25. BANKLESS Special | David Hoffman Interviews the Alfalfa Boys - Transcripts

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of Alfalfa. I am so pumped for this one. This is a very special episode as promised, the one and only, the legend himself. David Hoffman from Bank List is here interviewing us for this episode. Now, if you're coming here because you discovered us uh from Bank, let's welcome Bank List Nation. Thank you for being here. A bunch of you have been piling into the discord already, sending us the good vibes and the feedback, making fun of the logo, all kinds of good chat happening already. If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to the show. All the links to everything, all the good things are below in the description at Alfalfa pod dot com. Now, Alfalfa O G s, we're really proud of this. Thank you for being with us. It's been 25 episodes now and you know, it's crazy.

Welcome back this Nation to a one of a kind show on Bank List. Brand new guests, A brand new format, different kind of content. We've got four members of the Alfalfa podcast And here they are on our hands. We've got a yield farmer with a chip in his brain, he can calculate a P. Y. In his head, but he can't understand the opposite gender. Which is ironic because he's got more farms than you've had girlfriends. Ladies and gentlemen. Degen Spartans apprentice steven Cesaro.

Thank you. That's beautiful.

I like that one.

Welcome

buddy. Coming up next. A man who's confused as to whether he's an investor or a painter. He can't really sell his art because he only accepts the man whose cash flow is up only but his portfolio just bores me. He's built a lot of companies, but none of them count because they don't have tokens. I think he's got a crypto punk and but at least there's one on his hat. He's the reason why we're all here today and why we'll all be hungover tomorrow. Nicole Bonnie,

please buy my art. I have a habit to support

coming in hot the chinese dutchman, He's got C. F. A. On his twitter handle so you can't really trust him. The only person here who's got an actual job. But at least he's funneling boomer bills into our bags. Ladies and gentlemen, the crypto financial analyst eric Johanson, I

got you guys. Yeah. Dollar bills are coming

in and last but not least the latest and greatest holding down the fort when he talks to his insta stories. It feels like he's talking to me if he were an author, he write romance novels with himself as the main character. The man that identifies as a beard.

Our man, beautiful beard.

I think

we got one more. I think we have one more.

The

only thing he's rug pulling is the city of san Diego.

Crypto

girls swoon. But he is in a committed relationship with his plants. He feeds us more smoked salmon than alpha. It's the slayer of molokai, our fearless friend leading us into the frontier. David, Hoffman. Everyone trust us. So good. I'm so glad I didn't read those beforehand.

Stephen hasn't

read a single message on our texture. I've never read about two years.

You can tell because the tunes in about three hours late and he's like guys, what have you been talking about? Okay, so bank station, this is the Alpha Alpha podcast. These are for that I've met in my time here in san Diego and I'm very sad to leave them. But they are hard committed to their podcasts. And so their podcast is gonna be the main topic of conversation today. So to get started on that, whose idea was Alfalfa podcast. How did this get started?

Yeah, that's a good question. I don't know if I would say it was my idea, but I have, I have my flow with our, okay, I pulled them into this and I pulled them individually onto my podcast and then eventually I said, what if we all got together and did one together? We called it tipsy talk and they were a hit and mostly just because I had a blast and I had fun and I'm sitting with my three best friends in the world, getting to shoot the ship talk, life, alpha politics investing crypto. And then we did a second one and a third one, and then I just started incessantly pushing the idea of a podcast. It's like, why are we doing this on my show? This should be its own thing. How many months did it take to like, fully get you guys? Arman has got another nickname. It's the Wolf, because the wolf will pressure you clear pressure you into doing things. We have lots of all caps, all caps text messages. None of us like the idea of being like a persona online actually, except Armand really steven, steven kind of likes it too. But like, I think like, Nick and I have been like, kind of avoiding sort of putting our head out of this hole and now, like, we're being coaxed and you're so good at it.

I've been watching it through and through and it's getting better and better and better and more and more DJ and you guys are coming out of your personalities as this goes along. Um, but why does the world need Alfalfa? What, what is the alpha that alfalfa has to bring to the table?

I mean, I think, you know, banquets has, its, its values right? And those come through and through the content and how you guys conduct yourself and your guys perspectives on the industry. And I think we definitely have our values as well, like our core values of that, you know, it's critical for people to have a group of friends that they respect and they think are thoughtful to kind of dissect the world around them and figure out what is our perspective and how do we go forward? So whether you have a crew, you know, in person with your friends or not, like come come join us, we think that, you know, it's success. It's critical to be successful in life and to get fulfillment to have people to bounce ideas off of, so we go into crypto and investing is number one, we talk a little politics, you know, and, and I think most people don't want to get into politics or, or be active, but the next best thing is to be informed, you know, over time, create a perspective for yourself, so you can talk about it with your friends and and maybe create change that way and then yeah, of course a little life Alfalfa because we're all good friends. We've been friends for a long time. We help each other out through the opportunities life presents itself in the, in the troubles. So naturally we gotta help each other out and make sure we miss the, you know, philosophical pitfalls of being a crypto dejan investor I think.

