Scott Melker: Why Bitcoin’s Supercycle Is Just Getting Started
Summary
Bitcoin: Guest is strongly bullish long term, citing structural demand, debasement hedge narrative, and expectation of substantially higher prices over time.
Stablecoins: Detailed case for stablecoins driving global dollarization and payments modernization, with policymakers increasingly supportive and recognizing efficiency over legacy rails.
Institutional Adoption: Major banks and custodians are racing to offer crypto services, with developments like JPM accepting BTC/ETH as collateral and the Fed engaging on crypto payments infrastructure.
Digital Asset Treasuries: Nuanced view—MicroStrategy (MSTR) seen as the clear BTC balance-sheet leader, while altcoin treasury companies may outperform through staking and DeFi-generated yield.
Altcoins: Expect BTC to lead, with selective alt seasons; Solana and Ethereum viewed as higher-quality, liquid plays, while memecoin frenzies are seen as episodic and risky.
Solana & Ethereum: Positive on SOL/ETH due to staking yields, DeFi opportunities, and potential institutional participation as futures/ETFs expand access and hedging tools.
Crypto ETFs: Spot ETFs broaden access for traditional investors; options activity (e.g., IBIT context) shows rapid maturation, serving as a gateway to eventual spot ownership for many.
Banks & Custody: Financials, especially custody banks, stand to benefit from crypto custody and settlement services as regulatory clarity improves, though policy risk remains.
Transcript
There are aspects of the four-year cycle that perhaps we can still look at as valid, but I think it's largely dead in my perspective. And if it isn't dead, it's certainly not the having that is the underlying reason for the four-year cycle, right? Because the having is a rounding error at this point when it comes to the supply demand dynamics. I very very deeply believe that Bitcoin is heading up and to the right massively and that we're going to hit those hyperbolic targets of 250, 500, and a million. Don't forget to sign up for a free portfolio review with one of our endorsed investment partners at wealth.com/free. With markets hitting all-time highs, now is a great time to stress test your strategy and be prepared for what comes next. >> Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Wealthy On podcast. I'm Chris Perkins, president and managing partner at Coin Fund. And today I am with the wolf of all streets, Scott Melker, known trader, investor, and influencer. Um, welcome aboard, Scott. How you doing, man? >> I'm doing great. How are you? >> I'm doing well. Um, before we begin, we'd love to just get a little bit of background. I know you started in the music industry and man, you were one of the defining voices across crypto. Give us a little bit of background. Uh, and then love to get into some of your hot takes. >> It's been a predictable roller coaster like probably [laughter] anyone who landed in the crypto space at the end of it. Uh, I went to the University of Pennsylvania in the in the late 90s. So as much as I ended up taking a turn and focusing on music, you know, all of my friends ended up on Wall Street and hedge funds, private equity, and as traders. So I was always trading and always had at least a superficial involvement in the markets. Generally trading very poorly, just just for the record, getting wiped out repeatedly in every predictable way. And really after, you know, 20-year music career, found my way to crypto as a trader. And at that point, I had impeccable timing coming in in late 2016, 2017. Everything was going up. I sort of just built a following randomly by posting charts all over Twitter and sharing all of my trades. And then, of course, the bare market came and I had to somehow justify all the money I had lost and the reason that I was bothering to even focus on this asset class. And honestly, that's when I really fell down the uh Bitcoin and crypto rabbit hole when I started creating content around it and just sort of organically growing all the things that I was doing because I was just so incredibly passionate about Bitcoin and about this space. And that's always been what's driven me in music and what's driven me here is just a deep belief in it and wanting to share it with the world. >> Did you have a specific like red pill moment? Because I know there's a lot of people right now they're saying, "Well, gosh, this thing is getting kind of it's legitimizing right now and they're they're starting to think, you know, I'm about to take that first step and and go all in." Did you have like a specific Red Bull moment where something happened? You're like, "Oh my god, this is it. >> There's been quite a few to be quite honest. So there was the trading and monetary side which is fleeting which is when I found Dogecoin in the very early days and you traded it and this is way before Elon Musk and way before anybody else knew this was a very cryptonative thing >> and it had these very predictable moves. It would effectively pull a 12 or 15x every six months. So you could buy it when it went to the lows. It would go up and it would just cycle and it was a lovable meme and you'd make some money never believing that it would become, you know, Elon Musk's pet. But so from a financial uh perspective, I saw how easy at that time, which proved not to be true in the future, but how easy it was to make money in the space. But then I think my real moment even as I started to fall deeper down the what is money rabbit hole that obviously leads most people to Bitcoin was COVID and stimulus and all the money printing and nonsensical monetary policy that happened during that time. So I think what what had been planted as seeds really grew during that period and once you see behind the curtain of monetary and fiscal policy and what money really is, it's very hard to ever go back. >> Yeah, totally. I mean my own personal experience is that you know been full-time crypto four years. I actually we you know our mutual friend Sandy and I got into crypto together. Sandy call uh from Franklin Templeton who's appeared on your podcast a few times. You we got into it like 2014 2015. And the thing I've learned in crypto is that the highs are high and the lows are low. And so you kind of got to step back, right, and have that thesis about like why you're here in the first place. And you've been very outspoken about Bitcoin and and some als um but that's always been core to my, you know, because you're going to get burned at some point. You're going to make a lot of money at some point if you're in this market, but it's always important to have that like that definitive thesis about where we're going. And I think long term, you and I are both like super bullish, right? >> Of course. I I don't as much as it's fun to look at charts and predict short-term price action and talk about all these catalysts, very important to just zoom out and take the 10, 20, 30 year view because it's really just up and to the right when you actually do that >> 100%. So, against that backdrop, let's talk about the near-term volatility that we're seeing and and do the exact opposite. Um, man, so much going on in these markets. Um, you're seeing uh a softer CPI print uh came out today. equity markets are responding like beautifully like they're ripping. Um it feels like the crypto markets are taking a bit of a pause. I still think we're going through a little bit of that hangover from you know the what we call October Black Friday two weeks ago now. I can't believe it's been two weeks. Um and you know what's your what's your view on current market conditions? I love when Bitcoin sort of chops sideways and crypto seems questionable when other things are going up or down dramatically because it furthers my very long-term argument that Bitcoin is a beautifully uncorrelated asset and obviously adds idiosyncratic risk to any investor portfolio. So obviously the holy grail for any investor is to have some asset in their portfolio that has a chance to do something different than all the other assets in their portfolio. Bitcoin, if you look at sharp ratios or correlations over its existence, has really offered that. And it's very compelling when you actually dig into those numbers. Unfortunately, sometimes that means that when the other things are moving, your thing might not. And sometimes it even means when things are going up, your thing might go down. But at least it's still moving in a different manner than the rest of the markets. I I don't have any concern about Bitcoin here. I mean, it's trading at roughly $110,000. Once again, that seems scary maybe if you are comparing it to 126. I'm comparing it to the Joe Biden administration and the crypto industry nearly being dead in the United States and people fearing that you wouldn't even be able to trade Bitcoin in any sort of account before we had ETFs or any level of institutional adoption. If you've been here more than a year, you remember just how bad it was and should be encouraged by just how good this is. >> Totally agree. I mean a couple years ago, like less than a year ago, we were, you know, on the back ropes. We were getting clobbered. Um, personal experience, you know, many of us were debanked. Um, and it was absolute lawfair. It's easy to forget those times and be like, oh, you know, we pull back couple, you know, 10 grand, whatever. But man, there's so much structural support right now, whether it's 401k buying, whether it's I don't know if you're spending much time in the digital asset treasury space, they're buying. Um there's just and you know we got this concept of a Bitcoin reserve coming in. Are there you know and overall you're seeing just a massive derisking when it comes to a regulatory and a policy space. Uh is that what gets you most excited or do you think that that it's more of a monetary policy thing or is it altogether when you're thinking about your Bitcoin thesis? >> Depends on which side of the bed I wake up in the morning. So one side that's what gets me very excited. Obviously, if you do believe that Bitcoin is going to become a global reserve asset or a fundamental part of the financial system, it can't just exist on the outskirts. You have to go through the existing system to get there. Right? The flip side of me is, man, I really loved this asset because it was a hedge against all of the insanity that we're now cheering as we get the adoption. Right? We're we're supposed to be anti-government and anti-lack rock and anti-institutions. And so a little of me sort of cringes uh at the excitement around these levels of adoption because as much as institutional adoption I think is definitely here to stay, government adoption can still be fleeting and I don't think is a as a 100% secured as many people believe. So I do think that there's still a long way to go. We need to see the Clarity Act. We need to get a lot more clarification on the laws and rules around this industry before we inevitably have more political polarization and the houses potentially flipping back the other way. And listen, I'm not a political person. I am unaffiliated. I just see it how it is, right? It's calling balls and strikes and we all know that it's not going to be as easy if the Republicans don't hold the entire government in the future. So th those things do still need to get done. That said, to to your major point, there's a structural bid under Bitcoin from all those places that you saw and those tailwinds are only getting stronger. You look at the announcements, any one of which would have moved the market 50% two years ago. >> Totally. >> And now they're lost in the news cycle on a day-to-day basis. City Bank to custody uh crypto assets in 2026. Just today, JP Morgan to accept Bitcoin and Ethereum as collateral. I mean, >> that's insane. These are these are these announcements are so marketkedly insane if you've been here for a while that we should pause and take a look at them. BNY Melon, State Street, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, City Bank, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, everybody has a plan. Even Vanguard who said never ever ever is saying maybe, right? So like there's just more buyers coming in who have not had access to this asset class than there are sellers. If you just take the the long-term trajectory. It's really astounding. >> This October, Wealthian's putting the spotlight on silver with expert interviews, deep analysis, and a special in-depth report from our partners at SCP Resource Finance. To receive this report and other exclusive benefits, you can sign up to become an accredited investor with Wealthon at wealth.com/acredited or by finding the link in the description below. Speaking of silver, Wealthon will be on the ground in Toronto for the SCP Resource Finance second global silver conference. Legendary investor Eric Sprat headlines the event alongside 15 silver mining companies presenting their top projects. Find out more in the description below. >> The banks, the custodians, they have a ton of risk right now and they had a different form of risk back the Gendler era. And like I talked