Why institutions are turning toward Ethereum and Hyperliquid

Transcript

I think Sailor puts a floor on it and he also puts a ceiling on it. He owns, you know, I think he owns like threeish percent. It's it's it's under five right now. And the main thing to realize is like, yeah, when Stretch is at 100 and MSTR uh volatility is super high, so he can sell a ton of it and buy Bitcoin. He's definitely putting a floor on it. >> What's up everybody? It's LG Ducet here and welcome to the Milk Road Show, the daily crypto show that needs Bitcoin to score a World Cup hat-tick, even if it's starting to feel like it should just retire instead. Today is June 17th, 2026. This is a very odd bare market, okay? We have some of the biggest and best assets like Bitcoin kind of trending downwards, especially on the backs of potential sailor implosions, while other upcoming assets absolutely

outperform assets like hyperlquid, which fit the narrative of where this entire industry is going. Our guest today is a head of trading strategy. So, he spends his days quite literally exploring these narratives and their impacts on markets. Hassan Baseri from Falcon X is on with us today. And before we get into it, listen, Milk Road Pro is on absolute fire. Our analysts have made 30 trades this month. Oh my god, they they're going a little off, a little too much. Uh they've been selling a lot. They've been buying a lot. If you want to see what they're up to, their portfolios, their watch list, all that, it's in Milk Road Pro. It's just a dollar for a trial. So go check it out. The link is below. Today's episode is brought to you by Bit Stocks 2.0 with real liquidity, real dividends, Nexo, earn interest,

borrow and trade crypto, and Cali, where your takes finally pay out. Hassan, what's up, man? >> What's up, LG? How you doing? >> Uh, I'm good, man. What's Okay, listen. My first question for you. What do you What does a head of trading strategy do? Cuz you've got your you got your fancy setup there with all your all your analysts behind you. You guys have like a hundred monitors. I feel like I'm watching a movie about Wall Street. What do you What do you do all day? >> I mean, I like I'm a kind of a jack of all trades. I support the spotes in uh execution. I I support our DeFi and marketmaking team in terms of like partnerships and structuring uh token market making deals as well as TVL deals. Uh and then I help explore like uh you know options and derivatives for

clients to try to put them into good structures or like expressing views on certain coins or certain positions whether that's you know Bitcoin the majors or alts and we're getting into more esoteric derivatives as well where you could bet on like or speculate on uh Bitcoin dominance or you know Micro Strategy ANAV. So really like trying to get clients to express views and figuring out how to best express that view with asymmetric returns and kind of like sitting between, you know, spot, defi, and derivatives. >> So what what do people want to express most these days?

>> Right now it's Yeah, right now it's uh short crypto, long AI. That's the main expression. >> Um yeah, I know. I know. more more like uh but no seriously I think people are I think people are on the fence right now because you know we've been bouncing off 60 a couple times and the reactions off 60 have gotten more and more complacent. Uh it hasn't been as strong of a reaction as people would would hope for. And the main thing everyone's watching right now sadly and it's been widely reported is like the the price of Stretch and how that impacts Bitcoin. Obviously Stretch is not having a great day today. Uh it's at 92. Um, and there are things that Sailor's doing to try to, you know, smooth the volatility and get that back to PEG. It's not working right now. Recently, he's been, uh,

every week he'll sell or the past two weeks he sold like $200 million of MSTR, taken a hundred of that, 50%, bought Bitcoin, taken the other 50%, added it to a cash reserve. Um, and honestly, I don't think I don't think the market loves that. And I think Bitcoin, you're seeing the price in Bitcoin, right? Like, no one wants to step in front of that. No one wants to step in front of what what everyone thinks is inevitable, which is which is that Sailor has to sell Bitcoin. Not even because of a liquidation or something like that, but because I think if he sells some Bitcoin and bolsters his cash reserves, I think stretch naturally pegs and he he smooths the market's fears. If you look back to like, you know, two weeks ago, why didn't Bitcoin move from, you know,

