Trading Crypto's Bull Market Breakout | 1000x Live

The risk-reward is so skewed to the upside right now. I still, I, I think this is like the Bitcoin ETF when it came out. We were, we were debating this on the show. We were like, is it priced in or not?

Can—

is there enough capital to front run this? I think this is another ETF-like event where there just literally isn't enough crypto-native capital in the world right now to front run that tsunami of flow.

And we're live! Welcome back to another 1000x livestream. Where, Jonah, do you have your wine?

I decided to skip the wine this time. I got a bottle of water, cold water, refrigerated water.

I mean, I literally, I literally got a bottle of wine just because you did last time.

Oh, I mean, I'll go get one. This is awesome.

And you're telling, and you're telling me that now I have to be the sober one, or I have to be the drunk one and you get to be the sober one?

You're shitfaced already, dude.

I haven't even, I haven't, I haven't had a single sip. I'm shitfaced off of price action. I'm shit-faced off of Doge 2x-ing in 2 weeks. I'm shit-faced off of XRP going up 14%, uh, and I'm so shit-faced off of all this euphoria that I'm starting to get a little bit nervous about price action.

I think we're gonna trade $90K on air, like live. This is, this is crazy, Avi. This is— it feels like vindication after a very long period of waiting for this. I mean, why are you worried? I'm feeling more euphoric than ever. I'm not going to sell a penny's worth of crypto until after Inauguration Day.

I'm nervous because we've come very far, very fast. Very far, very fast.

Who's going to sell into this though?

What, what I'm thinking, I mean, basically what happens at any, at any moment that Bitcoin goes up so far so fast is you have people 3 months ago who bought Bitcoin at $50K and they're looking at a 2x in 3 months. And I think historically how this is generally played out— I mean, just go to the chart, and I've said, I've said this before and I'll say it again— go to the chart and look at once Bitcoin starts to rally, how long does this rally rally last and how much higher does it go up? And the answer is normally like 3 to 4 weeks, and then there's at least, there's at least a pause with some, with some pullbacks. I mean, you can make an argument that the '23 rally started in October and then it lasts to November, and then you get a period of consolidation And then you get a rally from the end of January to the beginning of March. So I guess, you know, 1 month, maybe 5 weeks, and then it's down from there, right? So the way that I'm thinking about this is, you know, I think people are getting really, really, really excited, but Bitcoin is a pretty fucking massive asset, Jonah. Like, it's huge. And so that time period, I think, shortens a bit. And so while I think we could see $100K, you know, in the next month, if we do see $100K, I'm probably thinking, okay, maybe it's time to start selling. And really, what's the difference between $100K and $90K? And I think a lot of people are starting to think like that. So my best guess as to what happens is what we get is we get a sell-off before we hit $100K, and then $100K doesn't act as resistance. Now, I mean, you, you obviously have a different time horizon than I do. If you were to guess, like, where— like, where do you start selling? Like, as a, as a long-term investor, where do you say, okay, this is nuts, let me sell, even if it's just to buy other assets?

So, great question. I'm, I'm actually getting a little bit more short-term for the first time in a while because I, I want to add more fiat into crypto because I think that this— I want to momentum trade this. I think this rally has legs. And so if we do get one of those sort of pullbacks that you just described, I'm going to be waiting to buy that dip. If it happens. And I think a lot of people are, frankly. So to your point about where do you sell, like, in terms of where I'd call the cycle top and start to really sell significant amounts of my portfolio, I'm waiting for, you know, I put this on Twitter, MVRV to hit 6. I think that's a good way to say, hey, how, how in the money is the space? How in the money are Bitcoin holders on their positions. If they're like way in the money, you're going to see profit taking and we're probably near the top. Right now MVRV is like 2.5, and like cycle bottoms are marked by like 1 or less, 1.0 or less. So I'm not really going to be selling until— like, it's less of a price target. Okay, like obviously if we hit $200K or $250K in some insane parabolic bull rally, I'll sell. I'll sell sell a bunch. But like, if they— even before that, like, it's less about the price level and more about what's going on in the news. Like, let's say that we're steadily rallying past—

I'm just—

hypothetical scenario— we're steadily rallying past $130K. It's choppy and it's volatile, and it's like April of next year, and all these pro-crypto candidates that just got elected to Congress are starting to like sit down and draft legislation about a strategic Bitcoin reserve, and it's like looking like it might get passed. Um, you know, I, I don't think I would sell into that. Meanwhile, if, if we're just like gassing past $160K on pure froth in December, like maybe, maybe like you try to lighten up and rebuy on a dip, you know. What do you— does that kind of answer your question? What do you, what do you think heading into the inauguration?

We're going to need to see some actual movement from Trump about crypto, and we're going to need to see some movement from the broader, you know, political sphere about crypto. Because I mean, think about, like, think about what this actual rally is. This rally is two things. One, general market going up because people are enthusiastic about Trump and his cutting of regulations and his ability to juice the economy. And is very likely to inject a ton of money into the system and cause inflation. And two, because Trump is very bullish on crypto, or at least on the campaign trail he was very bullish on crypto. If time goes by and he doesn't actually fulfill any of those promises, then this rally stops short of what it could be, right? Basically, he needs to actually say something about crypto, or politicians need to actually do something about crypto, or a bill needs to get genuinely, you know, introduced and taken seriously, I think for Bitcoin to hit $200K. I think the stock market, the stock market just ripping probably can take us to like $120K. But in order for Bitcoin to like break the stratosphere, in order for it to actually reach the next level of geopolitical asset, it needs to be taken seriously on a geopolitical level. And we don't know, we don't have any strict evidence that that's going to happen just yet.

Yeah, I mean, so Trump doesn't need to do anything before he gets inaugurated. So between now and Jan 20, I think, I think it's just— there's a lot of, uh, well, there's no friction really. Like, he can't implement policy. He's already talked his book. He's said what he's going to do. The action doesn't really start until next spring at the earliest.