to the folks at, you know, the operating committees, the senior levels of these banks or we call them gibs and they're like, "Look, you know, when Gzler was here, regulators would come marching in and I would be like,"Hey, what are you doing in crypto?" They're like, "I'm doing nothing." And they would walk right out the door. And he's like, "It was awesome. I didn't have to do anything." He's like, "Now they're coming in. They're saying, "What are you doing in crypto?" And he's like, "Uh uh, I got to figure it out quick." You know, and then you start looking >> become a real Yeah. Go ahead. >> These guys are racing now and and they're scared if you think about it. Um, we have a company called Superstate. Superstate just issued canonical equities on Salana. Meaning the old way you used to do it is you'd take a security, you'd put it in a custodian, you'd lock it in a box, and you'd have this little token that you could settle. Now they're saying you don't need all that stuff. If you're a major custodian in the cities, the JP Morgans, the Bank of New Yorks, you got to move quick. And and so I I think this is u one-way street. They're I mean I know all these guys. I used to work with them and they're moving very quickly or they're in big trouble. the JP Morgan announcement. I was going to ask you about that. I mean, that's a big deal. I mean, Jamie Diamond, what? He had a funny quote this morning, but like he's still not there, I think, personally, but it's inevitable. I mean, where are we going? >> He's a he's a shrewd businessman. Listen, JP Morgan can either, you know, be Netflix or Blockbuster. >> Yeah. >> And any financial institution that can't admit what's happening because of a emotional distaste for the industry is going to get left behind. And I'm not even saying that as a crypto in insider. You can see it. You can see exactly where the puck's moving and where everybody is skating. You wouldn't be getting all of these announcements if this wasn't the case. Let's talk about something that's absolutely mind-blowing that happened this week. There was a Fed meeting about payments that focused on crypto and blockchain. And Fed Governor Christopher Waller said crypto is woven into the fabric of the economy and that they're going to create a new kind of account for fintexs and stable coins and crypto adjacent banks to have access to Fed settlement if you live through operation 2.2.0. This is astounding. And that they're going to be looking at the technology to improve their underlying systems. I mean, >> dude, I was >> the Fed. Once again, cognitive dissonance because I don't like the Fed. [laughter] >> Fair enough. I I was there at that conference. Um it's hard for me to explain what it how powerful it was. Uh you know, I sat in the room. It was CEOs, senior leadership of everyone across the industry, like you know, the who's who. Um I actually sat next to to to Governor Waller at lunch and privately speaking, he's even more aggressive. Um this is a guy who's like, you know, I got into stable coins four years ago. People looked at me sideways. They were wrong. I was right. stable coins are are going to change everything that we do. We're going to own them. We're going to lead. It was exactly what you didn't hear um back in the past under the under the Biden administration. And this is a guy who's like, you know, hates CBDC's, totally long private stable coins, and he's all in. I mean, I can't begin to tell you how bullish he is. I mean, and like totally under reportported. Um and yeah, it was it was it was a private it was quasi private setting. You had the public stuff that was being filmed in the panels, but behind the scenes there was network time and the conversations. >> Incredible. >> Insane. Insane. >> So, >> and and by the way, as a technology, it's very clear that it's superior, faster, cheaper, easier to easier to manage than a Swift. It's a such a nonsensical conversation to talk about should we use something from 50 years ago or something from now, right? And I think anybody would agree regardless if you if you abstract away your feelings about the industry that you want the new technology to make things faster and cheaper and to eliminate third party toll collectors in between. But the other conversation that they know and most people maybe don't think about is that for better or for worse stable coins create hyperdollization. Right? So I mean Bitcoiners Bitcoiners probably uh kind of you know sherk at the fact that maybe the best use case of the technology that was introduced with Bitcoin is uh hyperdollization because it's a hedge against fiat and inflation. But you talk to anyone around the world in any country that has any sort of inflation or has questionable currency or just wants dollars. They could never get those before. I have friends in Argentina who used to literally go on the black market and they would, you know, pay three times the going rate for dollars with their pesos just to get out of pesos. And then even if they had gotten paid in a bank through a bank account, cashed out those pesos, gone to the black market to get dollars, they would go back to the same bank and put the money not in their bank account, but in their safety deposit box because they didn't trust the bank, but they trusted the bank uh security system to put that money in a in a safety deposit box. Now they just buy stable coins. >> They just buy stable coins. They transact in stable coins. They don't even have to touch the peso anymore. >> Yeah. I I I think this is actually great for the Bitcoin story. And you're thousand% right. If you're in the developing world, would you rather have the local currency or would you rather have a dollar? It's a store of value. And even without interest, it's a store of value. It's a store of value in the developing world. You know, visav their local currency. And what and it's just so funny to see the banks freaking out right now about interest. What they don't realize is that you're like one click away from going into DeFi even if you can't get it from Coinbase or somebody else. And and the game is over. And so you're going to see dollarization of of the world. And I think that's if you're US government, you like that you're exporting your greatest export is the green back and you're going to be sending it out. Um but then what's going to keep the dollar honest? Well, that's Bitcoin. And so to me, it's this like beautiful virtual cycle and circle and I think we're very well positioned. It it's a much superior version of pre Bretonwood just golden dollars. >> So Scott, you know, a lot of people talk about the four-year cycle and you know, we have all of these now new inputs, new I mean, one thing that's constant with the four-year cycle is the election cycle. I think that really and and um and the having obviously um and that plays into um what we've seen historically, but do you think all these new inputs are going to you know what's your take on the four-year cycle? Is it here to stay? Is it just one of the inputs and many? How how do how do you play that from an investment perspective? I think if we're being honest, there are aspects of the four-year cycle that perhaps we can still look at as valid, but I think it's largely dead in my perspective. And if it isn't dead, it's certainly not the having that is the underlying reason for the four-year cycle, right? Because the having is a rounding error at this point when it comes to the supply demand dynamics. And at this point, it's maybe a self-fulfilling prophecy or some sort of uh magic that people still believe in. I think even if you look at past four-year cycles, maybe it was more about elections or liquidity cycles or other things that have happened. The S&P used to travel in a four-year cycle for decades uh until the 1980s or 1990s as well. So, four-year cycles are not unique to to crypto. If you're looking at the previous cycles and how you would compare, we preempted the new all-time high in Bitcoin by many many months uh from when it should have happened in a four-year cycle. Of course, that was because of the approval of the ETFs, but still if you're looking at a chart, we shouldn't have been making all-time highs for another, you know, 6 to 12 months after that. We have the four-ear cycle is not just Bitcoin, it's also altcoins. And you would have anticipated that the first 6 months of this year would have been massive for altcoins as Bitcoin consolidated at new highs. We didn't see those moves at all. I've been saying that uh from the very beginning that alt season was going to happen in cryptojacent public equities and I think that's largely what has happened. So, I think that uh I I was kind of on point with that idea and we've seen those massive pump and dumps with public equities that are related to crypto that maybe you would have seen in the altcoin cycle before. And so, I just don't see it having been repetitive enough to still deeply believe in it. Does that mean I don't think we'll have bare That doesn't mean I'm like a proponent for the super cycle. >> Yeah. For the record, it doesn't mean that I think that that means Bitcoin can't ever go down. I just think we'll have different kinds of draw downs than we had in the past. >> 100%. So, let's talk about the hot ball of money. Um, it found its way to gold recently. Looks like gold's pulling back a little bit. Stock market's ripping. Where does that hot ball of money go next? >> The hot ball of money, I think, is coming back into Bitcoin here. Uh, are we talking about the uh Fed money or the uh inside the crypto market money? >> Both. I think that it goes to Bitcoin first. Uh Bitcoin has to whether it goes down first, I have no idea, but I'm still confident that we're in a bull market. So, Bitcoin will make a new all-time high, consolidate sideways, and then those people will get bored and find a new place to play and maybe >> select altcoins will have their little alt season and then we'll rush back into Bitcoin and repeat again. But once again, I think a lot of that money ends up in digital asset treasury companies, ends up in the circles, etoro and bullishes and cracken IPO and all these other things and places Micro Strategy that you can gain exposure to this industry without having to understand how to buy a token. >> So, so how do you think about you're an investor h how do you think about investing in in ETF versus a DAT uh versus just spot? >> I think it depends on the kind of investor you are. First of all, I don't understand why you would invest in a DAT generally yet unless it's called Micro Strategy because it has such a huge lead and I think that everybody can understand how their very small premium is justified. But most other DATs are launching with larger premiums than a micro strategy which doesn't intellectually make much sense to me. I think if you are a deep believer in Bitcoin, you obviously buy spot. You never touch any of these other products. You want to hold it. You want to be your own bank. But as I sort of alluded to before, if we're going to go through the mainstream system to come out the other side as the most important asset in the world, that means going through traditional investors who understand their Schwab and Morgan Stanley accounts and want 5% exposure to this asset class. And to those people, just buy an ETF, >> right? just buy an ETF and it'll be it'll be a part of your portfolio and you can take your loans against it and not sell and take the taxable >> uh you know penalties for me it's Bitcoin you buy Bitcoin and I want to educate people and I want to push them in that direction but self-custody is terrifying most people are going to probably blow it so this is a safe way to gain exposure maybe I should say this way I think IBIT is probably a great gateway drug to spot Bitcoin that we didn't have before. >> So, Scott, you know, I'm a little bit more bullish on on the DATs and and I'll tell you why. Um, they bring a lot more flexibility now. I think they're incredibly hard to underwrite right now if you don't really know what you're doing in the equity space and and like yes, the foundation is coming together. It's forming. It's hardening. These things have only been out for a few months aside from sellers um from Michael Sailor. And by the way, like he's shown us that you can outperform the underlying asset, you know, since he started investing in Bitcoin. And I think strategy's been up 22% versus Bitcoin's 11%. You know, if you if you look through September. So, so there's a model there. As we get into alts, which I want to talk about, you can now start doing interesting things with yield. And so, I'm personally long-term bullish on the idea. I'm long-term bullish on the right teams. Um, I appreciate it's very difficult to underwrite. You know, you know, are you just are you just like writing them off or do you think it's early or what? >> No. So I I don't want to give you that impression. I think we had a bubble and it popped and now we're going to like any bubble bubble see the champions rise from the ashes. Right. So I I should be way more specific than what I said before based on what you just