70,000 to 60,000, 72,000 60,000? It's not because sailor sold. It's because people are frontr running Sailor selling. >> Um because he didn't sell. He sold 32 Bitcoin. He was trolling online and then he turned around, sold a couple hundred million of MSTR and bought Bitcoin. >> Um and it's not helping. It's not giving the market confidence um that he will do, you know, what it's necessary right now to rep stretch. And maybe he doesn't even want to do it or he doesn't think he should, but >> um that's what's causing the the problems right now. Do you fancy yourself an analyst andor a content creator in this space? Well, we want you. Specifically, if you live and breathe tech equities, Milk Road could be the home for you. We're hiring for

two positions right now, analyst and content creator. So, check out the careers page below. Hassan, you you've been in the space for almost 10 years, man. Would would Bitcoin be better off without Sailor? >> It's a great question. Um, >> I've never asked anybody that. I just thought of that now, though, because even like you're you're explaining all the stuff that he's doing. We talked about strategy so many times and I just like I just really wonder it's a lot of people have pegged and I'll give you a bit more context even from our audience perspective. It's like people have said that 2025 the winter started earlier. It just didn't feel like it because Sailor was buying and propping up the price. Like we've heard all these things and it just it seems to me I'm like is this a real is this a fair question to ask is like would would

we be better if there wasn't this kind of artificial fund trying to jump through all these hoops? I definitely think Sailor I think from our clients we get a couple perspectives and I kind of agree with it. I think Sailor puts a floor on it and he also puts a ceiling on it. he owns, you know, I think he owns like threeish%. It's it's it's under five right now. And the main thing to realize is like, yeah, when Stretch is at 100 and MSTR uh volatility is super high, so he can sell a ton of it and buy Bitcoin, he's definitely putting a floor on it, but I think his outsized ownership and the complexity of the capstack and just his the way he goes about doing some of the thing some of the things he does like

now he's like issuing AI uh there's like AI infomercials telling you to buy Stretch. It's it's it's uh and I think that definitely turns a lot of like OGs off. Like at 100,000 we got we got a lot of uh a lot of OG whales selling Bitcoin in size. Um and I think that's part of it. So I think the fairest answer is I don't know that it would be this high without him, >> but I also think it cannot go as high as you know his I mean he he's you know he's a religious fanatic. really really believes in his million dollar per bitcoin headline, you know, and everyone else in the space like we're all traders and we use our brains. He he is his is like a religion. Like he does not care about the price today. He really thinks

it's going to hit a million dollars and he's just going to buy until he owns as much of the supply can get as much of the cap stack can take on um to buy Bitcoin. So like that's my answer. It's probably not as low or probably not as high, probably not as low without him. self. >> How does this We'll move on from strategy in a second, but how does this how does this whole situation kind of shake out with the price of Bitcoin in the short term? And to give you a bit more context as well, like we're getting low now. We're hearing from some of our analysts that come on that it's like, listen, you're hitting levels of of of um all these metrics that are only ever hit when you're like near the low of the bear. So maybe it's a good buying

opportunity soon, you know, and that if there's another low, it's going to come soon and that'll be it, right? But this this is clearly the situation that's hanging over all of that. So maybe tell us on before we move on like how you think this kind of resolves uh going forward. Here's my like take is I think in crypto uh you know we have this saying like pegs are always tested and liquidation levels are always tested and obviously in Sailor's in Sailor's case there is no reasonable like he's not getting liquidated there's he's not it's not he's not on hyperlquid but the point is is that I think the market will resolve a lot healthier if it tests him and like Bitcoin goes to back to 60 back to 55ish and he comes out and says I

sold some Bitcoin. And that's what I mean by the pegs getting tested, the liquidation levels getting tested, is that the market will test Sailor. That's my take or my view. I don't know if it's contrary or not. The market will test Sailor. And once he comes out and says, "Hey, I sold a billion or two of Bitcoin. I have reserves that will cover me for the next 18 months on Stretch." Uh, everyone will kind of, in my opinion, everyone will will think, okay, he's not a lunatic. He's not just going to run Stretch to the ground. And I mean, he is a lunatic, but like he's he's not going to run Stretch to the ground. He's he's willing and able to sell Bitcoin to cover his uh dividend obligations and then Stretch will rep again. People are not buying right now in my opinion. One, it's the

summer. Summers are exceptionally low volatility. You know, people are not like people are on vacation. People are not worried about crypto. Plus, AI is full boom right now. So, but people are not buying because they're they're looking at, you know, what's going to happen with Sailor. So, once he just comes out and sells a little bit, bolsters reserves, I think we resolve higher. And where is that price? My personal opinion is Bitcoin bottoms around 55ish. Like there's there's always that level where like if Sailor sells, people panic sell after that. And I think that's the one you want to buy. And I'm looking for like 55ish. And honestly, dude, like if you're buying when when you buy an asset like Bitcoin, you're going for two, three, four, five extra money. So whether you buy it 10 to 10 to

