Steady Lads (Live) - TOKEN2049 Singapore 2025

Gym lads.

Gym lads.

Gym crazy guys. I think it's Tiki's outfit. That's why got the comment.

It's not an outfit. It's a lifestyle. Always be performing. You know,

you're just wearing this the whole conference or

Yeah. Yeah. I've been sweating my balls off honestly the past couple days.

Do you have Do you have two sets of overalls or just one?

One set of overalls like 10 white shirts every cycle through them. Yeah.

Just one hat or

just one hat? Just one. Okay. All right. So, how's how's farming going lately?

I I've been seeing you uh getting rugged by Lord Miles on the on the poly market.

Yeah, I'm trying to farm the poly market airdrop because I'm pretty bullish poly market and I've been degenerate the degening on random markets. I bet on like Lord Miles who's trying to do like a water fast in the desert and he just rugged like the last week and I lost like 15k.

That doesn't sound great. I mean h how is it being a a poly market influencer versus a uh DeFi farmer which was your previous life?

I feel like poly prediction markets has very little competition when it comes to content because like there's like no one else doing it. So I feel like I have an angle there. Um but on like the DeFi front, you know, I'm farming USDA, you know, Justin's bullish that. Um lighter, super bullish lighter. So pretty optimistic the lighter airdrop, the USDI air drop.

I feel like it's going to cook. So yeah, I mean uh the perpex meta has been on fire lately. I think lighter announced their mainet obviously Aster which was the CZbacked coin is interesting. Um there's even Justin's son who apparently is getting roasted on the stage in an hour.

Uh he has his sun per thing.

Yeah. Uh maybe we should start roasting him early before just just to kind of warm up the the room for Justin Sun's stuff. Um Dim, are you are you are you seeing uh how are you seeing this this new fight? Anything interesting?

Um what do you mean about the market or uh Justin?

No, the Dexes. The Dexes.

Oh, yeah. I mean, it's uh we talked a little bit about about it on the panel yesterday. I think it's it's a it's a it's a meta that can't last for too long.

I don't know. Some people get super excited. I mean, everybody watch out if if this guy right here comes up to you.

Oh, yeah.

He's going to ask to buy your lighter points if you have any lighter points.

So, run away cuz he's very insistent. He might He might You've been finding people to buy from

the last two weeks. I've been in every group chat I know trying to buy points. I'm trying to buy them at about $50 now. About a two and a half bill FDV implied. Uh extraordinarily bullish lighter.

I use it a ton. Um, I think it's just an extremely competent team and um,

what's your average on ladder now given what you've bought and what you re you know what you've gotten on points?

Average on how many points I have or

Yeah, because you've bought now.

Unfortunately, I'm under I'm at 2,700 total points. Uh, but probably nothing compared to you guys professional traders. But

so, uh, $50 a point and you're saying two and a half billion FTV and that's based on some assumption on what percentage they would airdrop. So, we had the hyperlquid airdrop. That was a rather chunky one that was like 30 30ish%.

Yeah. So, from everything I know, and obviously it's not confirmed, the airdrop is going to range roughly between 25 to 30%.

What is that based on?

Just like Okay. It's vibes

information. Hoping. We're just hoping. I see I see Cooper here laughing. Okay.

So, Justin is hoping for a 25 30% air drop.

Seems reasonable. Oh, he just did this. She just

we got the thumbs up.

Where the thumbs up?

Um,

but I I think it's super exciting. I I tell people now if you're going to trade, you should trade on lighter because you're getting paid to do so and there's zero fees. Obviously, there's other costs, but I don't see why you wouldn't use that exchange.

It's getting a bit interesting cuz, you know, the the hyperlquid side, it it feels like they're feeling a little bit of pressure. We're seeing signs of a new season coming.

Obviously, we had these NFT drops. Um, it was pretty cool. They put a lot of effort into it. So, we had the Monad cards. Those were super nice.

They took your CT profile and I don't know, AI jiblified it or something. And then, uh, apparently, so I didn't realize this, but the, uh, the Hyperlid NFTts in cases where they knew what the wallet was, they did customize it. So, I didn't realize, but our one, our main wallet one is a um, it's like a puff dragon cat.

Really? So, it's like actually a dragon cat. I was I was like, "Okay, I can't sell it now." Like, you forced me to hold this. Never going to sell it.

There was another one where the guy's wearing like a a bucket hat and playing poker

and it was very reminiscent of my World Series photo.

Yeah.

I I didn't get that one. Maybe they thought it was me. I don't know. It was not me. Did you Did you get one?

I got one, but it wasn't It was like not former.

They don't know. They don't They haven't tagged.

Yeah. Yeah. I didn't dox that wallet, but it is what it is. I'm not making the mistake though. I sold my hype at like $13.

Uh like the airdrop, but this one I'm not going to sell.

Not going to sell. Okay, guys.

Diamond hands.

Let's talk about markets a little bit. Let's start with uh

Can we get the slides up?

Let's get the slides up.

I mean, I think the first thing we should realize is it's GOP season. It's the guaranteed October pump that we see every year with crypto.

Yeah.

