How Bitcoin could reach $1 million: Matt Hougan's store-of-value case

Transcript

I think you need to zoom out. Look, since co people always ask, is Bitcoin a good store of value? Since CO, the dollar's lost 25% of its value and Bitcoin is up 14x. That's pretty good. What's up everybody? It's LGD here and welcome to the Milk Road Show, the daily crypto show where we try to figure out if Bitcoin is heading to a million or if we're all just very good at convincing ourselves it might. Today is March 12th, 2026. Recording on March 11th. Over the past few weeks, something strange happened in the markets. While Tradfi was closed for the weekend, several weekends in a row during the Iran conflict, crypto markets kept trading and suddenly people were able to trade assets like oil and other commodities on chain while the rest of the financial system was asleep. It raises a

fascinating question, right? Are we starting to see the first real glimpse of what a 24/7 global finance system could actually look like? Today's guest not only believes so, but he's also come out with an even wilder claim that Bitcoin could one day reach a million dollars per token, following a path similar to gold as a global store value asset. Matt Hogan, CIO at Bitwise, one of our favorite guests, is back on the show. Today's episode is brought to you by Midnight, bringing rational privacy to blockchain, Warbucks, the easiest way to trade crypto, and Nexo, earn interest, borrow and trade crypto. Matt, welcome back, buddy.

>> Thanks for having me, LG. Excited to chat. >> Okay, listen. There's so much carnage in the world. How the hell is Bitcoin going to go to a million dollars? Okay, you sent this to my inbox. You sent this to all the subscribers to your memos right in the middle of this week. Bitcoin to a million. Pin it. >> Sometimes [snorts] you need to zoom out. Sometimes you need to zoom out. The thing I would take issue with with your introduction was the idea this is a a wild prediction. Actually, the point of my argument was that this is a pretty conservative view. Right. Look, I I did have this experience. I wrote about it in my memo. An adviser asked me, "Is this crazy?" Right? You say Bitcoin is going to a million dollars. Is that crazy? It's 14x from where we are.

Things don't 14x that often. And uh the point that I was making in this article is it's actually very conservative assumptions that get you to a million dollars. So, let me say what those assumptions are. Usually [clears throat] when people talk about Bitcoin going to a million dollars, they look at the size of the gold market today. It's about $38 trillion. And they say, "Bitcoin would have to take half of that market to be worth a million dollars." And that sounds crazy. Bitcoin being as valuable as gold in the next 5 or 10 years is a very optimistic view. There's some of us who think it might happen, but that's a very optimistic view. But that's the wrong way of thinking about it because the gold market has been growing over time. I remember when the gold ETFs

launched in 2004, the entire gold market was $2.5 trillion. And that $2.5 trillion has grown to $38 trillion. And the point I was making in this article is that if you assume the store of value market that's captured by gold and Bitcoin will continue to grow as it has for the last 20 years, then all that Bitcoin needs to do to become worth a million dollars is take 17% of the market. 17% of the market is totally reasonable over the next 10 years. So again, all you need to do to get to a million dollars is to assume the gold market will continue to grow and Bitcoin will continue to take market share at

about the pace it's taking market share. In other words, what's happening needs to continue happening for the next 10 years and you get to a million dollars. Could it get to 2 million? Absolutely. Could it get to 500,000? Yeah, sure. If it disappoints. But the goal was that these are not outrageous numbers. These are actually normal numbers. And uh yeah, I thought amidst the carnage and confusion, people might want to remember that. >> If you're wondering what to buy in this ugly crypto market, you got to check out our latest pro report. Four tokens we're buying right now. Pump, Jupiter, Pendle, and Syrup. We break down the bullcase, the risks, and where we're looking to enter. Read it now in Milkroad Pro. The link is below. [laughter] [gasps] How does this how does this kind of fit in? Because obviously one of the

big stories we've chatted with you and and you've told us a lot about gold. [snorts] Well, we've had kind of the decoupling of gold and Bitcoin, right? Like in the last six months, right, where they kind of they went different ways. Gold to an all-time high, Bitcoin kissed its all-time high, now down 40, 50%, whatever it was. Um, how does [clears throat] that do you see that continuing? Do they cross back over over time? Like obviously this is a pretty wide or long-winded kind of projection. Um, but how does that how does the current state of their ratio kind of play into this?