said. So >> for Bitcoin treasury companies I struggle to find out find why you would go beyond strategy when he has established such a presence. He has instruments for every level of volatility, every level of risk, every level level of yield that you're looking for. And he's created those as always to be accreative to investors to increase Bitcoin per share, whatever metric that you use. Bitcoin itself does not have a yield. You have to do some sort of financial engineering to beat Bitcoin. You cannot use Bitcoin to beat Bitcoin in its native environment. that I struggle with. When these things first came out, I didn't necessarily have that opinion. But as I dug deeper into it, I actually believe that altcoin treasury companies, although I think the name is terrible, they should be altcoin hedge funds and Bitcoin hedge funds because you're trusting some team to invest and create yield. That is an active investment strategy. I believe Bitcoin is the best treasury asset, but I think Bitcoin treasury companies should be called Bitcoin balance sheet companies and it should just be companies that actually make money buying Bitcoin instead of holding cash. Okay? So, like a Tesla or a Square, any of those, that's what I think a Bitcoin treasury company should be if you're not Michael Sailor. Actually, I find altcoin treasuries much more interesting because of proof of stake and DeFi and the ability to actually use the native assets to offer a yield and beat the asset. Like if you're a Salana Treasury company, a you can probably buy Salana OTC. You could do it from FTX or other huge entities at a 15 20% discount that's locked up. And if you're not selling, it's irrelevant anyways. So, you're getting a discount that nobody else has access to by buying in size and vesting over time. I can't do that, but these companies can. Yeah, >> you can earn 9% staking >> and then you can actually go into DeFi, Ethereum or Salana and find other relatively safe ways as long as you're disclosing to the investors to increase that yield. So, I think it's very doable for a Salana or Ethereum treasury company to beat Salana or Ethereum by 10 to 20%. on a yearly basis. And if you're not going to go do all of those things yourself, if you trust the operator and the team behind it, I think they can beat the asset. >> Yeah, I agree. >> I think it's very hard to beat Bitcoin long term if you're just holding Bitcoin and trying to find a way to financially engineer against it. >> I think that's spot on. Do you have any favorite projects if I could ask? >> Well, uh I have actually worked as a consultant for UPUPEXi, which was the first uh Salana treasury company. Uh I I find Ford actually really interesting. I interviewed Kyle Smani and I think that uh what they're doing to your point like actually tokenizing their equity natively without wrapping it and all the things we talked about before and they're working with Galaxy who did the same. I find all those things interesting. It's hard to bet against Tom Lee right now if you're looking for an Ethereum treasury company. Um I don't actually own any of them but it's you know he's owns over two and a half% of the supply of Ethereum right now and I think he's cement cemented himself he filled a gaping hole uh in sentiment for Ethereum and a spokesperson. Nobody wanted Vitalic Buterine to be the spokesperson for Ethereum. He's really cemented himself in my mind as the Michael Sailor of Ethereum. So he kind of gets the same benefit of the doubt that I would give sailor if you're looking at where to place your bets on these. As we get further down the risk curve, I think that uh digital asset treasury companies just effectively become exit strategies for founders and I don't love that. >> Yeah, I mean perhaps but I think they're also kind of going to be the new labs entities where they're out there using the public market, the benefits of public markets to to really drive business development in those ecosystems. I don't disagree, but I think it's case by case. Like, are they frothy? Yeah. But are they here to stay? Yeah. And are they going to be very, very effective in certain capacities? For sure. There's always nuance, I think. >> Either way, they're going to be buying a hell of a lot of the assets that we love. And that's a good thing. >> Again, structural buyers, which we love. Um, let's pivot to CZ. So, CZ was pardoned yesterday. And for those of us who've been around for a while, um, wow, big big difference a couple years makes for sure. Um, I saw you tweet a little bit about that this morning. Would love to get your read. >> Another one that has quite a bit of nuance. So, I've known CZ for a very long time for, you know, I've had him on my show countless times. And I think back to our early conversations about how he was approaching the regulatory and legislative environments around the world and especially in the United States in the early days. And it sticks with me sort of something that he said to me, I can't even remember what year, 21, 22 maybe. And he said, you know, my approach is viewing Binance or crypto or building something in this space like the early days of automobiles. You know, he's like, they created automobiles and nobody had them. There were no safety laws. There were no safety. There was no seat belts. And it's like, but as more of them got on the road, they started to realize that they needed to make rules of the road and put lines in the middle and maybe some traffic signs and eventually seat belts and all these safety precautions and then heavy regulation and laws about what you could do on the road. He's like, "Well, what do you do if you're building the Model T, aka Binance, and you want to go ahead, but nobody's trying to make rules of the road?" He's like, I had a choice to either do nothing based on regulations or legislation that might never happen or might happen against me or kind of, you know, ask for uh forgiveness rather than permission. And I think that that burnt him. Now, listen, do I think that these platforms were used for nefarious purposes? Yes. I also think the dollar has been used for nefarious purposes. I also can transparently see the tens of billions of dollars that JP Morgan and Wells Fargo and the biggest banks in the world have paid for using their banks for nefarious purposes. JP Morgan being Epstein's banker. I mean, listen, we can go down that road as much as you want. The bottom line is whether he did something wrong or not, what he plead guilty for is something nobody else has gone to jail for and something that people outside the crypto industry have been doing for and getting slaps on the wrist for years. >> He served his time after pleading guilty. He paid the massive fines. And so the pardon is almost a rounding error at the end of all of that, right? I guess it gives him his life back. He's not going to be tracked. maybe he can participate a bit more heavily. But when you really look at how he was punished, I think that I lean towards lawfare by the Biden administration having been there at that time. He was the perfect person, a Chinese >> national even though he's Canadian. Uh to make an example of at that time and I think he fell on the sword to some degree for the entire industry and the fact that he already did his time. It's funny because when my friend group chats that I'm having are talking about this, people who are not cryptonative, you would think that their impression is that Trump showed up at the front of the penitentiary yesterday or two days ago, whatever it was, with a huge suitcase full of cash and started bribing guards and broke him out the back door. They don't realize that he's already free and has been bulling Aster and BNB for the last few months and clearly participating in the industry. They think that he just got sprung from jail with this party, right? It's just not really what happened. So, listen, I can't speak to what happens behind closed doors. He obviously was a fundamental in the takedown of FTX and a lot of people have a problem with that, >> but that wouldn't have been a problem unless FTX was literally committing fraud. >> I think he did us a favor by get rid getting rid of FTX when he did in hindsight. So, I I take the lens that I think he served his time. Uh he paid his fine and I'm glad that we can close the the book on that. >> Yeah, for me it's kind of it's tricky. Um you know, on one end when when I read the the indictments and it talked about one of his guys saying, you know, you can't even use that amount of money to buy an AK47. It set me off. I was a Marine. I don't know if you know this. I was a Marine. I served in Iraq and I've been like I've been on the receiving end of AK-47s for nine months. like it's not fun. >> Yeah. That said, back then, guess what? All the bad guys got money. Where did they get it? They got it through the banks. And you know, they used cell phones. They used their their their weapon of choice was actually a garage door opener because we' like drive down the street, they'd hit the garage door opener to trigger the IDs. So like no one's getting rid of garage door openers because they're such a terrible technology, right? So that line set me off. But at the same time, before I joined crypto, um it was in the back of my head like I can't help bad guys because my friends have been killed. So I ended up spending a lot of time on the OFAC website. And if I, you know, for listeners, I encourage you to do it. And to your point, it was all the European banks, billions of dollars, right? None of those guy, none of those CEOs ever went to jail. And and so like why the double standard? It's it's a it's a couple reasons. Number one, people are scared to death of technology. And number two, control. Um I think he tweeted about Elizabeth Warren this morning, how she was going off about this um >> yesterday. >> Yeah, it was insane, right? So >> yeah, what do you think? I mean, she said that he plead guilty to criminal moneyaundering and what he plead guilty to effectively was violating the Bank Secrecy Act by running a platform that did not put enough protections in place to prevent money laundering. And as I said, there's an ocean of distance between those two difference between those two. And she knows exactly what she's doing and doesn't care. We got our community noted and corrected just for the record. So, at least we can take that small win. Um, and she's paid for by the banks. So, you know, I I find uh politics just very disheartening, but once again, like uh it'd be one thing if they were, you know, airlifting SPF out of prison right now. And I just don't see it in the same way. The guy was already out. The guy was already effectively free. And I think he paid paid the penalty. And a lot of that was for all of us. >> If you're looking for a simple, secure way to invest and own physical gold and silver, visit our sister company, Hardass Assets Alliance, at hardassetsalliance.com. That's hardassallalliance.com. >> Yeah, it's amazing how the times have changed. I mean, I was presenting uh a couple years back in the CFTC and Better Markets was to my right. They're they're the lobbying group for that part of the part of the dem of the polit political spectrum. And these guys were like harping. I was saying, "Look, we don't need banks for people to trade futures in the United States. That like why do we force intermediation?" And these guys were like, "No, we need them to protect us." I'm like, "What?" It was the most insane thing. But anyway, that's the world that we live in. Um, so so how's this going to play out? We're going into midterms and then, you know, we're going to have this election. Your thesis then, Scott, is get the damn Clarity Act done now. Otherwise, who knows what's going to happen. >> Yes. Once again, I find it hard to believe that I'm cheering for the government to pass some sort of laws which I know will be misconstrued or misinterpreted down the road and I know they won't get it right because they can't because right, uh I also know that we need something that can't be overturned that at least solidifies this asset class and this industry in the United States. And you know, you have to be realistic. And I think that that's the best case scenario. And listen, it seemed like it was a layup and then all of a sudden the 11 Democrats who effectively were needed to get this passed wrote that letter a couple weeks ago and seemed like it was dead in the water. And then this week, of course, they invited the industry, Brian Armstrong and Sergey and all the heavy hitters from the industry to Capitol Hill and had a meeting and Brian Armstrong came out of it saying this is getting done and by the end of the year it really seems good. But then we heard reports that uh Gyos was in there cussing at the industry like literally screaming f-bombs about them becoming a Republican wing. So I don't know. We also like in the midst of a government shutdown and when do midterm activities really start ramping up. This has to get done soon. It's going to get lost in the wash. >> I'm dying to speak to to Senator Ggo. You know, he's a Marine and we fought in Iraq