Uh which is exciting. I'm extremely excited for Q4. Uh, we can talk a little bit more about cycles, but I want to be mostly out by January. If I have to reby higher, that's fine, but just trying to enjoy Q4 now and take profit. I refuse to be a community member of Ethereum again.

I can't round trip one more time. I'm done.

So, last It's okay. Yeah, you're right. It's been a few years where October we kind of shoot up.

Yeah,

we each year we get a little bit of an AI season just, you know, before Christmas. That seems to be when we get the AI meta. And then by January, you know, I mean, last time it was Melania kind of bringing down the the tower.

Yeah.

We'll see what what token does it this time.

Yeah. Look at the look at the prices, though. It's all pumping

by greens.

It's crazy.

Yeah. So, it looks like, you know, uh, Bitcoin's getting back to 120. It doesn't make any sense that Bitcoin is under 120 in my opinion. I mean, we'll we'll show the gold chart, but yeah, gold has done tremendously well. This is like what is it up on the year gold?

It's like close to 50%. And the the funny thing is that Bitcoin related to gold is down 20,

right?

Unexpected

after all these dats.

Yeah.

After all this buy pressure that that came from TRFI, we're still down 20%. Um, but isn't that something you guys as professional traders would expect? You have sort of the safe havens lead and then as everything does really well and it's a bullish environment, we go down the risk curve and Bitcoin certainly is down the risk curve from gold. So, isn't this expected and actually quite bullish?

I I'm a little bit surprised. I I think the unexpected thing that's happened is that there's been some just ancient Chinese whales, I don't know if they're miners or just OGs, selling billions and billions at a time, which I think has slowed down the chart. Otherwise, I think the, you know, the orange pony is destined to be the fastest. I mean, specifically like last week when we had the crazy drop while the KBW

Yeah.

It was a Chinese whale that sold a couple billion over Monday to Friday, right? Pretty aggressively just went to all the desks, you know, quoted hard and just like dipped the market to sub 110. So, I think that's maybe a reason. And if we don't see any more of those, I think, you know, I feel quite good about Bitcoin uh with with co performing so well here over the next like month or two. And do you think that like gold pumping raises the ceiling for Bitcoin?

People do like the relative valuations of

I mean where's where's gold now? It's like 25 trillion. Bitcoin is like a tenth of that. Um I I don't see why the percentage shouldn't be higher.

No one's going to flinch if Bitcoin goes to 150. They'll just say, "Okay, this was this was a logical catch-up trade."

Literally. Yeah.

Um I don't know about ETH. I mean Justin, you've been clipping a little bit. I think you you managed to catch some of the top the the the local top. I don't know if it's

I sold the perfect top. Unfortunately, just 5%. Yeah.

But I've sold 15% of my ETH now, and I'm hoping to get that number up to 100% through year end. I I listened to your talk at KBW. I know you're not into the cycle theory. Personally, I'm not either. It doesn't make any rational sense, but I also just don't want to be around to find out Q1, Q2, Q3 of next year.

Like, I'm happy to buy back higher. Mostly we'll be sticking with Bitcoin from here on out, but I am very excited for Q4 and I think like it's going to be a great time to take profit over the next three months for me personally.

Let's look at ETHBTC maybe.

Yeah. So, it's been tough. You were saying last year we were at the same point, but the the vibe was very different.

Yeah. I think last year, like literally a year ago, ETDC was at 038. Uh, and now it's at roughly 036. But last, I mean, look, we were literally just nuking every single week and Justin was like just crying every single week. Um, but I mean, now we're at the same levels.

Uh, and the vibes are completely different. You know, I feel like people think ET BTC has bottomed. Um, I mean, last cycle Kyle Smani had like the soul is going to flip ETH thesis. Um, and people thought ETH was going to just go to zero, but

well, something strange has happened and that's you would think these perpex platforms would mostly be on Solana Rails, but there actually aren't any that have taken off. I think Pacifica is coming soon. Maybe that's something to farm. But it is interesting that Arbitum specifically has gathered a lot of this financial use case. Um, so we'll see what happens.

But that said, I'm still not sticking around.

We're not sticking around.

Yeah.

The thing is we have

You sold your your ETH, right?

I am out of ETH. I'm not going to reby until it goes much lower.

Um, and I think, you know, we actually have some really big launches coming and I think these will drive away flows from Soul, Avalanche, Ethereum, the big ones as people try to rotate and catch the next thing. Um, before we move on to the next chart, I just want to, you know, talk about sentiment a little bit because crypto, I mean, everyone's got the, you know, memory of a goldfish. They just look at the recent bars. But you know I if if you imagine

getting up.

Okay. Imagine this was the price chart and and it was just flat it would be fine. People wouldn't even care.

Yeah.

Now we just remember this.

No, I remember everything.

I remember every single day.

Okay. So my point is like you see the plasma launch.

Yes.

By all by all means this is a tremendously successful launch. I mean it's the private round was at 500 and it's trading you know near 10 billion.

I think plasma launched you know at 80 cents and it's at like 80 90 cents. If it had just gone flat people be euphoric.

Yeah. Yeah.

