Why Bitcoin is stuck: Scott Melker on liquidity and the 2026 outlook

Transcript

I will say I continue to be surprised for years now on the ability of the government to manipulate the market and find creative ways to make sure that things go up and to like I said pull this lever a little forward and pull this one a little back to just keep the party going non-stop. I mean, where's the recession we were promised for the last 2 or 3 years, right? GM, good morning. Welcome to the Milk Road Show, the daily crypto show where being patient is a strategy and also a daily emotional battle. I'm your host Jay Hamilton. It's Monday, November the 3rd.

Crypto markets, yikes, just continue to struggle uncorrelated from the rest of risk assets here. Uh what is happening? Why why are we not up higher? What is going on with Bitcoin? What's going on with altcoins? I know these are the questions on all of your mind. Have we topped? Is the four-year cycle still a thing? These are all the questions we're going to talk about today. Also, Microsoft signed a $10 billion deal this morning with a Bitcoin mining company. Amazon signed a $5 billion deal with another Bitcoin mining company. What's going on with Bitcoin mining companies?

And is there an opportunity here for you as an investor to get in? We're going to dive into this and so much more today. We're joined by the one and only Scott Milker. The Wolf of All Streets is back. He's in the studio. before we get him on. If you guys are making swaps, I know that you know actually I should say last month October was the highest month ever for DEX volume ever in history. You might say, "Okay, that's great. That means a lot of stuff is happening. Dexes are working well. If you are making swaps, the reason I think it happened was because of all the liquidations. But if you're making swaps, you should check out milkro.swap at swap.Melgro.com.

It's what I use to make my swaps. Why? Quite simple. It's got some of the lowest fees in the space. Today's episode is brought to you by Bridge. Power your business with instant stablecoin payments. No friction, no banks, just global finance made simple. It's also brought to you by the Gemini credit card. Turn your everyday spending into Bitcoin. Stack SATS without even thinking about it. And finally, by Figure Markets. Earn solid returns on your cash because sitting idle isn't a strategy. With that, let's hear from Scott. Scott, welcome back to the Milk Road Show. Great to have you again. >> Thanks, man. Looking forward to it. always looking forward to having you especially after a spooky Halloween weekend. The markets are spooked right now. Uh like let's just start you know Bitcoin what 106 I think it's at right now as of as of this 107 around. Uh

what's what's what's your thoughts on this market right now? You know everyone's worried feeling like you know have we topped a lot of lot of talk from both sides. uh but the macro setups continues to look strong. H how are you how are you framing that? >> I think it's always interesting to see how much panic there can be when nothing is happening and there's two types of capitulation in markets and we talk about this every time it happens but people seem to forget. There's when price goes down and you can't suffer the pain anymore and you finally sell which is usually the bottom and that huge wick and everything bounces, right? The other one is timebased capitulation, right?

price just kind of doesn't do anything for long enough that you give up and look to greener pastures, try to find something else that will outperform the thing that you're in, or you simply give up. And I think we're in one of those timebased capitulation phases. That said, we have quite a bit of actual data and metrics as to why price is being suppressed. And I don't say that in a manipulated way. I don't know if you saw this, but I believe onchain showed 400,000 bitcoins sold in October by long-term holders, which is just an astounding distribution of people who were the buying floor before now becoming the selling ceiling. So these are the people that for 15 years held Bitcoin from the very beginning, didn't

sell when it went to 20, didn't sell when it went to 69, wrote every bare market, and eventually either because they've given up some belief because of the institutions and governments coming in. That's one narrative is that screw this, I bought Bitcoin because I hated these people. Now we're all cheering for JP Morgan and Black Rockck. So that that's one side. But I think more than anything, it's just you're 15 years older, maybe you have kids, and you have billions and billions and billions of dollars in Bitcoin. You're going to eventually sell some of that to live a life of luxury and support your kids and make sure that your estate planning is in order. But 400,000 Bitcoin were sold in one month, which was October, by the way, down 3%. Tragic and price is still above 100 grand for

like most of the year. So I, you know, I I tend to take the glass half full approach when we can see that much selling that the price is still being buoied and still hanging out here that things just aren't that bad. I think most crypto people are just more exposed to altcoins than Bitcoin and that's just down only. >> Mhm. Yeah. It sort of reminds me of remember last summer like last August when Bitcoin also was rangebound and we were dealing with all of these sellers. uh the Mount Gau cell the uh um German government was selling right like there was all these major sellers sort of a similar setup different sellers this