around the same time. So I'm like, man, come on. I want to speak to you like devil dog to devil dog. Listen, he's pro Bitcoin. He's one of the pro crypto guys. Like I, you know, so it's not that. I think he's just >> I think everybody in in politics, in the industry, they're probably just incredibly frustrated with one another. Like there's so much red tape and these things should be so easy. You know, I said this on my show this morning, but I I I very rarely listen to many podcasts, but I happened to stumble on the all-in podcast conversation with Joe Mansion uh this morning. I had like a 45minute drive back from my kid's school and I was listening to it on 2X >> and hearing him describe >> how difficult the process of law making is and to really look behind the curtain at these exact people that we're talking about and how things get done. It's a miracle that we can even get a law potentially on the books at this point. It's insane. >> I I I I've always I I don't know if we're going to get it done. Um genius was hard enough and now this. But speaking of the government, um I understand that Tucker doesn't like Bitcoin because it's been it was started by the CIA. What do you think? >> It was started by the CIA, maybe. I think because I'm from DC, so that's my theory. Even though I have no idea. He literally said that. I don't know if you saw the clip. >> I thought it was the NSA. >> No. Well, that may be true. In reality [laughter] it may. So listen, Bitcoin may I have no idea may have been created by the United States government, you know, but look, if you go I have no idea, but go around and look at any technology, internet, phone, satellite, whatever, every technology that has eventually either decentralized or been used for good was created by a government. The internet, you know, like we know that that's the fact. So I don't see that even if it was true which it's not but even if it was true why does that matter it's fully decentralized clearly nobody controls it we know ex the beauty of Bitcoin is completely transparent you see the addresses you see the nodes you see the miners you know where the blocks are being mined it's not the CIA right so what he said was Bitcoin I can't get behind it I'm from Washington I if there's a Satoshi Nakamoto and he's anonymous and has billions of dollars worth of coins I'm from Washington has to be the CIA right I have no evidence of that but haha uh but has to be the CIA. Of course, people grapple onto the clip and don't realize maybe it was a joke, but he says he would never buy it because it had an anonymous founder and those coins are out there. It just shows a fundamental misunderstanding. I mean, there's nothing more cipher punk than Bitcoin and its roots regardless of where it came from and where it stands now. And you know, that can be seen by this level of adoption, the hash rate continuing to rise. >> Yeah, >> it's fully transparent. So even if you deeply believe that C the CI created it for nefarious purposes, you can see exactly where it is and how it's being used now. >> Yeah, totally. So clearly you're long Bitcoin. Um and that's where you're telling people to focus. You talked about a little a small alt season. Um can you unpack that and and I've seen you, you know, speak very positively about Salana. Is is that your second favorite project? Are there other projects that that you're into? And and how do you think this alt season is going to play out? When's it going to hit? >> So, a I have an epic graveyard the likes of nobody has ever seen of dead tokens that I deeply believed in in 2017 and 2021 that like I emotionally couldn't sell because I felt like I had been an advocate for them that are down 99.9% and maybe they'll come to F7. I have no idea. No, that's a graveyard. Right. So, I don't want to give the misconception that I'm a hardcore Bitcoiner who never believed in all coins because if you look into my wallets there's over a hundred of them, right? they might be dead, but but they're still there. Um, that said, I think as a trader, if you're looking at this market, it's very easy, as I said, to kind of look and see where the institutional interest is or where people with that large pool of institutional money can actually participate. And right now, that's at the top. So, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Salana I find to be the safest bets. But that said, when we talk about an alt season, although we haven't had one writ large, we haven't had that throw a dart and your thing goes up situation that we used to have in the in the past. I mean, we had the Salana memecoin explosion. That was an alt season. It just didn't happen anywhere else. I hated it, every part of it, but that didn't happen anywhere else, right? And take a look at what happened with BNB. I mean, you had Aster and it exploded and this brief time of BMBB meme coins and B&M has outperformed I don't own any has outperformed Bitcoin on every time frame since it has existed trading over $1,000. Right? So, that's an alt season. And what I find really, I guess maybe slightly encouraging is this time the alts that you're seeing move outside of that memecoin craze are ones that actually have utility and you can sort of assign a value proposition to which was not the case in the past. Before it was somewhat vaporware or ideas or narratives. Now this thing does something and I can almost value it like I would be able to value a company or a stock and I can understand intellectually why this thing should be going up and something else shouldn't. So I think we are seeing a move towards maturity >> uh on the top end. That said, we're going to get memecoin seasons and stupidity and all the dumb things and probably like you know uh excited apes or you know lazy lines. I have no idea what's going to come but we'll see our our speculation. But so as for when it will come, if you believe in the four-year cycle, you're really excited about November, December, and probably January, right? Even if you look at the past when Bitcoin topped in November or December, that's when Ethereum flew in January and then you had this trickle down for a month or two and then uh you better sell everything and you you know go buy a house or something because you're not going to have anywhere to live for the next three years if you hold. Um, but I really think Bitcoin needs to make a significant move above 125 and then consolidate there before they're going to move. And if that happens, altcoins are going to get disprop disproportionately hurt in the process. Like, let's think about what the scenarios are for altcoins right now with Bitcoin trading at 110. >> Yeah, >> I admit anything's possible. I have no idea what's going to happen in the future. But if you look at the past, when Bitcoin makes a sizable move to the upside, Bitcoin beats alts, right? People sell their alts to get into Bitcoin. So your USD value of your altcoin may stay flat or slightly up, but you would much rather be in Bitcoin. If Bitcoin makes a sizable move to the bottom side of this range and below, say it breaks, you know, 100 and goes down for even a quick time, all coins get absolutely destroyed. >> Disproportionately worse. So even though Bitcoin's going down, they're going down two or three times as much. So you'd still rather be in Bitcoin. And the best environments are usually when Bitcoin is going sideways. And that's sort of what we had and altcoins didn't go crazy. So explain to me the environment where from this current price right now, we don't have to do something first before we get an alt season. And that probably means alts get hurt before they do well. >> Yeah. I I think that you have to kind of bifurcate between the majors and the smaller guys. And the reason why is actually structural because we're starting to see futures come online uh for only like really a handful of top projects and that allows institutions to come in because they can't handle the volatility like like a lot of my hedge fund buddies if they're down 15% in a month like they'll show you the door. So you need to trade basis you need to hedge and one of the things people don't realize is that our markets have been absolutely deprived by futures because Gary Gendler Gary Gendler said all these things are securities and so you can't have futures on them. So the one thing I'm I'm looking out for are the evolution of futures that will bring that institutional money in the door and then like because right now it's like a largely retail market that that that what do you think about that? I 100% agree. And if you look at the metrics, I think it was about two weeks ago, IBIT surpassed Darabit in futures volume, which if you've been in the crypto market, you know that Darabit is an absolute behemoth. Obviously, just sold to Coinbase, but that is even more than the CME and CBOE and anywhere else traditional. That is the futures market for crypto. And on IBIT alone, which is just one of, let's call it 10 Bitcoin spot ETFs, their options alone, because they're available, >> uh, have surpassed the entire volume of of DAR bit. So, you don't have to look far for evidence of exactly what you're saying. >> Yeah. >> For institutions to really participate, they need to have all of the strategies that they have with any other asset in their portfolio. And like you said, if you can project where that's going to land, if that's going to be on the Ethereum spot ETF or the Salana staking ETF or whatever it is, you know that there's going to be a hell of a lot of volume and interest in that asset. >> And it's not going to be because it's Ethereum or Salana. It's be because they can participate in the right way. >> 100%. Like you have that that pure regulatory clarity and rapper. I hate spot ETFs so much. I mean, why do you leave staking on the table? Makes me crazy. >> Anyway, >> yeah. Um, hey, as we're getting to the end, um, what are your bold predictions? Where do we end up with Bitcoin this year? Um, any other big bold predictions you can leave us with? >> I find it really hard to project to the end of the year on short time frames, but I am very, very deeply believe that Bitcoin is heading up and to the right massively and that we're going to hit those hyperbolic targets of 250, 500, and a million. Given if we're at a million-dollar Bitcoin, like what you can buy with a million dollars is going to be dramatically less because I think it's all about the denominator in the debasement. >> Yeah. >> I think the fact that we're seeing the debasement trade all of a sudden catch fire as a narrative when Bitcoiners have been literally screaming about this for 15 years. When you have JP Morgan talking about buy Bitcoin, gold and silver as a hedge against, you know, debasement, you have Paul Tudtor Jones, same list of assets, but also including the NASDAQ. Ken Griffin of Citadel saying buy Bitcoin and gold is a because of the debasement trade. >> Yeah, I find it hard to believe that that's the finish line, not the starting line for for that trade. So, I really think Bitcoin's going to go up. select alts are going to do exceptionally well and I don't think that we're going to, you know, head next year into a 80% draw down bare market because of the four-year cycle. That said, like we are a little more tied to the macro than we once were. So, if uh something happens in the stock market unexpected or we see a real black swan, all bets are off for a while, at least at first. >> Scott, really appreciated your insights today. Um, just quickly, can can you talk to people about where to find you? I'll say a little bit about your podcast and uh just wanted to thank you again for coming on. >> Oh yeah, thank you so much. This is really an awesome conversation. I'm very flattered that you had me. You can find me at Scott Melker on X or on YouTube. Basically everything is there in some way, shape, or form. I do a 9:00 a.m. show every single day live. I do a 10:15 a.m. Eastern Standard Time crypto town hall spaces, which is the biggest spaces in crypto five days a week as well. And then I record my long form interviews that come out on the weekends that are usually an hour with a a creator or somebody. I would love to do them with you, by the way. I would be really interested to to flip this backwards and do it the other way. Um and uh you know, so you can pretty much find all of it there. It's a it's a lot of content. I'm pretty uh persistent. I have a newsletter I write at 4:30 in the morning every single day before I start all of that. It's [laughter] I think onto its 1220th issue. So, uh, yeah, I really, uh, very passionate, keep very busy, and I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to share that. >> So, ladies and gentlemen, Insomniac and the Wolf of All Street, Scott Milker, thanks again, buddy, for coming on. We'll talk to you soon. >> Thank you so much. >> Don't forget to sign up for a free portfolio review with one of our endorsed investment partners at wealthon.comfree. With markets hitting all-time highs, now is a great time to stress test your strategy and be prepared for what comes next. Thank you all for watching. We'll see you again next time.