But because it went first up and then down it's it's like everyone's crying. If if it had gone down to 50 and then back to 90 people will be like jubilant. So, it's just so ridiculous how, like you said, it's just so short term. Everyone's just remembering except for you. You remember everything

every single day. It was horrible. I can't do it again. I refuse. Uh, so the the plan now is hopefully I mean, if everything goes well, sell over the next three months and then I'd love to buy Bitcoin half off next year and start to DCA half DCA in half off next year would be amazing.

I don't know if I'll get it, but we were almost

from these prices

from wherever we end up, which I think we might go to like 150. But I mean, people like you said, memory of a goldfish. Literally like three or four months ago, Bitcoin basically went like 40% off the highs. There's no reason to say that won't happen next year. So

indeed went down.

See, I mean, the Fed's cutting for a reason, right? The economy is slowing down. I mean, you're you guys are more experts on that than me. you still believe in the four-ear cycle thesis because you're trading based on that kind of like the time frames you're giving us here.

Yeah. Yeah. I I don't really have an opinion on it, but crypto is super reflexive. Everything has played out exactly as the cycles have so far. And while I agree it's completely illogical, I just don't want to be the guy that's sticking around to find out and hold ETH 80% down.

Like I I can't do it.

Let's let's look at soul. I mean

enough is enough. You you got to take profit. You know, enough is enough. Peggy, tell us about this one.

Yeah, so like I said earlier like last or last year the narrative was ETH is dead, Salon is going to flip Ethereum, but if you zoom out when Kammani had like the soul is going to flip Eat's uh speech uh so was at 0.057 it's a little cut off now but right now it's so is like roughly 0051. So, it's actually trading lower than, you know, and I also talked to so many fund managers last uh like last year. It's like they just sold all their ETH now. They're like all in Salana.

Um so, you got to fade that type of sentiment, you know. Um

I think you know what Dim said is true. There's a lot of new new things. People love speculating on new launches more than any other game. Like out of all the casino games in crypto, people betting on, you know, what's something going to launch at like these pre-launch things.

It's so popular. It's like the most exciting thing because I guess it has the most volatility and that's kind of bearish for older coins.

Yeah.

Um, you know, Salana was the new cool thing. Hyperlid was the new cool thing and then, you know, people sort of want to get that volatility and speculate on the new stuff. So, I'd say that this is a good time to think about these opportunistic shorts versus the new launches versus Bitcoin because the DAT trade is basically kind of I mean maybe we talk about this more later, but the D that trade is basically kind of over in terms of getting like the big flows. You're not going to see like one or two billion uh coming into a DAT um at least by the end of this year. So, you know, you've had these flows coming and now it's time to just, you know, reckon with the downside at least on these odds I'd say for many reasons.

So, what do you think the the new coins could be? I mean, do you think it's something like a stable chain like Plasma or Stable? Do you think it's these new perexes? Do you guys have any thoughts on what's coming down the pipeline that we should be looking at?

Um, like like a year ago, right? Um, no one predicted AI season, but October 7th, Truth Terminal comes out, go we pump and it creates a meta for three months. So, I feel like yeah, like the existing coins feels kind of cooked, you know? um none of these new launches can get above 15 bill 20 bill FTV. Um and then you know people start selling pers and like dumping.

Um, so I think this is like time, this is a time to just be really really locked in and be attentive and just be ready to ape whatever new meta because yeah with plasma aster people are really really desperate to just like punt something new, right? Uh, so the capital's there, the money's there. Um, but the money is really there. I mean what that was one of the lessons from Korea as well is like the the retail bid for new launches is 100% higher than ever it was before. I think the difference now is you know people are learning the the tricks and and the game is becoming a little bit predatory again.

We are back to the lowflat high FDV thing all over again and um you know this was a big topic of conversation I think last year

nobody's bringing it up now now they just want the token to go up and you know they're willing to accept

whatever lowflat stuff you you want to do.

Um It is a little reflective in how long the narratives are sticking though because like everyone I know that's logging the hot new coin has no plans to stick around for, you know, the usual one-year cliff or early investors team etc. I think people are actually a lot more aware. They just realize like Tiki said, people want to pile into that new launch. It It's exciting. It's new.

New new coin good.

Yeah. And to buy the new coins, you have to sell the old coins.

Exactly. That's the

So the old coins are dumping and then the new coins are pumping. Yeah,

there's been so few launches in the last five years that have been able to sustain through unlocks like team investor unlocks. Even like a god tier coin like you know ENA which has done everything right and they've gotten all the integrations and they're doing the revenue and the buybacks. even the coin like that, you know, once there is just all this constant unlocking, I mean, you know, it's going up and down. It's not doing badly, but like it just shows you that even the ones that are the top are are struggling in in the unlock period. And I think these lowflat ones that launched um you know, in the last 11 months, as they start getting into unlocks, it's going to be a blood bath.

The interesting thing is guy specifically, you know, he said that publicly that he thinks he say he overraised and he could have achieved everything he's achieved for Athena with 10% of the money from investors. And obviously if he had only raised 10% the chart of ENA would look completely different,

right?

It's tough to say. I actually wanted to get your guys' opinion on this. So Hyperlid is obviously an amazing project. It's the darling right now, but I believe starting in a month and a half or so, there's about between 400 to $500 million of insider unlocks coming on the market. And I wanted to ask you guys cuz Jordy, I feel like you have like top probably top five people with insights into the flows of like how these tokens trade and insider moves and whatnot.