>> Yeah, absolutely. they cross back over over time. Look, you can't expect Bitcoin to go up every time gold goes up, but go up 10x more. That's what people want out of the market. If that happened, people would only own Bitcoin. There would be no reason to own gold. Over the history, there have been periods where Bitcoin led significantly. We happen to be in one unique period where gold has been leading, but they're both providing the same service, which is the ability to store wealth outside of the fiat system without relying on a central bank or a government. The bet you're making is that more people will want to store wealth out of outside of fiat currencies as the world becomes more unstable, as trust in institutions fail, as people keep printing money.

Some people want to do digitally in Bitcoin, some people in gold, but they're doing effectively the same thing. It's it's really short termism that causes people to freak out that over the last 6 months, gold outperformed Bitcoin. Over the last two weeks, Bitcoin's outperformed gold. Are we consigning gold to the dust bin of history? I don't think so. I think you need to zoom out. Look, since CO, people always ask, is Bitcoin a good store of value? Since co the dollar has lost 25% of its value and Bitcoin is up 14x. That's pretty good. It's been the best way to protect yourself against that inflation over the last 5ish years. I think asking for more than that is just asking too much. You know, Matt, we're

almost at the exact six-year anniversary of that Black Friday, Friday the 13th, and we have another Friday 13th coming this week of Bitcoin being I don't know what, like 3,000 bucks. ETH was like $89. that huge market crash from a while back. So, um I don't know what my point is. I'm just saying you're bringing it up 5 years ago. The inflation since then, what what a time to be alive since since that day. >> Yeah, absolutely. Well, and also if you go back then, people were ready to consign Bitcoin to the dust bin of history. It's dead. It's not providing that protection. Look, it was literally the best way to protect yourself from the inflation that followed. Why?

because it is one of the two real stores of value that exist in the world and it happens to be the emerging digital version which is gaining market share over time. That's been a very good bet for 15 years. It's been a very good bet for 10 years. It's been a very good bet for 5 years. It's going to be a good bet for the next 10 plus years. It's going to get to a million dollars. I I I pretty strongly believe that that is true. [clears throat] >> What other um what other major catalysts would you see on that road? Right? Because even even to go to 126, there was there was a lot of factors. Um maybe not on the TA side, but definitely well obviously on the TA side, but in the in the macro and the fundamentals, right? A lot happened since those COVID days that

you're talking about. We've been through two cycles almost for even to get to 126. What other big things need to happen? >> Yeah, governments keep need to keep spending too much money, which seems like a pretty good bet, [laughter] right? Um [snorts] that's that's the biggie. Uh people need to keep getting older because the people who own Bitcoin are primarily young. As they get older, they earn more money. They're wealthier. They move into positions of power. They allocate on their behalf. Uh the world needs to keep getting more digital. These are all pretty good bets. I don't think there's any like narrow catalyst.

Would it be helpful if we pass the Clarity Act because that's broadly good for crypto? [laughter] Of course. But really, it's these big meta themes, right? Will the world get more digital? Will young people get older? Will governments print more debt? Uh, those things seem pretty certain. If those three things happen, I think it's hard to find a world in which Bitcoin isn't much more valuable than it is today. Does it need to deal with quantum? Yes. Are there the these other things it needs to deal with? Yes. But really, those are the three drivers that are sort of a massive tailwind. And um I just don't see any of those three reversing.

>> Could Could Bitcoin ever be like a boomer asset? >> Um, yeah, for sure. for young people, you know what I mean? Like obviously it's been like a risk asset for young people, but at the same time it's like, you know, even you see those trends change. >> Oh, I think that's definitely true. Um, could there be something else down the future? Look, I never think we're at the end of financial history. I know Bitcoiners will hate me for saying that, but could there be some splinter or variant that becomes important in the future? Of course, that's true. People, that's like the same argument that that gold was it gold is part of it. Bitcoin is now a big chunk. I think Bitcoin will exist for a thousand years to be clear.

But uh yeah, could it become one generation's primary asset and then something new captures a new generation? Uh definitely. I think that's true. It's funny, but true. [clears throat] >> Well, it's just a funny thing to think about, right? Is the things you thought were cool 10 years ago might be a little little P. Same like Facebook's a good example, right? where I was like I was a I was a youngish person with Facebook and it was cool and now it's like you know where people's old parents are to post random memes and fake fake AI videos. [laughter] >> It's true of everything. It's true of everything in in finance too, right? ETFs the cool disruptive thing.

