Bitwise's Matt Hougan and Ryan Rasmussen with Jesse Eckel on Bitcoin's setup

Transcript

I don't think investors understand how much the regulatory developments over the past 12 months are going to impact crypto markets over the next 12 years. GM, good morning and welcome to the Milk Road Show, the daily crypto show that zooms out on the market and still finds alpha hiding in the margins. I'm your host LGD. Today is November 5th, 2025. The market has been chopping hard, showing little green candles today, but they are minuscule compared to the last couple days of red. And many are calling this the end of the cycle, but the smartest people I know are calling it just the beginning of great things to come. And lucky for us, I've invited them all on the show today. I've got Matt Hogan and Ryan Rasmmanson from Bitwise, uh, whose sole ETF is on fire despite the market, and Jesse Eckle, who

claims his portfolio is now 99% crypto. We're going to hear all about it, as well as we're going to kick off with some Hopium, why Bitcoin is actually in its silent IPO era and is due for much larger gains in uh the short-term and long term. and we're going to look at the market and talk about when our bags might see some relief. If you're trying to keep up with these wild market swings, our daily newsletter also has you covered. Yesterday, we broke down why everything was moving so hard. Uh, and you don't want to miss the next one because our writers doing a fantastic job just staying right on top of everything that's happening. So, check out the show notes for the link to our daily newsletter. Today's episode is brought to you by Bridge. Power your business with instant stable coin payments. No friction, no banks, just

global finance made simple. Gemini credit card. Turn your everyday spending into Bitcoin. stack sats without even thinking about it and figure markets earn solid returns on your cash because sitting idle isn't a strategy. Let's get the heavy hitters in here. Gentlemen, welcome back to the show for all of you. Uh we have a lot to cover today, so we're just going to uh skip the pleasantries and dive right in. Matt, um you pointed out in your weekly memo that uh this fantastic essay from Jordy Visser explaining why Bitcoin is in its silent IPO phase uh was something to really pay attention to. Can you break that down for us? explain that idea to us uh in layman's terms for those who who maybe haven't read it or just trying to look for for a little a little bit of a a glimmer of hope on a week like a

week like this one. >> It's more than a glimmer of hope, LG. I know the market's down. I know it's challenged, but it paints a very strong uh long-term picture. Look, Jordy is one of the best macro thinkers that I know. I read everything that I write. He writes publicly, so I encourage people to uh to Google him and find his writing. The point of this piece was to explain the big paradox that's been weighing on people's minds, which is why is the price of Bitcoin relatively flat despite all the good news, despite positive regulatory news, despite ETF launching, despite institutional adoption, sovereign wealth funds buying, why is it just been frustratingly ticking sideways? And what Jordy does is draw on his background in traditional finance to make an analogy to IPOs. And

usually when you see a big tech stock IPO, the stock tends to trade flat for a relatively long period of time. Facebook IPOed at $38 in 2012 and it traded down or flat for 15 months. The same thing is true of Amazon, of Google, of other major tech giants. The reason Visser explains is that it's going through a distribution phase where the early adopters, the early investors, the founders of the business are selling some of their stake in the business to institutional investors. And it's only after that process is completed that you see the stock go up. To tell the end of the Facebook story, it's trading at $650 today. So 38 to 650, but it went down

for 15 months. The point Viser was making is the same thing is happening in Bitcoin. Bitcoin has reached a level of maturity where there's now an ETF, where it's owned by the Harvard Endowment, where it's owned by the Luxembourg Sovereign Wealth Fund, where it's accepted by institutions. And he was knowing that some of the OGs have been selling some of their Bitcoin as it makes this transition into a post IPO era. The reason it's bullish is that once you get through this sideways chop, what happens to these high quality tech assets is that they appreciate significantly, right? Amazon up 100,000%, Google up a lot, Facebook up a lot, Bitcoin, in my view will be up a lot. If you have that framing, this

sideway chop turns from an annoyance to a gift. A gift because it gives you the chance to upsize your allocations. You mentioned Jesse's at 99%. Maybe there's room for him to get to 100. I think there's still space and time. So, that was that was what Visser was pointing out and it just rung so true with me that I had to point it out. I think it's probably the best analysis of what's going on in the market right now. >> That that is Jesse. I don't know what your last 1% is, but I want to hear what that is. We're gonna we're going to come back to that. What your 1% left is that is not 99%. Uh that's not the other one.

