kind of working on top of ethereum because he was working uh building a client for ethereum so he has also kind of alignment and relationship with ethereum and they are now bringing those two people who are becoming like executive directors and it feels like some people are saying like two people in charge might not be ideal but it feels like the way wank might be a person with doing

you know R&D stuff and she has been in EF for seven years so she knows people she she knows how internal processes work there and bringing Thomas he can bring like more external uh views and new ideas and like he he knows how it is to build a company he kind of a leader you know so and he also feels like he could be the guy who is kind of communicating what's going on and listening you know more more feedback from the community and he could be the guy he could be Merit of ethereum you know yeah that's one huge update Danny's yeah Denny is back too he he was

off for a couple months or maybe a year or something he was the guy who um kind of led the development of Beacon chain uh and now he is coming back but he's not joining EF but he is joining ethereal I which is sort of another fund another not fund but like organization who should help ethereum to get into more institutional uh kind of spectrum of the market help to figure out some technical D and trying to fill the gap between like ethereum core deaths and you know institutions and like more bigger sophisticated players and like fill fill

the gap between so it feels like also we are getting those smart people uh back to ethereum and trying to improve ER and help ethereum to adopt to like more outside real world is obviously very positive and one more tweet which was maybe the most bullish out of them all and that's weic uh tweeting about the next upgrade which is we are going to see a picture upgrade which is going live probably like one month or maybe two months and among other things we are gonna increase blob

blobs Target from six to from three to six and then what walik was saying in his tweet is that in the next upgrade which is called fusaka we are going to uh even increase that blob Target from six to 48 which is eight time increase and previously it was supposed to increase just from 6 to 9 and now from 6 to 48 so it's a huge for those that don't understand blobs is basically the the data availability that ethereum uh has which is what all the l2s uh use to post their data and so the lower that number that Martin's talking about means

the more expensive it is for for l2s the higher that number means the cheaper it gets for l2s and Bas is basically beginning to max out ethereum's da not not fully yet but like they're on Pace to do that and so Bas is is basically invent innovating faster than ethereum is and so we need ethereum to sort of catch up otherwise there's a chance like base moves to Celestia or somewhere else uh and so I think metallic starting to understand that and ethereum starting to kind of get their button gear and start to create products which are are more suitable for these these l2s yeah yeah I'm happy that they are yes sorry go ahead you go and then I'll explain now go for it just wanted to say that it's nice to see that like ethereum and including including quic they are

reflecting the feedback and they see the market dynamics like you know when you listen Jesse from Bay he's saying that they expect like 10x in increase of the usage of Bas the same on word coin the main Dev is saying like we expect like 10x increase of the usage there so like ethereum needs to like okay those are the biggest users of ethereum's Da and da is going to be like the main Revenue driver like in the in the future we we are not seeing it right now yet but that's that's the future and they're reflecting on that market feedback and they are like listening the the feedback from the main actors and Main users and it it's it's making me bullish the other thing coming in this

upgrade which is massive for anyone who's ever traded on uh on ethereum is they're getting rid of the swap approvals or token approvals sorry so if you guys have ever traded on ethereum you when you go to use like a DEX you have to uh like click sign you think that you've made the trade but you haven't you've just approved the use of the token in your wallet then you have to click and sign again to then swap it if you use salana for example you don't have to do that it's a terrible ux it's something we've had on ethereum for five years which makes zero sense and finally they've smartened up and are getting rid of that um so honestly that's just such a big deal and it's so stupid I can't believe that thing was around for as long as it was I get it can help people

from getting their wallet strain but like um yeah it was just a terrible ux so anyway that's getting gone too so yeah there they're starting to step up I think look ethereum is playing the long-term game I think you got to realize that um they obviously are are focused on proliferating accelerating the L2 movement and look bass is absolutely cooking they are the most vibrant ecosystem by far right now in this space especially with pump. fun dying out that's really crushing salana and base just continues to cook uh and so I think that's huge as you said World chain they actually do have a lot of real humans over there and so like we'll see what happens there I think they're being incentivized to use that so I don't know like if they can really build something of substance but like the main

thing is Ken Kraken like the thing I'm looking for is can Kraken who launched their Inc L2 this year if that can have a breakout year like based did last year um and we start to see not just one ecosystem flourishing but more than one that is my signal that okay the ethereum road mapap is here and they like they've done it right if we can't get another L2 to thrive like bases because really every other L2 basically sucks um and if we can't get someone else to really take off and Thrive like bases then I'm I'm actually starting to become very bearish um but if we can get someone else to get traction because base has traction and they're super legit if we can just get that then I'm I'm super stoked and I think Kraken will do that um I think their team has the ability and then