Like does this stuff get priced is it priced in now or is it priced in 50% through the unlocks like a year in, two years in? like when should people be worried about this stuff and when should they start to look to re-enter if they really like the project?

I mean this was this is what makes investing in crypto over the long term very difficult. I mean trading a lot of people can do well. You know you find some momentum and you trade it. That's fine but like doing longer term investing. You mentioned this hyperlquid unlock.

This is a very small team. I imagine they're they're pretty tight

11 people. Yeah. Mhm.

They're probably not going to just be like insta dumping, you know, all their unlocks. On the other hand, this is a huge amount of money for engineer number five or six and you have

they deserve it, too. They built something amazing. They deserve it.

So, you have to imagine that there's going to be some amount. They're they're going to control it, but um yeah, people are not sure. Did you see this interesting proposal by um I think it was Hu and Charon? Um, so actually I I spoke to Jeff before they launched the token, gave him a brain dump of all my tokconomics ideas. And the thing I did suggest him was actually exactly what the house was proposing.

Just release enough tokens for the airdrop and you know for what you need and then just do the rest through emissions. Um, I think it makes sense. No one's really tried it yet. I think their proposal makes sense.

Well, it makes sense especially in the context of the assistance fund too, right? the they've bought back so many tokens they're in profit on them that could also be used for community incentives down the line as well.

Yeah. And the thing it helps with is like you look at market cap FDV.

Yeah.

What's cheap, what's expensive, no one has any clue.

I I mean I spend a lot of time just trying to decipher like what is actual float, what what kind of pieces are going to enter or not enter the market. And you know to do it I need to spend a lot of time and have a lot of conversations. So for most people it's not achievable to be able to do that. And I think that makes you know crypto very hard to allocate to for for more than just a trade.

Yeah. That's why I think over many cycles everyone turns into Bitcoin maxis slowly.

Yes.

And then opportunistic traders.

Just on that if you guys think that you know Bitcoin goes to like 150 by year.

I don't see why you would hold ETH or Soul or anything like that as beta. like if you wanna, you know,

well, I mean, Bitcoin dominance has been in a downtrend for a couple months now. It's down pretty significantly. It's recovered a bit, but it is down and I I actually do think it will we're not gonna have an alt season where everything goes up, but I do think ETH will outperform Bitcoin over the next three months and Soul will probably outperform ETH and hype will probably outperform Soul. Yeah,

because I would say that the counter argument that is that that's because of the DATs that are kind of like tapering off and that um I would say that uh yeah, I'd say I'd say if you want like exposure to data or just more exposure than 1x delta to long for Bitcoin, you just add a little bit leverage 30% leverage. It's probably as good as holding.

Yeah. Every time I try to long a beta, I realize I am the beta.

Longer the alpha.

You are the beta. I am the beta. Yeah.

All right, let's get another slide. What do we got? Yeah. last year. Last year,

this was the the uh the speech that broke all speeches, 400,000 views on a token speech. Where are we now?

No, like I feel like Justin and I talked about this before like doing this, but I feel like this was like the most important speech over like the past 12 months. I think it got everyone thinking about altcoins differently that yeah, most of this most of these altcoins are just overvalued and they're all just meme coins at the end of the day. So, you don't want to hold them, you just want to trade them.

Yeah, it was interesting. I think um I don't know if anyone saw Alex Good's talk here yesterday. I think it was at least so far the best talk I've seen and he basically said Morad was completely correct. There is this new social component here. We should think of every token as a meme coin.

Obviously hyperlquid with revenues and these coins that actually generate returns are a little different, but we should think of these as communities rallying around their coins. And he said Marad is totally right, but he got the coins wrong. Of course, it worked out for him, but he thinks the new coins are like Ripple, uh, World Liberty Fi, things where there's like a political interest or a large community backing and a legacy backing over the last several years, which I thought was interesting. And the talk will probably be on YouTube, but definitely recommend it.

Yeah, I'm a short world of DeFi, so maybe I should cover.

I think where Alex is right that, you know, Murad basically talked about this memecoin thesis that obviously is right, right? Like we are in the moonshot generation. people want to, you know, be part of the next 100,000x and and believe in something. I think, by the way, Morad, thanks Mad. He he showed this to me.

Uh he sold SPX to me last year in in Singapore.

Are you still a holder or you believe in the Philippines?

Unfortunately, not part of the cult. Um but I think

but I heard there's a coming.

I think there is a dad coming. There is a dad coming. Um,

at that point,

Alex, Alex Alex is taking this to the next level where he's like, "Okay, we've done the, you know, pure memes right now. Mimemetics is just elevating and you're adding another component to it, which is either fundamentals or like a different story that people can get behind. Um, so, um, I haven't watched the the speech, but I've talked to Alex a lot about it.

So, let's see if Alex Good's speech is the is the next for for this year."

Yeah. What else we got? Is that meta over? I mean, we're we're very much towards the tail end. I think even the dats that the coin has done well, the equity is trading not not amazing.