Um Matt, I'm just going to dive into that a little bit. One of the big price suppressors here is the OG selling. I think a lot of people are looking in that as as bearish. And like you're saying, right, it's it's very similar to IPOs where you have early investors, but I think for a lot of people like Bitcoin OGs are probably a bit of a different class because they're a little less lesser known. There's no, you know, maybe a lot of them are not these classic uh Silicon Valley VCs who have, you know, a very clear game plan from their investments. What kind of reassurance can you provide people who are looking at the OG selling as something that's quite bearish? Well, I think you should just accept that it's normal. I mean, those of us who have been around startups, even extraordinarily successful startups, and

I've had the fortunate, you know, run to do that in various parts of my life. Uh, you see founders participating in secondaries. They're people too. They have they have they have jobs, they have families, they have college tuition, they have houses to pay. Just because you're seeing some selling from OGs does not mean that they don't believe that Bitcoin is still on this trajectory to be a globally important asset. It's just that they made a wild bet, right? Bitcoin at a dollar was a wild and crazy bet and they got it right. They have generational wealth and they're diversifying. There are a few loud OGs who are saying Bitcoin has lost its way.

It's become all black rockck. Uh, but I think that's really the minority, the the the major investors that we talk to. We know some who are diversifying their exposure, but they're just doing that. They're diversifying their exposure, right? Uh Mark Zuckerberg has sold shares of Facebook. He's still very bullish on the stock. Um, and I think that's what's going on here. So, give them their flowers, let them diversify, be happy for them, and know that we are at Facebook at $38, right? That is where we are at there. another Facebook is up 1,500% since then. There is that kind of return left for Bitcoin. And the the other thing I think people should realize is that post IPO, these startups are much less volatile, much less risky.

That's the other side of this story is Bitcoin is less risky today than it was 5 or 10 years ago. Still has big upside, but less risk. That changes how you invest, but it doesn't mean invest less. It actually means invest more to capture that significant upside. >> And Matt, how does how does a piece like this from Jordi Viser affect price? Because, you know, this thing has is viral. I feel like every investor from super institutional down to retail has read it or is getting exposure to it even like we're doing right now on the show, right? A lot of people probably haven't read it and they probably don't need to after hearing you explain it.

Does this kind of permeate itself into the culture of the price action where a lot of people who were maybe who have deep pockets who are ready to buy maybe a little scared by the by this OG narrative are now catching wind of this new idea that it's a silent IPO and it's reinforcing their positivity. Does is something like this is crypto enough of an echo chamber that it has that much of an impact or is this is this just is this just a news piece just pointing out what has already happened? >> No, I actually think it does. I think it has two different effects though. Uh, one is that short-term retailoriented traders see it and despair. They're like, "Oh, the OGs are selling out."

They don't read further into the piece to think what happens in the next 6 or 12 months. I actually think it was part of the reason we wicked down so hard at the early part of the week. Certainly, the hacks didn't help. the problems in vaults didn't help but I do think this like shortterm view of this uh of this essay contributed to that but I think eventually the market fades that view and recognizes what I said earlier which is if you accept that this is what's happening and I do think it's what's happening this sideways chop is not a setback it's a gift right and I think that's maybe why you started to see some bounce around $100,000 I think over time more and more people are going realize, hey, Jordy is right.

We're going through this IPO, consolidation, distribution phase, and boy, do I want to own a lot of Bitcoin at the end of that because then we're going to see that price suppression removed, and I think the asset move up substantially from there. At least that's my take and I think over time more and more people will will understand that that is really the point of the essay, that it's a bullish essay for people who are invested for more than the next month. I want to I want to send to the other guys here and get get their takes on this. Jesse, from your side, you read that article. Do you do you agree because you're very much like you're both in like seeing the larger flows and also in the trenches.

>> Do you agree kind of with this take that that that's where Bitcoin's at? >> So, I actually haven't read that article. That was the first time I've heard that take and that it's pretty accurate. What Matt said is pretty accurate to be honest. >> Okay. No, that's a really interesting perspective and take and I I don't it doesn't sound wrong. It's not like um I would agree with that. Um I would say some of the current price action though maybe to color in some of the other part of the picture. Uh comes from a couple other things as well. Um one of those things being the fact that in uh August and September we had that huge TJ rebuild. And so, um, the RRP basically ran down, uh, going into September, and that's where we saw a lot of that kind

of like market liquidity weakness. And then if you go into early October, we had an, uh, up uptick in issuance from the Treasury. And so, that made uh, the liquidity environment even weaker. And then, uh, going from that, we had, uh, the government shutdown, which kind of further exasperated as well. So I think it's more I think alongside with that you have a really clear story of like weak liquidity in the market. And so Bitcoin is and crypto as a whole is really reflexive to liquidity. And you see a lot of these charts where um a lot of these people post on X where it's like the total liquidity and like Bitcoin price and how it's like out of sync or whatever and everyone's like oh why is it out of sync? This makes no