time >> can that has to have an end though >> yeah it wears out and the floor that we're seeing starts to push up I mean tail as old as time so I I have no real major concerns about Bitcoin here the only concern I would have about Bitcoin is if we see some major black swan in macro and things just all go bad together. Uh but we all know that the government has deemed recessions and dips illegal and will pull any lever and push any button to make sure that doesn't happen. I mean, Trump was literally on 60 Minutes yesterday saying that his number one priority is to be number one in crypto. Mhm. I mean, how, you know, listen, you can think whatever you want about the president, but when

he talks about wanting to go markets, wanting to see markets go up and that he will do anything to have that happen, you can believe him there regardless of your thoughts on him or politics. >> Yeah. Yeah. And and and then you can take that a step further to he's also well aware and and all American politicians are well aware of the AI race that is happening right now between America and China and the rest of the world. But the stakes for winning the AI race are incredibly high, right? Like and everything from a robotic standpoint, China's winning right now.

>> China's winning from almost every standpoint I think in that regard. Uh certainly we might be winning on chips. Um but and I'm not the biggest AI expert out there, but China is certainly winning on infrastructure and power and energy, which is what we're going to need to entirely power this future of AI. And so the United States is scrambling to have enough power to even do the things we're doing now. And China is living in, you know, 2035 with enough power for anything that they scale to do. So, I think that's a big difference.

That's an interesting crossover between crypto and AI actually because it's really powered this massive pump in Bitcoin miners because they're effectively just data centers that can turn off the Bitcoin switch and turn on the AI switch anytime they want. So, you know, we saw a deal announced that between between Iron I think at Microsoft today, Cipher and AWS today. Then you saw a deal between Amazon, which is not cryptoreated between Amazon and Open AI today. But I mean, and I think there was another Microsoft deal that I kind of saw in passing right before we came on, but this is like endless multi-billion dollar partnership deals that are seemingly incestual in this big circle of trust between all these miners, infrastructure players,

tech companies, and anything AI adjacent. So clearly that's where the big race is. Maybe that's taken some of the, you know, mind share from crypto and from our price action. But honestly, I just think, you know, there's been a ton of money coming into crypto. It's coming in largely through public markets and not through altcoins this time. And I think that the fact that Bitcoin is still chilling here at 106, 107 is quite encouraging considering uh how much selling there's been. >> Okay, I want to take this in two different ways. First, I think on the macro side, you can't deny that it is very clear that they are going to run the economy hot for for a while here, right? You

know, every signal possible is is alarm bells are going off that that is where we're headed. You know, more rate cuts likely coming whether they come under Powell or whether they come with Trump's puppet, whoever comes next. I think more rate cuts coming. The QT just ended. QE could start in 2026. We'll see. But certainly there is a a a necessary belief within the US government that they need to win AI and the best way to do that is to increase spending and to invest, right? So that feels like on the macro side, I just see that as a setup for 2026 where risk assets likely go up. Now I don't mean we can talk about which risk assets

in a second. Would you would you agree with that take? >> Yeah, it makes sense. So, we're going to just see a ton of liquidity and liquidity drives markets. I mean, the minute that they gave up on the austerity talk and said, "We're going to grow our way out of this as we add trillions to the debt," it's pretty clear exactly what they plan to do. You can handicap your bets on whether it will work or not, and that's obviously up to you. But, as I said, I don't think Trump wants a depression before midterms. So, I think that we have a very good setup for the next, you know, 10 to 11 months. Your point about what is or is not a risk asset is definitely worth discussing. I think it's very interesting that gold continues to kind of climb towards highs or consolidate under them now. S&P

continuing to make highs, tech continuing to make highs in this very long consolidation period where Bitcoin languishes. And the holy grail for investors is to have something that is not correlated even if that thing goes down when all the other stuff goes up. So, I think that Bitcoin actually, even though it hasn't gone up like everything else, it's a great case for having it in your investment portfolio and showing that it's uncorrelated, which I think we've been screaming about for a very, very long time. But I do think that we still have the ingredients for an everything bull run. And if you listen to Paul Tudtor Jones, for example, talking about the debasement trade, which that term that Bitcoiners have been screaming about since 2008, has is finally really catching mainstream, you know, like attention because JP Morgan