15% or 20 even 25% from the bottom, 25% of the bottom is an amazing amazing buy. You're never going to you're never going to buy the bottom. And unless you're like an add-on on Twitter, you're likely never going to sell the top. So it's really really important to just pick time based time based targets and like price based like within a range and start to accumulate. And we're not far from that, by the way. I don't think we're far from that. >> So long as you don't buy it at that point and then sell it when it does get to that bottom because you're freaking out. >> Yeah. Yeah. Like just just be like have good risk management and like you know like personally if I saw I mean 60 there's there's really even no difference to be quite frank with you between on a long enough time frame

between 50 55 and 65. I really believe that. >> So I think this level is fine to start accumulating. like it's it it's not trading great right now, but like you generally want to be buying crypto when everyone says it's dead and you generally want to be selling crypto when it's on MSNBC. Like like that's like and and like you know you buy when it's dead, you sell when it's the greatest thing since sliced bread and you will make a lot of money. And right now like it's you know it's it's in the limelight for all the wrong reasons because of Sailor, because of Stretch, like it's so like we're close but we're not there yet. And I kind of like Q3ish in terms of a bottom.

>> Right. Okay. Definitely feels like we're trending that way. I I have a qu another question for you on on the Falcon X side. Um when you're saying, you know, I this whole section kind of kicked off with me asking you about like what what what trades do people want to express right now? What are you helping clients, institutions kind of uh express in the market? Um how how often do these types of clients want to make moves? Right? Because you and I were chatting before. You and I are both uh have den degen trader backgrounds. So you and I, you know, you and I have both been up at 3 in the morning aping different things, right? So it's like you and I not not um immune to uh making trades. What I'm saying and rather than being a a what you would classify as more like an

investor long term, but from what you're describing is that like people are trying to maybe express things that are a little bit more short-term. Maybe tell me a bit more about that of like is that something that's a symptom right now too? Is are people trying to kind of make moves in this kind of maybe short time frame while things are low or do people really just looking for long-term long-term stuff to express? >> It depends on the client really. You know, we have some very very sharp uh you know bigger funds that will buy major dislocations. So for instance like you saw Ze go from like 700 to 300 in two days, right? And we had some very very sharp funds come in and buy size.

Um which makes sense, right? Like it doesn't it definitely makes sense. It's like even if it's a short-term trade for that for you, which I I don't think it is for them. I think they believe in Ze given the size they bought. Like you can't get in you didn't you didn't get into it in a minute, so you're not going to get out of it in a minute. Right. >> So, um they buy these dislocations. Um so, like there's trades like that. >> Yeah. >> And then there's then then there's stuff like where okay, Bitcoin has fallen from 75 uh to 60 in literally three days, four days, right? I know that we're going to bounce. 60 is a big support level. It's held support every time. I'm going to put like a short-term options trade on where I sell a put, buy a call.

Um or like they'll come in with size and then they'll take the 5% on the Bitcoin. They'll take it. So, it really just depends on the type of client, whether it's like a prop fund or like a larger liquid venture fund um and how they're looking to trade it. But like for for stuff for like stuff like Bitcoin and ETH specifically, a lot of these guys are more long-term. Um, you know, trading weekly options, monthly options, it's very hard. It's very very hard. Like, you know, it's obviously like given the given theta, like you can make a lot of money really quickly. Um, but the offices also true, you can lose a lot of money really quickly. So, like it depends on the client. A lot of people right now are looking to express uh views on Zack ETH hype. ETH. ETH is like the most interesting one in my opinion.