sense. Um but but really it's a market plumbing issue. The liquidity is technically there. Like for example, with the government shutdown, liquidity is technically there. It's just piling up at the TGA. And so right now with the with the weaker liquidity environment, uh Bitcoin is typically the first react to that. But now you're also seeing stocks and and the rest of the market react to that. Um but but the good news is uh like a step up in issuance from early October. Market plumbing eventually expands to kind of like be able to handle that. The TJ rebuild is done. Um, and when the government shutdown ends, uh, there's a lot of backpay and and other things that ends up going out. Um, and those liquidity flows end up going back into the market.

And I think a lot of people underestimate just how much of the the like global liquidity is driven by government spending, um, at this point because we have so much debt. And so, um, I I think all those things coupled together with the fact that we had this huge liquidation event in October. Uh, and what ended up happening is going into October, a lot of the OGs were saying, "Hey, four-year cycle, we're going to have this parabolic move up into the end of the year." Um, and they were net buyers. Uh, after that after that, uh, uh, liquidation event, that flipped that that huge, um, group of OGs from saying, "Hey, uh, oh my gosh, C, you know, parabolic runup" to, "Oh, this is the end of the cycle." And so you saw a hu those flip from buyers to sellers uh into this weak liquidity environment

uh which uh a lot of people attribute it to the the headline event with Trump and China and all that kind of stuff. Um I I really think it could have been any headline event that would have broke the market uh just because it was pretty weak uh to begin with. And so really what I think right now is it's a story of four-year cycle uh believers kind of rotating out a weak liquidity environment and waiting for that government shutdown to end and some of that selling pressure to um and maybe that kind of goes into that IPO phase uh some of that selling pressure to subside. And I think once we get to a point where in crypto we kind of bury the four-year cycle and people are like, "Okay, hey, this isn't a thing anymore."

People kind of start to imagine and and believe again uh that that anything's possible. And especially going into 2026, um I I believe we're going to see a pretty decent liquidity wave. That's when things uh start to pick up again. Okay. Okay, I've got a few questions for you on on the top of that, but since it's so topical and uh we're talking about government shutdown, we have let's open this is a chance to open Poly Market and let's just see that the odds of the No, but this is this is I've always said that Poly Market is is like a pre-news app and the odds of the shutdown ending um sooner than later, like in the next two weeks, have started to skyrocket. Uh and the odds of it happening after November 16th are down 11% today. So now we actually have um

November 16th plus is still the highest yes at 40%. Uh but November 8th to 11th is today at 34% and November 12th to 15th is now at 21%. So that's starting to change a little bit. Gentlemen, this is an open question for anybody. And Ryan, I mean we haven't we haven't heard from you yet, so maybe you can you can speak to this one. When the government does reopen or at least they say they'll reopen as we're starting to see now, it's a it's a bit of positive news. What effect is that going to have on the market? Well, yeah. I think I think Jesse's right about the fact that the liquidities environment is is unique right now for a number of reasons. And I think the government shutdown is playing a role, not only in that, but the way investors are thinking about the markets

and and where we're headed. So, I do think the government reopening just instills some level of confidence that things are going back to normal and we'll have less uncertainty, which investors hate uncertainty. That's been, you know, true for for decades and centuries. And so I think once the government does reopen, not only will it have some more confidence in markets in general due to that less uncertainty, but I know in the crypto world for instance, there's a lot of things that have been stalled out uh a lot of catalysts that have been stalled out with the government shutdown. You have major pieces of legislation like the Clarity Act, which was moving its way towards the finish line and then just was stopped in its track with this government shutdown. And then you have the end of the year coming, the midterms

next year. There's a lot of uncertainty around if or when that gets passed. We believe it'll get passed and that'll be a huge long-term uh tailwind for the market. But right now, a lot of investors just don't know. Same thing goes for uh ETP approvals, for instance, right? There's generic listing standards and all this positive momentum from the SEC around project crypto and stable coins and tokenization, all this great stuff. Then the government shuts down and we're just stopped in our tracks again. So I do think whether it's liquidity or other catalysts around product launches or regulatory clarity or whatever it is, the government shutdown's playing a bigger role than most people think cuz most people's daytoday life hasn't changed. I can still go to the airport and go through TSA. I can still go vote. I can still I