Yeah, I But, but I think, I think what happens is you always get two phases of this, and if you're trading, you have to understand that and not get shaken out. The first phase is the excitement, and the second phase is the reality. And because there's, there's almost always a gap in crypto, because what happens is that the excitement far outpaces what the reality is currently, and then you get a nasty snapback, right? Like a a move to $100K and then a rejection, and let's say we trade back down to $80K, a 20% move lower. Let's say we trade back down to $70K. Let's say we trade back down to the breakout. How do you react in that situation, right? Like, how does— like, how does the world react in that situation? How do the owners of BTC react in the situation? I'll tell you how you probably should react, which is to buy.

Buy.

Yeah. But if you're fully allocated there If you're fully allocated at 100 and then that's when reality sets in and Trump hasn't done anything and we trade back down to 75, 80, then you can't buy, you're fully allocated. But that's probably going to be a pretty fun— like, alts are probably going to be down 70%, and then that's when you get your next 5x, right? And so it's like, let's figure out what the, what the right way to allocate your portfolio is here so that in this particular environment where you know that they're going to be draw, like, significant drawdowns that you can step in and buy. Because basically, this, this rally isn't over unless— this rally ends with something like a ruling out of the strategic reserve. That's when this rally ends. Uh, it ends, it ends with that hope, uh, not materializing. It ends if the new SEC goes after a crypto project, right?

I mean, then, then we're, then we're in, right?

Like, these are the types of things that, that like really, really end the rally.

Um, I mean, the way, the way that I'm kind of looking at it is like, you know, just zooming way out, if we get a strategic Bitcoin Reserve, price target is $500,000 to $1 million a token, because then a bunch of other countries will follow. The US is talking about buying a million units of BTC. That's, that's insane. That's an insane amount of Bitcoin to buy. And if— why would you establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve? You would do so to— because this— for the same reason you would stash gold, just to hold an alternative reserve currency in case, you know, uh, shit hits the fan, right? And so if the United States does it, then you can bet your boots that every other country will too. And like then, then like it will be the mother of all parabolic rallies legitimizing the space. Let's say that a strategic Bitcoin reserve isn't in the cards, but this is like almost as good a scenario. So strategic Bitcoin reserve isn't— it's not like imminent, you know, it seems like it's being discussed, but it probably won't pass or get enacted anytime soon. It's kind of in limbo. But, you know, Gensler gets fired on day one. Ross Ulbricht gets released from prison on day one. The crypto— that, like, the noises in Congress and in the White House are all friendly to crypto. And it seems like that gives confidence to investors to buy. I think you could still easily trigger $250,000 a token in Bitcoin. Why? Because, like, your Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, your JPMorgan Wealth Managements of the world, right? They control, you know, trillions upon trillions of dollars worth of assets. If suddenly, like, the regulatory landscape shifts and crypto gets a framework, or it's about to get a framework, you know, and all these lawsuits are getting dropped left and right, and crypto's suddenly, like, legal, um, those RIAs are going to basically tell their, their high net worth clients, like, it's okay for you to allocate 1 to 2% to Bitcoin now. And from what I hear, like, I have my ear to the ground on this stuff, I talked to some major asset managers in the crypto space. Apparently those phone calls have already begun, right? So that is a tsunami of buying. Even if you don't have the sovereign buying, you can still have that. And then worst case scenario is like, uh, you know, Trump doesn't say anything about Bitcoin, gets into office, Ross Ulbricht is still sitting in prison, and he's just kind of like, gotcha, you know, put another like crypto hater in the SEC. And then I think we go straight back down to $60K. So it's like the risk-reward is so skewed to the upside right now. I still— I think this is like the Bitcoin ETF. When it came out, we were debating this on the show. We were like, is it priced in or not? Can— is there enough capital to front-run this? I think this is another ETF-like event where there just literally isn't enough crypto-native capital in the world right now to front-run that tsunami of flow.

Yeah, look, just to— just to frame this discussion. I don't think anyone— since basically the emergency episode of Trump getting elected, even before, before that, Joan and I have been pretty damn bullish. Uh, originally I wanted to fade Trump, decided last podcast that didn't really make it— didn't really make a ton of sense, voiced that to you guys. And what we're doing right now is we're talking about, hey, What are the warning signs? Like, when do you figure out when to sell? Because the worst thing that you can do as an investor in this type of market is lose sight of that, because that's how you end up riding things down. I think, I think it's fine to say, hey, look, there are zero warning signs right now. Let's just ride this casino up and up to, up to the moon. But at the back of your head, you should always have a list of metrics and list of things that you're looking at. It's like, okay, well, why did I— like, why is it going up? Like, what, what, what are the, what are the indications indicators I can look at that say what made it go up is no longer true, therefore maybe I should start taking some profit off the table. Because you're an investor, you're a trader, at some point you have to sell. This isn't an up-only market for the rest of your life. This is an up-only market for now. So I think, I think, you know, it's, it's important, it's important to talk about these things and, you know, list out, well, okay, when do you want to, you Like, what are you looking for?

Like, that's why I love podcasting with you, because we're talking through this in real time. Like, I haven't thought— other than MVRV6 or above, which is like— and the great thing about that metric is that the RV stands for realized value, right? So if sovereigns start lifting hundreds of thousands of units of Bitcoin at current prices, that RV will go up, right? Like, the, the transaction price, the average transaction price of Bitcoin as a whole ecosystem will go up as sovereigns like get their prints at these new super high levels. But even if they don't, um, you know, MVRV is still a good way to get out. Like, it's a dynamic indicator that will adjust the price, your exit price, higher if there's like sizable buying. And if there isn't, your exit price will be lower. So it's like really, really good in that way. But like, MVRV aside, that's like a cycle top indicator. I think what you're referring to, Avi, is like, how do you, how do you, you know, I think most of us who listen to this podcast are basically all in And I keep telling myself I'm all in, but I keep putting more in because I'm not disciplined enough, as not as disciplined as I should be. I think what you're referring to, Avi, is like, where do you peel off like 10 to 20% of your length with a view to like, you know, have some dry powder so that you can reload on a dip? How do you trade this oscillation?

