Altcoin Sherpa: Why Crypto Cycles Are Getting Shorter (But Bust Cycles Are Too)

Transcript

That's kind of like what I expect here. Like you know these overall like boom cycles are going to be shorter but alternatively the the bus cycles as well are also going to be shorter. So >> generally when you're kind of sifting through you know the thousands thousands of altcoins what are you looking for >> if you consider it late cycle you know is there a certain strategy that you have like how do you think about where we are versus how you're managing your capital. >> Welcome back to the rollup. We are your hosts. I'm Andy. >> I'm Robbie. And this is your home to learn from the biggest guests, the brightest minds at the tip of innovation. Our goal is to help spread the collective knowledge of everyone in our community. We are breaking crypto out of its echo chamber and taking it to the real world. What a last couple of

days with this or last 24 hours with this Yeezy launch. I know Sherpa saw my uh my news breaking tweet breaking Yeezy 200 mil to two bill. Sherpa, I saw your post about it, man. Um, you said you you you called it a lose-lose. You just kind of felt like the market brushed it off like, "Ah, I've seen this before. It's not interesting." Which is crazy, right? Compared to how Trump was was uh basically just pumped. But it was a different environment then, too. Totally different environment. And then also like, you know, people kind of knew about the Yeezy coin before. People knew that he was going to like sell his Twitter account. Like this was kind of a known event. Much different than Trump.

And also Trump is just obviously way higher tier than than Yeezy. Um I think that people also just knew that you know it's like probably the same teams behind Libra and like you know the same type of like overall like you know dynamics behind it and like people like you know fool me once you know shame on me type of thing. But um yeah, I was happy to see that like people didn't like the majority like it wasn't as bad as as as Libra um from what I saw. And I didn't think it was going to be either just looking at the group chats last night um when I was looking at it live.

>> Yeah, I mean to me it's kind of a zero already. Like I don't think it's going to have another run to 10 bill or anything. I I I wouldn't be buying it. I don't know though. I mean, I don't know what you guys think, but I don't think that it's a I don't think it's got a 10 bill push in in it, but it very well could. I mean, I don't know. >> Unless unless there's some real online money, some new economy like his claims really stack up to be true, which are pretty unlikely at this point. >> No, I agree with you too, Andy. I don't think either. I mean, you need either like one of two things to happen. either one like all crypton native people just to full port like they did for Trump and just like sell everything and just buy

that and all that liquidity just goes into Kanye coin or um you need a lot of outside money to come in in order to like you know prop that that price up and um I don't see either of those happening personally. >> Yeah. >> Sure. But do do you think this is pretty pretty accurate and consistent with where we are in the cycle? Like top is this a top signal relative to some of the other things we're seeing or is this kind of out of place? What do you think? >> I don't think it's really a top signal. I think it's kind of a a I don't know. I think it's pretty much a non-event personally like cuz like it might have been a top signal if like you saw lots of money pile in there, but I mean as I said like you know as we already talked

about it's a pretty non-event. Um this is an event that we've all kind of known about or we've like >> heard about for months now. uh it's like pretty known and the fact that also that you know the market wisened up quite a bit like there wasn't like nearly as much damage um from what I saw on Yeezy as there was Libra right >> and some of the other big ones uh you know I I don't personally think it's like a a top >> so do so as a kind of temp check on the market is this indicative that like there's really not the fear greed index we're actually not very greedy the market's not very euphoric right now because we weren't automatically piling into this thing with with fervor. Like

it it kind of shows us that the market isn't as overheated as we thought. >> It also just feels like the timeline is like kind of bearish. Like everyone's trying to call the top. Like it's it's a weird dynamic. >> I think it's a weird dynamic because there's a only like five to 10 good altcoins that are like pumping it at any at any given time and the majority of people like aren't hitting those trades unless you're very plugged into the market. you know, you're stuck in like I don't know, like Tao or something and like you know, you're just like looking at that bag just do nothing. Whereas some other coins, you know, are like pretty active and you know, those people are pretty vocal. Um, as for what Robbie said, like uh, you know, in terms of like the event of the Yeezy, you know, being

a kind of temperature check where, you know, people aren't really aping into that. No, I I don't really agree. I mean, I think that it's just that like like like Andy said, the environment is much much different, you know, relative like today relative to January onchain itself. Like, you know, you really haven't seen too many like huge huge huge runners. I mean, there's a lot of like there's a lot of seedlings to these coins lately. Um, and that's just a like product of like what how much extraction has happened over the last like you know, six to eight months or what have you. um where there's just not as much money on chain right now. I mean, will it come back? Probably. It always does in some way, shape, or form. But, um I