still have to pay my property taxes uh by the deadline. But there are a number of kind of under the surface impacts that the government shutdown has on market liquidity on market structure on product on regulatory uh you know clarity for crypto that is certainly having an impact and I think all of this uncertainty or stalling out leads to some fatigue which leads to choppiness which leads to you know continued bearishness of oh it's all over like we've had that final runup and that's what I I think investors are kind of squaring off with amid other concerns around things like AI revenues and employment claims and what's going to happen with rate cuts. There's just so much uncertainty. So, the government shutdown brings some calmness to the markets that I think is is needed and

kind of relights the fire that we've had fueling markets so far through the first nine months of the year. >> What's something Ryan? Oh, go ahead, Matt. >> I was just going to build on that and tie it to Jesse's point. The government shutdown also sucks liquidity out of the market. And I think when it reopens that liquidity will will refill both on a on a government level and on an individual level. They're going to get paychecks for multiple months. And I'm bullish on the government reopening. The the Republicans just suffered an election setback in the US sort of put on notice that the people are not happy uh across New York, Virginia, and other areas. And I think that's going to force them to the to the table. So, you know, I love to speculate uh verbally on Poly Market.

Obviously, we can't access it here in the US. Um but but I I I think I'd be on the the inside of it opening sooner rather than later. And I do think that liquidity refill will will maybe catalyze us uh to into a recovery in crypto. >> So, I should have pulled up the Cali bet for that one. Uh and I which I think has also changed. It has also changed. They they're reflecting each other. So, it it has changed quite a bit. Um, I I'd actually really like to um I have a lot more questions about kind of investor perceptions of this market because I think I think cryptos turned into something highly emotional. But I do I do just want to do justice to what you guys were explaining, especially Jesse, you were talking about the TGA. I think

one point that maybe you missed is is can you give us like the basic layman's terms of like what the TGA is and its role in kind of uh accumulating this like $1 trillion uh bankroll and like just how that works for people that don't don't really fully understand that because I think a lot of people listen to the podcast and and people that are still still learning a lot about finance like myself there's a lot of all these factors that you have to kind of understand how they balance each other and that's something that I didn't I wasn't particularly aware of um until even our our macro writer at Milk Road, he wrote a nice uh Thomas, he wrote a nice big thread on it the other day as well. Um please before we continue, Jesse, break down for us what is the TGA uh and how did it accumulate

so much money? >> Okay. Yeah, the TGA is kind of like the government's piggy bank. So, it's just like a big savings account sort of. And uh they went through a a major rebuild in August and September. And so, they wanted to get I think it was 850 billion um Initially that came out of the RRP uh which is basically liquidity neutral so it's not impacting the markets but around the start of September that started coming out of bank reserves uh which is negative in terms of liquidity and so maybe an easy way to understand it is if you look at that as I mentioned earlier that chart that a lot of people show in X where it's like here's global M2 here's um Bitcoin's price and everyone's like why did it break it doesn't make any sense but it actually makes total sense because the TGA

rebuild um the liquidity is there like it's coming into the the the global market, I guess, not the market, but the global finance system, but it's it all went into the TGA. And so that's not going to impact markets in any meaningful way until you have some sort of TGA draw down for some reason. And so, um, it's just a it's a big piggy bank for the the government. And then right now with the government being shut down, you're seeing funds accumulate there, uh, that that'll eventually get dispersed, um, once the government shutdown ends. >> Yep. An analogy that maybe is helpful for people is a little bit like the strategic petroleum reserve except for for dollars and and money comes in and money comes out and that influences uh sort of overall price action in the

economy. >> Stable coins are the biggest use case in crypto right now. But let's be real, using them on chain is still way too complex. That's exactly the problem Bridge is solving. Recently acquired by Stripe. Yep, that's Stripe. Bridge helps businesses send, store, accept, and launch stable coins instantly. Explore the future of global financial infrastructure at milkroad.com/bridge. Did you know you can earn Bitcoin without ever buying it? That's where the Gemini credit card comes in. Here's how it works. Earn up to 4% back in Bitcoin on gas, transit, and ride share, 3% on dining, 2% on groceries, and 1% on everything else. Use it just like any other credit card and you're building a

crypto portfolio at the same time. The best part, the Gemini credit card has no annual fee and works anywhere Mastercard is accepted. When you're approved and spend 3,000 in the first 90 days, you'll get a $200 Bitcoin bonus. Spend as usual, earn Bitcoin instead at milkroad.com/gemini. >> Great. Thank you for explaining that, gentlemen. Um, I want to jump back to Ryan for a second. Uh, which is a question I had previewed. out of everything you had explained before, what what's something that I think a lot of what's something a lot of investors still don't really like understand about what's happening right now?