talked about it. Ken Griffin of Citadel talked about it. Paul Tudtor Jones talking about it. Like the biggest names across the board. They all had a different approach to how you should invest, you know, to hedge against this debasement trade. Every single one of them had Bitcoin in them. Almost all of them had gold in there. Some had silver, but Paul Paul Jud Jones included NASDAQ because he thinks that, you know, all of that value will just pour into tech stocks. That's where investors are used to throwing their money. The MAG7 is the stock market at this point. So there's an interesting argument to be made for sort of this everything rally. If you're saying gold, Bitcoin, and NASDAQ, you're basically saying everything continues to go up in this crackup boom.

>> Yeah. It's it it certainly feels like to to you and I and and a lot of our listeners, the debasement trade is nothing new, but it feels like to the rest of the world, it is new. And we're still very early. Like I got to imagine that everybody that trades through a broker and maybe doesn't, you know, manage their own trading is talking to their broker right now, coming into year end, looking at their portfolio, doing their review. And I'll bet the one of the biggest talking points for these brokers is the debasement trade and how important it is to get you in on that.

And that that has like a huge impact on this like hit yet. I think it has a huge impact and at the same time you have I think $7.5 trillion sitting in money market funds earning a yield that every rational person knows is going to drop right like you know that rates are coming down you know that even if Pal is somewhat resistant as rates come down that as you said once we get the Trump puppet in May it's going to come down massively all of that money is going to have to find a home that's not in bonds right and so 7.5 trillion will be coming off the sidelines regardless even of how much liquidity the Fed or the central banks inject. It just really is a very rational setup for more liquidity coming

into markets. And the people who are sitting in the 7.5 trillion dollars of money markets are not like poor people struggling check to check, right? I mean, these are investors who move their money actively between markets to say, "Listen, I don't want to be in stocks right now, so I'm going to go earn this yield or the yield is high enough that it justifies not taking the risk on risk on stocks." When that yield comes down and no longer justifies holding government debt, people are going to have to find somewhere for their money. Where's it going to go? >> Mhm. >> Into assets. That doesn't listen, there could be more sellers than buyers even in that situation. But the setup is there for sure. And yes, I think that that debasement trade is a >> growing conversation probably with

people and their investment advisors and they're going to be starting to look to rebalance those money markets. Mhm. 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. Where when you when you look at the market right now, le let's take a step back. I I want to talk about the what's a risk asset and altcoins in a second, but >> those are risk assets conversation.

>> Those are the riskiest of assets. Um, when you look at the market right now, let's take it from two perspectives. I'd love to know like what confuses you about this market because I think to a lot of people there's a lot of confusion right now versus where you have certainty or you where you have conviction in the market right now >> I'm buying the hell out of Bitcoin dips >> like I love this I want lower I have cash on the sidelines when I earn money I want to buy Bitcoin with it so I would much rather do that at 100 than 130 so like nothing that's happened with Bitcoin price action has shaken my conviction there that that's going to be a good asset to hold over the long term.

Again, if it goes to 80, I'm buying. If it goes to 75, I'm buying. So, I'm not talking about immediate price appreciation from here. Nothing would surprise me in the short term, but long term, I expect it to be much, much, much higher. So, I'm enjoying that price action and doesn't concern me and I have high conviction there. I think what confuses me, if that was the question, is I won't say I'm confused. I will say I continue to be surprised for years now on the ability of the government to manipulate the market and find creative ways to make sure that things go up and to like I said pull this lever a little forward and pull this one a little back to just keep the party going non-stop. I mean, where's the recession we were

promised for the last two or three years, right? How wrong were people on their predictions about when the Fed would pivot before it became so obvious? literally years where we saw next meeting 85% and they didn't cut. Right. And so I just think that um we're at this extreme bipolarity in opinion. It's nobody's like it'll chop sideways. It's either on very extremes. It's almost like politics, right? You have one side that's so bullish it'll never go down. Even if we get the debasement trade, everything goes up. And even if things go bad, everything goes up because where else is your money going to go? and the other side is literally at like the fourth turning Great Depression that nobody's like, you know, it'll just kind of go up or down 5% the next year or two, right? It's like doom on one side