Scott Melker: Why Bitcoin’s Supercycle Is Just Getting Started
Summary
Transcript
There are aspects of the four-year cycle that perhaps we can still look at as valid, but I think it's largely dead in my perspective. And if it isn't dead, it's certainly not the having that is the underlying reason for the four-year cycle, right? Because the having is a rounding error at this point when it comes to the supply demand dynamics. I very very deeply believe that Bitcoin is heading up and to the right massively and that we're going to hit those hyperbolic targets of 250, 500, and a million. Don't forget to sign up for a free portfolio review with one of our endorsed investment partners at wealth.com/free. With markets hitting all-time highs, now is a great time to stress test your strategy and be prepared for what comes next. >> Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Wealthy On podcast. I'm Chris Perkins, president and managing partner at Coin Fund. And today I am with the wolf of all streets, Scott Melker, known trader, investor, and influencer. Um, welcome aboard, Scott. How you doing, man? >> I'm doing great. How are you? >> I'm doing well. Um, before we begin, we'd love to just get a little bit of background. I know you started in the music industry and man, you were one of the defining voices across crypto. Give us a little bit of background. Uh, and then love to get into some of your hot takes. >> It's been a predictable roller coaster like probably [laughter] anyone who landed in the crypto space at the end of it. Uh, I went to the University of Pennsylvania in the in the late 90s. So as much as I ended up taking a turn and focusing on music, you know, all of my friends ended up on Wall Street and hedge funds, private equity, and as traders. So I was always trading and always had at least a superficial involvement in the markets. Generally trading very poorly, just just for the record, getting wiped out repeatedly in every predictable way. And really after, you know, 20-year music career, found my way to crypto as a trader. And at that point, I had impeccable timing coming in in late 2016, 2017. Everything was going up. I sort of just built a following randomly by posting charts all over Twitter and sharing all of my trades. And then, of course, the bare market came and I had to somehow justify all the money I had lost and the reason that I was bothering to even focus on this asset class. And honestly, that's when I really fell down the uh Bitcoin and crypto rabbit hole when I started creating content around it and just sort of organically growing all the things that I was doing because I was just so incredibly passionate about Bitcoin and about this space. And that's always been what's driven me in music and what's driven me here is just a deep belief in it and wanting to share it with the world. >> Did you have a specific like red pill moment? Because I know there's a lot of people right now they're saying, "Well, gosh, this thing is getting kind of it's legitimizing right now and they're they're starting to think, you know, I'm about to take that first step and and go all in." Did you have like a specific Red Bull moment where something happened? You're like, "Oh my god, this is it. >> There's been quite a few to be quite honest. So there was the trading and monetary side which is fleeting which is when I found Dogecoin in the very early days and you traded it and this is way before Elon Musk and way before anybody else knew this was a very cryptonative thing >> and it had these very predictable moves. It would effectively pull a 12 or 15x every six months. So you could buy it when it went to the lows. It would go up and it would just cycle and it was a lovable meme and you'd make some money never believing that it would become, you know, Elon Musk's pet. But so from a financial uh perspective, I saw how easy at that time, which proved not to be true in the future, but how easy it was to make money in the space. But then I think my real moment even as I started to fall deeper down the what is money rabbit hole that obviously leads most people to Bitcoin was COVID and stimulus and all the money printing and nonsensical monetary policy that happened during that time. So I think what what had been planted as seeds really grew during that period and once you see behind the curtain of monetary and fiscal policy and what money really is, it's very hard to ever go back. >> Yeah, totally. I mean my own personal experience is that you know been full-time crypto four years. I actually we you know our mutual friend Sandy and I got into crypto together. Sandy call uh from Franklin Templeton who's appeared on your podcast a few times. You we got into it like 2014 2015. And the thing I've learned in crypto is that the highs are high and the lows are low. And so you kind of got to step back, right, and have that thesis about like why you're here in the first place. And you've been very outspoken about Bitcoin and and some als um but that's always been core to my, you know, because you're going to get burned at some point. You're going to make a lot of money at some point if you're in this market, but it's always important to have that like that definitive thesis about where we're going. And I think long term, you and I are both like super bullish, right? >> Of course. I I don't as much as it's fun to look at charts and predict short-term price action and talk about all these catalysts, very important to just zoom out and take the 10, 20, 30 year view because it's really just up and to the right when you actually do that >> 100%. So, against that backdrop, let's talk about the near-term volatility that we're seeing and and do the exact opposite. Um, man, so much going on in these markets. Um, you're seeing uh a softer CPI print uh came out today. equity markets are responding like beautifully like they're ripping. Um it feels like the crypto markets are taking a bit of a pause. I still think we're going through a little bit of that hangover from you know the what we call October Black Friday two weeks ago now. I can't believe it's been two weeks. Um and you know what's your what's your view on current market conditions? I love when Bitcoin sort of chops sideways and crypto seems questionable when other things are going up or down dramatically because it furthers my very long-term argument that Bitcoin is a beautifully uncorrelated asset and obviously adds idiosyncratic risk to any investor portfolio. So obviously the holy grail for any investor is to have some asset in their portfolio that has a chance to do something different than all the other assets in their portfolio. Bitcoin, if you look at sharp ratios or correlations over its existence, has really offered that. And it's very compelling when you actually dig into those numbers. Unfortunately, sometimes that means that when the other things are moving, your thing might not. And sometimes it even means when things are going up, your thing might go down. But at least it's still moving in a different manner than the rest of the markets. I I don't have any concern about Bitcoin here. I mean, it's trading at roughly $110,000. Once again, that seems scary maybe if you are comparing it to 126. I'm comparing it to the Joe Biden administration and the crypto industry nearly being dead in the United States and people fearing that you wouldn't even be able to trade Bitcoin in any sort of account before we had ETFs or any level of institutional adoption. If you've been here more than a year, you remember just how bad it was and should be encouraged by just how good this is. >> Totally agree. I mean a couple years ago, like less than a year ago, we were, you know, on the back ropes. We were getting clobbered. Um, personal experience, you know, many of us were debanked. Um, and it was absolute lawfair. It's easy to forget those times and be like, oh, you know, we pull back couple, you know, 10 grand, whatever. But man, there's so much structural support right now, whether it's 401k buying, whether it's I don't know if you're spending much time in the digital asset treasury space, they're buying. Um there's just and you know we got this concept of a Bitcoin reserve coming in. Are there you know and overall you're seeing just a massive derisking when it comes to a regulatory and a policy space. Uh is that what gets you most excited or do you think that that it's more of a monetary policy thing or is it altogether when you're thinking about your Bitcoin thesis? >> Depends on which side of the bed I wake up in the morning. So one side that's what gets me very excited. Obviously, if you do believe that Bitcoin is going to become a global reserve asset or a fundamental part of the financial system, it can't just exist on the outskirts. You have to go through the existing system to get there. Right? The flip side of me is, man, I really loved this asset because it was a hedge against all of the insanity that we're now cheering as we get the adoption. Right? We're we're supposed to be anti-government and anti-lack rock and anti-institutions. And so a little of me sort of cringes uh at the excitement around these levels of adoption because as much as institutional adoption I think is definitely here to stay, government adoption can still be fleeting and I don't think is a as a 100% secured as many people believe. So I do think that there's still a long way to go. We need to see the Clarity Act. We need to get a lot more clarification on the laws and rules around this industry before we inevitably have more political polarization and the houses potentially flipping back the other way. And listen, I'm not a political person. I am unaffiliated. I just see it how it is, right? It's calling balls and strikes and we all know that it's not going to be as easy if the Republicans don't hold the entire government in the future. So th those things do still need to get done. That said, to to your major point, there's a structural bid under Bitcoin from all those places that you saw and those tailwinds are only getting stronger. You look at the announcements, any one of which would have moved the market 50% two years ago. >> Totally. >> And now they're lost in the news cycle on a day-to-day basis. City Bank to custody uh crypto assets in 2026. Just today, JP Morgan to accept Bitcoin and Ethereum as collateral. I mean, >> that's insane. These are these are these announcements are so marketkedly insane if you've been here for a while that we should pause and take a look at them. BNY Melon, State Street, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, City Bank, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, everybody has a plan. Even Vanguard who said never ever ever is saying maybe, right? So like there's just more buyers coming in who have not had access to this asset class than there are sellers. If you just take the the long-term trajectory. It's really astounding. >> This October, Wealthian's putting the spotlight on silver with expert interviews, deep analysis, and a special in-depth report from our partners at SCP Resource Finance. To receive this report and other exclusive benefits, you can sign up to become an accredited investor with Wealthon at wealth.com/acredited or by finding the link in the description below. Speaking of silver, Wealthon will be on the ground in Toronto for the SCP Resource Finance second global silver conference. Legendary investor Eric Sprat headlines the event alongside 15 silver mining companies presenting their top projects. Find out more in the description below. >> The banks, the custodians, they have a ton of risk right now and they had a different form of risk back the Gendler era. And like I talked to the folks at, you know, the operating committees, the senior levels of these banks or we call them gibs and they're like, "Look, you know, when Gzler was here, regulators would come marching in and I would be like,"Hey, what are you doing in crypto?" They're like, "I'm doing nothing." And they would walk right out the door. And he's like, "It was awesome. I didn't have to do anything." He's like, "Now they're coming in. They're saying, "What are you doing in crypto?" And he's like, "Uh uh, I got to figure it out quick." You know, and then you start looking >> become a real Yeah. Go ahead. >> These guys are racing now and and they're scared if you think about it. Um, we have a company called Superstate. Superstate just issued canonical equities on Salana. Meaning the old way you used to do it is you'd take a security, you'd put it in a custodian, you'd lock it in a box, and you'd have this little token that you could settle. Now they're saying you don't need all that stuff. If you're a major custodian in the cities, the JP Morgans, the Bank of New Yorks, you got to move