Yeah, I think at banquets we definitely try and promote everyone to just basically take the crypto pill and stop taking every other pill and only think about crypto for the rest of your life. Like only by each, only buy Bitcoin, only think about the merge, only think about staking because we got to promote crypto to the rest of the world and I think you guys are the much more healthy and balanced side of that is like, okay, here's how crypto fits into the world, Here's how you can integrate this and have a part of your life. But then when you talk about life Alfalfa, you also talk about work life balance and just like how to do other things in relation to all your investments. You guys are all crypto people, but crypto is part of my identity and I don't think you guys have that. You haven't gone that far down into the

crypto. You know, it was eric that actually said this one time. He's like, I don't give a fuck if it's called crypto or it's called smorgasbord or whatever the hell it is. It's the thing that's interesting right now, that's giving me the most alpha. It's the thing in life right now that we are paying the most attention to, it doesn't matter what it is, but that's where we're currently putting our attention. But you know, you come from like, trad five background and that's what became most exciting to you and we all started pivoting towards that. But it could be anything. It's just the common denominator. I think right now, I'm a devout listener to the bank this podcast and I give you guys a lot of credit in in in my adoption into this industry. And like, um one thing I noticed was when you were talking with SBF, he said, he he chased the money into, into crypto and then he like, got sort of killed by the values and that's exactly where I'm at, like, I wanted the returns, but then after like, getting deeper and deeper into it. And like, especially listening to what you guys are talking about, I'm like, wait a second, this is actually better for humanity. Crypto

should by its own merits, like work their way into everyone's portfolios. But I think you guys like, I will never say that like, Kryptos is not the right time to get into crypto because because of like, it's more for like, you know, you can get in here as a long term investment, not just for you and your financial assets, no matter what part of the cycle that you're in because crypto is good for good for the world, but you guys are like, well it kind of feels like a top right now guys, like let's start talking about real estate and like some other some other assets. Um

We do owe it to Stephen for dragging us along like big time I think. Yeah, maybe I pushed the podcast with steven is the one that dragged us along with crypto. Hello Lord. But this is a good entrance for the defi nihilist. Speaking of toppy tops and what we're gonna do for you, what do you want to talk about? Everything's dead, We're all gonna die, die. Almost everything. Yeah. Time out there right now.

You're a fan of this is going to be as bad as blended as bloody as all the previous cycles.

Uh Yeah, I'm kind of open to the idea that it could be worse. Oh

alright, let's change subjects.

I don't know how how sunny do you want to keep this thing?

I think actually we will return to the d finalist last because we'll go into that after after after we do all of this. And so we talked a little bit about what Alfalfa is. It's a bunch of different things, A little bit of crypto, a little bit of real estate, a little bit of normal finance, a little bit of life Alfalfa, I'm sure you guys talked about, even like health stuff sometimes every now and then too. So let's go into each one of you guys just explore who you guys are for the audience, for the banquet audience will end with steven so he can just bring us all down.

Uh

but we'll start with Nick because Nick and I have an interesting story about how how I met

him. Should we talk about our origin story?

You want to do that?

Oh man. Well I was showcasing some art at a local neighborhood art festival and this guy comes up and says can I take a picture of your art and your art is amazing by the way, oh thank you, thank you. It's only purchase neath. Um he says can I take a picture art? And I'm like sure, go ahead and do a double take and I'm like, oh God this is gonna be really weird. I'm like, hey man, are you the guy in the bank this podcast? And he's like yeah sure, well what a crazy weird fan again. And uh you know, are you into crypto and I pull off my, my hat which has my crypto punk on it and show it is like my verified street cred that I am in fact in the crypto point to the Q. R. Code that says only purchase anything and then he just leaves me just ghost guys. Our our our story could have just ended

ended

very quickly, could have been like one of those like MS connections on craigslist. Well, how are you feeling in that moment when he's just like, cool, we'll see you. I was like, well, yeah, like ghosted at a bar. I wanted, I wanted to post on craigslist. Missed connections guy with black Crypto upon cat. Sorry, I didn't get your number, but luckily David came back a few hours later and um, you know, I told him, I said, hey, we got this great group of guys that get together, typically every Wednesday we like to dive deeper into crypto in life and be a little thoughtful. I think it'd be cool if, uh, you know, you come by and I think from their little hundreds of friendship seeds were planted.