and complete euphoria on the other. Something I found really interesting last week, if you want to show the level of confusion, not necessarily to me, but I think to the market in general, was that the fear and greed index for the S&P dipped into fear on a day when the S&P made a new all-time high. really. >> So, yes. So, usually obviously at all-time highs, you're experiencing greed and the it's ticking up. I can't remember in tracking that metric, which is not something I look at every day, where the fear was growing as the market was rising, right? A very, very strange thing. Obviously, crypto is in extreme fear at this point. Bitcoin may be fear,

but if you look at the whole crypto market dipping towards extreme fear, and that makes sense when all coins are making new all-time lows, right? Um but very very very confusing for the market to be absolutely ripping and people to be fearful at large. Very strange. >> And where do you think that comes from >> because none of it makes any sense. >> Yeah. like you you can't you there's there's no way that you can kind of like consume all of the data that exists and then you know the data the sentiment the research and make sense of it because so much of it is so conflicting like gold having a historic rally should coincide with stocks dropping you shouldn't have those two things both

rallying together and the dollar was down but it's not like dying >> not down that much >> right and so >> it's actually kind of up right now it's creeping >> up yeah it's had kind of a nice bump So, I just think that the old memes of the past, you know, the inverse correlation of markets to dollar strength and gold ripping from under 2,000 basically to over 4,000 with barely a break when you consider the size of something like gold. I mean, you're talking about like 12 to 25 trillion in market cap. This for anyone who, by the way, says, you know, that like Bitcoin can't 10x because it's too big already at two trillion. Okay.

>> Yeah. >> Okay. cold's like hold my beer and my bottle of tequila. Um because it can happen, right? And so I think that there's just no way to it's very difficult to make an educated guess on where markets are going next. And I think that naturally breeds fear because, you know, markets hate uncertainty, but if you have a bunch of uncertain participants, I think everybody's just kind of got their finger on the trigger in both directions. like they don't know which one they want to pull like the buy or sell at any given time.

>> Like do you feel confident buying a bunch of stocks right now? Like is that >> like no, right? >> But did you a year ago? Probably not still. Right. >> Exactly. Because a year ago it also didn't make sense. Right. And then as as we go into, you know, as we look to likely end this year with another year of the S&P up 20 plus percent, like is that's that's not possible, right? would be the but then again as you said earlier apparently recessions the other side also isn't possible anymore right so it it you can you can make sense of it not making sense in a way because you can see the you can see the trap that every government is in right now right

and and I think that I I really make a big connection to to AI and the AI race right they governments have no choice but to grow their way out of it, grow their way out of the debt, keep spending, increase spending. That is that there is no other choice. Austerity won't work. Well, I mean, I shouldn't say austerity won't work. It probably could work if somebody wanted to go that path, but nobody does. And and so they're stuck. And then at the same time, you have this you have this technology that's come around in AI that's never been here before. and you if if you don't become a part of of the future of AI as a as a country, then then you're you're going to you're going

to you're going to drop down the pecking order and no country wants to take that risk right now. So, it's just but then it all comes back to the like it all comes back to really the altcoin question because I agree with your your let's okay let's talk about alt coins for a second because I >> I'm literally looking by the way Bitcoin broke 100 like November 24 >> November 24 grand over 100 right now >> so we're within 6% of the price >> 50 weeks ago not 52 weeks ago so not quite a year like and it went to 74 in between there and then it's kind of held 100 now for you know the bulk of the year but Bitcoin hasn't really gone up

in a year. I mean there was a point in I'm looking December like right around Christmas where it was 109. Remember it topped at 109. That's above the current price at Christmas last yearish. Yeah, it's been a pretty good and and gold has you know done what gold has done. The S&P is up massively. everything's up and Bitcoin really isn't and all coins are down >> mostly. >> I haven't looked at Ethereum on the weekly, you know, on the I don't know where Ethereum was exactly a year ago, but uh it's I think it's even down from that. Well, no, I guess Ethereum coming into last year was down in the 20 somethings, but I mean by March, Ethereum had hit, you know, 41 and we're down from there obviously. So,

>> it just a little delayed, but yeah, I mean it's just not good. >> So, so what what is that? What's your take on altcoins then? Let me ask you directly. Are you are you in altcoins? Are you >> Oh, dude. I have probably like a hundred plus altcoins from previous cycles that are like I could literally just go get my broom and duster and clean them off the floor. Like literally just have turned to >> to dash. >> Yeah. Cuz I was a deep believer in like all the you know the ICOs and the pre like I invested in everything. I was like we're going to change the world man.