mean, I I just think that like, you know, a lot of the money is just it's just being stuck in either like boring coins like, you know, Ethereum or or B&B or something or um these other random alts that just aren't moving. You know, kind of typical alts. Introducing extended exclusively on Stark, a nextgen ps trading platform live today with 50 plus trading pairs from crypto to tradi. You get the best experience on chain today. Deposit in the community vault for attractive returns compatible and engage in unified margin spot trading lending and per trading exclusively live at extended.app on Starknet today. Yeah, I mean I've been following this guy

levels level 941. I don't know if you've seen him like the pigeon guy. >> Yeah, I think I've seen some of his tweets before. Yeah. >> Yeah. So, he's been pushing on this idea of like this of like the current environment being um like a like you're in the later stages of a multi-table no limit Texas holdem tournament where you know there's let's say you start with 10 tables now you're down to three tables. you've obviously accumulated a nice stack and he's saying his strategy for like basically from now until you know I would say just throughout the end of the year is like keep a lot of your stash basically safe um so risk off a bit and then with the remaining stash that that you have he's just going full

buying calls buying memes just full maximum out on the risk curve as a way to maximize your EV this late in the cycle I I think there's two schools of thought right now, which is one is that this is going to end like sooner than we think. Like we get one more really good run here across the board. Maybe a maybe a pullback, one more run maybe over the next 30 to 60 days and it's over before people, you know, earlier than people think October, let's you know, let's say. And then there's another school of thought that is like, well, no, this is just going to kind of not have a parabolic blowoff. this is going to basically go higher for longer and and we and you know it's a different cycle

now in institutions DATs etc. Um so like I I'm just trying to think about how to how to think about the the current framework of portfolio management you know in the late cycle like you know from from your experience like like what are you doing right now late like you know if you consider it late cycle you know is there a certain strategy that you have like how do you think about where we are versus how you're managing your capital? I mean, personally, I think ever since the ETFs, I'm like of the opinion that there's no longer like these insane runs that we had in 2017 and 2021 where it's like pretty much parabolic up only for, you know, two years and then it's just like down only

for a year and then chop for a year and then, you know, the cycle just continues. I I think that most of that has just been like kind of not not necessarily invalidated, but you can also see the price action in the charts where, you know, Bitcoin has just kind of consolidated from the majority of 2024. You know, big leg up and then it it moves back down a little bit, then another leg up later. I'm of the opinion that these days uh you know for at least the foreseeable future we're just going to see um these kind of mini cycles where you have like anywhere from one to two months one to maybe one to three months of good price action good kind of environment for trading followed by like you know anywhere from like one to four

months of chop depending on the context. So, you know, we saw that back in kind of like like Decemberish in 2024. Uh going into the new year of January 25, you know, we saw like, you know, that was kind of like the top, so to speak, followed by, you know, several months of of just downtrend and chop. You know, we didn't really have much uh fun, you know, for the most part. I mean, sure, there are some pockets here or there, like, you know, maybe like a month or two of of nice moves, but um but as a whole, like, you know, we haven't really seen um you know, the the bottom was actually found in like kind of May. So, that's kind of like what I expect here. Like, you know, these

overall like boom cycles are going to be shorter, but alternatively the the bus cycles as well are also going to be shorter. So, like I I generally agree that like you know, we are at kind of like the tail end of this current run. I mean, it kind of moved like pretty strongly since May. I know we had like a little bit chop in between there. Um, it wouldn't surprise me to see like, you know, a little bit more fun, you know, for another few weeks and then like maybe like a long cooling period for another few months until like maybe like late December. Um, another, you know, big move up and then we just rinse, wash, repeat, you know, a few a few few months on, like a few months off basically, but but more months off generally speaking.

>> Yeah. And that's kind of on the on the time dimension, right? Things are a little bit shorter. >> When you're when you're thinking about the price dimension, does that mean that these these pullbacks might be less severe uh because they're happening more frequently? >> Uh so I wouldn't necessarily say that. I mean, like there is something to be said about like so much crazy price uh like altcoin delution. There's like one of my favorite charts is the Pepe chart where um if you look at it, >> Pepe went on strong runs all throughout 2024 where you know it went up like 10x then it went down 60%. Went up another three or 4x from there down another 60%.