Yeah, no, that's about right from, from my perspective on things. I was on my way to the gym. Uh, and so I had gym on my mind, but there was the art walk going on. So it's like, I'll take the long way to the gym and I'll check out all the art. And that's when I saw, I saw your painting of all the fists, the power fists with all the skin tones on it. Um, and then I, and then I, uh, you get out of that, that conversation very quickly and I'm in the gym and I'm like, this is like not even two months of my time in SAN Diego. And I'm like just doing the foam roller, just like reflecting on, oh, I just met a guy about my age except that he lives like a couple blocks down from me. He owns a crypto punk. So clearly he's into it. And I just was like, all right, bye. And just like my social awkwardness was like, oh yeah, this is where you make friends, David. This is like how friends happen.

Yeah, that's good cause I told my girlfriend I was sad and then I was happy when you came back. So I worked out

a little bit more about nick like you're what? You, you're a painter, but you also

have a fighter.

Yeah. Hello. Fighter. Yeah. So like, what, what Alfalfa do you have to bring to the table?

Well, let's see. Started to ratify managing money and 401K plans and quickly saw digital media and digital marketing growing figured a trend I need to get on and not be left behind. So started, helped build a digital marketing consulting firm that turned out pretty well and then got hired by one of our clients to be ceo of the company. It was a growing software company and they're learned how to manage large groups of software engineers and at some point I was like, well, I'm gonna take this skill and, and go off on my own. And so had like a few companies that did did pretty well and, and kind of find myself managing to e commerce companies right now, operating them. And got into crypto in 2017 I think between companies and like many people was asking myself, you know, how do I like intelligently manage my money in my investments and, and do a good job and then proceeded to do the exact opposite and trade ship coins on Coinbase all day long. Like, like it was my job and luckily, you know, made it out alive and got back in like 2019, early 2020 talk to Stephen about Bitcoin about, you know, potential store value. And then on Wednesday, Stephen starts showing up telling he's getting 50 100% plus yields on these food tokens, Sushi, Uni swap, pancake swap. And I think he lost, he lost millions of dollars selling his pancakes, talked to earlier and I was like, wait a second, I should I should I get involved in this. And I think the rabbit hole just got really big all of a sudden and just sucked me in and you know, we start a little uh crypto gaming guild is a sandbox to kind of learn the area, learn the players on the economics and try not to scratch the itch to build just yet. Um just enjoying the conversations with the boys in the Alfalfa podcast for now

and that is nickel Bonnie. Ladies and gentlemen, let's turn to the man who identifies as a beard Armand what's your story?

My story? So lately I've been calling myself a thinker, builder and creator because it's almost impossible

to

thank you, it's

impossible

to encapsulate yourself. And uh you know, the great Alan Watts here of mine always said like it's irrelevant to describe the past. It's just whoever you are today. So I'm a thinker. I'm very philosophical, I love modern psychology as well. I spend a lot of my time reading random ship that most people aren't interested in, but every once in a while I get to Sprinkle it into Alfalfa every once in a while I get to go really deep down the rabbit hole with these guys, especially this guy, he likes to follow me down into these crazy ass places and uh that's, that's where I get the most enjoyment out of life. Um, builder, building a company called collective shift right now, crypto analysis education platform. We're doing some huge things and uh crater, you know, podcaster actually, I am an author working on the first

book, it's not a romance,

uh, not a romance model, it's very philosophical. Um, it's a tentative title is unleashed and uh yeah man, I'm, I'm just creating, I'm building, I have this incessant burning desire to put everything I have inside of me out on the court. Like I have the constant awareness that I am a mortal being and one day I will no longer be here. And I also realize that most of the great people that we remember from the past, we barely remember. They are forgotten. And the best case scenario for them is that they get a statue and sometimes even the statue gets torn down because society says fuck that person now. So what am I here for? What am I trying to do? I'm constantly thinking about that. I think it's a driving force for my whole life and if it wasn't for these guys and my friends and the amazing people in san Diego, I'm really sad to lose you. Uh you'd be lost. That's the most important thing in life.

and Arman is the in the intro I had the guy whose back is broken from carrying this podcast. He is there, he is the guy

you feel so validated, valuable. Thank you. So somebody finally recognizes our Thank you David for the conflict resolution.

Gonna have to go to group therapy after this one. Or maybe that's what this is. He's the one with all the microphones and all the cabling and also does all the content editing and so he's the reason why Alfalfa looks like bank list if you follow it on instagram and you will actually think you guys kind of edit your clips even hotter than we do sometimes to

be clear. I don't actually edit them. But yes, we make

It. I don't I don't know either brother Louis Alright coming 3rd 3rd but not least. Eric How are you man?