>> Didn't understand tokconomics clearly at that time. Um because now I don't understand how any of them have any value and I'm not a Bitcoin maxi. I hold still, you know, I'm still dollar cost averaging into Ethan Salana as well, by the way. Um, so it's not like I'm not a believer in altcoins, but like I very rarely make a speculative investment in anything new and I don't expect, you know, to be able to throw a dart and have my thing go up 10x and then pull the dart out and throw another dart and wait, you know, those old alt seasons of the past because I just don't see where the money would come from when it's slloshing around in the public markets.

>> So So where is the opportunity? I mean, we talked about it a bit earlier with Bitcoin mining companies and the >> bought I bought iron at uh I bought iron between two and $4. It hit 70 something today. >> That's better than most that's better than most alt seasons. Mike Alfred was on my show screaming about iron since like late 23 I think literally. But yeah, I was buying it between two and $4 and you know, even in early 24, mid 24, probably a year and a half ago, right? And so I mean, you know, it's now up 30 somethingx from that price.

>> Okay, so explain to the audience for a second. Let's just backtrack. Why is iron what is iron and why is it up so much? >> Iron's a Bitcoin miner and Mike Alfred, friend of mine, who's on the board, would continually come on my show and say, "People don't understand the opportunity that Bitcoin miners are not only just beta to Bitcoin. If Bitcoin goes up, miners should go up, which didn't really happen as much this time. But they're also going to become AI companies and AI infrastructure, all the things we talked about, and that's just completely been proven. But, you know, if you're big money and you want exposure to Bitcoin with higher beta, do you go buy coin number 74 on Coin Market Cap or do you buy a Bitcoin miner or a maybe a Circle or the Bullish IPO or the E Toro IPO? Like, why? I love the guys

at Bullish. Tom, like all of them, but like nobody had heard of Bullish, right? >> Am I wrong? Like that's EOS money like from the great like the biggest ICO, right? So like they did it twice. Congratulations. They pulled off the biggest ICO like six billion or something. >> Still own all that Bitcoin. Um like hundreds of thousands of Bitcoin and then Bitcoin that they have. Yeah. >> Well, over 100 I think actually. >> You think it's 100? Holy >> I think it's over 100. Um I think I could be wrong, but I think it's over 100. Um and then they launched bullish an exchange that kind of like no retail people ever really heard of and they say a bunch of institution and that had this massive ICO. So there was clearly just this hunger for an altcoin like environment in public markets. So I'm

not saying bullish stock is an altcoin but I'm saying that the altcoin mentality of Bitcoin gets boring. Let's try to beat Bitcoin. That's what drove altcoins in the past. that speculation. It's just found a much bigger pool to play in with much more capital and those people are going to buy IPOs and treasury stocks and Micro Strategy and Bit Miner. I mean, Tom Lee owns like, you know, uh 3% of the Bitcoin supply or whatever it is at this point in a matter of months, you know, like you buy these are the places that the big money is playing on altcoins. And so some of that will acrue to the altcoins that have it underlying. Like uh regardless of your thoughts about some of them, if they do have a passionate community and launch an ETF, people are going to buy the hell out of those and those coins will

probably go up, right? So I just think it's I I struggle to find the great narrative for altcoins. So, I wouldn't be surprised if we get alt seasons and we get appreciation on key altcoins that have great narratives, maybe utility, maybe we even start to see a kind of a rising tide lifts all ships and some of them, you know, they double or something. Let's say all altcoins double across the board, they're still down 97%. Right? If you're down 99%, you got to go up 100x to get back to where people wanted. So, even if they double, is that alt season? I don't know. maybe uh gives you a chance to exit. But uh let's think about the scenario that gets us there. Okay, so like when did altcoins used to go crazy? When Bitcoin

consolidated at after making a high, right? So we got Bitcoin go up to 125,000 hold above 100 should be literally like the breeding ground for alt season. >> We got this crazy move in Bitcoin. It's been sideways. Altcoin should have absolutely gone nuts this entire time and they haven't. Right. So from 107,000 or 106, we're at 107,000 right now. Like if Bitcoin goes down as it did today from what, like 111 to 107, a $4,000 move, not big. What happened to all coins? They went down three times as much or two times as whatever it is, right? Depending on the altcoin. So we know with history and even today that when Bitcoin drops, all coins go down more. What happens when Bitcoin rises