Um, like you know, BMBB stuff like this, the token's done great. That is not doing so well. So, that's usually a sign that it's almost over. I'm still hearing people wanting to allocate to new ones. There's always this hope that the new thing was going to launch super high for some reason people still want to gamble uh into these DATs just the same they want to gamble into you know TGES.

Another interesting data point about DATs is that you know I've talked to a lot of funds that have been deploying in this there are a couple super smart guys you know like Joe Nagger from Republic and a couple other guys that have made a ton of money there and are successful. Most of the funds that I've actually allocated DATs and I thought were reasonably early to the trade are near break even on this whole thing because it's a parallel like a couple of these that trades ended up being super successful like BMRs but all that stuff most have been like complete fumbles. Um, so I think if the if the if the people that are deploying capital to dads are seeing their books after like 3 four months of just like obsessing over them and seeing like zero as a P&L or nearly negative, they're not going to deploy again.

Yeah, for for me this is one of the catalysts that makes me bearish. Like I'm personally of the mindset that most of these except for maybe two or three have to completely die. And I I know the structure is not that they're going to be forced to sell the underlying, but I think the narrative is going to be there that there could be some redemption mechanism and there would be sell pressure coming down the line. So I think most of these DATs I mean they obviously don't make sense from a fundamental basis. Um, so I do think the meta has to the meta is dying and I do think that could be a bare catalyst

even if they don't sell. It's just that you know a lot of the inflows instead of going to the token you know people are just pitching like hey why why would you buy the token just buy this

40% off you get you get the same exposure theoretically.

I was going to ask is that in Selen's purview where you would look at something like that and you know purchase a dad at a discount to NAV and then either try to be an activist investor or get involved in some capacity to redeem. Is that something you guys would do or No,

we don't. I mean, the whole activist investor thing, you know, you you got to just do it as your

we'll

call Bill full-time obsession and some people are going to do that, but

uh I would rather stay out of that game and and let other people fight legal battles.

Yeah,

there's there's easier there's easier uh games to play than than those ones. Yeah. Yeah. That that one, you know, putting the poker analogy, the rake on the game is is so high. If you look at these bankers and these insiders and the warrants and like their the fees on these things are absurd, like you might want to see one of these DATs that raise, you know, your average, $200 million DAT, half in kind, half cash.

That's a good case scenario. That's like a reasonable like uh situation. Even even that one. So 100 million you managed to raise in cash. The lawyer I mean when you add all the providers they're getting 25 million worth 30.

They're draining so much of it. It's worse than like you know even like a memecoin launch.

You're seeing that at close to the top of the funnel as you know a a big entity in this space. For me the deals that I'm seeing are like you can participate in this SPV and ADAT and you're buying at 1.06 MNAV and there's a 20% carry on top. I've passed on all of them, but it's crazy how it just, you know, trickles down.

But that SPVS are if a dad has to go and do an SPV, it's not a good dad. Most likely, I'll just say that.

Yeah. Anyway, I mean, of course, like, you know, a few of them are still popular. We have, you know, Tom Lee, uh, the Orbs one, the um, the Worldcoin one.

Yeah.

You know, the CNBC audience, they love hearing about, you know, AI and Sam Waltman. So, so maybe maybe that one makes sense. I think a few of them do make sense. Um, but most most of them don't. And yeah, that meta is near over.

I hope. Yeah.

If if we're lucky, well, unlucky enough to have a bare market next year, would you be looking to buy MSTR at a discount as opposed to Bitcoin? I think we saw a pretty significant like 15 to 20% discount last bare market. It was obviously an exceptional bare market, but

it's really hard to know, like you said, if anyone's going to be willing to sell underlying tokens. the ones that are willing to if it's an altcoin, it'll probably not be able to take a lot of liquidity because these things are not very liquid. If it's BTC or ETH, maybe like maybe somebody can clip a few Bitcoin and buy back the stock and rep it.

So, we'll have to see, but I think only only for those two assets.

Yeah.

All right. Maybe next topic. So, I think we kind of touched on this, but maybe Justin, you had you believe in the four year cycle, right? Um, and

yeah, I think I I I think Justin is being cautious. I think I I'm not I'm I'm I'm just like I'm assuming that we're in the super cycle

for Bitcoin though, right? Not for other alts or select alts

for crypto and then like alts will rotate pretty heavily after one after the other. Um,

okay. So if that's true, what are some things that we as just retail, the audience here, myself obviously included, like what should we be looking at to know whether we're going to have a 75% draw down on Bitcoin next year, or if it's something that we can feel comfortable holding through the next several years through the Trump administration, etc. Like what are the signals that we can pick on before just, you know, things just dumping quicker than we can respond?

That's a really good question. So for me there's only one signal I'm looking for and and I'm not seeing it. So just to be clear. So the one signal is actual liquidity tightening and you know if you remember like ECB 2015 when the Germans were like okay we are going to tighten the the belt. The the Americans are are just like not capable that the debt's too high.

I don't see it happening. But when inflation does get a little bit too out of control, and you mentioned real estate to me backstage, when when things that most people use and buy, if the price is going up too fast, that's the sign because when you when they start complaining, then they do have to like tighten liquidity and keep prices moderated. when people start talking about things are getting too expensive and real estate and complaining it probably six months later it sort of flows down all the way to the Fed and then liquidity dries up.