>> That's a great question. I think there's there's different camps investors. There's retail investors, institutional investors, of course. I think that uh both of these investor classes don't understand two things fundamentally or are mispricing two fundamental things about the crypto market. one we've kind of spoken about and that's this this uh demand versus supply dynamic of Bitcoin, Ethereum and other crypto assets. Most people, you know, you look at the stats and you hear these wild stats about the Bitcoin ETFs being the most successful ETF launches of all time. Ethereum ETFs having wild inflows over the summers, corporations buying both of these crypto assets. Salana ETF having wild inflows over its week one

and being the most successful launch in terms of volume in week one. you hear these stats, you're like, great, price should just be through the roof because if there's so much uh so much excitement and demand on on the buy side of the equation, then why isn't the price tripling, quadrupling, uh quintupling or higher than that? And I think a lot of people are misunderstanding the short-term versus long-term supply and demand dynamics of these crypto assets. I was looking at some data this morning around this and I think it it's interesting to me that if you look at the price of Bitcoin for this year, it's like up something like 10%. But if you look at the amount of demand versus supply of Bitcoin this year in terms of what the ETFs and corporations have purchased, which is something like five

times the demand of new supply coming into the market, you would think that the price of Bitcoin should be much higher than 10%. I think that speaks to what we spoke about earlier which there's this other dynamic of Bitcoin changing hands that is not just new issuance uh coming from the Bitcoin network we will churn through that eventually is what investors aren't understanding they are impatient in general or look mostly at price action and when you look underneath the surface this is long-term sustained demand that will continue once we churn through those OGs selling or those short-term holders uh you know taking losses which is like at an all-time high right now.

If you look at those metrics, I think most investors, retail or institutional, just don't understand that there is a long-term structural imbalance of demand being much larger than supply that will impact prices over the long term once we turn through this short-term choppiness. That's the first thing. The other thing is that I don't think investors understand how much the regulatory developments over the past 12 months are going to impact crypto markets over the next 12 years. It is a flywheel that is continuing to accelerate whether it's things like uh you know rescending Saab 121 or the DO you know getting the green light on crypto and 401k plans or dropping all of the lawsuits against the

largest crypto companies or any one of the probably 20 insane regulatory catalysts and developments that we've had over the past 12 months. those compound on each other and then you get things like the Genius Act and we're seeing what that's doing to stablecoin aum and transaction volume and investment. We're seeing what's happening with tokenization, with project crypto. Once we have the Clarity Act in place, that is going to accelerate that the fuel on that flywheel, even though that analogy just broke. And we're going to see, you know, a big a big climb in the crypto uh activity, investment, market cap, all of those things. And I think that's what investors not understanding. Like liquidity dynamics short-term are choppy, long-term are slanted, extremely bullish. the regulatory environment has

changed so sniffly over the past 12 months that people have become desensitized to how desensitized to how big of a deal it actually is over the next decade. So, does that mean then, gentlemen, that um actually I I have a different question, with what you just said, Ryan, um this short-term price action, has that removed any players from the market? Because it's clear that a lot of potential market makers got this current phase of the market wrong. We've heard rumors that some people may have been blown up. And this is an open question for anybody who wants to jump in. Um, is there any truth to that and how does that affect price action? I guess in the

short term, >> maybe I'll I'll talk to like the institutional investors that we speak to and then would love to hear uh Jesse and Matt jump in. Uh, you know, when you had the flash crash in October, the institutional investors that we speak to didn't even know it happened for the most part. like they were already uh you know at at their dinner reservations Friday night when markets crashed and by the time they recovered on Monday they were just logging back into their their computer and the price had barely moved of the ETFs they purchase or the or what have you and so they didn't really feel this they didn't really pay attention to it because it impacted this weird area of the market that they just don't participate in which is uh perpetuals and derivatives and uh and DeFi and and

leverage trading institutional investors didn't really feel that they see the price action right now and I know a lot of investors were talking to I mean Matt allude to this like it it is being viewed as a buying opportunity. You have Bitcoin retracing back to you know 10% above where it was the beginning of the year and they've missed this run all year and their clients have been asking about that and they become more comfortable with Bitcoin with Ethereum now they can access Salana perhaps they want to get into there. They're viewing this as an opportunity to rebalance their portfolio heading into end of year reviews. They can show clients, yes, we own Bitcoin, yes, we own Ethereum, yes, you own Salana. And so they can position be positioned for 2026 if they have a positive outlook for crypto, which most of the institutional investors we speak