Okay, so my story begins at SAn Diego State University. I was not a C. F. A. At this point I was filming MTV dating shows, working, trying to work in the NFL, I was working for the SAn, Diego chargers as an intern and like I was also like making straight A's and being on the Dean's list and stuff. Thank goodness. I met these boys because they like sort of redirected my energies towards like uh what I would call like my my career pursuits and um you know, I think after after graduating college I went into like corporate finance, investment finance or whatever, but you know in 2019 nick and Armand brought Stephen around steven introduced me to this thing called defi. And uh from there I was like wait a second, I had previously thought of crypto like in the in the warren Buffett and charlie munger sort of like the way I was like this ship so scam e and disgusting. And then when I was I saw that these were not just speculative uh coins, they could be like used as capital assets or or you know like collateral, I was like wait a second, there might be legs here and then I dug deeper in and like got into L. Peeing and everything like I really was unleashed in uh that like early covid time when we were still meeting up on Wednesdays, everyone else was kind of locked in but we were, we were like doing our little pot and it was awesome. Who owns the rights to eric's baptism, Who set up his crypto baptism of setting up his meta mask wallet, was it you? Or first of all, nobody, I leaned on Stephen and somebody was like, okay, so I put two assets into LP and stevens like I'm drunk, I'm like, well I'm down like $400 on gas like help me and you're like I'm too drunk and I was like what I didn't understand and like gas was so high like during the summer like I was just like lost, I didn't know what I was doing, I had this LP token and like I didn't know you to state that I was just like, I figured out on my own but these, these were like educational expenses and you know, and now you got, you know, trad fi like wealth management clients coming to you saying.

Wait, the guy that, that lost $1 million dollars on pancake swap is the reason why you're coming

Top ticket is multimillions.

I alright, steven the man that made a million dollars on pancake swap, who the hell are you?

I wish I made a million dollars on pancakes, I think I bought it at a penny and sold about eight cents and thought I was a genius and then it went up to like $38 and I was very early on that kind of people want to farm and finance chain is cheap so people are gonna go there right and a lot of people were kind of doing the big brain, oh no theory of decentralized, people don't want that. And I was like, no people want to gamble, I'm gonna start farming on pancake swap, but I didn't, I didn't really have an exit strategy. I just, I threw like five grand in there and I went to like 100 grand, I was like I should probably sell. And then like I checked like a couple months later it would have been like three million. You know, I have a lot of stories like that from the last Bridgewater, maybe poker professional poker players. My yeah, yeah, so out of college, my first job was working as a emerging market bonds trader for, for Bridgewater, which is Ray Dalio's hedge fund that was during the great financial crisis. So that was, that was like a baptism by fire for me, fortunately I went in, I realized we were short the world and immediately sold all of my stocks because I figure they're probably smarter than me. So I did did well on that trade did badly on some other trades. I remember one time I I accidentally bought $100 million of Brazilian bonds instead of selling them. Uh fat finger, which is a pretty big fat finger, that's my biggest fat finger of all time. They didn't fire me, which is really nice. We accidentally made money on the trade that happened.

shaking

so hard. I remember the very first hand look, this is, this is an honest to God true story, I got pocket kings and I was like, oh you're so fucked Phil um so he raised, I re raised, he went all in, I called, he had aces, I like immediately lost $30,000 I was 24 at the time too. It's like, oh my God, but that ended up being the most I was ever down in that match. I came back, I think I won like a million, million and a half or something off of him. And then he quit me. And then I got a lot of free drinks for a while. No, that started at a far earlier age to be fair. I actually don't think you're a nihilist. I just like, I do sometimes. Um, yeah, I played poker for a while. Ultimately the government, you know, kind of band hammered us came down one day, opened up my computer, there was like an FBI logo on the screen and I was living with four friends in a house at the time that, that we kind of bought together, we were playing poker and we just looked at each other like that's, that's bad. Right?

grand.

So, so so learning the, you know adjusted again. Okay, so the, the answer is not to never sell anything. Um and then you know I've been planning for this last last bull markets come around again and when I, when I felt like it was time you know I was working in online marketing and I knew this guy that I didn't really know him, I just knew his screen name, there are a lot of people who were like cannons and like the online marketing world because people were doing shady stuff um so I just knew him as this kind of guy on telegram and he was just like yo bro synthetics, ethereum chain link, I was like what? He's like those are the, those are the, those are the, he just like just kept saying that over and over again, I was like what are you talking about because I was like a hardcore Bitcoin at the time because I just been annihilated and I hated shit coins and I kind of hated crypto but I mostly hated cheat coins and I thought ethereum Bitcoin everything was a ship coin but he was like you know you got a farm to farm bro, I was like what are you talking about? He's like you stake money and you get free money like that sounds like a scam and it was, it was kind of, it was kind of a scam, you know I used to now it's all gone to zero but

we

had a good run for a while so yeah I tried to defy thing out like way early. I was farming all like the food stuff like the, the yams and the grapes and like that, I don't know, it was, it was like the stupidest thing back in the day, but like I was obviously making tons of money so I quit my company and I just went full time crypto um got really, really into it. I brought all these guys along with me um show them crypto punks, which I sold way too early and you know, a whole bunch of other stuff. So yeah, it's been a it's been a fun ride. I mean, I think the the the defi farming thing is it's definitely done right now. So I've been uh trying to think like what's the, what's the next thing?