Isn't this happening already?

Well, everyone I talked to says prices are too high.

So, we had a little bit after COVID there was the boom and then of course that was like you know the year after we we did kind of obviously we had the 2022 bare market in crypto. It aligned perfectly and I think it was because of that reason. Right now, no one's talking about it. So, for like the foreseeable six months plus, I don't think there's any concern around like liquidity draining and the fact that we have stocks alltime high, gold alltime high, you know, random stuff is popping off everywhere. We're just not there.

So, you're more worried about such a bullish environment that the government and the Fed has to tighten liquidity than you are the downturn, which is what the Fed is signaling is happening. Do you think either they're wrong or they're misdirecting us?

No, I think there could be a downturn in employment, especially, you know, with AI that might get worse, but it's not going to affect financial assets. It doesn't matter. Like the people that are buying, you know, premium like assets are not the people losing their jobs. It's it's like the massive wealth managers that are just allocating from the printing press.

Yeah. So for context at this conference then people come up to me in the at different events and the number one thing they ask me is what is your thoughts on Jord's take that our money is being debased at about I think you'd say 10 to 15% per year. My take is that's not the case. Uh the treasury market's just barely over 4%. You think it is the case?

I mean, how do you reconcile that the market is accepting 4.1% or whatever it is yield for 10 years and you think the real yield should be 10 15% something like that?

I'm not saying the y I'm not saying the real yield should be that. Like if someone is passive and they're just buying treasuries and and waiting 10 years to get 4% a year, they're going to get hella diluted and they like I don't want to say they deserve it, but I'm not saying like Treasury should give them the whole return. Like you will get diluted if you're just giving your money to the most passive instrument there is. Um, yeah. I mean, like I said, I don't think that basics are being inflated at 15% a year, but I think, you know, scarce goods like people's scarce time, things like this are are inflating much quicker.

Um, I mean, you see that with some of the like, you know, employment packages,

but I guess going back on

like take like what's what's like an elite engineer or an elite quant making. Yeah. you know 10 years ago, five years ago it's it's going up so exponentially and you know I think

the value is accuring to a smaller subset of people

but even even those people because they're very specialized you really want to hire them the amount you have to pay is ridiculous um and you know I track the quant trading firms like Jump HRT Citadel Jane Street

you know I I get the recruiters sending me all their uh their numbers like how much they're up year date it's going up by 15% a year like you know Jump was making one billion the next year they're making two and it's four it's six and same with like you know HRT all these other firms the financial markets are just growing so so fast is is the easiest way to track this for people like myself to look at S&P growth or real estate growth how would you look at that if you're just me and you don't have this sort of inside information on what the most talented people in the world are getting comped at

um I mean real estate is is a bit of a you know a a unique it's it's more like an NFT. So you're like you know if you want to look at the NFT market to see if it's a bull market I mean sometimes it correlates sometimes it doesn't.

Yeah but I guess going back on this topic let me ask you Dim you're just smirking over there. Uh do you believe in cycles or you think it's

to be honest like I never understood that concept too well. I never made decisions based on it. Um I think specifically this time, yeah, we are in a super cycle kind of environment for Bitcoin. I think um like gold hasn't been doing anything since like 2011 till 2022. It didn't it didn't break 2000 and it's now like 3,800.

You know, that that to me signals a a real shift in and where value is flowing and and Bitcoin will capture a bit of that. Um and hopefully it takes our shitcoins uh up with it. Um, yeah.

So, I'm not really playing I'm I'm not really making decisions on a cycle.

Yeah.

For your cycle kind of senses. No.

What about you, Taki?

Um, I think I I believe I agree with Bitcoin. I just think that things like Ethereum and Salana at any given point they can dump 70% if hits the fan. And I can't realistically like I mean ETH is like a half a trillion dollar asset, right? Like can I reasonably expect ETH to hit a trillion? I not really.

So, what's the upside? to the downside. So, I'm just at this point of the cycle. Um, if there are cycles,

sorry, because you said something important. I think it might it's possible that it does if Bitcoin also like to X's plus but the it's when you're making a trade and you're picking Bitcoin ETH so whatever else you need to understand the other factors like is it the same as bet that you're taking with Bitcoin if you go and take it on ETH or Solana like is it as you know can you get exposure in um in in a way where you know is it as liquid you know to get in and out it's it's not like there are many factors you need to consider And as you said, when Bitcoin sneezes, these coins just keep dying.

Yeah.

Do you really want to hold that over the longer term, uh, or just, you know, buy Bitcoin and try to kind of trade it around if you really want to get extra?

I just think I need to buy more Bitcoin

and also farm

and farm.

Farm.

Farming is good.

Yeah, farming is printing recently. It's

You've been doing good.

Yeah. Yeah.

What do we got next?

Any anyone big on equity decks, per deck stuff? I mean, that's people are talking about it. super exciting. I mean, we'll see if there's product market fit there. I think it makes sense.

I think everything can be a perp. But I do think that the open question to me is like, is there an overlap on dgens that know how to use perplexes and also want magnified exposure on equities? Like, what's the overlap there?