I don't have a view on it personally, but like a lot of people are thinking or our clients are telling us that they they're the most bullish of the three majors in the short term on Ethereum just because like the the BMNP, which is like uh you know Tom Le's version of Stretch for ETH that that's coming to market. It's currently trading at 87. It's it's a fixed yield. So like basically it'll give you 9 and a half% but where you buy it matters. So at 100 it's a 9 and a or at 95 it's a 95 9 and a half% yield. At at 190 it's a 4 and a half% yield. So like the market kind of dictates like what your actual yield is there because it's fixed and where that trades is a good barometer of like ETH health in my opinion. It just launched

this week so it's going to take some time. But a lot of people are bullish ETH. They also think it's like oversold and all this stuff. I have no real opinion on ETH. I like I got into the space because of ETH but uh have since moved on but like we're still you know we're really close to the BMR team and I think Tom Lee is like a good chairman and he wants to do what's best for the asset like truthfully like if you look at the DATs it's like which which of the DATs are successful it's like Purr which is great asset hyperlquid and then Micro Strategy which has amassed a ton of a ton of Bitcoin and then Bit Miner and and obviously SB as well to a to a lesser extent >> but I think all of these the elements of like why certain DATs trade well versus

others is they pick a they pick an asset that people actually want to hold and then and then execution's really good. you know, the at the money sales to accumulate more. The underlying is good. And then obviously timing. Timing is one of the most important factors. Like Bit Miner was selling its shares at over a hundred bucks. You know, that's a lot of money to accumulate the underlying. Now, did they turn around and purchase ETH at the best prices? >> No. But, you know, a lot of what they would tell you is like we're an accumulation vehicle. We're not a hedge fund trading it. And that's fair. That's fair. You're buying it because you believe in long-term accumulation of ETH. So, >> everyone's tokenizing stocks these days, but almost nobody's doing it right. Thin liquidity, prices that drift from the real thing, dividends that just vanish.

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institutional grade security. Oh, and by the way, Nexo is back in the US with new US clients getting 30 days of Wealth Club premier access. That means elevated interest rates, lower borrowing costs, and crypto cash back on trades. Benefits usually reserved for loyalty program members. Get started at milkroad.com/nexo. I have I have some questions for you about Ethereum, but first since you since you you discussed Tom Lee, if you were trapped in an elevator and you have to choose between Sailor and Tom Lee, who would you choose that you're stuck in?

>> Oh man, there like dude, I I think like Okay, like honestly I would probably pick uh Wow, that's such a good question, bro. Um I think I could talk to more about or about more topics with Tom Lee. I mean Tom Lee was like the number one equity analyst in in in Trafi I think at JPM for a long time. Like he's he's been doing this a long long time and looking at all assets obviously like he he's now known for crypto and he's been a champion of crypto for a long time but like he is a very smart guy and has been talking about for a long time. I think I could talk with but the breadth of the conversation would be better with Tom but the depth of the conversation with Sailor would be more interesting to me.

I mean I'm just like I'm a little scared of him. I wonder if he'd kill me at one point. Like he's so autistic. It's like like his intensity. His intensity. Yeah. No, it's exciting. Like it's it's like you know when you're like uh when you're excited, scared, nervous at the same time. I I that's never happened to me talking to a man, but like it would probably happen to me talking to Sarah. You know what the >> Oh my god. Didn't expect you to say something like that. >> Yeah. Yeah. He's just intense guy. You know, generally when you're hitting on someone, but like >> Okay, let's go. Let's go back to Ethereum. Um, on the client side right now, is there is there more interest in expressing a a long Ethereum here? Like you're saying at these kind of oversold levels and and I know personally you're

not as interested in the asset, but you're saying that that's the kind of calls you're getting or top blasting hyperlid. >> Yeah. Well, like I'm a trader, so if it makes sense, you trade it. Like a lot of I think like a lot of clients came in for like 1,400, 18800 risk reversals uh when it fell to around 1,500. you know, selling selling a put at 1400, buying a call at 1,800 um on like a 2, three, fourmonth time frame. That that really does make sense to me. Like ETH has held that 1400 price for a long time. That's by the way that's when um you know the like back I mean looking at a chart like 1400 has been historical support. A lot of people capitulated on 1400 last year and then it rallied up to like 4,000 call it two three months later. I don't