others will do it too it's not just Kraken but like that's just the one example I think could be the breakout this year um so let's see but um yeah I don't know anyone else have any other thoughts on on what's going on in the ethereum world I don't think every other L2 sucks because basically defi started on ethereum they uh on arbitrum they had the Innovation at first but then most of the D apps of course um expanded to Bas as well and Bas is basically incentivized also for the airdrop Farmers because there's a lot people still hoping for the base airdrop um we have mentle which is basically backed by bit which recently got hacked but they have a lot of traction they have a very active defi ecosystem a new products

coming up so it's not only base and especially with mantle it's more popular in the Asian um region so that is something I would also consider yeah I just like when you look at activity and stuff just Bas is just so far ahead of everyone else right now and I guess what I mean by that of course there are other l2s that are doing things what I really mean by that is like um uh is like Innovation right like every other L2 just has the same apps right across it it's all the same stuff Bas is the one that actually has different stuff finally it's got Blackbird and it's got you know far cter and it's like it's actually doing stuff to like push this industry forward and bring in new people and New Capital

whereas everyone else is just like bringing capital and users from one chain to the next chain and just like pulling people around and moving Capital around it's not bringing any net New Capital Bas is only that's really bringing in new devs New Capital new users uh new apps and um so that's the that's what I really mean by like traction and something that really matters here everyone else just kind of doing all the same [ __ ] you know um but we'll see obviously there's the good thing about LT is there's a lot of them and so like you know someone like immutable could work out or uh sonum could work out all a sudden like there's all these different things happening over there and experimenting so we'll see um okay how many Innovations like do we need or

like maybe we have products out there we just don't have users because like users are not coming to the blockchains but we need to bring blockchains to the users so like everyone will probably follow the coinbase strategy and like you know even Robin Hood I don't know we use revolute in Europe so like everyone is incentivized to launch their own chain and like that's how probably like next wave of people will be in boarded which I agree which to me just means all the current l2s just like they go away they're like go thanks you didn't really do much get out of here and then it's like Robin Hood's L2 Kraken L2 Etc they come and they Dominate and they just basically repurpose what all these other

l2s did and and away we go like that's that's my thinking of how this plays out if if it works out that way um or they I don't know maybe launch their own L1 or something we'll have to see how that Dynamic plays out but I I kind of agree I think a lot of what all these other LTS are doing is just kind of wasted space waste of time um I mean it's all open source so like what they're doing is leading to you know more information and more code for the next Dev that comes in but ultimately don't know if it's going to matter much um okay let's talk about our last subject which is um which is coinbase so I'm actually working on writing a a pro report right now and um and there's just some interesting things that came up as

I was sort of like working through this which is um I want to kind of share a little bit of my thesis of why I think coinbase is actually probably going to become a trillion dollar company in the next few years uh and I don't say that lightly like it's not easy to become a trillion dollar company there's not many of them although there's becoming more and more um but if you think about the biggest companies in the world today they are companies that rode the not only just rode but drove the internet Trend right you have apple Google Amazon Microsoft right these are all multiple trillion dollar companies all of them are two2 trillion dollar Microsoft I think is three trillion right now maybe even Apple I don't know today depending on prices but there are two to three trillion dollar companies right the

biggest companies in the world why are they the biggest companies in the world well they didn't just help ignite the internet Revolution but they somehow remained relevant throughout that entire Revolution we're now 30 years or so into the internet uh like the big party in it maybe 35 all of these companies were around then all of them built a breakout product back then and helped bring users uh online and then throughout the different eras of the internet whether that be the PC era where we all use the internet on our computers or the Mobile area you know where we all started to use it on our phones and then the social era and then now the AI era each area era Apple Google Amazon and um and Microsoft have continued to innovate and

sort of like reinvent their companies reinvent their products whether by building or buying and they stayed relevant through the entire 30 years right and they just kept adding on new services and new products and Reinventing and uh some of their old products disrupting some of their old products like apple you used to have an iPod right that went into your computer and that's how you listen to music and then they launched iTunes right uh and that connected into the iPod then they launched the iPhone which then disrupted and got rid of the iPod and iPods and all handheld music devices went away we just did it in our phone and then they disrupted iTunes with apple music and so on and so forth right like they just kept disrupting themselves and they've just remained relevant the whole way through and I think when you look at