I think of everyone here, you are definitely the resident Kobe in the sense that somehow you're like good at making money. Also good at losing money. Also super nihilist. I think it, I think it all fits.

I've just gotten rug so many times at this point, many of them just like self induced rugs, you know, I'm a little bit, we did 11 listener remark and maybe because of you that either I'm gonna get really rich or really poor, really, really quickly listen to this, but otherwise it's gonna be fun and I think it's mostly because if you're a degen farming for sure. Alright,

so now that we've established the characters, what's the through line, what's the through line behind all of you guys? These guys are all not just podcast co host. You guys are just also friends. Um, but the best podcasts have the best banter because the best banter comes from the best friend. So what is the through line behind all of

this? This pot I think is we during Covid we started doing this thing called like men's Night. We found like the one place in town that was open. Still another thing I had to drag them to do. You do not have to drag me to do that. You're like, do you want to do a podcast? And I said, yes, I reject this storyline. Um, yeah, we, we found the cigar lounge in, in old town which was thriving during Covid because some city ordinances basically allowed them to take over the entire like plaza patio. Yeah. And they like quintupled their capacity and then they were the only place open. So they became the spot and we just started going there every Wednesday night and smoking cigars and hanging out Churchill's san Diego. Yes.

Yeah. When I listened to your, the first Alfalfa podcast, remember which one it was? It was it was you guys were contending with so much different sources of information. It was like, well, here's what this source thinks, Here's what this source thinks. And you guys were all bring your own like thoughts about different sources to the table. And so I remember hearing, I can't remember what it was, but like you guys said, oh, well Bank List said this, but then somebody else said that and I'm like, but we're right guys, but we're the right. But the point is, it's just like you guys are are not a uh, bank list is like, we try and do primary research. We try and do our, do our own thought, but we project it out into the world and it's ultimately up to the listeners to come up with their version of the truth and a sad thing about the crypto industry is that so many people just want to be told what is true, right? And so many projects lean on that. And just to say like, well, there's so many people asking just, hey, please deliver me the truth. So I can just get the Alpha from it where you guys are coming in, you're integrating bank list and you're integrating other experts in the field regardless of whether it's about crypto or it's about like political matters or it's about whatever. And so where alfalfa or excuse me, where banquets is, it's like, here's the information about ethereum and ether and the merge.

Yeah. And we can get into the differences between the two podcasts for sure. But just to add on to that, I think most people are aware that the extremes are often the loudest voice, the extremes, the left, the right, the men, the max are often the ones that get the most attention. And I think we all also know inherently that the truth is not, does not lie on those extremes. And so it's a muddy middle and we have to, you know, find groups of people that we respect that we think are thoughtful to hash through those and we're not always gonna get it right. But at least the process of questioning those things leads us to a little more truth and uh, yeah, hopefully make a little more money in the process and and understand how we perceive the world along the way. I mean, I've often asked that, right, We've talked about this on the pot. It's like how do you find any level of objective truth at all when you have all of this absolute chaos and madness and everyone has these terrible incentive structures to feed you lies. And I think this was one of your points. It's like it comes down to the people you surround yourself with because they're doing the filtering for you. So one of the benefits of like, I don't know, listening to a podcast or having a great group of friends or listening to the podcast because they're like your auxiliary group of friends is that they're doing that filtering for you, you're determining the truth together. But in the same way as bank list, you leave it up to the listener at the end of the day to determine for themselves what's the truth here?

The angle that we try to promote at banquets is that we don't teach you what to think. We teach you how to think. Uh and so like we do have like heavy emphasis on the theory of decentralization, uh, and and all and all those things, but we also promote how we got there in the first place. And I think that is they're the commonality between alfalfa and bank list is it's not just uh we don't skip to the conclusions, we, we process it and as together as a group and then go through that journey together.

Absolutely. I mean, I think you know bank list is the best at teaching teaching a specific topic an opportunity. I mean you guys are impeccable about grabbing an expert and then using the Socratic method to kind of literally bring the listener um onto a new topic or a new opportunity. And I kind of think of like every, every time I sit down I'm gonna sit down for class because I'm gonna learn something and you guys fulfill that promise every single time. And then I think like where alfalfa comes in is like when you leave class, you want to go to the bar and drink with your buddies and be like, what do we think about this topic? So they taught us a little bit how to think about this, They taught us this new topic. So let's sit around the bar and figure out what do we think about this, How can we make money off this and how do we position ourselves if we think it is an opportunity to take advantage of it. So I don't know that's how I kind of find um you know like where they, to kind of parlay off each other and I appreciate never take us too seriously

basically

way actually like that. I, I like what you just said that because what Alfalfa does really well is that we, we are trying to make money too, like it is about Alpha as well as truth. Like, you know, you can get it, you can get it right, but if you don't make money getting it right, then you know like how do you make money get, how do you make money get Doesn't care about money though.