I mean, you know, it's, uh, like, as a short-term trader, one of the, you know, if you're going to try to catch these things, one of the better ways to do it is, okay, let's say Bitcoin sideways or down over 3 days, 4 days, and then altcoins have started really rallying. And so this is, you know, we've talked about alt season, and I've talked about how alt season tends to last 2 to 3 weeks, but I've never actually like explained what I mean by an alt season. And what I mean by an alt season is not alts go up. What I mean is alts go up and Bitcoin doesn't do anything. It's like alts have like euphoric mania and Bitcoin is doing nothing. And that's, that's alt season. That, that's what lasts like 2 to 3 weeks. And that is sort of the warning sign, in my opinion, to start getting out, because it's people divesting from Bitcoin, buying shit that's going down the risk curve. And yes, this stuff will like 5x, but you know, it's, it's, it's a matter of, uh, it's a matter, it's a matter of looking and making sure that, okay, well, once that starts happening, clip clips in profits, right?

Bitcoin, yeah, that hasn't happened yet.

Bitcoin dominance, I mean, by all metrics, like, shit looks good. We keep, we keep dipping, people keep coming in, people keep buying, people keep slurping dips. Um, you know, majors, majors are trading, are, are trading well. I think, you know, the, the, on, on this latest move, the lack of movement from ETH and Solana indicative that people are just still plowing money into BTC, right? Like, that's what, like, the, the core driver of this market is still just everyone wants a piece of this thing.

Yeah, people are FOMOing in. Like, half of it's probably iBit. Those inflows are massive. Avi, are you getting the phone calls? Are you getting like, uh, normie friends calling you like, hey man, it's looking— should I buy?

Like, because I'm definitely getting that again, like the real skeptics, um, the people who, you know, you know what's, what's funny is I'm getting a lot of 'Hey, must be a good week for you. Must be a great day for you. How's that Bitcoin thing doing?' People haven't asked me what to buy yet, and I don't know why. You know, I think a little bit of it is that, you know, a lot of these people— I mean, a lot of people in my circles, like, I've been talking about Bitcoin since 2017 to them, and, you know, they've just been out of it, and they just haven't been in it. So maybe a little bit of it is just embarrassment. Um, but I, yeah, like, I, I haven't had, okay, what, what should I buy? What should I buy? Which I did get a lot in 2021. Like, I got a lot, a lot of that in 2021. Uh, you know, what, what, what meme coin should I buy that's gonna 100x? What? And that seems to be less this year, uh, than— and that, that's a really— that to me, that's a really good sign. What it, what it means is that they're still, they're still there, right? They're, they're gonna, they're gonna come in, but they're a little, they're a little scared right now. They're a little hesitant. They're like, ah, shit. I remember what happened in '21. You know, maybe, maybe that same thing is going to happen again this year. So, you know, I, I'll look out for that. You know, maybe I'll just livestream my iMessages.

You kind of do when it's from your mom. I mean, I talk to a different crew than you do. I guess like the people you talk to are probably in their late 20s, right? And they probably don't want to take they're probably building wealth at this point, and they probably don't want to take a bunch of it and gamble it on stuff that has no product market fit yet. Even if it's about to be legal, it's like the 2022 hangover is just too extreme for me. Like, I'm pushing 40, right? I'm still on the right side of it, but not, not far away. And my community is kind of like mid-career people, uh, some of whom have done like extraordinarily well in trading. And they have a lot of savings, but they're not like— they're not allocated to Bitcoin. And they, you know, there's nothing in commodities right now that's just going to go bananas, or even the stock market, they're probably overallocated. So they're like, hey, is, is, is it too late to buy Bitcoin? Like, that's kind of—

is it—

I, I've only got a couple hundred grand worth and it's not moving the needle for me, and should I like really, really lay into this thing? Is— or, or have I missed the rally? Like, one guy asked me, like, is this like buying oil at $120 a barrel? And, you know, for those of you who aren't paying attention, like, the, the recent top was about $138, $140 a barrel. So I, I think, you know, given my view that, like, even without a strategic Bitcoin reserve, the cycle top is going to be about $250K, I can't think of a better investment personally. Um, not financial advice, of of course. So like, my, my— I tell people my, my price target, I tell them that I'm crazy, uh, and not to listen to me. But I do think that I, I just, I just don't see how— I think what the market is finally starting to realize, and by the market I don't mean you and me, Avi, I mean like the, like, like people with money are starting to realize, is just how bad this, this Biden administration has been for global crypto prices. And just, just getting rid of it for any— like, even, even if Trump weren't bullish at all, even if he were neutral, that alone is probably worth 6-figure Bitcoin prices.

This— by— this Biden admin wasn't just bad for crypto, it's just bad, bad for markets, I think, in general. Like, I think we, you know, the reintroduction of a lot of regulation, just not good for markets, not good for markets in general relative to what a Trump admin would have been or a Republican administration would've been. And we're getting this at a really good time. And what do I mean by that? This is like a perfectly timed injection of hope into investors all around the world where you're not staring down the face of a recession. You're looking at strong growth. Market seems pretty stable and the economy seems reasonably strong. And this is all coming off of COVID right? Coming off of the Fed cutting rates, managing that landing effectively. And at this moment in time, when everything looks okay, you get a turbo boost, right? From a Trump Oh, you know, coming in and actually getting elected. And that to me is really beautiful because it actually came at just such a good time, even from a cycle standpoint. It's also really funny to me how it's like clockwork. November, October, November, December of every halving year is just so bullish.

The halving, we forgot about this. Yeah. Like clockwork.

It's just like, it's clockwork. Every time. And this is, I think, why people get, you know, superstitious about BTC. Like, people will say things like it's preordained, it's the— it's a product of a simulation, it's alien technology that have been— that has been delivered to us, that is, you know, 100% going to go to $1 million Bitcoin, it was created by God. I mean, people like say all this crazy stuff.

What they do? Who are you talking to?