coinbase's timeline I know it's early days uh but it's it's actually doing the same sort of thing so like coinbase started as just a Bitcoin service you just like used to exchange your Fiat money in the US and other countries for for Bitcoin but they noticed that there were these other tokens that were coming out these alts and they so they started allowing that um and then they sort of moved into stable coins which they saw stable coins are the main use case this is the big thing in crypto today and look who's front and center of it coinbase is once again right coinbase was supposed to be just an exchange a trading platform uh that's what they've always been um except they're not they now make 10% of their revenues from stable coins because they own something like 50% of us CC the fastest growing

stable coin last year right and then it's like okay um these like economic states do you know that they own 50% of usdc or did you just throw at that number it's around that much so people don't we don't know it's it's a private thing but based off the revenues they made in Q4 or sorry in 2024 from um Circle that you can kind of like backtrack the numbers and it's got to be somewhere around 50 I don't know that it's actually 50 but it's somewhere around there so let's say it's like 20 30 40 50 something like that it's pretty high it's significant it's significant let say that so 10% of the revenues came from that right which that's not who coinbase was when they first started and now it's like okay well they're noticing that the world is moving onchain right

like Dex activity is catching up to centralized exchange activity and so they are not a onchain company they are a centralized company and so what have they done they're basically disrupting coinbase app with base and coinbase wallet right like at some Point centralized companies might go to the Wayside maybe not I'm not sure but they've already hedged that bet and they're already starting to remove trading volume from coinbase and putting it onto base right uh but again at least they're the ones doing it they can capitalize on it this is exactly what Apple uh did and Amazon did Etc and so it's like every new thing that comes in the crypto world coinbase is front and center of it right it's like the number one L2 last year in 2024 was Bas the number one stable coin last year was

Circle um and then look at um see if I have the chart up here um just a couple days ago I don't have it up so don't worry about it but a couple days ago or sorry month and a half ago they launched the integration with Moro and Moro at the time was at like 36 million in um in supplies so people taking out loans of of usdc and um now it's up to 136 million in a month and a half right so it's it's gained 100 million in a month and a half per previous that it only ever got to 35 it's like everything coinbase touches right now basically just turns to gold and they seem to just keep Reinventing themselves and being ahead of everything that new that comes out and that's the exact trajectory that like apple and Amazon and and Microsoft

did and then coinbase also has I think it's n billion dollar in cash and so like they also can start to purchase companies and buy things the next things right um and so I just think as the world moves on chain there's there's no one that is more positioned or better positioned than coinbase to like ride that narrative to push that that or not narrative but that Revolution let's call it or that like migration there's no one that's like better positioned to take advantage of that and remain relevant and stay on the Forefront of that for the next 10 20 30 years and to me that's the companies you want to look for that you know you could have bought Apple Amazon Google or Microsoft anytime over the last 30 years it didn't matter if

you bought them at the very top of the dot bubble or the very top of the financial crisis before it crashed or the top of the like preco crash uh or the postco like boom that we had in 2021 buy any4 of those companies at that time and you are up multiples uh today and I think coinbase is going to be that same sort of idea where it's just one of those things that you just keep buying for the next decades and it will continue to do well because they're just continuing to reinvent themselves and like if you compare from uh 2021 to today coinbase's revenues were 8 86% um exchange volume Okay so just getting fees off people trading now

that's down to 59% they actually have revenues from so many different things stablecoin revenue blockchain revenue uh so meaning staking they have custodial Revenue they have a subscription service now they have the base Revenue like they have all these different forms of Revenue that they keep creating and so like they can they could basically turn off the fees if they needed to compete with Robinhood or something and have no fees on coinbase app and instead find other ways to monetize it and just no other companies really have that kind of power so I just think they're set up so well to just like dominate for for years to come um I don't know if anyone else has any thoughts on that uh I know there's a lot of competition so maybe maybe there's something else you guys see but I see them as being the the

apple or the Amazon of of the of the onchain world apple is an interesting comparison because right now they are not very Innovative anymore they are kind of uh fed up and uh there are smaller companies much more Innovative with maybe even better product um but yeah I certainly hope you are right as a coinbase stock owner but I also see a lot of competition and a lot of smaller companies doing this better maybe with uh even less fees using different protocols and I hope for the sake of decentralization that a coinbase won't be the number one winner and take it all but I mean coinbase is pushing everything into a decentralized world as

well with base and coinbase wallet right uh and so they're already trying to to do that um so we'll see anyone else have any thoughts yeah I um well I am also bullish on Co coinbase don't get me wrong but I'm I'm more bullish on that institutional kind of product lines they have rather than on retail because I think what they do for retail everyone will do the same everyone will offer like quite soon as well so like Robin Hood revolut when more like everyone is going to see what what they did and how they become such a