have the chart in front of me, but like that's that price is held. And generally the way ETH trades historically anyway is it does this thing where it just does absolutely nothing for long periods of time and then rattles off 40% in like a week. And so and then everyone gets excited and buys that 40% move and it just kind of chops and bleeds back down. That's just how ETH trades. So I think allocating to these levels is at these levels is fine. And yeah, I'm looking at this like April 2025, ETH was around 1,400 in and then in August, you know, 3 4 months later, it was at 4,500. Like it's very very violent. The moves are very very violent. And this is a major you could buy 100, 2000, $300 million of this, no

problem at all. And so, you know, it's sitting here at, you know, 1,700 and uh is it going to get a rally? I don't know. But I know what when it does rally, it will be very violent. So expressing that through derivatives makes a lot of sense to me. >> Yeah. No, that move that move a year ago was pretty insane after the tariffs, right? It was like post tariffs uh pre pre- bare market it went from let's see about a year ago sitting around 2200 and then by yeah by mid August it was at it was pushing 48. So a 2 and a halfx move basic or almost two and a halfx move uh in a two-month span. Right. So that's a good point. I think people forget that about Ethereum too because it's so it's so dumped on. It's ridiculed. You don't know what's going on. People leaving,

especially lately, bankless and the Ethereum Foundation, all that, all the drama. And we've covered that extensively on the show, but I think people forget that it's like, man, when this thing moves, it does move. So, that that's very exciting. What about Hyperlid? >> God. Uh, it's I mean, the chart tells you everything you need to know. Um, look, I think obviously it's uh everyone wants to trade it, everyone wants to be in it, everyone wants to own it. Uh I don't know if these are top signals or not but uh it's like look look I think hyperlquid it is open finance trade anything anywhere any leverage and people are drawn to it and then we give you back over 90% of the fees by buying the coin and the main thing here is that I think there's there's a couple things

going on in addition to all the other shilling the first thing is that Hyperlid has shown a very strong the team the core team has shown a very strong initiative to defend the eco not openly defend the ecosystem but like there are no other ecosystem tokens that you can bid in size within the hype ecosystem other than hype hype gets the bit and you've seen like a lot of teams try to go and like put a lend borrow into hyperlquid or put an LST into hyperlquid the ecosystem and you know it doesn't work like the coin doesn't go because they will just you know like Jeff and the team are just like you're not going to put some fork that you could code and claw in 5 minutes, pitch a token, have that token attract value

and then take the bit away from hype. This has happened with like hyperlend Felix a lot of these things where they tried to put a very simple lend borrow on top of it and you know hype just like added one line into the code and allow you to do that especially with portfolio margin all these things. That's the first thing is that they defend the token uh in terms of bid and attention. The second thing is like this is less discussed is I think what the markets the market has a lot of trust in hyperlquid like they will do what's best for the token. You know the staking yields like 2%. No one cares about 2%. Right? They're not giving you massive incentive like what are you getting the staking yield for like like you're not really like so my point here is that Hyperlid I think is like 40% issued and

a lot of that's been bought back. So my view is that Hyperlid is not really a $75 billion FTV. Hyperlid's market cap is the FTV and those additional coins will never come to market or will not come to market for a long long time. So instead of looking at it as $75 billion market cap uh or $75 billion FTV, the FTV is like a quarter of that. And that's what excites me because I think it can keep running. I think 100's like kind of I mean I don't want to use there's no guarantees in crypto there's no guarantees in finance but like 100 is like the closest thing you can get to guaranteed and I think it keeps going to be honest especially with we have all these IPOs coming and you saw how well it pegged the SpaceX open price anthropics coming open AI is coming like

these are going to be big big big attractions for people to speculate on what's interesting is like right now Binance is winning in uh in uh SpaceX uh open interest but people still are bidding hyperlquid. So it kind of tells you everything you need to know in terms of like client interest. We have a lot of call overwriting in hyperlquid a lot of like you know hundreds to the end of the year that people writing people writing calls on hyperlquid at 100 when it was at at 65. And I I personally think that that call is going to get like ripped through that price is going to get ripped through um eventually. Um and and these are more like institutional clients that like want to

generate yield because look, there's no staking yield, right? So you have if you're just going to hold this thing, you need to generate some yield and a lot of a lot of uh clients like like to write calls on hyperlquid because it is high ball, you do get paid pretty well on it. Uh and it and it is good yield. You know, if you have like three, four, $500 million this thing and you're generating call overwriting strategies that annualizing to 30 40%. That's that's quite powerful. Um and they're writing them way out of the money. But I just think this thing can this thing can go. >> So So is that is that mainly what people want to do? What your clients want to do at Falcon X is options?