You've never been down the crazy— I, you have to understand, I started off in the crazy circles, right? Like back in like that, back in 2017, like the 2013 OG people were a lot more prevalent than they are, than they were today. And a lot of these people just had this unbelievable conviction in BTC. The Bitcoin will work and Bitcoin will work because the world is designed for Bitcoin. To work, and that things will happen that will seem serendipitous but are actually just predetermined. And it's stuff like this that makes me question myself. It's like, I mean, like, everything, everything that's happened, like, all of these crazy events that have happened are really good for Bitcoin, right? Like COVID, the whole, the whole digitization of the world is, is like, it's like perfectly designed to make Bitcoin go up. Like, COVID was perfectly designed to make Bitcoin go up.

It's insane, isn't it? I mean, like, I was involved in Bitcoin back in 2011, '12, '13. I wasn't like— I held, I held a bunch of coins and then I sold them all in disgust at $300 a token. I think that was 2013 or maybe '14, I forget which. But back then, the people I knew who were buying it, there were some who were like, maniacally accumulating it, like going on Craigslist, scanning QR codes, like doing all that sort of stuff to buy Bitcoin. But most of the people I knew who were doing it were just like using it to buy mushrooms on Silk Road and then just like eating them and wandering around the Catskills in upstate New York. Like, it wasn't, it wasn't like this, you know, Bitcoin came from God and it's preordained to go up kind of community. So maybe you, you hung out with a different slice of the Bitcoin pie. But for me, like, I think what's so interesting about Bitcoin's narrative right now is it seems inevitable, given how the US is withdrawing from the world, that the— that Bitcoin is going to become a global reserve currency. Like, since our last podcast, Tether put out a blog post saying that an oil supermajor bought a cargo of crude oil from a major oil crude oil trading house denominated in Tether. And the whole transaction was financed by Tether. And it probably settled like 2 weeks faster than it would have otherwise. And this is— that's— that sort of transaction is only the beginning of this. Like, yeah, a lot of it will be stablecoin flow. And some of that value will accrue to ETH or, you know, Tron or whatever network it's occurring on. But like, a lot of it's going to happen in Bitcoin too, especially with with the sanctioned complex world that we live in, uh, and how banking lines are getting kind of ripped up and reorganized. I really— I think, I think it does seem, to use your word, Avi, ordained, that Bitcoin was going on this trajectory in the wake of the financial crisis. But to be a little bit fair, there's like a little— there's reflexivity to it as well. Like, as Bitcoin goes up, crypto people get richer. Rich crypto people invest their money to try and make crypto more pervasive in society, right? So people like you and me are sitting here like pumping our bags, metaphorically of course, and so are others on a much bigger scale.

Yeah, I, you know, just to be clear, I don't actually believe that Bitcoin was created by aliens, but I do, I do think that, you know, it, it was created by somebody that saw where the world was heading, and that made an asset that fits into that future very, very neatly. And that's a beautiful thing. And I also have noticed that normally when you talk about how beautiful and amazing Bitcoin is, you're close to the top. But maybe, maybe not this time. I, you know, I do, I do think, I, I do think that right now, if you pay attention to the markets, there actually is still a non-trivial amount of dispersion here. There are certain things that are doing extremely well and there's certain things that aren't doing particularly well. So, you know, for example, your hated sector of DePIN is not doing well, right? Like, DePIN's not doing well. Memes are what are doing well. Uh, Doge is 2xing.

Did you see the goat? The goat?

Yeah, like even, even L1s, right? L1s are doing okay. Right? Solana is doing okay. I mean, Solana is not up that much more than BTC, right? I mean, it's like, okay, well, you would expect from, you know, L, you know, uh, like these, these leaders that people would be allocating to them and they're not. What are, what are doing well are the new coins, uh, you know, like say SUI, or sorry, SUI is doing, is doing, doing really well. Um, and what's also doing well are, for some odd reason, uh, some, some of the old— some of the older coins, uh, like Cardano, it's doing extremely well.

Well, we know why that's happening. Um, it's because the Trump administration appears to be consulting with Charles Hoskinson on crypto policy, which is just one of those inexplicable decisions. I hope somebody corrects that.

But like, yeah, I'll give you, I'll give you a little insight into this. They're talking to a lot of people. Uh, there, there, there are, there are a lot of people that were actually talking to the Trump administration. I mean, I personally know a few of them and they cast it. They, they cast a wide net. Uh, so I, I do believe that that's probably overreported. Uh, like Charles is not gonna be setting crypto policy. Anytime soon. This is my, you know, I'll put egg on my face if it does turn out to be true.

I mean, better him than Gensler, but yeah, yeah, not the best choice. I agree.

But I mean, that, you know, and like, Nero's doing, Nero's doing very well. Some of the other like Bitcoin adjacent names, which you would have thought might do well, have not. So for example, like Ordi has not done well and Stacks has not done well. And this is pretty different. I guess in 2021, we actually had less options, I guess, is a way to phrase it. There were just less coins to buy. And so it was easy. It was a lot easier for everything to go up in a straight line. And now it seems like you really have to be paying attention to where the money flow is going. And some of it seems reasonably random. And what do I mean by reasonably random? Well, Bonk is up 27% today and WIF is down a percent. And normally those things move, you know, they, they sort of, they sort of move together. Um, you know, and so I, I do think that you have to be— there is opportunity to make a lot of money here if you're, you know, picking your spots.

Yeah, I mean, speaking of picking your spots, like, I was recommending that people put 40 to 80% of their crypto portfolio into Bitcoin and reserve the rest for just like active trading, basically altcoin. But to your point, like just personally, I'm going to put it out there right now. I only have 20%— like I did the 80% Bitcoin. Like I've only got 20% of my portfolio as an active trading book because I lack confidence in what to buy. Like we're not in a market where everything just goes up in a straight line. And it's just a question of how much beta and risk do you want to take? Like NEAR, one of my favorite tokens from the previous cycle, like that thing has barely moved. Um, but like, oh, Solana has ripped, but it's still like $50 off the highs. This just, you know, GOAT, uh, just got listed by Binance. First Pump.fund, uh, token to hit a billion dollars. Like, do you buy that? Like, what? WIF and DOGE have decorrelated even though they're both dog coins. Bonk, I thought was dead, now it's alive. Like, I don't feel like I have a good understanding of this, so I don't want to like invest cycles and pay bid-ask and fees and like rotate things in and out when I, when I lack the confidence. Like I'm just not seeing the ball clearly outside of Bitcoin and Solana. For Solana and ETH, I have a pretty good plan, but I think there are, there are like some good trades that you can take out there.

