00:00I think to understand why Bitcoin is down so much from last year, you have to understand why it was
00:05rising in the first place. And the answer is number go up. And this is something that I heard
00:13on stage at the first Bitcoin conference I went to back in 2021. A guy was up there straight face
00:18saying, number go up technology. It's the price. When the price rises, it gets people's attention.
00:25More people pile in. That drives the price up higher. And I'm sitting there thinking this sounds
00:31kind of like a pyramid scheme or something. But for years, it's really worked. I mean, everyone knows
00:36that feeling of FOMO. You know somebody who got rich buying Bitcoin. Maybe I should get some. Maybe
00:40it's still early. But it depends on this idea that there's going to be this next big group of buyers
00:47that's going to drive the price up even higher. And so for a time, the idea was that it would be
00:53when the Bitcoin ETFs came, then those were legal. Then it was, we're going to get a new president
00:58with more friendly regulation. That's happened. And so right now to see prices crash, even with
01:05that happening, is kind of the scariest thing of all because Bitcoin advocates don't have like an
01:12idea of what they haven't really settled on a narrative of where this next big pump would come
01:16from. Well, simply put, you create buyers, right, for any kind of asset, it's going to go up,
01:20right? Basic supply and demand. Yeah, I mean, but with most financial assets, you've got
01:26fundamentals. Like you have a... I was going to say I was waiting for the F word. And that's the
01:31F word I was thinking of, right? Fundamentals. Right. With Bitcoin, people have long moved past
01:36this idea that this is going to be like a replacement for the dollar. Its value is not really
01:40based on it being useful or it being some sort of innovative technology. Supporters now push it as
01:47digital gold. But who wants to buy kind of a useless asset unless the price is going up?
01:53They're making money from it. Well, you know, it's interesting. Remember we had a conversation
01:56last week and somebody said, well, it's like gold. Like there are no real fundamentals, I think,
02:02behind gold. Yeah. I mean, Paul Tridman talked about that.
02:04Right. Like there's not like there's a balance sheet you pull up and, right, like you start looking
02:09at assets and liabilities. So what do you say to that? I mean, I think that that's true. Gold has,
02:17and I wouldn't be here saying, oh, buy gold or buy Bitcoin. I just think...
02:21We're just, you're just here saying buy the book. Yeah. Sorry. Thanks. Thanks for the plug.
02:26But it is kind of fascinating. We've been having these conversations about, you know,
02:30the political connections that have really helped provide a floor and then some when it comes to
02:36crypto. Yeah. I mean, Bitcoin advocates a couple of years ago, they would have never believed that
02:42President Trump would talk about or sign an executive order studying a Bitcoin strategic
02:49reserve. And now that's happened. Their sort of pipe dream was that countries would start competing
02:56to acquire the most Bitcoin. Right. And there would be like this race to buy it all up. And you hear
03:02Trump talk about stuff like that sometimes, but they're actually, the government actually hasn't
03:07made a move to start buying Bitcoin. They've only held on to existing Bitcoin that they've
03:13confiscated in criminal cases. Admittedly, quite a lot. There's plenty of criminals using Bitcoin to
03:18confiscate. But no selling the gold at Fort Knox to actually accumulate Bitcoin.
03:23Yeah. A real idea that was actually thrown out there by one of Trump's top crypto advisors.
03:28Hey, Zeke, I had this like really interesting chat with Eric Belchunas today from the Bloomberg
03:36Intelligence team. He is the ETF guy. He's like a crypto guy too. And he made the point that
03:46if Bitcoin were to die, it would have died like seven or eight times before this. I mean,
03:53there've been times where it's seen a drawdown of more than 70% in the past. And it's like come back
03:59and gotten more and more expensive. And he argues that like the consensus of it and the fact that
04:05you have so many people around the world who've been able to keep this network going for so long
04:09kind of shows its staying power. What would you say to that?
04:12I mean, I think that's definitely true. The people who love Bitcoin love it so much
04:16and talk about it as a solution to all of the world's problems. Part of the Bitcoin pitch,
04:23I mean, it's practically religious, is that you can't sell your Bitcoin. And so this huge worldwide
04:29group of true believers does seem to provide some sort of floor to the price. Now, that said,
04:36as we've seen with, I mean, this big decline has come with really no catalyst. And so if the price
04:43starts dropping, how many people are going to still be true believers? Like how far
04:48are they going to keep holding? I mean, the answer seems to be like pretty far.
04:53I mean, I think about even like the financial establishment, you know, in terms of what we
04:59have seen, I think about, you know, your traditional Wall Street firms, the big banks who like were
05:04shunning it and making fun of it, and yet have embraced it or some of your big asset managers. So
05:08I don't know, like, where do we go? Right. Like, that's almost a case against it at this point.
05:15Like, how do you make the case that we're, that you're getting in early on Bitcoin now?
05:19Right. Like, who is this next, this group of people that can't buy Bitcoin previously and are
05:23going to make this big push and drive the price up? It's really like hard to say.
05:27So is it not a case that goes to zero? Because you said there are these people who just find it
05:32entertaining, are very devoted to it. And it will create some kind of floor, but not like what we
05:38saw. Yeah, that's, that's pretty much what I think. And it's been interesting to see too, that
05:43all of pretty much all cryptocurrencies have moved like in lockstep with Bitcoin. Like there hasn't
05:49been differentiation based on which ones have the most promising technology, or which ones are being
05:56adopted. It's pretty much just like momentum and speculation that seems to be driving all their
06:01prices.
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