Like

he's above, he's he's almost like hovering like the whole podcast, we did a whole episode on like the idea of wealth and money to like, you know the mexican parable episode where it's like, it isn't about money necessarily, you know, you can, you can like get to the end, circumventing the money just by like living this rich life that that is doing what you love. And I think that's very cool too. But the first thing we do in the podcast is talk about the money. Oh yeah, Oh yeah, I feel like I want to give a little interest to the agenda. That's okay because I think it does give a little, you know, uh it signals some of the differences. So first of all there's drinking involved, I think there's a as we are now very good uh that we're all enjoying. Um so I think there's a two drink minimum typically before we hit record and we can only do it once a week. We only do that to our bodies once a week. So it's a weekly podcast comes out on friday mornings and right at the top, we hit the alfalfa round, which is basically round Robin, you know, what trades, what actual trades and moves do we make in the market and you know, we know the bags the bankers crew is holding and they're wrong, but we try to dive a little deeper into like what am I doing with my own money, You know, whether that's long short or sometimes it gets a little more, this round has gotten very sad recently, a lot more exciting in the market for sure. But sometimes you do this week sold, there's been like an epic, epic moneymaking opportunity on the short side in the last like six months actually like, which I think a lot of us have taken advantage of for sure. So we do a little more, you know, spicy stuff like a little derivatives options but more than Btc Andy some ALTs and N F T s of course is part of it. And then we hit into like crypto like and making money as the number one priority.

enjoyable thing about listening to it is that very much comes off as a squad. It's very big squad wealth vibes. Uh, and it's like, well, what's the point of making money together? If I have no friends to take with me along the way. Right. And that's definitely something I've enjoyed getting to know all of you guys is that like, uh, well, money making money making money comes first in the podcast. It's because you got to end on a high note and you gotta end on the life alfalfa the land and on the friend Alfalfa. I don't know if I'm just keep on butchering the word alfalfa and over again, but that's how you guys

just keep just keep

repeating

existence. But I mean to your point, we often talk about this, this Harvard study called the Grant study and and it's it is to your point, it was a longitudinal study. It was an 80 year study where they took these Harvard graduates and they fall through them throughout their life all the way until a lot of them are on their deathbed and even even past and they interview them along the way. And and funny enough, a lot of them show, you know, dispersion on where they ended up in life, but consistently they found the most important thing you know throughout life and at the end of your life was that your relationships, your community that you build and for crypto people and listeners, it's online and in person as well is what makes you happier and in fact having that close community and that group of respectable thoughtful people to bounce off of actually influences a lot of health outcomes. So so it helped create more wealth for those people. It helped create better health outcomes and help people That was the surprise they were studying happiness. They wanted to know what fulfillment looks like. And then all of a sudden these people live longer and they were healthier. It was a huge surprise for them. Yeah. And so I think that's like common, you know, a common thread common to the values that like you, you need these groups of people. So you know, we want people to come come join us and and partake and, and you know, ask questions as well, you know about help us dive deeper into what should our perspective be about the world and obviously crypto and into making money.

Yeah. What does the squad wealth mean to you guys? I'll see you

guys. Good question.

I

think the most important thing is to be able to share in the experiences, right? So as you get older, maybe you have kids, maybe you don't, maybe you move, maybe you don't, um, you want to start to partake in experiences that are more luxurious that are more interesting. I think there's a very important factor of like watching out for hedonic adaptation. Another major theme that I think actually unifies us. Um, yes, we all make money and we love what we do, but we're all very like aware of the fact that, you know, too much luxury can actually really hurt your level of enjoyment. So it's like, yeah, sure. I think like one of one of you will probably be on steven's private yet. But the point, the point isn't that it's, it's deeply rooted in gratitude. It's deeply rooted in what we already have and having that and being appreciative of what you have creates more. And so I think the ability to then share in those extra bonus luxury cherry on top experiences becomes even sweeter as a result of it. That's what it means for me because if I was, you know, at a level where I wasn't able to either take care of my friends in the process and treat them to the entire experience or they weren't able to participate with me, it would be completely meaningless, but when you find that alpha, it's it's not fun if you just keep it for yourself, but if you and the whole crew can can make money off it, how much more fun is it? And I think biology has this phrase like win and help win and that's like a little mantra that I try to like, you know, repeat in my head is like win, but also let's make sure that everyone comes along for the ride because like it's just a whole lot more part of it to go ahead, but part of it is like it's a positive sum game, it's an abundant game.