I mean, for example, You know, if you have— after, after the Trump victory and you're like, okay, well, what do I— like, what do I buy? Um, I think memes— memes were Doge. Sorry, Doge was reasonably obvious. I don't know if memes are reasonably obvious, but at least Doge is reasonably obvious. And if you actually wanted to just put on a huge position against BTC, you still made really good money doing that. Uh, and that was a reasonably risk-adjusted position.

I feel so dumb. I fumbled that, right?

Uh, I, I fumbled it in the sense that I didn't have a massive position, uh, but I had, I had a good, I had a good, good enough size position, I guess, to not be upset, to like, to like not— because, because we, we had talked about that and I had a big enough position to not kill myself, um, but it was nowhere near as big enough, I think, as the conviction that I, I had expressed. Earlier. You know, so that was obviously a little bit sad. Another is you have the— you have these NVIDIA earnings coming up. And I think AI tends to do well into those earnings. And this is the type of environment when you have really obvious trades work out. And yes, there's some— there's some stuff that has gone up a ton already, like Render is almost— is almost 2x. But, you know, you have Arweave, you have you have Near, TAO, like all these things. I check back in 2 days before NVIDIA earnings on the 20th. And I think that they're going to be outperformers. One thing that's kind of interesting to me is that now you have XRP performing really well. And that was actually in a, you know, like that to me was a delayed reaction. Like XRP was one of the things that I was really bullish on out of the gate. Because of all the stuff that we had talked about. Hey, anything related to the SEC is going to be bid up really hard, and XRP is like the asset that has been burdened by the SEC the most. I mean, getting delisted off of exchanges and getting, getting restricted across, across the board. And then only today does it out— does it outperform. So that was a bit of a weird one, but that one's kind of been Like, that's like the— that's like one of the assets that I, you know, I would think to buy right after a Trump victory.

Yeah, there's no rhyme or reason to this. It just feels like a bunch of people randomly have ideas and then the price moves when it moves. Um, it's not— it's not like equities or FX or commodities where, you know, complexes of related assets like all move in a relatively logical, sensible way. Versus each other.

Which is why this is— which is why this environment is when you see all the threaders come out. Why? Because it's so easy to create narratives now. People have money, people are willing to buy things. You put out it, you put out a 15-tweet thread about a specific asset and you tell everyone why it's going to go up and you buy right before you put out that, that thing and then you sell into it. I mean, you're—

people actually do that.

Oh dude, basically every thread that you see, I'll open up a little, every thread that you see, somebody is probably selling into that. And the threaders, that, that, that's because of like, I mean, I mean, if you look at my feed, that's why I don't do that, right?

I don't do it because it's not like I write threads, but it's more about process. Cause I like to write.

It's like, it's like, it's like 1 out of 15, this is why Tron is going to absolutely go to the moon, and then it goes up 25% and somebody put on like a 10x leveraged position before, and then they sell out of it, right? Um, you know, I'm not saying that every thread and every person that writes like this is doing that, but I'm saying that it's a lot more common than you might think. Uh, and that's why if you look at my feed, you're not going to see that ever, because it's just not, not how I roll. Um, you know, even, you know, the What I say is even the appearance of impropriety is not necessarily a good thing. So even if I don't sell into it, right, it's like not like I don't want people coming after me because I might have. Yeah, I just don't do it.

No, it's true. Like, you can't torch your reputation. The timeline is getting weird though. Like, they're okay. Now that you mention it, I do see a lot of like pump, pump your bags threads. I see like an odd number of paid shills going on. Like people who should have way too much money to be getting paid for tweets are doing paid tweets for random projects, which means that this is the beginning of the bull cycle, the alt bull cycle, where like tokens, biz dev people at various projects, like their, their marketing budgets are full of, you know, their pockets are full and they start paying people to do stuff, right? So you're starting to see the paid shills. Um, I think it, you know, then there are people like us getting all excited, like talking about how happy we are that crypto is finally rallying. All of the FOMO and shame and regret of the crypto haters out there is, is kind of filtering through. I think this is like, this feels like inning 2 or 3 of like a real bull run. I, I think when you, you know you're in inning 8 when you start to see the scams, when like 1 out of every 3 tweets is somebody getting their wallet fucking emptied, you know, like that was, that was a hallmark of late November 2021. Um, I recommend everybody read Jason Yanowitz's, the, uh, like, thesis on the 4 stages of the bull market. We're in stage 3 right now, which is the fun one, not the, the blow-off top. So I feel, I feel like we're safe. I just, unlike you, Avi, I don't feel comfortable selling any crypto into fiat for a while. I don't want to miss the next rally. I don't want to be there on this. I don't want to be sidelined when there's one of these like ludicrous candles.

That actually reminds me, uh, did you buy any Peanut?

A little bit, yeah.

That was great, it was a great trade.

Yeah, I love you. That one resonated with me. I mean, never enough, right? Never enough. But basically the reason why I didn't buy more, and this is a mistake that everybody can learn from, ahead of the election I moved a lot of crypto to centralized exchanges so that I could be nimble and do what I wanted to do and momentum trade it. And yeah, I made some money by like doing that. And then I had some capital that I could use to trade with leverage, blah, blah, it was all fun and games. I kind of ignored my Phantom wallet when, when Trump was getting elected, right? I wasn't really— I'd moved a lot of value out of there. So I wasn't in— I wasn't like meme coining mode. In during the election. I was in like benchmarking mode, you know? What are they doing?

I think, I think that's, I mean, that's, I guess that's fair, Jonah, but come on, man. Peanut, Peanut was like, Peanut, Peanut was a fucking home run. That was, that was a great one. That, that was, I mean, political, cute squirrel, heroic.

That's why I bought it. I understand the political things.

