00:00Bitcoin is decoupling from stocks. What's it telling you?
00:03Look, I think without a doubt, the last three weeks have been painful.
00:07You know, we've seen one and a half X times higher volatility in the last three weeks than we've seen in 2025 total.
00:14And a lot of that has to do with a number of things.
00:17One, there's implications, you know, outside of just macro, which is, you know, more global and geopolitical.
00:24And we're seeing a lot of bit of that.
00:25We're also seeing, you know, some decoupling into the weekend, where we are seeing sell-offs into the weekend and then buybacks back into Monday, as you referenced earlier.
00:35And then last, we're seeing rotations back into, you know, macro.
00:39And so, for example, sometimes people have to sell off their risk assets in order to reposition into those macro assets.
00:45And I think that's what we're seeing a little bit here as well.
00:47The data set that keeps flashing up on the Bloomberg Terminal, Caroline did it in the news story about earlier, is the ETF flows, outflows at the moment.
00:59I'm just trying to use that data set to understand the psychology of everyone that participates in this industry.
01:06What is the interpretation we should make?
01:08Yeah, so look, I think more broadly, Bitcoin operates in four-year cycles.
01:14And we're seeing that 2025 is actually more similar to a 2021 or 22 in comparison to a 2020, 23, and 24.
01:23And what's tough is, you know, in those years, we really saw a strong December especially.
01:28And, you know, you had the post-halving liquidity surge.
01:32You had recovery from FTX and ETF optimism.
01:35And then in 24, you saw the ETF, you know, inflows coming in, in size.
01:40And so, you know, we're actually, we've seen this cycle before.
01:43We've also seen historically this year a lot of very long-term holders take some profits off the table.
01:51And we have seen some patience.
01:52And so I think you're seeing some of that profit taking into year end.
01:56We're going to continue to see that.
01:57But it really does make Q1 look very attractive as we do close out on that four-year cycle.
02:03And we have a lot of the headwinds that will take us there, whether it's the Vanguard news, whether it's the Bank of America news.
02:09We are looking to see new entrants come into the market via the ETFs.
02:13Talking of long-term holders selling, there was suddenly a shock to the system when it was thought that maybe Michael Saylor's strategy, artist formerly known as MicroStrategy, might actually offload Bitcoin.
02:24The hodler of all hodlers sort of saying the most extraordinary thing to many who've been in this market for a long time.
02:32What did you make of that and their desire to try and stabilize after that moment?
02:36Look, I think at the end of the day, he is probably feeling some of the pressure that some of these other institutional players are feeling,
02:43which is diversification and having to manage some of that downside risk.
02:47And if you do have leverage, having to manage your market calls.
02:51And so at the end of the day, you know, was that a great headline for the space?
02:56No, of course not.
02:57But these do these things operate in cycles.
02:59And we are at the end of that cycle.
03:01That also was announced before the Vanguard news and before the Bank of America news.
03:07And so, you know, I think there are, again, headwinds into Q1.
03:10But I agree with you.
03:11I think, you know, looking at where we are and then the next three weeks into year end,
03:16it's probably not going to be as optimistic, but means that 2026 can start that news cycle over again.
03:24I'm probably going to take most of the rest of the year off, just share that with the audience.
03:28And so it might be my last chance to ask you for your 2026 predictions.
03:31This year has kind of been about stablecoin legislation, David Sachs, dollarization.
03:37If you were to listen to Jamie Dimon, he will always bring it back to the underlying technology
03:41and the utility of blockchain in global financial markets.
03:45What do you think will happen next in 2026?
03:49Look, I think what people haven't realized yet is tokenization of everything is happening.
03:55And it started with stablecoins, as you mentioned, but it's going much broader than that.
03:59So if you look at even equities trading on chain, you saw the MAG7 come to Hyperliquid.
04:03That was, you know, following NVIDIA's earnings,
04:05one of the largest days of volume for Hyperliquid in November.
04:09And so you're seeing a lot of that come on chain.
04:11And you're also seeing a lot of traditional assets get tokenized.
04:14And so, you know, we're seeing on our side, a lot of tokenization of assets, strategies, vehicles,
04:19and then the liquid markets to make them composable and more capital efficient.
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