>> Uh now they're going to be displaced over time by vaults, >> right? So you're you're never really at the final end of history. There's always innovations and interesting ideas. Mhm. And that's actually something you point out um you know you've given us you know history of gold at different times on the show but that's something you point out as kind of a catalyst I think in this comparison to gold right is that you say in your piece that in 2004 that was the first that was the approval of the first gold ETF and that gold's market cap at the time was 2.5 trillion and now it's it's practically at 40. So you have this near like 15 20x in 22-ish years on gold. a lot of that I mean a lot of that growth coming now. Um is that is that is is are the are the

Bitcoin ETFs and obviously you're at the center of this. Um is that a similar kind of long-term signal for >> 100%. Yeah. I mean here's the crazy thing about gold which people I can't get people to believe me but this is true. In 2003 before there were ETFs do gold was for like crackpots. It was mostly gold bugs who gathered in cut rate casinos in Wall Street. I mean in Las Vegas for conventions that were a little bit sad and served like really bad food you didn't want to eat. That was the gold [laughter] and it was the ETF that came along and made it easy to access and allowed institutions to allocate to it that began its journey from $2.5 trillion to $40 trillion because it was so hard for

an institution to allocate to gold even if they wanted to. They had to buy physical bars and store them or they bought gold mining stocks. It was a mess. The ETFs brought the rest of the world into the gold market and there was dramatic expansion. It's not the only reason we went from two and a half to $40 trillion, but it was a big piece. And you have that again in Bitcoin. Look, Bitcoin today is not that far from the size of the gold market in 2004, right? We have literally seen this before. It took 20 years for gold to 14x. Could Bitcoin 14x in 10 years? I think so. and then it just mathematically gets to a million dollars. So, I do think the ETFs are are

a big piece of the puzzle. It unlocks it for the rest of the >> Now, you really talk about those Vegas things like you were there. [laughter] >> I feel like this is a hidden part of your history. >> You know, way way back I used to run a website called Hard Assets Investor that covered hard assets before anyone cared about the market. And so I do know I know these gold conventions and um right I mean it was really it was really a thing. It was an off-piece asset. It was unusual and strange. It's not to say that no one owned it. Of course some people owned it, but it really was not a mainstream asset in a in a pinstripe soup the way it is today. Everything you're listening to today is also covered in our daily crypto newsletter.

And on Sundays we even recap the best parts of the entire week's worth podcasts. So check it out at the link below. Can I ask you a question? Why why do people hold physical gold? And I know I have a few friends who have been Bitcoin people for a long time and they're like, I can never tell you where my gold is buried. And I'm I'm dead serious that that's something somebody told me once. And even, you know, whenever we have Arthur Hayes on the show, he's like, here's my holdings and some physical gold that I have somewhere. And I'm like, are you guys just doomers? like and you think that there'll be, you know, this apocalyptic scenario where the only and you're going to take your gold bar and do and trade it for something like for food or oil.

Like I don't I don't understand what the logic is there other than I guess it's cool you hold some gold bars, you know, in the forest. >> I think you nailed both of it. I think uh it's it's some level of dumerism, right? You put your gold bar next to your guns and your beans. I think there is an element of that. And then the other is that I think in every rich person there's a little bit of Scrooge McDuck and they like to imagine themselves sort of swimming in their gold coins or feeling the weight of a gold bar. I think that there is an element of that as well which is what you said, you know, it's kind of cool.