fast and breaks out of this range? >> The opposite. altcoins go down versus Bitcoin, right? So, sideways isn't working for all coins. We know that down is bad for all coins. And we know that historically if Bitcoin catches a bid to get to that all-time high and above where maybe you would get an alt season at this point, it's going to wreck your altcoins. So, maybe you just need to be in Bitcoin for now if you're trading until we make an all-time high and sustain above it and then maybe all coins catch a bid. But, they're going to get probably wrecked on the way there. So maybe even when they catch a bid, they get back to where they are now. I have no idea, right? But they they're just like anything can happen. I could be totally wrong. That's just like rationally if you're looking at history and what's

happening now and you try to handicap the odds of an environment where you have an alt season, that environment probably has more wreckage to get there. Why do people invest in real estate? Because it spits on 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 for 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/figurearkets.

Like I just pulled up the Russell 2500 because it's been creeping up. >> Yeah. >> And that sort of says to me >> equity altcoins, dude. That's all season, right? Like that's the start stock market altcoin. Yeah. Exactly. So I think part part of this is that it's a different it's it's an in institutional cycle, right? For crypto at least. There's not >> there's not a lot of retail here on the crypto side. And as and when we have an institutional cycle, they buy institutional means, institutional vehicles, and that's why they're in public markets. And so the alt season has happened. I mean, you said this on the show, I think you came on the show like six months ago, and you said this that like alt season will happen. It'll be in it'll be in public public

equities. And what happened exactly that as you just said, right? All the >> did one of the one in 10 times I've been right publicly on a live stream and nailed it. So, so it it does like as we go into 2026, give me this. What's what's your what's your view on 2026? >> I think they will generally grind up. I think it's midterm season. I think we'll unlock liquidity for all the reasons that we just discussed. And I think generally markets will go up. I just don't think like all coins wildly outperform Bitcoin across the board. That's what I'm saying about alt season. Alt season first of all like I was there for six 2016 2017 all the

cycles since my memory of it is probably like other people's you feel like alt season was this like sixmon period of glory where anything you would ever it's like looking back at your horrid like psychotic ex-girlfriend a few years later and being like man she was great I miss her you know and like glorifying all the few good things but ignoring the 99% of bad things seasons are like two weeks or a month or if you're really lucky five or six weeks and then you got to get back into Bitcoin and it gets wrecked and then you have another alt season for two weeks but it's happening below where you are if you held through that entire sort of Bitcoin phase. So like even the greatest alt seasons are short-lived and the biggest ones have

come at the end of the bull market. So like in you know whenever Bitcoin topped in 21 you know Ethereum that was like November December it was I think it was November like I think generally cycles end between now and November 20thish right but we chopped around and then I remember it was like December 4th or something I was at Art Basil and Bitcoin like broke below 52 and dropped to 42 really fast and bounced back. I was at a party that Diplo was DJing with all the FTX guys and Coinbase guys and cryptogens and art basil. Nobody's phone worked and they were all screaming that they were going to get liquidated while trying to update the price and nobody could get their phones in to work on their things. And we just heard Bitcoin dropping, Bitcoin dropping, like an echo

around the whole thing. And everybody thought it only gone from like 52 to 49, but it went to 42 in between in like one hour. I'll never forget that day. And my wife looked at me and said, "Do we need to do something?" And I looked at her drunkenly and said, "Diamond hands." It was the worst response. Um, and so, you know, but uh >> she's like, "You're gonna buy me a new rock? Great. Thanks, God." Oh, diamond hands. H embarrassing. Uh so, you know, I was like with the guys from Star Atlas and that was probably the peak of their token and all this stuff. I'll never forget like Mike. Um and so I remember that and then ETH went to an all-time high in January. Like even though Bitcoin broke 52 to 42 and then kind of bounced and chopped around, altcoins went nuts for like a month or a month

and a half and then that was the top top top of the bull market before years of doom and gloom, right? Right? Then we went into 22 and we got FTX, Voyager, Celsius, just horrid, right? And so even if you're cheering for alt season, you might be if you believe in cycles, you might be cheering for the end of it. >> It's 100%. That's what you're you're cheering for the euphoric blowoff the top. I'm just saying like, you know, like a euphoric blowoff top, but like that euphoric blowoff top is probably going to come with my positions going up two or 3x and being down 85% from if I had just sold them before this cycle.