to, of course, uh you know, there's some there's some like bias there because they're talking to us about crypto, but they're interested in crypto and believe there's a long-term positive trajectory for crypto. So, buying opportunity uh is what we're hearing when we talk to institutional investors. Yeah, I think I just want to say that's a nice life. I wish I could log off on Friday and just not not look at the charts at all until Monday. That's a that's ideal. >> It is. It is a beautiful thing. I mean, it's worth noting that all 20 of the 20 largest assets are up positively on a one-year basis. And that's that's the timeline that institutions play on. So there there is no bare market. The majority of large cap assets are up on a year-to-ate basis. Bitcoin is up on a year-to- date basis. Ethereum is up on a

year-to- date basis. There's the the the I to answer your your question directly, LG, I don't I don't think anyone has been carried out from an institutional perspective. There were certainly market makers that took it on the chin in that $20 billion liquidation and and saw significant issues, but we haven't seen any major bodies float to the surface. I think what's floated to the surface over the last three years has been retail trader. It's just been a terrible, terrible stretch. They got kicked in the shins by FTX. They got kicked in the shins by an alt season that never emerged. They got kicked in the shins by the memecoin bust. They got kicked in the shins with this uh deleveraging. And now they're starting to get kicked in the shins by de from from the deep defi uh looping trade uh unwinding. It's just

been a brutal series. Every time they pop their head out, they get smacked. And um I think that's really what's missing from the market. My own view is that retail sentiment can't get much worse. I actually think we might have completed the four-year cycle, but all four years, we might have already done the bare market part of the four-year cycle, too, and we're ready for the next bull market because I can't imagine retail sentiment getting much worse, and institutional sentiment is going to be going up and to the right for the next 5 years. So, um, but I do think that's the bodies that have floated to the surface.

>> Jesse, you're making videos almost every day, tons of views, you've got like 250,000 YouTube subscribers. feel like you are directly connected to retail or would be retails or former retail participants in the market. What how is your community viewing the market these days? What what kind of content do they react to? Are they still liquid? What's what's going on with the people? >> Okay, so I I would say when you say retail, I I kind of think of it in two different baskets. There's like cryptonnative retail, which are the people that have stuck around, and then there's like the retail that was around in 2021. I would say for the most part the retail that was around in 2021 still isn't really doing much with crypto. Um I've probably talked I don't even know how many people I've talked to in

person. When I when I go walk around people like oh you're in crypto. Um they're mostly out of the market and the only asset that they hold is XRP. Randomly out of probably a thousand people I'll talk to retail is like >> always >> that's the only thing they hold. And um anyway, my point is they're not really caught up on on what's happening and all that kind of stuff. The people that are in the market are kind of down in the dumps right now because they did have that expectation that we'd have this parabolic run up um you know the in Q4 of this year because that's what is supposed to happen. Uh but what I think a lot of people uh don't realize or missing is that the typical four-year cycle was a macro cycle. You can see

that in two different places. You can see that as many have pointed out in the ISM, but also you can see that in huge bursts in year-over-year liquidity. A lot of people like to map to just like total uh M2, but that kind of just goes up and to the right always cuz it just always does. But um where you can really see the cycles, if you pull up uh year-over-year uh M2 uh global money supply, um you can literally see like 2013, 2017, and 2021 like on the chart. It's crazy. And um we haven't had anything like that since 2021 because we've really been in a tightening cycle.

Like we've had um liquidity come into the market in various forms, but not in in the uh the momentum needed because that's really what it is is it's a a momentum trade of when you have these huge injections of liquidity into the market. That's when you get that froth, which is typically when you get that alt season. Um and we haven't really had that. The the biggest uh burst we've had is over the over this year. Uh but the majority of that or a huge portion of that went into the TGA like I said. So it's not translating directly into the market. So we're still waiting for that. And that's why I'm a big believer that like that alt season, all that kind of stuff, that's at some point ahead when you do have more of that frothy market environment from that excess uh liquidity getting spilled over from, you

know, maybe it's I I don't know. I don't know what will cause it, but you know, 2025 is a a pos or 2026 is a possible year given midterms and I think Trump wants he wants to win and he I we're looking at maybe a tariff reversal. I don't know if you guys saw that, but um on poly market, the odds are that the Supreme Court actually shoots down the tariffs. And I don't know exactly what that means, how that plays out. Um but I yeah, I'm I'm I think Trump wants to win. And I think there's, you know, without the tariffs, uh the Fed's maybe a little bit less cautious about inflation and uh who knows what happens going into 2026.