It's just, I mean, it's just amazing. I can't— don't fight the peanut man.

Peanut's a meme. It's a perfect meme. Like, okay, Bowdoin's dead. Now we got a new one. We got Peanut the Squirrel for government overreach. I think Peanut's probably going to nuke back down. Like, I don't think squirrel coins— I don't think there's enough. I think it's going to trade like Bowdoin did, where people are going to be calling for it to go to $50 billion. And then it's like, he's dead. The squirrel's dead. Like, no one's going to remember Peanut the Squirrel in a couple of years.

Ah, you look— I, I don't know about that. Look, the, the thing about it is, uh, what, what is— sometimes after death things get actually— they get better. I think there's going to be one— when Biden dies, BODEN might pump. You know, this is, this is the way that the crypto market works, Jonah. I, I can't— I'm not going to justify it to you. I'm not going to explain it to you. You just have to understand this. That when Biden passes away, Bode's probably going to pump. This is how it works. And, you know, I— yeah, people talking about a dead squirrel as alpha.

Yes, putting that up on the board. I mean, in, in any other market, this would be like the pico top where you sell everything and run for the hills and like bury cash in your backyard.

But in crypto, guys, we're not, we're not done yet. We're not done. I don't know. I don't know how much stronger I can be about that point. But we're not done yet. We might have a pullback. Might want to trade it, which I will. But we're not done.

We're not even getting started. Most people don't have this asset.

Wait until it— like, like, just, just you'll see. December is going to be a great month. December, December is going to be a great month. And this is the, you know, this is what happens when you don't even have real retail mania or FOMO yet.

This time when the squirrel, when the squirrel meme starts, we're just getting started, right? Yeah, like peanut, peanut is not a top signal. Also, half of the miners out there have like pivoted to AI. I wonder if that means less selling. It probably doesn't, but, um, Well, miners, miners are a better business now.

I think that's been pointed out to us before, is pointed out to us by Will. Uh, miners are a better business and they, they sell, they sell forward a lot of their BTC. Um, and so it's not like, like, miner selling how it used to work in, you know, 2017, even up until like 2021, is these guys were, were kind of just yellow degenerate gamblers. And so what they would do is they would either sell like everything at the lows, everything at the high, like just like dump like a bunch of stuff whenever they were either panicking or they were like, all right, this is crazy. Like, let me sell. And so I think minor movements were more predictive previously than they are today. Like, I just don't think that there's a ton of supply coming from these guys to hit the markets.

Um, this is like a double halving, right? Because there was the halving, so that halves the amount of selling from miners, and then another halving because the miners found another business line so they can hold on, hold on for dear life for longer, right? They all want to be long Bitcoin. They don't want to be selling to fund operations, but now their GPU, uh, their GPUs pay, pay more of the bills. They don't have to sell as much Bitcoin. To me, this is like, this setup is crazy. I think people have been saying we've been in a bull market for 2 years. Like the recovery, it was basically recovery. Like now we're in a bull market, we're breaking new highs. And there's so many different factors that are proving to the market that Bitcoin and the rest of crypto have real fundamentals. And those real fundamentals can lead this thing into another price kind of like ballpark. I'm so bullish. I'm so bullish I can't see straight, Abhi.

I love it when you say that.

I feel that way. Like, I can't sleep right now.

I'll drink to that.

Right out of the bottle. What are you drinking there?

I don't know. It's not good.

It doesn't have to be. It's just about selling.

Patagonia Argentinian red wine. It's like fine. My girlfriend's using it to cook short ribs right now. That's, that's why there's not much left in the bottle. I didn't drink all that. Most of that was used for short ribs.

Nothing like steak and a glass of red when the, the thing that you bet everything on is suddenly just like, yeah, just like, just like going up.

I mean, how many, how many times a day are you opening Zillow? If the answer is over 3, then I'm going to add that to my list of top signals.

I'm not. I think I'm good on real estate. I got to stop. Yeah, I think for me it's more just like, I kind of— when you get to my age, it's like other stuff. It's like what you put inside of your house and less just like— like the idea of moving makes me sick, you know?

Yeah, I guess that's fair. No, I'm not Zillow-ing. I'm stuffed on real estate. I've got— I'm enough on that.

Thank God.

I have 2 houses in Puerto Rico, apartment in New York. I'm good. Yeah. It's enough. You don't need any more. Don't, yeah. Don't need any more. And then I have a hotel investment. Actually invested a lot in like a hotel that they're redeveloping here, which I think Puerto Rico real estate is an underrated asset class because there's actually a floor.

People have been saying that for like 20 years. And then—

And it's straight up. Jonah. Yeah, straight up.

Are you in the Mighty Ducks, guy? Are you investing in the same hotel as the Mighty Ducks guy, Brock Pierce?

Yeah, I think so. Normandy.

I don't know anything about—

anyway, I don't know if he's investing in that hotel, but I bought my first house here for $1.2 mil in 2021, and I could sell it now for $2.2 to $2.5.

Is that just a crypto trade or is that a pandemic?

Yeah, it's a pandemic and crypto trade. It's a markets go up, everyone starts to look at Puerto Rico real estate because there's a small— Okay. So what a lot of people don't know, not that this is a Puerto Rico show, not podcast, but there's like $2.5 billion of development coming into Puerto Rico to redo the whole thing in the west, in the north, kind of everywhere. A lot of big hedge fund managers are moving in and buying up real estate. Because what's happening is that Puerto Rico, until 2035, is the only place in the entire world where an American citizen can pay zero taxes. Zero. Like, not zero and then you also pay your federal taxes. Zero. You just pay zero capital taxes.

You don't pay income taxes there?

No. Like, you pay— Nothing. Well, you pay 4% income taxes if you route it through a business. 4%. Okay. So— What ends up happening is obviously whenever the market goes up and people are expecting a good year, a lot of people move down to Puerto Rico to establish residency. And so what's happening right now is a lot of people are coming in and looking at Puerto Rico because Trump has won, and they're saying, okay, well, if the markets are going to 2x in the next 3 years, I'm going to save 50%, right? It's called Act 60. And so Puerto Rican real estate Specifically, housing— houses have somewhat of a floor because building takes a long time in Puerto Rico. And in order to get the benefit of Act 60, you have to own your primary residence. So anyone that's moving down here to save millions of dollars has to buy their primary residence. And they're only a small subset of houses that are kind of livable for somebody if you make millions of dollars. So it's like That's why, right?