>> Is that mainly is that mainly the thing that they express? >> They they they do a lot of options like we have a lot of foundations and and treasuries that will will do options to generate yield on the treasury and then you know we'll do they'll they'll also buy puts to protect the value of the treasury. You know you have some token that that is moving 30 40% a week. What's the value of your treasury? Is it 200 million or is it 100? And it's it's your treasury. You need it to manage operations, pay people, run your business, survive. A lot of crypto is just about survival. And so you really can't survive if your token drops 95% value and it's unhedged. You just can't survive. So paying buying puts or selling calls is just a way to extend your runway and, you know, pay people,

keep the lights on until you can find the next thing that people want to invest in a trade. So yeah, we do we we get a lot of like option. We our bread and butter the bread and butter of the firm is the derivatives desk and like how we we help clients manage risk and express views through options and exotics. >> Right. Okay. Okay. You're listening to the Milk Road Show which means you've got takes strong ones I bet. But where do those takes actually go? Do you tweet them into the void, argue them in the group chat? Or do you try to express them by buying a stock? The thing is stocks move on like 50 other things at once and that's where Khi comes in. It's a CFTC regulated prediction market where you bet directly on outcomes like Bitcoin hitting 100K, Fed rate cuts,

GameStop buying eBay with a clean yes or no. We did a full deep dive on why prediction markets might be crypto's third product market fit moment. Check the show notes for the full report and claim $10 free when you trade $10 on Koshi. What has been the let's say maybe maybe take us back to like when the bare market started basically like let's you know 10 months or however long it's been now, nine months. What what to you what did you think there would be more demand for in terms of trade expression that there hasn't been? I mean, the most obvious answer is alts. I mean, and everyone talks about it, but I really thought that a lot of these alts would have some form of speculative bid. And like, it's not like the alts didn't run. The alts

run the alts are really similar to ET. They like they'll rattle off 100% in two, three weeks, and then they give it back over 3, four months. And really, alt trading now has become, and it's it's very hard to do like especially in size, alt trading. And alts, when I say alts, it's not hyperlquid because that's become that's already a major. >> Uh, but like I'm saying, alts are about like what levels do you think are good to bid at that you think others will bid at >> and then where are you going to sell them in size? Because like if you sell some of these, if you buy something and you're in you're sized in it and it's a 10% down day and now you're selling it, you're going to lose 30% of the value immediately. Like it's just you cannot

you can't sell on a down day. So, it's really about timing and sizing with alts, which is very very challenging because timing is is like you're really front running others. Um, where are other people interested in this in this thing? Um, and then you generally want to sell right when you think right when you think it's going to go to the moon and go higher because like a lot of alts, they just don't hold on. If it's not hype, it's not Zack, it's not going to hold on to its returns. And there are good tokens that are down here. You know what I mean? Like look at like uh I don't we could get into Pump, but like Pump went from it IPOed or I ICOed at like four. It went down to two and a half and then it rattled up to eight and now it's at

like5. >> Yeah. >> And it's the same exact business. And maybe >> they still make a ton of money, man. They still make a ton of money. Still do buybacks. Like nothing's changed. >> Yeah. I mean, I think with Pump, like this is a good this is a good segue. Like like the the market trusts Hyperlid. The market trusts Jeff to do the right thing. I think with pump it's a little bit of a different like everyone sees the numbers right everyone knows that it's cheap uh it's it's not rocket science like they did a couple things that were tricky that have in my opinion have given the market like pause on bidding the token the first was they raised way more um than was initially discussed you know it was like going to be 250 million they raised a billion that's a lot >> it's a lot of money and and like it's