>> I did my part, Jesse. I called my my uh member of parliament, told them not to make any more tariff commercials. Actually, that's that's actually something that happened that the apparently the British Columbia had an anti-ar tariff ad that they are not airing to not piss anybody off that they had it ready, but they decided not to after that happened in Ontario. Um, okay, gentlemen. I I kind of want to wrap this up with with something that, you know, I I really want to get into the habit of asking a lot of our guests is at this point in time. um what do your portfolio allocations look like?

Has that changed? U Matt, you mentioned, I think at some point in your write up and also probably, you know, in reference to to Jord's, that perhaps the 1% Bitcoin, the era of Bitcoin, uh 1% Bitcoin allocations is ending. How much would you recommend to an investor coming into the market right now to have Bitcoin or any other and or any other cryptos in their portfolio? Yeah. Well, I mean, the reason it's ending, just to be clear, is that crypto is less volatile and less risky than it used to be. So, we're not going to get a 1000x returns on Bitcoin. I think it could 10 or more X in the next handful of years, but it's not going to a,000x, but it's also less risky. What you do with that in your portfolio is instead of buying

1% because you can't take that much risk, you buy 5%. And I think 5% is going to become the new norm. You know, our average investment amongst a client at Bitwise has moved up from something like 1% when we started in 2017 to something like two and a half and three. And we now hear a lot of national accounts talking about up to 10%. So, I think 5% is going to be the new 1%. My personal portfolio is dramatically overweight. Not as much as Jesse, but uh is is is not quite majority crypto, but it's getting there. Um, and uh, and I'm excited about this market. Again, I think I think we've derisked crypto, but much of the upside remains. And when

that happens, that means a higher allocation. You can stomach more volatility. That's what I'm doing in my account and what we're hearing from clients as well. >> Jesse, what's that 1% of that isn't crypto yet in your portfolio? >> Just cash in the bank. So, that I always hold some cash in the bank uh, just for a rainy day. But yeah, I mean, just like Matt and Ryan, I'm really bullish going into the next few years on on crypto from a regulatory standpoint, from a flowsbased uh ETF standpoint of like exactly what they're saying with the IPO phase. Like one of the reasons Bitcoin's not as low as it probably should be given how weak liquidity is is those ETF flows are insane. And those are only going to continue to ramp up. And this

is kind of a handoff from like four year cycle sellers are selling into the hands of institutions. Not just institutions. A lot of those ETF flows are boomer retail. Um they're the ones buying those bags. But that's what makes me the most bullish is is the fact that like the thing about like the really older generation is they hold the majority of the wealth. They will pass away. They're going to pass that wealth down to the younger generation. The younger generation is disillusioned by the current system. You just saw Mandami get elected in New York. I don't I don't think they're going to be buying the same assets that that people think they are. Um, and I think they're going to be doing a a huge allocation into crypto and just assets that don't make any sense um because of that dis disillusionment. And so I think the the

future for crypto is insanely bright and and um yeah, I'm just bullish on on where it heads from here. >> I would just add to that. I I think that's exactly right. Like we Matt and I spend so much time speaking with financial advisors and wealth managers. were traveling almost every single week having dozens of meetings per week with different wealth managers and financial advisors and and what we hear time and time again particularly this year what I've heard is a lot that crypto is a part of every conversation that they're having and it doesn't matter if they're speaking to a 60-year-old client or a 30-year-old client or anywhere in between crypto is a part of that conversation. Now that comes two ways.

It could be inbound uh inquiries from the client asking about getting allocations crypto. But more and more what it is is the advisor saying, "Hey, we're going to get you some exposure to this emerging asset class because of the regulatory tailwinds because it's become more institutional. That could be 1%, it could be five, it could be 10%, but you're going to have crypto exposure. We're going to maintain that as a core piece of your portfolio." And part of the reason they're doing that is for client retention. if they're getting requests from clients like, "Hey, you need to offer crypto to us or I'm going to go somewhere else." Which actually is happening. I hear stories of that happening. I actually spoke recently with an adviser who said that they got a client solely because the client's previous adviser was not allowing them

to invest in Bitcoin. And this client was like 60 years old. So, it it's actually happening. These aren't just kind of stories that we tell. Like these are these are boots on the ground conversations. I think that is a long-term trend to Jesse's point around where the next generation of investors are headed and the next generation of wealth managers. You forget that, you know, a lot of these wealth managers retire and sell their books of business to younger wealth managers. And the reality is is most of these younger wealth managers are at least comfortable with the idea of investing in Bitcoin or Ethereum or Salana or whatever the crypto asset is. is. And so I think that is a again a long-term tail tailwind that's fueled by trillions of dollars managed by wealth managers that will push the space higher over the next decade. Why do people invest in real