All right, all right, go ahead. Eric I

think like my my answer is more of a question and it's a question all you guys like I'm sure we all have other friends outside of this table five, right? And like, um for me, I have friends that we talk about sports and girls okay. Like that's just like, so yeah, great dogs. But like, this is like, uh, steven wants to kill

himself, but

these are like, very uh you know, they're like, basil, you know, like, this is like, what you grew up talking about, right? And I still have that have that with other guys. But with this crew, that's unique, is that, like, we still have this like camaraderie and this friendship, but like, the conversation elevated, you know, we talk about how to improve our lifestyles and things like, like these are like, way cooler conversations and like, I don't find that very often and and when, when I found that with you guys, like, I saw the value here and I was like, holy sh it, we need to share this. Like, we want other people to get involved. I remember when I won't name them, but this guy came to our Wednesday and he's he's come back consistently. But he he was so over the moon about what he was exposed to. He was just like, this is the most enlightening conversation and group of people I've ever met and I I know that because I'm grateful for these guys. So I say that not in a way, like, oh, I'm so proud, but like, no, no, no, I'm so grateful. Like, wow, I know these guys and you've said that to David, you're like, this crew is different, it's special. And I remember this guy showed up and he edified that and he acknowledged that and validated and I was like, yeah, I'm in the right place. I think this is why we connected very quick with you. David is like, I think you even mentioned it.

I think we do. I don't well, I guess you're the listener. So, so maybe you, you would have better and better alfalfa about that than I do. Um I do think that like uh the bank lists content style has like latched onto communities that otherwise wouldn't have because of the authenticity. And so maybe it's the authenticity word as to where that alignment does happen. As in like banquets. One of the reasons why banquets was so successful coming out of the 2019 2020 bear market because we were the first major media organization that wasn't here to show you their token, right? Like we were. Yeah. And, and so like that authenticity came out. Uh and one thing I was talking to you Arman when we were here in um uh uh Joshua tree was that this was the first group of, of men that it was the relationship amongst men was a little bit inverted in the sense that, you know, in high school, like dude clicks, if you like expose your vulnerabilities, it's like, here's what it's like emotionally troubling me. You would get a slap on the wrist, like don't talk about that.

And I think the reason for that, because you

said it,

I

like your

version better. Honestly was

lost in transit if

I heard that for the first time,

but

well said, and I think the reason for that is because it's rooted in authenticity. So if somebody was not being forthcoming, it would just be like what the fun

bro. Yeah.

What's going on? So yeah, said

myself,

You're so smart and good looking

steven. Why are you tough enough to crack man.

Oh that's a good question. We just want to know how much time we have just I just don't like being vulnerable man. You know it's like being on my own island. You're vulnerable about your portfolio sometimes. Yeah, I have an outlet through my financial nihilism, you know, it's like where I that's where I express my inner turmoil through my my my financial digesting and I think it becomes a meme in and of itself. Like here's Stephen not sharing again, you

know,

real

life, is this a two glass conversation out of one glass conversation

necessary? I feel like I lose money so you don't you don't have to wait like jesus christ in that way.

Oh my God, you guys should open as a tag steven loses money so you don't have

to wait

guys. Um Let's talk about some markets. Um go around the table, barrister polish and then we'll kind of unpack those things later on, starting with number one Armen bullish. Well

what time horizon?

Um whatever your current bags reflect right now

bullish

bullish. All right,

good luck to

you, do we have the bulls and the bears with the white and the black, is that what's going

on? But obviously I'm gonna watch my portfolio go down another 50% 80% according to Stephen. We'll see but I'm happy where I'm sitting. I like what I'm holding, I got rid of what I need to get rid of? I

yeah.

yeah I think I played the games I wanted to

play

within all coins within N. F. T. S. I got into some communities. I learned how they function. I now understand the infrastructure that so many of these projects are built on. Um I've barely scratched the surface in many ways and where I'm at right now I'm just very happy with it. Um but like will I be able to withstand the volatility of like watching my portfolio go down 80 personally. Yeah because I'm in this for like I mean life, I don't know like I mean this is modern finance.

I'm gonna go interpret that as actually bearish.

He's

prepared to be kicked in the balls.

I'm gonna get kicked in the balls and I think like sure let's see this this last 12 1824 months but long term what I'm holding overall bullish. But yeah we're obviously very bearish in the short term

eric parrish bush.

So this is a nuanced conversation uh Like this side of the, okay so this side of the table in particular has been very good about about moderating bullishness. Stephen in particular like on one of our first episodes like we've labeled this clip like Stephen predicts doom in 2022 and he did that in 2021. So like uh you know we are not long only On Alfalfa. We we like play markets as we see markets and I think that is a benefit. You know like um you know, I was around for many bear market, I was around in 2000 2001 Stephen as well like I've seen ship go down.