like okay like why why do you need that money and but by the way I'm a big fan I'm a big fan of Pump I don't think meme coins are dead I the casinos shifting. You know, you're working with animal spirits. So, this is not a take like a negative take on Pump. I but I do think it has like a the market doesn't trust them because the first thing is the raise. The next thing is like you have initially like Pump was going to do 100% buybacks for an indefinite period of time. They didn't put a number on it. Now they're doing 50% buybacks for a year. >> Okay. The third thing is like they promised everyone an airdrop. There's no airdrop and it's been, you know, roughly a year since. So like I'm not saying any of these in isolation has had an impact

on the price. I'm just saying in totality this paints a picture of like okay well we don't the market doesn't trust you or they bid your coin because it is fundamentally cheap even down here they're programmatic buybacks yada yada yada everyone knows all this but like it's a trust issue and so like if I were advising them which I'm not like I would say I mean and and the unlock's coming up too in like in like mid mid July I think. So like that's definitely put a cap on it because that's a lot of money that people are up a lot on. So that's I think like what they should do is let the unlock happen, do the airdrop, let all the people that want to sell sell and then just start a fresh. Rip the band-aid off like like you're not going to get you're not going to like reverse

financial engineer your way through these unlocks. You're just not going to do it. And people were you told people you're going to do an airdrop. So when are you going to do the airdrop? When the price is higher, it's going to put a ceiling on it. So I would say like rip the band-aid off. get it over with and just do it. People who will sell, want to sell, will sell. Obviously, it's a lot of money and people in crypto are poor right now because nothing's performing other than the hype. And then you get this out of the way and you slowly start to build rebuild trust. Another interesting Sorry, you want to keep talking about this? I could go about pump all day. I think it's one of the most misunderstood >> I think it's one of the most misunderstood uh tokens in crypto. I

really do. >> Well, I mean, are you are you getting a tattoo put on your face or whatever for the uh for Pumpco? I mean, tell Noah and Alon like, "Yeah, pump it. Pump at uh 0 or 01. I'll get a tattoo pump on my uh on my on my neck right here." Yeah. So, >> for people that don't know, Pump Pump's latest product is Pump Fun Go, which is like a bounty marketplace, which mirrors Black Mirror, which uh which last year had an episode basically, you know, uh referencing Pump where uh you know, this couple kept doing all these like silly >> tasks that the online world would tell them to do in exchange for money because they needed money. And now basically Pump and it was supposed to be a

reference to Pump Fund, but now now Pump Fun is kind of emulating that. And that's that's a guy recently got a tattoo on his face as result of a pump fund bounty basically. >> Yeah. Anyway, >> and the and the community bonded and sent him more money than the >> paid. No, cuz he misspelled it. Cuz he misspelled the tattoo apparently. Although I feel like all that to me is like a scop publicity stunt honestly. Like that to me I'm like that's set up, you know? That's especially seeing the stuff that's >> happen. What did he misspel? I didn't even see what did he spell like what did he misspelled? >> I thought I think it was like bounty or something like that. He misspelled it. Um and >> how did you spell bounty? I think that I don't I don't think it was bounty. Um,

hold on. >> Was it missing a Y or instead of >> Y? >> Okay, here we go. Disaster strikes. Bounty work. It was hashtag bountywork and he wrote it bootywork. There was no N. >> That may be misspelling. I would take >> it's right on his forehead. >> And so he didn't get the money, but then the the the community rallied and made him a coin and sent him a bunch of the fees basically. Uh, you know, >> God bless. God bless. God bless this man. >> God bless. God bless. No, God bless God bless this in general. Like >> DJ community will still do the right thing even in the the the the doldrums of the bare market. We'll still step up and and make things right.

>> But but but like like one of the things I think is like to getting back on this issue of trust and like market perception of the project and why people bid your coin is like one of the narratives for right or for wrong and I don't agree with it is that like pump is extractive. Uh because like so many people have lost soul. It takes soul to bond the coin. Like you get paid in soul. You sell the coin for soul. Uh pump makes money in soul. Is that like instead of like instead of doing a buyback, give people like let them stake the coin and give them Solana. Obviously there's some regulatory issues that we have to work through, but like when that happens and you give people back soul, you're doing two things. like you're giving them the

preference to bid to use the soul to bid pump. You're also giving them more money to go back to the casino which is pump and you're taking you're giving them the optionality to do what they want to do with the earnings that they've earned from staking your coin and supporting your coin. >> So I think like that would change that would start to change the perception of pump is extractive and it would one increase like actually increase wealth. Um, people want the money in their hand. People want the soul in their hand so that they can go and and and like pull the slot machine again. So, I think like that would definitely help the perception and start to change the narrative around it. There's some issues there obviously like can you do that and things like that, but I think uh if they wanted to do it, I think they get done.