Great. >> Yeah. And mo and and and most most people most people won't take profit at the right time. >> No, because once it's up 3x, it's going up 30x. We all know that science. [Laughter] Oh man, it is so even this episode is confusing, you know, like everything we're talking about. >> Anybody honestly, I really think anybody who speaks with any certainty in the market right now is either selling you something or self-diluted. >> Yeah.

>> You just like and and self-diluted is a is a very common thing in markets. So like you know like and you can be euphoric or you can be convincing yourself of a narrative but I think if you zoom out and look at it objectively it's very confusing for anyone even high conviction it's very confusing. >> So so good luck out there everybody >> buy token 943 on coin market cap because that's going to be the one guys. It's going to be your lottery ticket. >> Should we all buy Zcash? Isn't Zcash going to be a 10?

>> That's being pumped by a bunch of I mean that I don't think >> everyone's pumped. Why is everyone like like like big big >> I don't know much but I know that when I look at that it is not a coincidence, >> right? That's that's I I feel the same way. But I also get like with this >> I haven't paid that much attention to it. I just see the price go up and then like I see you know tweets all over the place and the ecosystem and stuff and it just reeks of like I'm not saying even as a negative massively. It just feels like a whole bunch of people got together and were like >> which thing can we really surprise people with and catch like you're like oh well you know privacy is a really good narrative right now. Let's like

grab on to one of those and let's and maybe they're building legitimate things on it and that's why it's going up. I'm just saying that clearly there was a lot of people that decided to focus on that >> at one time. I'm not saying in a nefarious way they were like we're going to pump it 10x and then dump it on everyone. I have no idea. But maybe they were like, "This is the place we can actually like get something done and make some money for the next few months of this cycle." >> Yeah. >> They did not call me, >> whoever they are. >> All right. >> Very much sidelined on Zcash. >> You miss you missed out on Scott being involved. Come on, guys.

>> So, you know, I'm not I'm not unfortunately I'm not part of the Zcash Kabal. I'm saying this sarcastically. very fortunately because there's an SEC and I want nothing to do with any of it. But but I'm just saying like uh it does feel like very uh >> non-coincidental. >> Yeah, it it feels like coordinated marketing to me when you see this many people talking about at the same time which it works. It it is effective, right? like highly high effective and that's scary when you're when you're unsure and there's so many investors who are just they just buy what other people tell them to buy without actually knowing and I'll bet you a lot of people buying Zcash they're not looking into what you're talking about of like are they actually building something is this

something real they're just you know hey other people are talking about it okay I'm in it's uh yeah it's it's it's it's tough out there Scott pleasure to get you back on the show today I hope we can get you back on this month that we got >> it's a lot of fun any anytime. It's fun. I love, you know, like you can't laugh at yourself and kind of how nonsensical things have become. Like, you know, it's I admit it. I Everything I say could be completely wrong. And I would not be surprised by any of it because >> Let me let me ask you let me ask you this. Um, and you can you can either take this serious or we can continue to be to make jokes because either way it's fun. Uh would you there's a lot of I think a lot

of our listeners are in a feeling of panic selling right now. Like I think there's this feeling of oh the we are still in a four-year cycle. Uh prices are going down. We we might have topped. What would be your advice to somebody who's sitting there thinking pushing the sell button on on on on things that they've held for a long time? They're not traders. They're investors. sell. Well, a a like you have to know where you're going to put that money. So, I think you can't just like arbitrarily sell. Um, you know, and if you sell into cash, you're going to want to yield on that cash and you know that those yields are going to come down. So, I think you have to kind of just consider that. I would just say sell

some like markets isn't a binary decision. Sell 20%. You know, you'll like it'll push back the larger decision a bit further. you'll feel like you did something and you won't make a tragic error that you'll want to kill yourself over if markets double again. You know, like nobody ever went broke taking profit and everybody should be scaling in and out of positions. So, I would say that there's a lot of people who go, I'm panicking and sell everything. That's probably never the right decision, right? Only to buy it back higher. >> Well said, Scott. Pleasure to get you back on the show today. Thanks for joining us.

>> Thank you, man. >> Thanks for tuning in, everybody. We got to remind you as always, none of today's episode is financial advice. Today's episode for educationalformational purposes only. We'll see you back again tomorrow. Have awesome day. 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%. 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.