successful company and they are gonna like okay so we are we are gonna like do the same thing because they are making money we can do it too we have a huge user bases so we just need to bring all these product like closer to the users so they don't leave our platform and download coinbase and go there and start to using coinbase yeah and and one more thing is today all people use coinbase and we all know why because the user experience is just better and it's the main driver why people use coinbase rather than you know downloading metamask and like all these [ __ ] we need to do today but

like this is going to be abstracted away I believe and I hope it's going to be resolve pretty soon and like even with ZK you will you will be able to provide like hey this is my name you know this is my I can do kyc in a ZK way so like I am not really like giving you all my details I'm just proving you that like I am older than 18 years old or something and I will only generate ZK proof then like I I will not be I like I want need to write 20 24 words down like and remember my seat phrase or like storage somewhere it's going to be resolved as well so

like I think those are the the kind of bare cases scenario not not bare cases because like coinbase will still do well I'm just not seeing the path towards like one trillion company here's my thinking on this just yeah give me one second here so you guys both kind of mentioned you know competition people that can do it because they have users are maybe cheaper and this is thinking Amazon the same situation happened everyone's like well wait till Walmart launches an a store and wait till X company like every single retail that was out there launches an online store they all did it but none of them could compete with Amazon because Amazon was a a a internet native company right so it was not

trying to fit a square into a circle right it was an internet native company and so like it could just think first principles if I was to create an online store what would I do starting from scratch I don't need to have a store and a staff all these people and blah blah blah blah blah right it could just do it from the beginning and so it was always one step ahead of Walmart and every other retailer that came out and so thus only Amazon could do one day delivery Walmart only just started doing that right Amazon's been doing that for like 20 years right and then it was like well Amazon created Prime and it had the subscription service Walmart never thought about that and then inside the subscription service became the ability to like watch movies and like do all these like they just found more and more

ways to make their products just way better um because they had more than one product right and that's what I see with coinbase is yes Robin Hood can try to compete with coinbase but I think as they do that coinbase is already one step ahead of them and one step ahead like Robin Hood's just trying to get more assets on on their their app while coinbase is already beginning to integrate into defi apps right and then so like Robin Hood by next year starts to integrate into defi apps and then by then coinbase already has the ZK stuff you're talking about Martin where they allow people to like use ZK and like they're always one step ahead of every other company and every company in fintech is going to be I mean they're faster than Banks but they're definitely

slower than the Crypt native companies at least at doing the crypto native stuff and same with like Banks I know they're all going to custody uh crypto and allow that kind of stuff but again they're going to be so slow they're never going to compete with something like coinbase who is one like smaller and scrappier but to actually Crypt native and so like they're not building what someone else built if you're always building what like the leader building then you're always behind and coinbase has always stayed at the very very Forefront and I think they're only picking up pace on that which is the thing that makes me think they'll continue to sort of lead because you got to remember the fintech companies as great as they are they're good ux they all they just built they just repurposed what banks do but built it with a better

ux they didn't build anything on chain like what coinbase is doing and so I think they have a huge and will continue to have a huge lead on that and then because they have other revenue streams from things like state coins in base they can cut margins in areas that Robin Hood can't right like Robin Hood doesn't have other revenue streams whereas coinbase does uh and so I just think they have the power um and they'll do the thing like no one saw Amazon gonna launch AWS right like Amazon didn't have a social platform or an app per se that like came in the social uh when the social era came but they launched AWS which all the social media companies and all the big apps that came out used right so they found another way to

monetize because they understood the internet and they knew where the internet was going whereas none of the other the Walmart didn't launch that that product right so I just think um that's what coinbase can do I think to just keep leading in this space yeah I think you're right about the institutional side of things because they really have an edge there they are regulated company they have their stock they have to report on a quarterly basis but when we're talking about retail why should I become a coin coinbase customer if there's an crypto native app where I don't have to do kyc where I have less fees and I can do cross chain swaps for example something like that is already being built so right and most of it's being built on base and most of these

retail people are using coinbase wallet so they're already building the ux and the right products for that and then now what they have is if you want to use Aerodrome you can do it with zero fees if you're a coinbase one member and so if I'm retail why not go and have this subscription like my Amazon Prime subscription but not be a coin I don't even have to use a coinbase app I can go use Moro I can go use Aerodrome uh I think there's Doo there's like 15 onchain products now that you don't pay fees for or you get extra bonuses when you use it if you're a coinbase one member right so like they're they're creating this like power this network effect in their brand and in their products that like works even if you don't use the centralized exchange

that's the thing that I'm saying is like I'm not looking at their exchange volumes anymore like I know that matters of course but they're also beginning to dominate on the onchain world and that's what you're restricted to base not every Builder will come to base of course not a lot of innovation uh in 2024 happened on Solana for example sort of but yeah yeah absolutely but can can base continue to beat all the others that's that's the question right now Bas doesn't have a lot of competition like they have salana and basically no one else right so like they're already way farther ahead than every big company in the world because the only one with a Vibrant Community growing on an L2 like growing on chain but when you are using like Amazon