Okay. So it's basically, it's basically like crypto beta. These Puerto Rico apartments.

So like somebody will, somebody will make $10 million in crypto. They'll be like, yeah, this house might be worth $1.5, but I'll pay $2.5 because I'm going to save $5. Yeah.

Watch Trump, watch Trump rug whatever that is, Act 60. Watch him just like, actually, I don't care.

I'm not even—

you don't live in Puerto Rico anymore. You're good. Now that's interesting. There are all these weird little derivative crypto trades.

Yeah, I mean, it is, it is a crypto trade.

And every time, uh, every time crypto rips, my favorite place, the Hollywood Hills, rips. That's the first thing that every crypto rich person does is go, uh, like try to just like try to do the selling sunset thing.

Coin or BTC Miners is a good one as a question. Can I, can I throw in Hood as well? Yes, as a stock that I'd like to own. I really like Hood. Okay, good stock.

I think, um, coins— Coin's getting close to the all-time highs, uh, it's trading $320 a share. It's pretty crazy. I think a lot of these crypto businesses are going to have a euphoria cycle, but then they're, they're equities, right? Like, you can't, you can't expect the same kind of asymmetric returns from Coinbase or Robinhood that you could from Dogecoin or even Bitcoin. They're not going to triple, you know. Maybe Coinbase could over, over like 2 to 3 years, but it just seems so unlikely. I think like, I think that these are the— like, if I were going to put big leverage on anything, I would put it on crypto equities because it's going to be a smooth ride.

I think so too, because it's— you— I think Hood especially, um, What I don't think people necessarily realize is that as markets go up, people are going to start using it a lot more. It's actually a, like, a really good platform for buying and selling crypto. Like, I, I use it and I enjoy it. And so what I do—

they still charge 35 bips.

Yes, they still charge 35 bips, but it's— I mean, it's still cheaper than Coinbase, and it's baked into the spread a bit. Um, so like when I was— when I bought some ETH on there a while back, and I think in aggregate I was— looked at it and I'm like, okay, well, mid to here is like 40 bps.

Yeah, I used to quote Robinhood in my old job, and basically you would earn 1 to 2 basis points of edge on Bitcoin and ETH, 2 to 4 basis points of edge on like Doge or SHIB, uh, on top of the 35 bips. So Robinhood would take 35, and then you basically— you would quote, like, for Bitcoin, you would quote 36 bips away from mid. Robinhood would take 35, and you would keep 1, and you would have all—

yeah, that, that sounds about right for what I paid.

But anyway, I interrupted you. I'm sorry about that. So you were saying, you know what I'm doing on Robinhood right now?

Um, uh, maybe I should like drop my ref link. No, I'm not gonna do that, but, uh They actually offer a 1% bonus paid out over 2 years for any cash that you deposit in right now, which is kind of nuts, right? So like you deposit like $5 million, you get paid $50,000 for just depositing your $5 million and you're earning 4.5% on cash and you get to invest it. Like, okay, sure.

That is pretty— is that Robinhood Gold?

Yeah. It's like, but you pay $5 a month for that. I mean, it seems— pretty— seems like, uh, as long as Robinhood doesn't go under, which I don't think it will. No, if it doesn't go under, uh, yeah, I mean, if it didn't go under it, uh, last year, it's probably not going to go under this year. I—

they're not exactly too big to fail, but I think they're pretty foolproof at this point. That's my, that's my take. So yeah, I like that.

Coinhood, up to $2.5 million FDIC insured. So if you're like really scared, then Matt put in $2.5, um, but I actually think Robinhood's gonna do extremely well. Over the next, uh, little bit. Um, another—

I haven't been paying any attention to it.

Like, another ticker— well, the two other tickers that I've been paying attention to that aren't necessarily, uh, directly crypto-related, um, but Netgear is doing really well. And so basically the, the, the thesis there is that, and don't quote me on this 'cause I'm not like the most technical person in the world, but what is underappreciated about Netgear is their ability to install communication systems in AI data centers. Hmm. And like, and basically maintain uptime. So apparently they're getting installed pretty heavily. And then also Jio is obviously doing very well. Which I've talked about before.

My favorite stock, my favorite single-name stock that has nothing to do with crypto is Meta. I just, I think you never bet against the Zuck. And also, um, I think they're super well positioned for AI just because they're building all these amazing models. They have all the best training data. They basically have everybody's information, can train their models on it. And ultimately, that's going to provide value in terms of like personal assistance and agents and all sorts of other crap that's kind of on the horizon. They execute better than anybody, and their market cap is way lower than, you know, your Nvidias or Apples or Microsofts of the world. So I think that that's like the, the, my favorite Mag 7 single name stock, and my favorite stock that has nothing to do with crypto. But back to crypto for a second, um, am I crazy for continuing to put in more dough? Into crypto? Like, I just— am I buying that? Should I be waiting for—

I mean, given, given how much of your net worth you told me you were allocated to crypto, no. Yeah, but I probably wouldn't go over $100K.

You'd like buy over $100K, uh, like buy over 100% of your net worth? Oh yeah, no, I wouldn't do that either.

Yeah, like that seems like a person— like personally, that seems like a recipe for disaster.

But I mean Yeah, no, no, I wouldn't do that. I'm not, I'm not crazy. Like, I'm just, I'm older than you. So it's funny how it works. Like, when you're young and you have your entire portfolio is just like funny money, you can kind of, you can kind of gamble it and do what you want with it. And the, if you lose 20, 30, 50%, like, not much changes for you. You're still kind of in like wealth accumulation mode, especially if you're a trader. It, when you get to my age, like, the the prospect of like getting a trade wrong and then having to explain to your family why everybody's moving into a smaller house, that just feels like stupid. So I'm inherently like, I guess when I talk on crypto Twitter about portfolio allocation, I inherently come off as like way more risk-averse than, you know, young Thundercats who are like 150% long crypto. I just, I can't do that anymore. Life changes, you know.