So, um, but yeah, people love the the the doomerism. All that said, if you're infinitely wealthy, like, you know, why not hedge the doomer zombie apocalypse with a little bit of physical gold? makes makes some sense to me. >> I guess it feels better than a ledger to hold. It's a little cooler to show people when they come over. [snorts] >> You can do both. It's not either or, LG. You can do both. [laughter] It's totally fine. >> Oh, boy. All right, let's jump to the other major thing that I feel is is way more uh short-term impactful uh probably that that you also wrote a great memo about that uh was titled The Weekend That Changed Everything or That Changed Finance. And this is largely about how we can trade oil and uh other

commodities on chain. Now Matt, is this something that you personally participate in? [snorts] >> So I don't trade oil per on the weekends. I'm a long-term investor. But I do think these are really important moments. There's been this question in a lot of people's minds that we're building up this tokenized infrastructure where things trade 24/7 365 and they're instantaneous settlement and they're low cost and leverage is easy and it's just better than the trapfi system. Why isn't tradi moving over to this in mass? I think that's been a question that crypto has been asking itself and the reason is that in normal times most investors don't need any of that. Most investors are happy to

go home at 4 p.m. on a Friday and watch pizza and eat pizza and watch a movie. They don't necessarily want to be trading. The point of that piece was that's fine in normal markets, but sometimes they're these shock moments that force people into this new ecosystem. So, what we saw is that when the US started bombing Iran, which I think was at 2:30 on Sunday morning or something, every market around the world is closed. Stocks are closed in the US, Europe, and Asia. The futures markets are closed. Even most forex markets are closed. It's like a black hole for tradi. And so what people did is they shifted onto hyperlquid. And that's where they were trading oil. So much so

that Bloomberg covering oil's price quoted a hyperlquid contract because it was the most liquid. And the the the thing that happens is as a result all these Trafy people were forced to experiment with this new rail. If they wanted to respond, they needed a wallet. They needed to be on Hyperlquid. They needed to trade. And once you taste that, you're not going to fully ever go back to the other side. I think every major global macro hedge fund now needs to be able to operate on the hyperlquid market. I know I do a lot of financial history on this show and you always indulge me. So I'll do one more piece.

>> Please. >> If you look at ETF growth historically, it sort of puttered along at a 30 or 40% keer for a while, which is pretty good until 2008. And in 2008, what happened is traditional bond mutual funds stopped working during the global financial crisis because they had these NAVs, but they couldn't process redemptions because the bond market was broken. But ETFs continued to trade throughout. And so all the people who poo pooed ETFs tried them for the first time because it was the only way to really access the bond market. And the keer went from like 20 or 30 to 80. It just dramatically upticked the growth of ETFs and it never went back. Today ETFs are $30 trillion.

And I think events like this weekend are going to do the same thing for perk markets, for tokenized markets, for stable coin use, etc. Once people taste it, they just do more and more of it. And I really think it is a weekend that we'll look back on as a really important break and accelerator of tokenized crypto-based, blockchain based finance. [clears throat] >> Is this so is this is this bullish hyperlquid as well? Right? Because you have you have Yeah, >> hugely bullish hyperlquid. Um they have a window of of having a lock on this market. you know, you you are going to see the other providers start to move towards, oh my goodness, we need to do 247 trading. They're going to have a

hard time getting there because of the sclerotic nature of their underlying sort of infra, but they're going to try. But for a period, Hyperliquid's going to own this market. The sort of volume on weekends is going to increase. The number of users on Hype are going to increase. Makes me very bullish for Hyperlid uh and other other DeFi apps, but particularly Hyperlid over the next year plus. It's really emerging as a giant. >> You you have like a decentralized exchange becoming like the price discovery destination for like a global commodity. Like that's for and for a historic day or historic like stretch for that commodity. Like that that that has to be like a pretty insane moment uh in crypto that I feel like we're just

missing a little bit in the headlines. >> We're completely missing it. back up uh you know five years ago and say that Bloomberg will be referencing uh an exchange that doesn't exist doing per contracts as the global price of oil. It's like a crazy series of words, but it is eminently true and that's that's where markets are going to go. I think it's really important. The other interesting thing actually for for crypto is a few years ago the markets turned to Bitcoin specifically as the only liquid market that was available during these moments and I actually think it's a positive for Bitcoin that now there are other real world assets like oil that you could trade more

directly. I think that somewhat insulated Bitcoin and is one of the reasons the price has been relatively stable over these really high volatility weekends for the world is because people can now express the views the way they want which is actually what we want to trade is oil when the bombs are dropping in Iran. Um and I think that's an interesting sort of microstructure development that maybe I haven't seen talked about that much. Warbucks is the easiest way to start trading crypto. No deposits, no wallets, no complicated setup. Choose your path. One step, instant target or instant funding starting as low as $40. Trade, stack profits, and withdraw on demand in crypto or USDC. Blow the account, you only lose the test fee. Reload and go again with Warbucks. You can profit from

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members. Get started at milkroad.com/nexo. >> Yeah, I like that. What you're saying about Bloomberg uh you know showing screenshots or quoting Hyperlquid is reminds me of when news stations started showing tweets and how that became now now that's like the main thing on news is like can you believe what this person tweeted or said or Instagrammed or whatever. But you know in the early days of social media you're like that's insane. Why would they ever show a screenshot from the internet? Um but then that's common place in news, right? That's kind of what news has become. So, >> great analogy. I think that's exactly [laughter] right.