estate? Because it spits off cash flow. But I'm not here to manage rental properties. That's why I'm looking at Figure Markets. Their new democratized prime product backs your money with real cash flowing assets and returns up to 9% APY. It's the first real world asset borrow lend pool built for everyone, not just institutions. Ready to lend like a bank and get more than the 5% A is offering you? Download the Figure Markets app today and get 9% on your idol funds. Go to milkroad.com/figuremarkets. Ryan, just to build on that point, can you tell us really quick about the Bitwise Soul ETF? I want to end there because you guys did um like on Monday as things were dying almost almost a

record day $65 million of inflows a little slower yesterday but still still still a net a net inflow. Um tell us about the the market's demand for for Salana because we haven't even we haven't even talked about anything aside Bitcoin today but uh you know a couple deongs down the majors uh Salana seeing some action for you guys. >> Yeah, it's incredible. I think you you hit the nail on the head there where amid this big market selloff and and craziness happening in the market, we saw an incredible amount of flows into the Bitwise Salana ETP uh on on Monday and that extended the the you know remarkable and and of course we're happy with the amount of flows that we saw in week one. I think for context to to gauge where institutional investor

sentiment is, there's been 850 ETF launches in the US this year. All different types of issuers. These are leverage ETFs. These are alt ETFs. These are, you know, whatever they are. And the Bitwise Salon EP was the most successful launch in terms of volume across all 850 ETFs issued. And I think a lot of people assume these things would flop, but the reality is is investors are looking for exposure to emerging high-growth assets and crypto fits that profile very very well. So we're really happy about the the growth of Salana. Of course, this also includes staking which is new for a day one

launch of these ETPs, right? And that speaks to the regulatory regime shift that we've seen. And I think investors are really excited about that as well. And they just love ETFs. Like investors love being able to open their brokerage account or their use the platform where they manage their clients money and just buy an ETF rather than having to like go and go through some, you know, private placement fund that has high minimums and low liquidity or buy some kind of trust that has a 2 and a half% management fee and trades at premiums and discounts. They just love ETFs. how they allocate to every other asset class. The fact that now Salon is available to investors in an ETF for a low fee with institutional grade custody, daily liquidity, intraday liquidity is is really a beautiful thing

for investors and we're super excited with the success of the Bitwise Salana ETP in the current environment and I think once you know the the fear and greed uh or the the fear uh you know turns to greed in the crypto market, we're going to see that thing skyrocket. >> Awesome. Well, congrats guys. That's big news. The last last thing we have to do now we're done talking crypto is open up Poly Market to come back to Matt's Matt told us two weeks ago that the best bet in finance you can make between now and the end of the year is that Wicked for good will be the highest grossing film of the year. When you said that Matt I believe it was at 40% and now it's at 46%. So you could have already made like whatever that is you know 8% 10% on that

bet if you had taken it. We're at 46 40 40 46% so far. Movie's not even out yet. Uh I I just want to add to this that I do I do think Avatar is a sneaky one even though it's coming out late in the year. It's something that I think at the holidays people were like, "Listen, I'm going to take the kids to see the crazy like IMAX, you know, cost $40 to wear the goggles, the seats move. People love that kind of stuff at the holidays." So, and you never you never go short on James Cameron. Uh let's bring the outsider into this. Jesse, do you have any opinion whatsoever on the poly market highest grossing film of 2025 market?

No, I've never even seen Wicked for one. >> It's not out. It's not even out yet. It >> Oh, is this the first one? >> It's coming out Thanksgiving. Oh, >> okay. Yeah. No, I had no idea. >> That's probably That's probably for the better. >> I would know that if you annualize the return since we last met on that bet, it's like you're grossing 100% a year. It's I've been right so far. Um I think it's a walk over Zootopia. I I like the Avatar pick. That's good at 7%. That's worth a flyer. Um, but I still think, you know, this is an easy double in less than two months. Not investment advice, but uh I bet that the 1% of the portfolio is actually going to end up in

here and you're going to be very happy with that. Uh just a totally irresponsible polymarket bet. That's what the 1% is. Yeah, that's right. U gentlemen, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Uh folks, if you like this, make sure you tune in every day for for Milk Road Daily Show. Uh and tune in to our newsletter as well that's covering this stuff uh day by day as it happens. Matt, Ryan, Jesse, we'll have you guys back all very soon. Uh and good luck to all market participants as we go into a very bullish 2026. Want insights on what's moving crypto markets and how we're trading each event? Subscribe to our channel and join the Milkro Daily and Pro Newsletters and start investing like the top 1%. This show is for educational purposes only. Nothing we say is financial advice. Investing is

risky.