I think we need a new Thundercat because I'm no longer a Thundercat.

I mean, we had a Thundercat on the show.

Yeah, I think, I think the issue, the issue is I realized in this bull run is that, and this is in the most humble way possible, I've got too much to lose, right? Like, it's just like I just don't have the balls to be 100% long my net worth anymore. Like, I can be 50% long and that's okay. 60%, maybe. But like 100, like literally 100% of my net worth. It's like, I don't, I don't love the idea of betting that just because if I'm wrong, then, you know, I'm wrong. Every now and then, when the opportunity presents itself, when there's a slam, like, home run, like, I am super confident in this. I'm like 90%. Yeah. Okay. I'll bet. I'll bet huge. But like how I used to operate was literally I would have 100% of my net worth in crypto forever until it got to a point where I thought it was nuts. And then I would like sell out of it. Right. And like take some cash, but I was always going to buy back in. Right. So from 2017, to the peak in 2021, I basically never dipped below 100% net, like, net long crypto for more than a week. Like, I would short to try to get out, yeah, like, balance things out, but like, I, I just didn't.

You know, that's, that's a good lesson for—

as fuck.

That's a good lesson for all the people in their early to mid-20s out there just getting started with crypto. Like, if you want to be like Avi in terms of crypto trading becoming a path to, you know, freedom for yourself, like, you have to, you have to play with big conviction when you're really convicted. And you also have to be early, and you also have to not FOMO into that level of investment at the top of anything. So yeah, like, That's what— that's just what you have to do. Um, when you get more into like preserving what you have mode, uh, the entire calculus of trading changes.

Well, I mean, look, I'm still playing. I'm still playing to win, don't get me wrong. I'm still playing to make up— make up absolute crazy amount of money, but I can do that with 50% of my network. Yeah, like if I 10x— same, if I 10x 50% of my net worth, like, I, I'm gonna be buying a lot of cards.

Also, we're getting de-risked right now. I love Drunk Avi, by the way. Keep drinking that wine. I feel like the, um, that like we're getting de-risked a little bit. Like, as time goes on, the odds— like, let's say that you had 50% of your net worth in Bitcoin. Is Bitcoin really going to zero ever? Like, no, it may go to— like, what's a worst-case scenario for Bitcoin? What, what price?

It goes down 70%.

Yeah. So if you have 50% of your, your net worth in Bitcoin, I'm not talking about like random shit alts, but like Bitcoin, and it goes down 70%, like you've lost a third of your net worth, you're fine, right? So is that really that much?

The issue, Jonah, is, um, how do I put this? When you're a trader, Bitcoin can go up 100% and you can lose money, and Bitcoin can go down 50% and you can make money. And so what happens to a lot of people that I've unfortunately seen in action is Bitcoin will be down 70% and they might have only touched Bitcoin, but they're down 90. And that's not great.

Yeah, that sucks.

You know, and I do, I do think that that is also why as a trader, just being cognizant of that is important. And then you just end up playing with smaller numbers because you can win more to the upside, but you can also lose more to the downside. Um, you know, it's like a— it's like, you know, if I'm, if I'm confident in something and I'm setting it and forgetting it, and I think that this thing is gonna, is gonna go up, right? Let's say 50% of my net worth is allocated to crypto. Maybe I have 35% in stuff that I just don't touch, confident, 4 years this stuff's going up, and then 15% trading. But I'm not trading with 50%.

No, no, I mean, that's why we were talking about this on Twitter. Like, you cannot trade 100% of your crypto portfolio. It's just too much. Like, you're more dialed in than 99% of the traders out there, and you're not trading 100% of your crypto portfolio.

My philosophy has always been from the beginning The best way to make money in crypto, if you're a good trader, is to take 50% of your portfolio and just stick it in stuff that you're gonna like hold forever and you're never gonna touch, and then trade with 50%, and then every time you make a certain amount of profit, just buy the stuff that you're gonna hold forever.

Yeah, de-risk it into Bitcoin or ETH or whatever.

And then you just don't— and then you just don't touch it again.

It's crazy that Solana is now in the category of forever bags.

Yeah, it's crazy.

Wow.

Anyway, Jonah, I gotta— I gotta roll.

Well, the audience says, guys, please sleep. So now is good timing.

I— guys, I— I sleep. This is pigmentation. I don't know. I don't know how many times I need to explain this to you. I sleep like 7 to 8 hours a day.

It was preordained, to use the word.

This is purely pigmentation. There's nothing I can do about that. It's just how I—

it's your— it's your war face. You were just born.

It's just my work. I, I am a raccoon. I am— I am 2% raccoon. And that is just— I'm sorry, guys. This is like—

see, well, I don't have the pigmentation, but I'm actually tired because I stay up all night looking at Bitcoin, and then my daughter starts a a rave at 4:45 AM sometimes. So yeah, feeling the squeeze, dude. Great talk.

I can't believe I just gave like a long lecture about how I'm basically just a raccoon and that this is a pigmentation that's not going away. And the first comment is, Avi never sleeps, 100% confirmed, brother.

Avi is a cute panda. That's what somebody else said.

Well, that's nicer than raccoon. I'll take it. Thanks, guys.

Um, Inverse Panda, great, great talking to you, man. How about this? How about this? Rather than just one of us drinking, um, if we breach 100K, let's just both drink on the podcast, okay? We haven't had one of those yet.

Yeah, let's do it.

All right, 100K, we're breaking out the— breaking out.

Let's do it.

Drink.

You know what, $100K, I'll deliver a bottle to you and you can DoorDash a bottle to me. Okay, perfect. Of our favorite stuff.

Love it. Done.

You're done. All right. Adios.

Great seeing you, Avi. Not financial advice, everybody. Please don't listen to us. Don't buy Puerto Rican hotels. Absolutely not. Don't do anything.

Yeah. All right.