>> Yeah, >> that's very similar. Yeah, very very similar. Um and and I I like what you're saying as well. We had a guest on Monday um who said that uh this is a kind of an interesting theory that he threw out there that uh perhaps the the strength in crypto in the last couple days could be uh actually people in the region converting some of their assets, some of their fiat to crypto to uh Bitcoin or maybe any also maybe to stables. We're seeing um you know Circle also doing really well this week. Is do you think there's any truth to that? I found it a little hard to believe that it would be so granular for there to be a pump based on that, but I want to know what you think about that.

>> Yeah. So, I definitely think that is happening and that's one of the release valves that Bitcoin and crypto provides. If that is whether that's the reason for the the the the jump or the strength in the market. I'm not sure it's it's the exclusive reason. Is it one pebble on the side of that ledger? I definitely think it is. Um there are other things that are happening there, right? long-term whales, large wallets are accumulating now. Uh the level of leverage in the market is really suppressed. But could that be happening on the edges? I think it could be happening on the edges. >> Mhm. [clears throat] Absolutely. Um so, so with all this stuff that's happening on chain, like if you are a hedge fund manager, any other kind of institutional investor, is this like do you do you get a call

from your boss Monday morning and it's like, listen buddy, your weekends are cooked. Go download that MetaMask, sign up for Hyperlid, get all our money into get half our money into stables, and you'll be ready all weekend for the next headline. >> Yes. Yeah. Try to find [laughter] I mean, I'm sorry, but yes, try to find a liquid hedge fund that doesn't have a way to trade 247. Uh you're going to start to see, you know, companies thinking about uh locations around the world that give them access to markets during normal hours all the way around.

All the things that are terrible for us in crypto are going to be terrible for you in Tradfi as well. Nights and weekends are shot. There's still low liquidity on weekends, so you can get extra injections of volatility, but absolutely, yeah, if you're a global macro hedge fund, you need to be able to trade these things whenever geopolitical shock events occur, and they can occur any time, and they often do at nighttime in the US. Um, so yeah, so that's just the the world we're moving into. Mostly it's a better world, but uh but it's a worse world if you like to sleep for sure. [laughter] Uh, is this what what do you think is going to be their biggest issue for some of that happening? Like because I know

that that the the non-custodial world can probably be still a little bit challenging for them. So are they going to struggle with wallets like managing stable oils? Like what's kind of what's the biggest barrier in your opinion still for them? Yeah, I think what you'll see is that they'll scale in at very small levels and they start to experiment and get used to it. But yes, the infrastructure, the trading ecosystem, etc. You can definitely learn it, right? Like our our lead portfolio manager at Bitwise, the person who trades for most of our ETFs came from Black Rockck. It's not a it's not an uncrossable skill. Um, but there are there is a learning curve. But what you'll see is they'll start experimenting at relatively small levels. I don't mean that hype volume is going to 10x in the next two weeks. I just mean it's going to 10x over time.

So they'll experiment. Um yeah, getting used to wallets and stable coins and money transfer in the crypto space uh will be the challenges that they face. >> What do you hope that they get redpilled to as they start to do that? >> Well, once you it it all leads to um DeFi. I I do think DeFi is the at the end of all these funnels, whether it's the growth of stable coins generally or the growth of tokenization or shock events like this or per futures, etc. Once you're in that door, once you have a wallet, once maybe you have stable coins, all of DeFi opens up to you. And I think eventually you'll see that space scale really dramatically. I think all

of those protocols are probably undervalued at current levels. based on the scale that they're going to see. [clears throat] >> I have one more question for you about the the kind of oil trade stuff and it's it's a little bit outside the crypto side. Um but you know even just this year this is like the second commodity that used to move [snorts] at the incredibly slow speed of a turtle have these like 40% single day moves. We saw it with silver. Now we're seeing with oil. Is this is this the new reality of this current economy that anything can trade like a memecoin?