You know went up another three three or 4x from there then down like 80% back you know in kind of that uh January to December period. Um you know went up a few like a few X from there. So like what I'm trying to say is that I don't really see there being situations where like you know an altcoin does like you know 30x like it did in 2021 or 10 15x insane numbers and then like it dies like negative 95% and then it chops for like you know another year after that.

Um, like those are extreme extreme cycles. And like to be clear, you know, you can have a view on one altcoin and and and a different altcoin is going to be totally different. Like, you know, there's several other shitcoins that like probably will never like ever move again, you know, and that's just the nature of of the shitcoin market where um, you know, a lot of these coins just like won't ever really pump. Just there's no organic demand. Um, they're just too old, bad tech, you know, zombie companies in a lot of ways. Um, yeah. So, like, you know, one size does not fit all.

>> So, so, so to be clear, you don't think we we've topped there. There's probably some more upside left before a shorter but still aggressive period of of downturn in some capacity. You're going to have to start to think about these markets as like risk on versus risk off periods within larger cycles, which is obviously up and to the right if you really zoom out. But like from a trader perspective, you still obviously want to be capturing the meat of the move, all of these risk on periods and then really trying to avoid a lot of the riskoff periods. Um and and and I mean yeah, I mean you got to pick your tokens far more strategically than before, right? I mean we've seen this already.

>> Yeah. I mean I generally believe that we are like closer to the end than the beginning for sure. Like we're not like early innings fighting, >> but it's not topped already. Is >> I I I mean it could be. I mean, I I I I don't believe so personally. I still think there's going to be like some treasury companies coming onto the market, you know, in September. We have rate cuts coming that probably already priced in to some degree. I'm not like some sort of macro expert, but like basically what I'm trying to say is that there's still some good coins that will like continue to perform well. Um, but the rest of the market will perpetually just be down only with some small blips here and there. Um, that's just the nature of of crypto uh shitcoins. you doing any uh like angel deals these days

or just fully on the liquid side? >> I'm mostly passing on on on everything. I don't know. And like >> Yeah, fame here. >> Yeah, it's it's just kind of kind of hard honestly these days. Like um >> yeah, like >> we kind of had like the heyday in 23 22. I mean really it was like 2020 was the heyday for that. >> Yeah, venture investing has definitely gotten like much more I guess efficient in some ways. >> Yeah. when it comes to kind of picking out I guess picking winners is the best way to describe it. Not to put you on the spot and like pick any any in particular, but in general like you know you said most of these are going to be down to the right with some blips. Are you trying to capture the ones I guess

there's a two-part question. Are you are you trying to get those blips or are you trying to pick out the ones that aren't down and to the right and have you know some sustainable business model? Generally, when you're kind of sifting through, you know, the thousands thousands of altcoins, what are you looking for? >> I generally look for ones that have some sort of attention and don't look like zombies. I do I mean, everybody has a different trading trading strategy. Some people like there's a lot of different strategies you can use. Some some friends like to like buy these like totally dead ass coins that will have like these crazy liquid spikes like >> you know, they're super liquid. like you have to like spend a long time accumulating them and they'll just like buy these and then just like sit on them and then like wait for it to

spike like 5x randomly from some like rogue market maker and then you know everyone dump like he'll just like set his limits like >> there's so many dead coins on centralized exchanges >> tons of them. Yeah. I mean like the majority of them are like if you look at the charts of all of them. Um but to answer your question, no. I'm I'm generally looking at coins that like actually have some life in them, have some >> have some volume, have some actual real buying. And you're right. I mean, at the end of the day, like, you know, as I said from the um like beginning of this kind of uh podcast, I guess, in the sense that there's only like five or 10 real coins that you can buy at any given time, you know. Um that's just the the the nature of this current market

environment. >> Sure. You got any questions for us? I feel like it's just been all us asking. This this takes me back to the old uh old old pod that >> uh No, not really. I mean, I guess what do you what are you guys um what are you guys seeing that's like interesting in terms of themes? You guys interview like a lot of different guys from all sectors of crypto. Like what are people like kind of most like excited about in terms of like the new newer themes that we're seeing like in terms of like where the money's going? I mean, dude, I think people are really stoked on Hyper EVM, actually airdrop farming it and the new protocols there. Um, but man, it's it's a it's honestly the hardest question to answer because I do

feel like a lot of the a lot of the interest in the narrative, and I put out a tweet about this, is like this year we've seen so much less narratives or like metas happen. Like in 2024 it it was like there was like L2s or was like it was like modular L2s then there was like other infernaratives then it was like this crypto AAI thing and then there was um you know now it's just been like DATs or who's buying these large amounts of like there hasn't like there's been like this revenue narrative I suppose but like it's it's kind of interesting because if you ask people like what they're interested in it's more of like what's hot and and I don't know there hasn't been like a really hot like I mean I guess we kind of like internet capital markets for a couple