>> Right. Right. Okay. Han, we don't we don't have that much time left. Um, and as much I'd love to keep talking punk in the trenches and stuff, I knew that we would end up going there. As soon as you came on before we were recording, I was like, "We're immediately going to talk about Denet." But now, >> yeah, I want to show you. Yeah. >> You're a big boy now, though. Okay. This is this we're having big boy conversations in the in the bare market here. We have to we have to zoom out and think about the bigger crypto market. Um, it's a professional show. uh what what what should we be thinking about for the rest of the year? I think that that's really what what I what I want to focus on for the last couple minutes here is from your perspective. You told

us kind of what clients are interested in, what kind of trades they want to express. You you right off the bat you said that people wish they were way more exposed to AI the last like couple months then to crypto naturally. I think I think we all do even in those who do have exposure to AI. Um but what from here the next 6 to 12 months what do you think um what should people be thinking about? Let's put it that way. not investment advice or anything like that, but what should people be be looking for or or watching um in the crypto market and broader market. >> Uh within crypto specifically, I think capital finds its best form of return.

It's best suggested return. That's where capital goes. So what I would say is I would look for rotations and from from like all the wealth that's been created in stocks for some of that to come back into crypto like SKHEX being 50x up in a year, you know, like some of that rotation like some of that Korean bid and some of like just the wealth generation that's happened. I really want to see some of that money come back into the space. Now is it going to go to pump fund? Probably not. But is it going to bid the majors? Yeah, I think it will eventually. So that's the first thing I want to see. And then the major thing is like for for longer term people looking for an entry. Obviously we talked about stretch. And the third thing is like midterms. Like what's going to happen in

midterms? Sorry. What's going to happen in midterms? I'm not as bearish as some of the other people on the desk on Dems winning, but like I think a lot of people people I mean we're split here, but a lot of people think if Dems win the midterms like uh it's going to unwind a lot of the positive regulation that we've had and and obviously like you know the Clarity Act when if and when that gets across the line. Um like so so for instance for example some people are saying if debs win and clarity is not passed by then clarity gets killed. That's an extreme example. That's something to watch for. Uh, so like, so basically, watch midterms, hope a Republican wins, and then see how Trump reacts to like this AI tax that people are not talking about or like cracking down on AI, whatever that

means, >> and then watch for capital rotations from the wealth created outside crypto to come back into crypto because they think the risk adjusted return is good. And at 50k, at 50-ish, 55k, I think it's a good it's a good RR, especially if if especially if Sailor sells sells a little bit of Bitcoin to put everyone's mind at ease. >> Absolutely. That's good, man. Um, where um do you are you the kind of person who has price projections or anything like that for cryptos? Are you allowed to do that? >> I mean, I'm allowed to make up a number, but yeah, I'll make up a number if you want, bro. Uh, I mean, look, I I like I'll tell you this. I like Bitcoin bottoming

around 55 plus minus plus minus 10%. Like I I just like and then in terms of like pops, I really think you have to see you have to get this sailor cloud done with and and then the animal spirits can take over again. right now there's a cap on it because of all the other stuff going on and all and like the AI sucking the the the air out of the room but like life is like a pendulum. Markets are like a pendulum and right now we're I don't want to say we're at the extreme but we're getting there and it'll swing back. It's just time and hopefully you're a good investor, trader, portfolio manager, whatever. Like your job is timing.

Sadly, >> your job is timing and it'll get there. Just don't get don't get liquidated and uh stay locked in. It's hard, but stay locked in. >> I like it. You guys heard it from the head of trading strategy at Falcon X. Stay locked in. Don't lose your Uh the bottom is near, so relax. Uh Hassan, great to chat with you, man. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you for the insight. Uh and I'm sure we'll see you again probably at maybe hopefully at higher numbers. We don't know, but uh I'd love to see you again on the show. >> Thanks, bro. Thank you, LG. Thank you for your time.

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