>> I I think anything with relatively constrained supply can trade like a memecoin when it gets the attention economy focused on it and you have easy ways to get leverage and easy ways for information to move. I do think the market has changed and so you get these sort of squeezes. I think that's what was happening on silver side. I think it's what's happening on oil. Remember, we've seen it before in oil on the reverse. You might remember a handful of years ago when oil was negative in the US when a barrel of oil costg or something. So, you can see >> was that co I think that was the COVID crash.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All the oil tankers uh in in the place where futures settled filled up. There was nowhere for oil to go. So, people like think about that. You were literally paying people to take oil off your hands. It's a really remarkable thing, >> man. >> But yeah, these are constrained markets and now that everyone has access to them, including retail traders who operate differently than traditional commodity traders, I think you can get sort of really strange uh extraordinary moves. Um, yeah, probably additional volatility. That's not always good, but that's probably true.

>> I just feel like that's what's going to shake up a lot of these institutions where they'll be like, "What the hell happened, man?" And it's not just not just they could have traded it over the weekend, but also that it moves so violently, right? And that it's like it's you're saying, you know, you've got that you got an opportunity for volatility on the weekends with lower liquidity >> that that's something that it's like it's a wakeup call that it's like, hey, you can't you can't necessarily keep doing the same thing anymore. >> That's right. I think it's two things that will be hard one lessons. It's lower liquidity and it's also higher levels of leverage, right? These ecosystems have embedded higher levels of leverage. That's how they're set up.

And when you combine high leverage with periods of natural low liquidity and shocks, you can get these extraordinary events that we've experienced in crypto. We experienced one on 1010, right? That happened. 1010 happened because Trump announced 100% tariffs on China at 5:30 p.m. on a Friday. Um, they've since been repealed, of course, but you can imagine how the world reacted to that. They panicked. They sold Bitcoin. There was a lot of leverage in the system. You got a cascading liquidation on a time when most traders were asleep or out with their friends and that's how we got 20 billion dollars blown out and created, you know, a multi-month slide in an asset. You're going to see those same

pressures build up in other Trafi assets as you bring them onto these 247 rails with high embedded degrees of leverage. Uh again, I think there are advantages to having those markets open, but uh but you will have these risks. These will appear in other assets. [clears throat] >> What? Okay, let's just let's just have a little fun. What is the next commodity that will experience a similar like because we don't even know what the we don't even know what the story is going to be over the next couple months, right? You know, we had silver, gold, we had conflicts with other countries, now it's Iran. Who knows by June what what is happening?

>> What else? >> Another random >> You're in tune with this. You tell me. Come on. Pick your commodity. >> Me, you know, [laughter] something boring like >> Yeah, I was going to say we've already sort of seen it in bits and pieces with copper. I could imagine >> I could imagine copper fitting that niche that makes some sense. It could also be something strange and obscure. We could all get really excited about rodium or something. Um definitely some of the rare futures. Yeah, I feel rare um elements or uh minerals. I could definitely say I don't feel like the AI story is done and I feel like we're in for more more AI scarcity narratives of certain elements are needed for this or for that. Uh or

even I don't know other weird things like when there was the storm in Texas or in the states and the natural gas spiked, you know, that kind of stuff. I feel like we're in for a lot a lot more of those. Uh as people get access to this technology, man, as people can trade it 247, then naturally you'll see it. >> Um >> definitely right. Have you um Matt like zooming out, you know, you're you're one of the most experienced people we have on the show, if not the most experienced, who also has the most uh sensical um and level opinions, let's put it. You've been doing this for a long time. You've been in [clears throat] finance for a long time.