I think it's the Robin Hood users that are probably going to have to be the ones that

kind of uh, you know, dog food it and and see if if it's something that it will expand. Um, I have a question, Jordy. What do you think of Aster?

It's It's an interesting product. I mean, look, um, obviously like product in Perpex matters when you're a user and less when you're trying to just speculate. I think if if CZ was acquiring Vertex back when Vertex was like, you know, we had Alwin in like our first season on early days, their product was actually tremendously good. I'll just say that if if that was the golden child that was chosen and they had acquired that tech, I actually think that it would have, you know, made a lot more sense and it the valuation would might be sustainable. Um, but look, I mean, they they'll keep trying to improve it.

Obviously, Bybit's trying to do the same thing now with with Apex. I think OKX is trying to ride the meta and and you know, the quality is difficult. Making a perex is trickier than any other DeFi product. I really like all these edge cases that exist on funding rates and exploits and liquidations, you have to autodleverage people. It's not an easy thing to do.

the people who do it well that we've seen like Vlad from Lighter and Jeff Hyperliquid these are like you know HFT traders quants they really understand the micro structure and I think there's very few builders that that have that and if you don't the perex product sometimes is a bit janky

at the conference everyone has been telling me that market makers are in some ways racing to integrate with Aster because there's a lot of soft flow there is that I mean can you speak to that is that something you've had to do and is that reflexive and that you guys on board deeper liquidity more retail coming in incentives and then this can become a real thing.

No, I mean that's a good question. There's there's two reasons why, you know, Seleni will integrate a DEX and there's so many of these. So, we have to, you know, choose our our cycles carefully because we only have, you know, so many engineers. Is there a ton of really good retail flow and is there like some big points program airdrop thing? So Aster like as soon as it got so big we immediately had to integrate because you know if the air dropped 4% and it's 10 billion that's 400 million airdrop if we can try to capture like you know a few percent of that we're willing to you know burn some fees and do what it takes other exchanges they might have really good retail um obviously Hyperlid at this point is one of our largest exchanges that we trade one of our most profitable exchanges there's no points

so that vision of like bring the retail and the market makers will bring the liquidity is true. It's played out and um yeah, Astro we kind of did it more for the points. I don't know if the retail will will keep using it with the new perplexes like lighter and the other points like point systems. Um have you seen like like less activity on Hyperlid like relative to other changes? Do you think that's a risk for hype or you think that's like a short-term thing that you know once the points are out it's or tokens air dropped it's going to like die most of them

it definitely slows it down a little bit obviously the momentum is still strong even things like pump fun I mean you know people moved off of Salana the trenches died everyone just moved to like BMBB to to do all this you know BMBB season gambling and still Pump Fund still has the you know every day it makes a million plus dollars and it just keeps pumping out and the same with Hyperlquid. I mean, even if people move around a bit, um, there's still a sustainable business and a product. It hasn't gone to zero.

Nice.

What do we got now? We have pastas.

Okay, let's do some pastas.

Who's going first?

I think it's me. Oh, yeah. So, sorry, maybe it's too small to see, but last year there was like a DJ summit uh and they had all these K awards, right? So, you know, Avalanche, you know, won best layer 2, right? Congrats.

I didn't know they were layer two. Uh, Bit Boy, best video content creator. Um, isn't this the one? I thought it was like Professor Crypto won.

Professor Professor won the award.

He's not part of the screenshot, but he also won best K of the year. So, I was kind of sales running, right? Wellveed.

And this year,

Professor Krypto,

he's back.

He's back two years in a row K of the year. He's he he did it, you know. He is the best K of the year, you know, according to the DJ Summit. Uh, Monad is the best layer, too, apparently. Um, Frank God's comeback of the year.

Uh,

old Leonitis is the best artist in her space, though.

Who? Who?

Old Leonitis.

That That's true. That's true.

Okay. Is this real or fake? It's real. It's real. GG won.

Trencher of the year.

Why is Moan at best layer two? They're not a layer two.

I don't know, man. But I think people pay for this, you know. Scotty Pippen best 11. I didn't even space it correct. Oh, it doesn't even have a space between layer and two.

It's fake.

It's fake.

Okay,

that was my pasta. It's a troll. I mean, this DJ Summit thing is ridiculous, but yeah.

All right, second pasta.

Second pasta.

Yeah. So, this was this was some interesting FUD. You know, people love to FUD in crypto. It's the whole it's not external from crypto. It's part of the DNA in the sport is to FUD.

It is such a fundamental thing. And if people don't have a good reason to FUD, they'll just come up with reasons to FUD. So the Plasma team, you know, we kind of showed the chart. If it had just gone a different way, people would be happy. But now they're looking for like, oh my god, it, you know, it dumped a little bit back to 10 billion.

What's going on? and the FUD that they came out with out of the 50 people on the team, there's a couple people that used to work at with at Blast, right, with Pac-Man,

right?

And and I guess that, you know, that didn't go very well. And so the FUD is this is the same team as Blast and therefore, you know, this is going to be the same chart. It's

gonna end the same way. And when I saw this, I just burst out laughing because this is of course the guy from Englorious Bastards who's like, you know, I guess he's like looking for the Jews and instead they're looking for the employees. Where's the employees of Blast? He's like, you're hiding the Blast team members. Are you not hiding them?