quick. And and so I I think this is u one-way street. They're I mean I know all these guys. I used to work with them and they're moving very quickly or they're in big trouble. the JP Morgan announcement. I was going to ask you about that. I mean, that's a big deal. I mean, Jamie Diamond, what? He had a funny quote this morning, but like he's still not there, I think, personally, but it's inevitable. I mean, where are we going? >> He's a he's a shrewd businessman. Listen, JP Morgan can either, you know, be Netflix or Blockbuster. >> Yeah. >> And any financial institution that can't admit what's happening because of a emotional distaste for the industry is going to get left behind. And I'm not even saying that as a crypto in insider. You can see it. You can see exactly where the puck's moving and where everybody is skating. You wouldn't be getting all of these announcements if this wasn't the case. Let's talk about something that's absolutely mind-blowing that happened this week. There was a Fed meeting about payments that focused on crypto and blockchain. And Fed Governor Christopher Waller said crypto is woven into the fabric of the economy and that they're going to create a new kind of account for fintexs and stable coins and crypto adjacent banks to have access to Fed settlement if you live through operation 2.2.0. This is astounding. And that they're going to be looking at the technology to improve their underlying systems. I mean, >> dude, I was >> the Fed. Once again, cognitive dissonance because I don't like the Fed. [laughter] >> Fair enough. I I was there at that conference. Um it's hard for me to explain what it how powerful it was. Uh you know, I sat in the room. It was CEOs, senior leadership of everyone across the industry, like you know, the who's who. Um I actually sat next to to to Governor Waller at lunch and privately speaking, he's even more aggressive. Um this is a guy who's like, you know, I got into stable coins four years ago. People looked at me sideways. They were wrong. I was right. stable coins are are going to change everything that we do. We're going to own them. We're going to lead. It was exactly what you didn't hear um back in the past under the under the Biden administration. And this is a guy who's like, you know, hates CBDC's, totally long private stable coins, and he's all in. I mean, I can't begin to tell you how bullish he is. I mean, and like totally under reportported. Um and yeah, it was it was it was a private it was quasi private setting. You had the public stuff that was being filmed in the panels, but behind the scenes there was network time and the conversations. >> Incredible. >> Insane. Insane. >> So, >> and and by the way, as a technology, it's very clear that it's superior, faster, cheaper, easier to easier to manage than a Swift. It's a such a nonsensical conversation to talk about should we use something from 50 years ago or something from now, right? And I think anybody would agree regardless if you if you abstract away your feelings about the industry that you want the new technology to make things faster and cheaper and to eliminate third party toll collectors in between. But the other conversation that they know and most people maybe don't think about is that for better or for worse stable coins create hyperdollization. Right? So I mean Bitcoiners Bitcoiners probably uh kind of you know sherk at the fact that maybe the best use case of the technology that was introduced with Bitcoin is uh hyperdollization because it's a hedge against fiat and inflation. But you talk to anyone around the world in any country that has any sort of inflation or has questionable currency or just wants dollars. They could never get those before. I have friends in Argentina who used to literally go on the black market and they would, you know, pay three times the going rate for dollars with their pesos just to get out of pesos. And then even if they had gotten paid in a bank through a bank account, cashed out those pesos, gone to the black market to get dollars, they would go back to the same bank and put the money not in their bank account, but in their safety deposit box because they didn't trust the bank, but they trusted the bank uh security system to put that money in a in a safety deposit box. Now they just buy stable coins. >> They just buy stable coins. They transact in stable coins. They don't even have to touch the peso anymore. >> Yeah. I I I think this is actually great for the Bitcoin story. And you're thousand% right. If you're in the developing world, would you rather have the local currency or would you rather have a dollar? It's a store of value. And even without interest, it's a store of value. It's a store of value in the developing world. You know, visav their local currency. And what and it's just so funny to see the banks freaking out right now about interest. What they don't realize is that you're like one click away from going into DeFi even if you can't get it from Coinbase or somebody else. And and the game is over. And so you're going to see dollarization of of the world. And I think that's if you're US government, you like that you're exporting your greatest export is the green back and you're going to be sending it out. Um but then what's going to keep the dollar honest? Well, that's Bitcoin. And so to me, it's this like beautiful virtual cycle and circle and I think we're very well positioned. It it's a much superior version of pre Bretonwood just golden dollars. >> So Scott, you know, a lot of people talk about the four-year cycle and you know, we have all of these now new inputs, new I mean, one thing that's constant with the four-year cycle is the election cycle. I think that really and and um and the having obviously um and that plays into um what we've seen historically, but do you think all these new inputs are going to you know what's your take on the four-year cycle? Is it here to stay? Is it just one of the inputs and many? How how do how do you play that from an investment perspective? I think if we're being honest, there are aspects of the four-year cycle that perhaps we can still look at as valid, but I think it's largely dead in my perspective. And if it isn't dead, it's certainly not the having that is the underlying reason for the four-year cycle, right? Because the having is a rounding error at this point when it comes to the supply demand dynamics. And at this point, it's maybe a self-fulfilling prophecy or some sort of uh magic that people still believe in. I think even if you look at past four-year cycles, maybe it was more about elections or liquidity cycles or other things that have happened. The S&P used to travel in a four-year cycle for decades uh until the 1980s or 1990s as well. So, four-year cycles are not unique to to crypto. If you're looking at the previous cycles and how you would compare, we preempted the new all-time high in Bitcoin by many many months uh from when it should have happened in a four-year cycle. Of course, that was because of the approval of the ETFs, but still if you're looking at a chart, we shouldn't have been making all-time highs for another, you know, 6 to 12 months after that. We have the four-ear cycle is not just Bitcoin, it's also altcoins. And you would have anticipated that the first 6 months of this year would have been massive for altcoins as Bitcoin consolidated at new highs. We didn't see those moves at all. I've been saying that uh from the very beginning that alt season was going to happen in cryptojacent public equities and I think that's largely what has happened. So, I think that uh I I was kind of on point with that idea and we've seen those massive pump and dumps with public equities that are related to crypto that maybe you would have seen in the altcoin cycle before. And so, I just don't see it having been repetitive enough to still deeply believe in it. Does that mean I don't think we'll have bare That doesn't mean I'm like a proponent for the super cycle. >> Yeah. For the record, it doesn't mean that I think that that means Bitcoin can't ever go down. I just think we'll have different kinds of draw downs than we had in the past. >> 100%. So, let's talk about the hot ball of money. Um, it found its way to gold recently. Looks like gold's pulling back a little bit. Stock market's ripping. Where does that hot ball of money go next? >> The hot ball of money, I think, is coming back into Bitcoin here. Uh, are we talking about the uh Fed money or the uh inside the crypto market money? >> Both. I think that it goes to Bitcoin first. Uh Bitcoin has to whether it goes down first, I have no idea, but I'm still confident that we're in a bull market. So, Bitcoin will make a new all-time high, consolidate sideways, and then those people will get bored and find a new place to play and maybe >> select altcoins will have their little alt season and then we'll rush back into Bitcoin and repeat again. But once again, I think a lot of that money ends up in digital asset treasury companies, ends up in the circles, etoro and bullishes and cracken IPO and all these other things and places Micro Strategy that you can gain exposure to this industry without having to understand how to buy a token. >> So, so how do you think about you're an investor h how do you think about investing in in ETF versus a DAT uh versus just spot? >> I think it depends on the kind of investor you are. First of all, I don't understand why you would invest in a DAT generally yet unless it's called Micro Strategy because it has such a huge lead and I think that everybody can understand how their very small premium is justified. But most other DATs are launching with larger premiums than a micro strategy which doesn't intellectually make much sense to me. I think if you are a deep believer in Bitcoin, you obviously buy spot. You never touch any of these other products. You want to hold it. You want to be your own bank. But as I sort of alluded to before, if we're going to go through the mainstream system to come out the other side as the most important asset in the world, that means going through traditional investors who understand their Schwab and Morgan Stanley accounts and want 5% exposure to this asset class. And to those people, just buy an ETF, >> right? just buy an ETF and it'll be it'll be a part of your portfolio and you can take your loans against it and not sell and take the taxable >> uh you know penalties for me it's Bitcoin you buy Bitcoin and I want to educate people and I want to push them in that direction but self-custody is terrifying most people are going to probably blow it so this is a safe way to gain exposure maybe I should say this way I think IBIT is probably a great gateway drug to spot Bitcoin that we didn't have before. >> So, Scott, you know, I'm a little bit more bullish on on the DATs and and I'll tell you why. Um, they bring a lot more flexibility now. I think they're incredibly hard to underwrite right now if you don't really know what you're doing in the equity space and and like yes, the foundation is coming together. It's forming. It's hardening. These things have only been out for a few months aside from sellers um from Michael Sailor. And by the way, like he's shown us that you can outperform the underlying asset, you know, since he started investing in Bitcoin. And I think strategy's been up 22% versus Bitcoin's 11%. You know, if you if you look through September. So, so there's a model there. As we get into alts, which I want to talk about, you can now start doing interesting things with yield. And so, I'm personally long-term bullish on the idea. I'm long-term bullish on the right teams. Um, I appreciate it's very difficult to underwrite. You know, you know, are you just are you just like writing them off or do you think it's early or what? >> No. So I I don't want to give you that impression. I think we had a bubble and it popped and now we're going to like any bubble bubble see the champions rise from the ashes. Right. So I I should be way more specific than what I said before based on what you just said. So >> for Bitcoin treasury companies I struggle to find out find why you would go beyond strategy when he has established such a presence. He has instruments for every level of volatility, every level of risk, every level level of yield that you're looking for. And he's created those as always to be accreative to investors to increase Bitcoin per share, whatever metric that you use. Bitcoin itself does not have a yield. You have to do some sort of financial engineering to beat Bitcoin. You cannot use Bitcoin to beat Bitcoin in its native environment. that I struggle with. When these things first came out, I didn't necessarily have that opinion. But as I dug deeper into it, I actually believe that altcoin