weeks there. Um, but dude, it's been a weird year in that we haven't had like the same rotational metas that we that we're used to that like you get stoked on something for like a couple months, it passes, then there's something else cool. It's kind of just been like everybody watching how much sailor is going to be buying and then now it's like like these DAT codes. It it Yeah, it just I don't know. It feels like that like the air has been sucked out of the excitement for like the real coins if you will due to like VC stuff due to just like their price action. I don't know. Yeah, it's a tough question as as far as like what's exciting, but I think like people have came on and talked about Hyperlid Hyper EVM and like they've been pretty stoked on it.

>> I think it's the suit the suits that are excited like there that's where all the mania is and I think >> yeah the tokenization stuff >> tokenization RWA even the revenue meta appeals to like someone who's going to uh try to value a crypto company by some traditional cash flow analysis model. That that makes sense to them. I I think it's I think what you're saying like that's why it feels like we're late cycle because there's no nuance anymore when we're deep cycle. We're in it for the tech. like we we see, oh, this is something kind of cool, something kind of new. And you kind of have these like sector things that tend to outperform and do well for a week, two weeks, three weeks, and then that narrative kind of

moves on as as there's some fundamental shift. >> Yeah. >> But it feels like all of that's been blended together. You can't really There's so many things the market moves so fast-paced now. It's just the biggest number. >> It also just captures all the attention. >> Like everyone's zoomed in more, Sherpa. I feel like everyone's so like it wasn't like I I know that you're a trader and you you trade on different time frames than like you know what we would probably do, but it does just feel like everyone's looking at the charts like a lot more. Maybe I'm just projecting what I'm doing, but it just feels like eyes are on the charts a lot.

>> We stopped everyone stopped dreaming and everybody now just believes or sees crypto for what it is. Just uh just >> Yeah. Which it's a weird setup, man. It's a weird setup. Um, dude, so what do you think about the the sole underperformance for the last couple months? Are you do you think that's going to turn around? I know that these dats are coming. I've been tweeting about them or at least hearing about them. Um, you know, what's your is that thing, you know, do you think it's going to turn around? Um, yeah, I think the rotation makes sense. I mean, back in the day, the easiest rotation was always Bitcoin to ETH and ETH to Bitcoin, you know, like you didn't really even have to trade anything else. you could have just held Bitcoin for most of the year and then you swap it out for ETH at the

end of the year and then like you know you swap it back to Bitcoin and like that was a good way to like accumulate more Bitcoin. At least that's what I used to do back you know in 2017 2018 whatever. Um, but I I would say that like soul I mean it really depends on where your view is in terms of like you know overall macro top or market top like you know if you if you strongly believe that like you know we're pretty much topped and you know I'm not saying we're not like you know there's definitely some arguments for that. Um but you know there there is still going to be a lot more money coming down to the market in September in my opinion.

There's more um we haven't really found like a sailor for soul uh so to speak. >> Yeah. >> Um ETH kind of has one now, but like uh I don't know. I think I think I think Soul should probably catch up. I the hard part is the the timing of it. You know, we don't really know how to time this type of trade. Um, and yeah, it's it's it's a tough call to because like you know, if Bitcoin keeps like grinding down, then I I I I don't know if it really matters because like I think it's just going to pull everything down irregardless of like um you know, lots of buying and what have you um thereafter from from other vehicles or

what have you. I still think that you know if Bitcoin goes down to like you know 100K or sub 100K then like you know these other Yeah. we're screwed. Yeah, we'll be nice. >> Yeah. Um, last thing for you, Sherps. Um, you uh you think these DATs are going to end poorly? I put out a tweet saying that they're going to mark the low of the next bear. >> Uh, I I honestly don't know how it's going to end. I mean, in theory, like it probably should blow up somehow, but I mean, >> but it is complicated.

>> I gen Yeah, there's a lot of mechanics behind it like that. I I actually don't really understand like >> so I mean like from a theoretical standpoint it does seem like yeah like this is not very sustainable like given some of this stuff. Um but I don't know maybe maybe like maybe it'll go longer than we think. I don't know. >> Yeah, sure. Bro, thanks for your time man. Uh we'll let you go and uh keep it up, man. I'll see you in the trenches. >> All right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Happy to come on anytime, too. It was fun. >> Thanks. >> Cheers, brother. Our brother.