Amazon or Walmart they are like companies who do like offline businesses where they need to build like physical I don't know products and have like Logistics and like build the whole supply chain and that's their remote but for coinbase that's a software company in a world where we push for everything becoming open sourced and code is feels like it's no more emote so like you know it's a it's a different game I feel like and it's going to be much harder to to maintain that mode and like yeah yeah just having a huge market share of of that huge Emerging Market it's

completely agree there is a there's not much of a moat in this space with open source but I'll say there's two things that they have aote with one is trust which in a in the financial world is extremely important coinbase has $420 billion dollars of assets on their platform at the end of 2024 that's 12% of the entire crypto market cap they literally own almost one sixth of the entire crypto ecosystem not own they custody it so like anyone who's not going to build their own infra their own chains they're using coinbase today micro strategy the biggest holder of Bitcoin in the entire world the biggest holder of all crypto in the entire world who do they use as their custodian

coinbase black AR who uses custodian coinbase right so like that is a mo because they have the trust which is huge in the financial industry especially for institutions maybe not so much for retail right but definitely for that but then I go the Apple route why did Apple become so successful other than because they kept Reinventing they just created a ux with the Apple brand on everything you did the internet whether you wanted to listen to music you wanted to watch TV you wanted to use your computer you wanted to use a phone you wanted to chat with people they created the ux that everyone was familiar with and although open source like Google phones and Samsung phones Etc like the the Android phones people love that stuff like that could be

better and there's more features and it actually is better if you understand that more people still use and use the iPhones and they were to extract more value from it and people would never leave it because you had a blue text instead of a green text right like I've never left iPhone specifically because all my friends had an iPhone and we have a group chat that is iMessage and if I was to leave that group chat I no longer have a group chat with my friends right and so like they just happen to hit all these little important corners and build the ux for it I also like my my computer I can airdrop from my computer to my phone if I get an Android phone I can't do that anymore at least I can't do it natively right or seamlessly my headphones they connect directly to my

phone the moment I plug them into my ear no other headphone can do that so like because they hit every aspect of the way that we use the digital world they've built this modes and I think that's basically what coinbase is doing right now with with coinbase wallet with Bas with coinbase app with coinbase Commerce with the stablecoin etc etc they're like they're building this whole ecosystem and I think they're really becoming and that's why I think they're actually becoming the apple of crypto of the onchain world rather than maybe like an Amazon but you could you could kind of point to both yeah that institutional demand and Trust I agree like that's what I'm really bullish to yeah like B binance doesn't get that although I know binance is way bigger they're not they're not getting that I mean maybe they do in Asia I'm not sure but I I

think uh the real institutions what matters here is what's in the US and I think they're undoubtedly going with coinbase but the funny thing is that you know that bybit hack it it happened not because of byit but because of safe which is multi-c provider on ethereum and I am like 99% sure that coinbase custodians are using the same thing the same I wonder yeah yeah it's a scary world so that's the other thing is the trust can go away like that right if what if coinbase happened to be the one that that did what bybit did then there goes their trust and that would be insane but let God I'm just praying to the Lord that that never

happens all right well that was a good chat I think we covered a lot there anyone else have anything else they want to uh chat about we wrap up here cool well thanks everyone appreciate you guys all for joining hope you guys enjoy this conversation and uh let's be patient because we got to work through a lot in the markets over the next little while here but pay attention right this is when we grind and we pay attention to what's really happening in the space like we just discussed in this episode uh and that way you can be well positioned for whenever this bounce happens and we we continue on at the bull market so that's my my main advice but thanks gentlemen appreciate the conversations thank you see you next time thanks y as always if you liked today's episode please hit subscribe and

make sure you follow us so you don't miss out on the next one there's also a link in the description to our free 5 minute daily newsletter where we simplify crypto for you well making you laugh and if you're willing to step up your crypto investing game we're going to also leave a link for milk Road Pro you get access to our portfolio where you can see exactly what we are buying this is your number one resource to help you invest successfully in crypto one final note this show is for educational purposes only and nothing we say is financial advice investing in crypto or any asset is risky and you should never invest more than you can afford to lose thanks so much for listening in my friends have a wicked awesome day