You've run several companies. Has there ever been a time where it feels like the entire financial world is just so heavily compressed into daily headlines? >> No. I mean the the the the the meta the the big forces are just so big right now, right? Uh you you have this uh this Middle East crisis that could spike oil into the$1,200 range. You have AI which is progressively disrupting more and more and shocking the market with massive news. You have, you know, big forces on crypto and tokenization. You actually have some some big forces even in biotech and healthcare. The stories are just bigger than they used to be. So,

um, yeah, definitely on any given day, there could be a shock headline that introduces real risk into the market and it it doesn't feel familiar to me. I don't remember. Maybe the I mean, the global financial crisis had much more instability. Um, but that sort of like waiting for the next shoe to drop feeling, that's probably the closest that I remember uh of not knowing what's around the corner. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. The transparency of traditional blockchains forces a difficult choice. Utility or privacy. You shouldn't have to choose. [music] Midnight empowers innovators to break free from this limitation to a place where privacy isn't just a feature but foundational.

Go to milkgrow.com/midnight to learn more. Yeah, it does feel pretty wild. Okay, let's jump to our favorite end of episode platform, Matt, which is Poly Market. We always go to Poly Market at the end of our shows. Uh, and I pulled up what price will Bitcoin hit in 2026. And at the very top of the options, we do have a million dollars. And it has a 2% chance, which is as good as many presidential candidates for 2028. That's the same. It's the same amount. [laughter] >> That is amazing. That's like the Is that just Bology, you know, voting on it?

That's I mean, that's incredible. [laughter] >> Oh, I forgot about Bology with his his million-dollar bet. There's a lot of volume on this 250K number here. Uh so I don't know what that means. The volume on Poly Market is contentious what it means, but we've got it's at 4% for 250K. And this is just what Bitcoin will hit in 2026. There's some pretty good odds for um I mean obviously to get to 75K. That seems pretty foregone at this point. Then we'll at least pop back to that. But even 100K, 40% 110 26% 120 130 140 9% not bad. 10% one in 10 chances for 140 or 150. Matt, what's the play here?

>> Well, first I should say that I just love this so much. Um, I feel like, you know, we've seen a trend of sort of retail embracing the options markets, but when you go into the options market, you start dealing with Greek letters and it's very confusing. I feel like what people are trying to express in the options market are exactly this. So I think this kind of price specific prediction is a big reason why Poly Market and others are raising at such huge valuations. I think it's absolutely massive for 2026. I like I think the odds the the $100,000 odd is is pretty interesting to me.

>> I I [clears throat] think 110 at 26 is more interesting than 100 at 40. Uh it feels to me like if we pip above 100, the probability that we get to 110 is pretty good. So maybe there's an interesting straddle uh between 100 and 140 at those odds. I guess that's where I think I'd find the the value in that stack. >> It's a big drop to that. It's it's a 40% chance for 100, but then a drop to 26 and 23 for 110 and 120. Um so that's a nice Yeah, I agree that that's a nice kind of zone right there. It's a crazy expression by people of the probability of us getting to 100 but not getting to 110. They're assigning a very high

probability to that. And that feels like round number bias. So if there's value in this stack, it's at the 110 level. And I think that could appreciate before the end of the year. If you imagine, remember when you invest in these, I do use invest. You're not necessarily making the terminal prediction. You might be predicting that we'll ramp toward 85 or 90 and that 110 will go from 26 to 50. That's double. And I think that I think you'll see a lot of people playing it in that sort of way. >> Oh yeah. You just need that that clarity act candle.

>> You know, you just it it doesn't have to pass just to say we're going to it's going to it's going to go to the floor next week and you get that green candle and that 110, you know, that percentage doubles. >> If there's one thing I learned from my wicked experience, it was that you have [laughter] to You said it. You brought it up, man. Uh, let's jump over to Clarity Act. What do we got? We're at 62% today. Uh, >> yeah, we're just kind of middling here. So, this isn't This feels a little lost in purgatory right now and pretty backseat for American politics, let's say.

>> I think no one knows. And part of it is there's distraction of what's going on in Iran. Part of it is the Trump versus Banks battle. uh when we talk to our people in DC, they tell us it's a tossup, which is uh makes me wonder why we pay them. And and I but I really do think that that is I think that's the vibe is like there's just a great deal of uncertainty. I would continue to note that particularly at 62% if this thing passes, it's a catalyst for us on the upside. So I do think that that is true. If it passes, I think that that may be what's pushed us fully into a full-blown spring. Mhm. Does seems [clears throat] unlikely to be to be baked into the price, let's say. Um, and okay, crude oil, what will it hit by

end of March? Are we is this is oil done? Is it is that is that pump done? Because there's there's a 66% chance we go back to 100 today. Iran was like, "Hey, yeah, we're going to mess everything up and it's going to go to 200 and just totally blow up the whole world economy." What's Is this the oil trade done at this point, Matt, or is there still a a pub left? That's fascinating. This is this is uh is this WTI? I do think there's a delta between uh West Texas crude and Brent crude. I think people probably more optimistic on Brent crude.