treasury companies, although I think the name is terrible, they should be altcoin hedge funds and Bitcoin hedge funds because you're trusting some team to invest and create yield. That is an active investment strategy. I believe Bitcoin is the best treasury asset, but I think Bitcoin treasury companies should be called Bitcoin balance sheet companies and it should just be companies that actually make money buying Bitcoin instead of holding cash. Okay? So, like a Tesla or a Square, any of those, that's what I think a Bitcoin treasury company should be if you're not Michael Sailor. Actually, I find altcoin treasuries much more interesting because of proof of stake and DeFi and the ability to actually use the native assets to offer a yield and beat the asset. Like if you're a Salana Treasury company, a you can probably buy Salana OTC. You could do it from FTX or other huge entities at a 15 20% discount that's locked up. And if you're not selling, it's irrelevant anyways. So, you're getting a discount that nobody else has access to by buying in size and vesting over time. I can't do that, but these companies can. Yeah, >> you can earn 9% staking >> and then you can actually go into DeFi, Ethereum or Salana and find other relatively safe ways as long as you're disclosing to the investors to increase that yield. So, I think it's very doable for a Salana or Ethereum treasury company to beat Salana or Ethereum by 10 to 20%. on a yearly basis. And if you're not going to go do all of those things yourself, if you trust the operator and the team behind it, I think they can beat the asset. >> Yeah, I agree. >> I think it's very hard to beat Bitcoin long term if you're just holding Bitcoin and trying to find a way to financially engineer against it. >> I think that's spot on. Do you have any favorite projects if I could ask? >> Well, uh I have actually worked as a consultant for UPUPEXi, which was the first uh Salana treasury company. Uh I I find Ford actually really interesting. I interviewed Kyle Smani and I think that uh what they're doing to your point like actually tokenizing their equity natively without wrapping it and all the things we talked about before and they're working with Galaxy who did the same. I find all those things interesting. It's hard to bet against Tom Lee right now if you're looking for an Ethereum treasury company. Um I don't actually own any of them but it's you know he's owns over two and a half% of the supply of Ethereum right now and I think he's cement cemented himself he filled a gaping hole uh in sentiment for Ethereum and a spokesperson. Nobody wanted Vitalic Buterine to be the spokesperson for Ethereum. He's really cemented himself in my mind as the Michael Sailor of Ethereum. So he kind of gets the same benefit of the doubt that I would give sailor if you're looking at where to place your bets on these. As we get further down the risk curve, I think that uh digital asset treasury companies just effectively become exit strategies for founders and I don't love that. >> Yeah, I mean perhaps but I think they're also kind of going to be the new labs entities where they're out there using the public market, the benefits of public markets to to really drive business development in those ecosystems. I don't disagree, but I think it's case by case. Like, are they frothy? Yeah. But are they here to stay? Yeah. And are they going to be very, very effective in certain capacities? For sure. There's always nuance, I think. >> Either way, they're going to be buying a hell of a lot of the assets that we love. And that's a good thing. >> Again, structural buyers, which we love. Um, let's pivot to CZ. So, CZ was pardoned yesterday. And for those of us who've been around for a while, um, wow, big big difference a couple years makes for sure. Um, I saw you tweet a little bit about that this morning. Would love to get your read. >> Another one that has quite a bit of nuance. So, I've known CZ for a very long time for, you know, I've had him on my show countless times. And I think back to our early conversations about how he was approaching the regulatory and legislative environments around the world and especially in the United States in the early days. And it sticks with me sort of something that he said to me, I can't even remember what year, 21, 22 maybe. And he said, you know, my approach is viewing Binance or crypto or building something in this space like the early days of automobiles. You know, he's like, they created automobiles and nobody had them. There were no safety laws. There were no safety. There was no seat belts. And it's like, but as more of them got on the road, they started to realize that they needed to make rules of the road and put lines in the middle and maybe some traffic signs and eventually seat belts and all these safety precautions and then heavy regulation and laws about what you could do on the road. He's like, "Well, what do you do if you're building the Model T, aka Binance, and you want to go ahead, but nobody's trying to make rules of the road?" He's like, I had a choice to either do nothing based on regulations or legislation that might never happen or might happen against me or kind of, you know, ask for uh forgiveness rather than permission. And I think that that burnt him. Now, listen, do I think that these platforms were used for nefarious purposes? Yes. I also think the dollar has been used for nefarious purposes. I also can transparently see the tens of billions of dollars that JP Morgan and Wells Fargo and the biggest banks in the world have paid for using their banks for nefarious purposes. JP Morgan being Epstein's banker. I mean, listen, we can go down that road as much as you want. The bottom line is whether he did something wrong or not, what he plead guilty for is something nobody else has gone to jail for and something that people outside the crypto industry have been doing for and getting slaps on the wrist for years. >> He served his time after pleading guilty. He paid the massive fines. And so the pardon is almost a rounding error at the end of all of that, right? I guess it gives him his life back. He's not going to be tracked. maybe he can participate a bit more heavily. But when you really look at how he was punished, I think that I lean towards lawfare by the Biden administration having been there at that time. He was the perfect person, a Chinese >> national even though he's Canadian. Uh to make an example of at that time and I think he fell on the sword to some degree for the entire industry and the fact that he already did his time. It's funny because when my friend group chats that I'm having are talking about this, people who are not cryptonative, you would think that their impression is that Trump showed up at the front of the penitentiary yesterday or two days ago, whatever it was, with a huge suitcase full of cash and started bribing guards and broke him out the back door. They don't realize that he's already free and has been bulling Aster and BNB for the last few months and clearly participating in the industry. They think that he just got sprung from jail with this party, right? It's just not really what happened. So, listen, I can't speak to what happens behind closed doors. He obviously was a fundamental in the takedown of FTX and a lot of people have a problem with that, >> but that wouldn't have been a problem unless FTX was literally committing fraud. >> I think he did us a favor by get rid getting rid of FTX when he did in hindsight. So, I I take the lens that I think he served his time. Uh he paid his fine and I'm glad that we can close the the book on that. >> Yeah, for me it's kind of it's tricky. Um you know, on one end when when I read the the indictments and it talked about one of his guys saying, you know, you can't even use that amount of money to buy an AK47. It set me off. I was a Marine. I don't know if you know this. I was a Marine. I served in Iraq and I've been like I've been on the receiving end of AK-47s for nine months. like it's not fun. >> Yeah. That said, back then, guess what? All the bad guys got money. Where did they get it? They got it through the banks. And you know, they used cell phones. They used their their their weapon of choice was actually a garage door opener because we' like drive down the street, they'd hit the garage door opener to trigger the IDs. So like no one's getting rid of garage door openers because they're such a terrible technology, right? So that line set me off. But at the same time, before I joined crypto, um it was in the back of my head like I can't help bad guys because my friends have been killed. So I ended up spending a lot of time on the OFAC website. And if I, you know, for listeners, I encourage you to do it. And to your point, it was all the European banks, billions of dollars, right? None of those guy, none of those CEOs ever went to jail. And and so like why the double standard? It's it's a it's a couple reasons. Number one, people are scared to death of technology. And number two, control. Um I think he tweeted about Elizabeth Warren this morning, how she was going off about this um >> yesterday. >> Yeah, it was insane, right? So >> yeah, what do you think? I mean, she said that he plead guilty to criminal moneyaundering and what he plead guilty to effectively was violating the Bank Secrecy Act by running a platform that did not put enough protections in place to prevent money laundering. And as I said, there's an ocean of distance between those two difference between those two. And she knows exactly what she's doing and doesn't care. We got our community noted and corrected just for the record. So, at least we can take that small win. Um, and she's paid for by the banks. So, you know, I I find uh politics just very disheartening, but once again, like uh it'd be one thing if they were, you know, airlifting SPF out of prison right now. And I just don't see it in the same way. The guy was already out. The guy was already effectively free. And I think he paid paid the penalty. And a lot of that was for all of us. >> If you're looking for a simple, secure way to invest and own physical gold and silver, visit our sister company, Hardass Assets Alliance, at hardassetsalliance.com. That's hardassallalliance.com. >> Yeah, it's amazing how the times have changed. I mean, I was presenting uh a couple years back in the CFTC and Better Markets was to my right. They're they're the lobbying group for that part of the part of the dem of the polit political spectrum. And these guys were like harping. I was saying, "Look, we don't need banks for people to trade futures in the United States. That like why do we force intermediation?" And these guys were like, "No, we need them to protect us." I'm like, "What?" It was the most insane thing. But anyway, that's the world that we live in. Um, so so how's this going to play out? We're going into midterms and then, you know, we're going to have this election. Your thesis then, Scott, is get the damn Clarity Act done now. Otherwise, who knows what's going to happen. >> Yes. Once again, I find it hard to believe that I'm cheering for the government to pass some sort of laws which I know will be misconstrued or misinterpreted down the road and I know they won't get it right because they can't because right, uh I also know that we need something that can't be overturned that at least solidifies this asset class and this industry in the United States. And you know, you have to be realistic. And I think that that's the best case scenario. And listen, it seemed like it was a layup and then all of a sudden the 11 Democrats who effectively were needed to get this passed wrote that letter a couple weeks ago and seemed like it was dead in the water. And then this week, of course, they invited the industry, Brian Armstrong and Sergey and all the heavy hitters from the industry to Capitol Hill and had a meeting and Brian Armstrong came out of it saying this is getting done and by the end of the year it really seems good. But then we heard reports that uh Gyos was in there cussing at the industry like literally screaming f-bombs about them becoming a Republican wing. So I don't know. We also like in the midst of a government shutdown and when do midterm activities really start ramping up. This has to get done soon. It's going to get lost in the wash. >> I'm dying to speak to to Senator Ggo. You know, he's a Marine and we fought in Iraq around the same time. So I'm like, man, come on. I want to speak to you like devil dog to devil dog. Listen, he's pro Bitcoin. He's one of the pro crypto guys. Like I, you know, so it's not that. I think he's just >> I think everybody in in politics, in the industry, they're probably just incredibly frustrated with one another. Like there's so much red tape and