So this is this is the ridiculous FUD of crypto. This was this was hilarious.

Yeah, it was a good one.

Yeah, you're long plasma, right?

I had an order set at 888. I thought Asia would bid it. I got filled. It was close to the low. I'm still holding.

We'll I haven't checked the price in a few minutes, but I think it's a little under a dollar now, which is good. And

I like it. Salsa Tequila uh shielded me that trade. And

it's it's funny. I think a year or two ago, like you're just like this mid-curve deep like ETH maxi, but like he's he's been trenching really hard and he's always he's always been willing to get in there.

I I touch everything that's new. I try to explore.

Yeah.

Which I think relates to my pasta next.

All right. So, I missed the hype airdrop, which is terrible. And like when you miss something so life-changing, I have a ton of friends that made eight figure airdrops. Literally made it and have held it since then and are now just starting to take profit. And this is very tilting.

Obviously, I've been holding ETH. I think it was $4,000 in January. It's a little more than $4,000 today, but in between hype brand from $4 to $14. And I was holding ETH as it went down from 4,000 to,400. So, of course, the thing I'm doing is looking for the next per deck.

Lighter is great. We love it. But lighter is now very crowded. It's hard to farm there. So, you keep going down the risk curve.

I'm like cross farming with high leverage 10 different perplexes. And I came across this meme, you know, you know, don't give up before you hit the diamonds. But perhaps the diamonds are all around me and I'm just digging through dirt.

Yeah, you should just buy Bitcoin. Maybe, you know, you're just digging through the crypto.

Seems expensive. I don't know.

Yeah, you're not early.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What do we got for dim?

I mean, I guess this speaks for itself. Um, yeah, basically it tells you that there have been thousands and thousands and thousands of coins lost in pump fun and there's only been like sub I don't know sub 50 that are above 10 mil. That that that sounds insane. I mean it just shows that the extraction culture is so strong uh in the trenches. Um and uh you know I guess props obviously props to the pump fun team.

They uh they had amazing PMF and they're doing something that's uh quite interesting on the streaming side. Uh but that really shows you like how much traction there is on on the trenches and how this is really a rotation game. And uh you know I guess unless you uh bought Fcoin and Peanut and uh a few other coins, you're probably you're probably down on the rest.

Some people that bought Fardcoin ended up round tripping too unfortunately.

That is true.

I mean the only thing that keeps the trenches going is when there's there's something that comes up like Trump which

brings in money from you know outside the trenches into the trenches and then they kind of feast on it for a while. I think people had a little bit of hope that you know Kanye's coin the Yeezy coin would have would have done that. It did not do that at all. I'm not sure exactly what happened there. They just kind of uh

based on that we were talking about this yesterday but so I looked up the coins that have that have achieved like high circulating market cap and you know whiff was one of them naturally. Anom did it did his magic. I mean it went up there. uh Hyperliquid and Trump like these three coins have been at the top in terms of circulating uh circulating supply. Uh so that speaks volumes in itself.

I think

once you get past the billion of circulating it really starts to slow down.

Yeah, I really believed in Farcoin but I had to die. Yeah,

now I'm back to mid-curving farming, you know.

All right, guys. We have a few more minutes. We wanted to do what we did last year, which is pass the mics around if anyone has any questions for the lads just before uh the Justin Sun roast starts.

Um

I wonder if he's back there.

Let's see if we have any uh any questions and we can get some mic runners out.

Don't be don't be shy.

Yeah. Anything otherwise? I'm going to start the Justin Sun roast.

I have some extras.

You remember when he when he like uh there was the credit Swiss UBS thing? One of those was it credit who was going under? Credit Swiss was going under. You think that was Credit Swiss?

Credit SW was going under.

And he offered a bid, right?

Yeah. Like like they were like, you know, UBS was trying to buy it for two billion. Then I just remember he tweets, hey guys, I'll I'll buy it. Let me buy Credit Swiss. I'll I'll put a bid in.

So he likes to get involved in anything going on. Soon there's going to be a a Steady Sunlads, you know, uh show coming out. Let's see. Um

looks like it runs too shy. No questions.

It's all right. We have some like final topics.

Okay. Final topics.

Oh, yeah. So,

tomorrow we're gonna have a meetup event uh 10 a.m. That's the Luma link right there. luma.com/bunch of letters.

Uh so, you know, if you want to meet the lads, have some more personal conversations, please come. Um it is like 10 a.m. Uh coffee, no alcohol, so you know, don't worry. Unfortunately, no Thicky.

Thicky sends his regards.

Yeah,

we've got Thicky 2.0. 0 2.0.

Yeah, actually we're going to do an episode soon with Vicki and Dim. I don't think we've we've had them both in the same room.

They've never been in the same room together.

So, we're going to do uh one with with all five of us. I talked to Vicki yesterday. He's he's game.

Oh, really?

That'll be a bit of a cad one. So, I'm looking forward to that.

Uh but yeah, guys, come come tomorrow, hang out. We'll uh we'll buy you some croissants or something.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Cool. All right. the room is is ready for uh for the comedian. Let's let's end it here. Thank you guys.

All right, sounds good.