>> Oh yeah. Okay. >> An interesting angle there. But uh I don't know. I think there's probably some value in the out outlier of that oil um >> oil like oil stretch maybe at that level. That doesn't seem 130 doesn't seem possible if a few things go wrong. Hopefully it's done. I would love oil to be to be done. We pay enough for gas here in California. Um as it is. All right. Last one. Our favorite one. Presidential election winner 2028. Okay. So this is and again remind people who have not watched Josh Shapiro is Matt's super dark horse pick and he's sitting at a very juicy 2 and 1 half cents right now. Uh, and I think you've predicted

him to go to 12 before it's all said and done. We still have two years uh or not even two and a half years because he would even as the the nominee he would uh I guess his chances would be pretty high if he was the nominee. But even to be in the race um a pretty good chance here and Matt the the big change here is Rubio flying. He's flying man. He's up to 16%. Vance is down to 21. Rubio might flip Newsome and Vance soon. >> Yeah. I mean look at that chart. uh notable that he he's had two bumps, right?

>> He had one bump a little while ago and then he's just been soaring. I will say just as an observer, he's given a few talks recently, particularly on this Iran thing, >> um where he sounded very presidential. So, I think he may flip fans, which would be really interesting interesting to watch. I haven't heard much from JD recently, and I have been hearing a lot from Marco. So, this this lines up with my experience in the world. Pretty interesting. Mhm. [clears throat] Let's say let's say it's uh it's 2015 and uh the I think it was the Republican nomination would came down to him, Trump uh and Cruz, Ted Cruz. What what what do you think Rubio's chances would have would have peaked at in that time?

>> Oh, pretty good. I think pretty good. I think if I remember back before he sort of got smacked down at a debate, I think people saw that as like a uh 4060 style thing. I think it was, if I'm remembering right, I think it was seen as a relatively reasonable case because at that point we didn't really >> we hadn't intuited Trump uh as as an [laughter] important part of the real politic. So, um yeah, I think he would have gotten up into the 40s for sure. >> Good good good uh revisionist history there. Revisionist prediction. Matt, what you know, we see you every two weeks. What are you watching the next two weeks? What what are we going to talk about in two weeks if you had to predict the future?

>> Yeah. The current thing that I'm thinking about, which is pretty close to what you're asking. Uh I'm doing that thing where I answer what I want and not what you asked. The current thing that I'm thinking about a lot is tokconomics. I I think I've continued to watch this incredible flow of positive news around stable coins and tokenization. Uh just today there was an announcement from Mastercard. There was a thing about Kraken getting a bank license. everyone is building in this space. I think people are close to accepting that all assets will move on tokenized rails. And so when they do, I think people will then move to the next question, which is will the value flow into the tokens? And I think that's what we're going to be talking about,

>> not just over the next two weeks, but over the next few months. Over the next two weeks, I think the big question is, will this uh rally pull? Will this rally hold? Can we like hold in the 70s? Are we going to go back down to test the 60s? The smart people I talked to all think we're going back down to to test in the 60s. I think if we hold in the 70s, it's very bullish. So, we'll see. >> Okay. Okay. Okay. Well, I I one of the traders I know that I trust says we're we're going to rally into the low 80s before coming back down, but I don't know. I I I've a lot of people I used to trust I don't uh I don't really trust anymore. So, I think I think it's hard to hard to predict. Uh but hard to

predict at this point. Great. Well, Matt, uh a pleasure as always. Thanks for coming on the show. Thank you for your insight uh and we'll see you again soon. [music] >> Thanks for having me. >> Want insights on what's moving crypto markets and how we're trading each event? Subscribe to our channel and join the Milk Road Daily and Pro Newsletters and start investing like the top 1%. [music] This show is for educational purposes only. Nothing we say is financial advice. Investing is risky. Never invest more than you can afford to lose.