these things should be so easy. You know, I said this on my show this morning, but I I I very rarely listen to many podcasts, but I happened to stumble on the all-in podcast conversation with Joe Mansion uh this morning. I had like a 45minute drive back from my kid's school and I was listening to it on 2X >> and hearing him describe >> how difficult the process of law making is and to really look behind the curtain at these exact people that we're talking about and how things get done. It's a miracle that we can even get a law potentially on the books at this point. It's insane. >> I I I I've always I I don't know if we're going to get it done. Um genius was hard enough and now this. But speaking of the government, um I understand that Tucker doesn't like Bitcoin because it's been it was started by the CIA. What do you think? >> It was started by the CIA, maybe. I think because I'm from DC, so that's my theory. Even though I have no idea. He literally said that. I don't know if you saw the clip. >> I thought it was the NSA. >> No. Well, that may be true. In reality [laughter] it may. So listen, Bitcoin may I have no idea may have been created by the United States government, you know, but look, if you go I have no idea, but go around and look at any technology, internet, phone, satellite, whatever, every technology that has eventually either decentralized or been used for good was created by a government. The internet, you know, like we know that that's the fact. So I don't see that even if it was true which it's not but even if it was true why does that matter it's fully decentralized clearly nobody controls it we know ex the beauty of Bitcoin is completely transparent you see the addresses you see the nodes you see the miners you know where the blocks are being mined it's not the CIA right so what he said was Bitcoin I can't get behind it I'm from Washington I if there's a Satoshi Nakamoto and he's anonymous and has billions of dollars worth of coins I'm from Washington has to be the CIA right I have no evidence of that but haha uh but has to be the CIA. Of course, people grapple onto the clip and don't realize maybe it was a joke, but he says he would never buy it because it had an anonymous founder and those coins are out there. It just shows a fundamental misunderstanding. I mean, there's nothing more cipher punk than Bitcoin and its roots regardless of where it came from and where it stands now. And you know, that can be seen by this level of adoption, the hash rate continuing to rise. >> Yeah, >> it's fully transparent. So even if you deeply believe that C the CI created it for nefarious purposes, you can see exactly where it is and how it's being used now. >> Yeah, totally. So clearly you're long Bitcoin. Um and that's where you're telling people to focus. You talked about a little a small alt season. Um can you unpack that and and I've seen you, you know, speak very positively about Salana. Is is that your second favorite project? Are there other projects that that you're into? And and how do you think this alt season is going to play out? When's it going to hit? >> So, a I have an epic graveyard the likes of nobody has ever seen of dead tokens that I deeply believed in in 2017 and 2021 that like I emotionally couldn't sell because I felt like I had been an advocate for them that are down 99.9% and maybe they'll come to F7. I have no idea. No, that's a graveyard. Right. So, I don't want to give the misconception that I'm a hardcore Bitcoiner who never believed in all coins because if you look into my wallets there's over a hundred of them, right? they might be dead, but but they're still there. Um, that said, I think as a trader, if you're looking at this market, it's very easy, as I said, to kind of look and see where the institutional interest is or where people with that large pool of institutional money can actually participate. And right now, that's at the top. So, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Salana I find to be the safest bets. But that said, when we talk about an alt season, although we haven't had one writ large, we haven't had that throw a dart and your thing goes up situation that we used to have in the in the past. I mean, we had the Salana memecoin explosion. That was an alt season. It just didn't happen anywhere else. I hated it, every part of it, but that didn't happen anywhere else, right? And take a look at what happened with BNB. I mean, you had Aster and it exploded and this brief time of BMBB meme coins and B&M has outperformed I don't own any has outperformed Bitcoin on every time frame since it has existed trading over $1,000. Right? So, that's an alt season. And what I find really, I guess maybe slightly encouraging is this time the alts that you're seeing move outside of that memecoin craze are ones that actually have utility and you can sort of assign a value proposition to which was not the case in the past. Before it was somewhat vaporware or ideas or narratives. Now this thing does something and I can almost value it like I would be able to value a company or a stock and I can understand intellectually why this thing should be going up and something else shouldn't. So I think we are seeing a move towards maturity >> uh on the top end. That said, we're going to get memecoin seasons and stupidity and all the dumb things and probably like you know uh excited apes or you know lazy lines. I have no idea what's going to come but we'll see our our speculation. But so as for when it will come, if you believe in the four-year cycle, you're really excited about November, December, and probably January, right? Even if you look at the past when Bitcoin topped in November or December, that's when Ethereum flew in January and then you had this trickle down for a month or two and then uh you better sell everything and you you know go buy a house or something because you're not going to have anywhere to live for the next three years if you hold. Um, but I really think Bitcoin needs to make a significant move above 125 and then consolidate there before they're going to move. And if that happens, altcoins are going to get disprop disproportionately hurt in the process. Like, let's think about what the scenarios are for altcoins right now with Bitcoin trading at 110. >> Yeah, >> I admit anything's possible. I have no idea what's going to happen in the future. But if you look at the past, when Bitcoin makes a sizable move to the upside, Bitcoin beats alts, right? People sell their alts to get into Bitcoin. So your USD value of your altcoin may stay flat or slightly up, but you would much rather be in Bitcoin. If Bitcoin makes a sizable move to the bottom side of this range and below, say it breaks, you know, 100 and goes down for even a quick time, all coins get absolutely destroyed. >> Disproportionately worse. So even though Bitcoin's going down, they're going down two or three times as much. So you'd still rather be in Bitcoin. And the best environments are usually when Bitcoin is going sideways. And that's sort of what we had and altcoins didn't go crazy. So explain to me the environment where from this current price right now, we don't have to do something first before we get an alt season. And that probably means alts get hurt before they do well. >> Yeah. I I think that you have to kind of bifurcate between the majors and the smaller guys. And the reason why is actually structural because we're starting to see futures come online uh for only like really a handful of top projects and that allows institutions to come in because they can't handle the volatility like like a lot of my hedge fund buddies if they're down 15% in a month like they'll show you the door. So you need to trade basis you need to hedge and one of the things people don't realize is that our markets have been absolutely deprived by futures because Gary Gendler Gary Gendler said all these things are securities and so you can't have futures on them. So the one thing I'm I'm looking out for are the evolution of futures that will bring that institutional money in the door and then like because right now it's like a largely retail market that that that what do you think about that? I 100% agree. And if you look at the metrics, I think it was about two weeks ago, IBIT surpassed Darabit in futures volume, which if you've been in the crypto market, you know that Darabit is an absolute behemoth. Obviously, just sold to Coinbase, but that is even more than the CME and CBOE and anywhere else traditional. That is the futures market for crypto. And on IBIT alone, which is just one of, let's call it 10 Bitcoin spot ETFs, their options alone, because they're available, >> uh, have surpassed the entire volume of of DAR bit. So, you don't have to look far for evidence of exactly what you're saying. >> Yeah. >> For institutions to really participate, they need to have all of the strategies that they have with any other asset in their portfolio. And like you said, if you can project where that's going to land, if that's going to be on the Ethereum spot ETF or the Salana staking ETF or whatever it is, you know that there's going to be a hell of a lot of volume and interest in that asset. >> And it's not going to be because it's Ethereum or Salana. It's be because they can participate in the right way. >> 100%. Like you have that that pure regulatory clarity and rapper. I hate spot ETFs so much. I mean, why do you leave staking on the table? Makes me crazy. >> Anyway, >> yeah. Um, hey, as we're getting to the end, um, what are your bold predictions? Where do we end up with Bitcoin this year? Um, any other big bold predictions you can leave us with? >> I find it really hard to project to the end of the year on short time frames, but I am very, very deeply believe that Bitcoin is heading up and to the right massively and that we're going to hit those hyperbolic targets of 250, 500, and a million. Given if we're at a million-dollar Bitcoin, like what you can buy with a million dollars is going to be dramatically less because I think it's all about the denominator in the debasement. >> Yeah. >> I think the fact that we're seeing the debasement trade all of a sudden catch fire as a narrative when Bitcoiners have been literally screaming about this for 15 years. When you have JP Morgan talking about buy Bitcoin, gold and silver as a hedge against, you know, debasement, you have Paul Tudtor Jones, same list of assets, but also including the NASDAQ. Ken Griffin of Citadel saying buy Bitcoin and gold is a because of the debasement trade. >> Yeah, I find it hard to believe that that's the finish line, not the starting line for for that trade. So, I really think Bitcoin's going to go up. select alts are going to do exceptionally well and I don't think that we're going to, you know, head next year into a 80% draw down bare market because of the four-year cycle. That said, like we are a little more tied to the macro than we once were. So, if uh something happens in the stock market unexpected or we see a real black swan, all bets are off for a while, at least at first. >> Scott, really appreciated your insights today. Um, just quickly, can can you talk to people about where to find you? I'll say a little bit about your podcast and uh just wanted to thank you again for coming on. >> Oh yeah, thank you so much. This is really an awesome conversation. I'm very flattered that you had me. You can find me at Scott Melker on X or on YouTube. Basically everything is there in some way, shape, or form. I do a 9:00 a.m. show every single day live. I do a 10:15 a.m. Eastern Standard Time crypto town hall spaces, which is the biggest spaces in crypto five days a week as well. And then I record my long form interviews that come out on the weekends that are usually an hour with a a creator or somebody. I would love to do them with you, by the way. I would be really interested to to flip this backwards and do it the other way. Um and uh you know, so you can pretty much find all of it there. It's a it's a lot of content. I'm pretty uh persistent. I have a newsletter I write at 4:30 in the morning every single day before I start all of that. It's [laughter] I think onto its 1220th issue. So, uh, yeah, I really, uh, very passionate, keep very busy, and I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to share that. >> So, ladies and gentlemen, Insomniac and the Wolf of All Street, Scott Milker, thanks again, buddy, for coming on. We'll talk to you soon. >> Thank you so much. >> Don't forget to sign up for a free portfolio review with one of our endorsed investment partners at wealthon.comfree. With markets hitting all-time highs, now is a great time to stress test your strategy and be prepared for what comes next. Thank you all for watching. We'll see you again next time.