I forgot to mention that you guys are old. I forgot

about uh some

uh older

Than some. Okay, so like when I, when I was trading in 2000 like I was 14 years old, like I wasn't that I wasn't that

old but

like shaking with my cane. Uh we've seen this before and and like crypto traders have certainly seen this before. I think obviously we're bullish on the industry at large, otherwise we wouldn't be here. But it I don't want to fall into this like into this trap of saying like just because we believe the industry at large is going up into the right means that we have to trade it that way. It doesn't, it doesn't have to be that right? And like if you trade it that way sure. And you know like I remember the moment at Stephen's house, all five of us are there. And I told David Hoffman that like I sold almost all my teeth at 3500, 3400 whatever and Dave's like are

what

it's a two K. And like I think it's going lower and like I haven't even bought back like there's a long bag that I will never sell but like you know, you don't have to just raw dog it like I said on Alfalfa where you just like go unprotected forever. Like you don't have to do that. You don't have to do that. And like

they

would never sell

you. That's good for you.

Like I want like I'm wearing this shirt, I'm wearing ethereum shirt. I love just like at what point do you want to like play this thing sort of correctly versus just like raw dog and and you know, you can do that if you want. Um but I I really believe that like this crew here we're very pragmatic and and that like supersedes our our our long bias and whatever. So give me the answer. Bear bull. Yeah, he wants to bathe in the gray. No, I'm like I'm obviously bullish but like in the near term, you know, this is not the time. I don't believe this is the time to be buying right now.

I

haven't bought back in yet. But you know what? Here? Here's another thing I will say max pain. Like a lot of people talk about max Payne on crypto, twitter max Payne is watching this industry that you believe in through thoroughly run right past you as you like try to bottom tick this thing and like I refuse personally to be that guy so I will buy back in and I won't bottom ticket but like I don't believe that now like right now is the time

uh steven, we're not going with you next, you're going

last

nick. Yeah,

I mean I'm bullish on the number of like activate developers. I'm bullish on the number of active addresses like we are on this network building path that will, we're laying the infrastructure for the future of what may be like the internet or or are you know, digital economy in the future. So bullish on that. I'm kind of like a little bit of between Armand and erIC and that. Like I have bags that I I'm not a traitor. So like I have my bags and I'm gonna hold them forever. But I also want to hedge. So you know, I was calling these guys, you know, intra week saying, you know, I'm not really an active trader, I don't set up options, I don't set up shorts. But you know, I have definitely been uh, you know, buying puts on the Q. Q. Q. And and the general stock market to hedge hedge my part of the portfolio.

Although I do think your your bags are boring and they do provide alpha and so when the, when the markets ultimately do change, it's because you're boring bags told me so,

I mean it's it's kind of embarrassing to admit that like, you know, the real estate portfolio is is larger than than the crypto portfolio and I kind of want to keep it that way. Is this the place where I can be vulnerable to that trust tree love.

Yeah,

we like those cash flows from real estate.

All right, Stephen

what? Like uranium.

I didn't get that joke.

I'm very bullish on uranium. Well,

because we're talking bullish commodities. Therefore bearish everything else.

Crypto

bullish. Bearish on your bags. Well, I guess I guess you got

a lot of us dc. Actually, I'm, I still do have a lot of these actually sold all my Bitcoin. Um I still have a little bit of ease. I basically have net short exposure because I've just hedged with a bunch of coin shorts. Have you been net short before in your life? Cause I've never gone net short and like, I mean you guys, you guys know like I I shorted eat at like 3400 and my brother's bachelor party and I got stopped out on the on the jet and jet jet, it's always the jet wasn't my jet, it's worth. Um so that, that was, that was a painful mess. I mean I did, I did sell a lot of spot around 34 35. I had, I had friends who were telling me to sell like 42 43 I I didn't listen to them, but like I was, I was quick to realize that the tides have shift had shifted into to go the other way and and and since then I've progressively realized just like how much we're fucked. Uh which is a lot. I think it's, it's kind of rough right now because everybody's bearish right, which either means that we're just gonna pump and that was the bottom or nobody's really just comprehending like how bad it's going to get. Which which which is what I'm I'm concerned with.

like

there's no sample size on that outside of this one very specific like paradigm right? And if you look like very dispassionately at Bitcoin right? Like just anybody go go home and just overlay Bitcoin with like the Russell 2000 chart right? Like Bitcoin is just like, it's just like a leverage play on the Russell 2000 basically every time the Russell 2000 goes up, Bitcoin goes up a lot. Every time the russell 2000 goes sideways or down Bitcoin goes down or sideways a lot. And and the Russell 2000 is like, it's kind of like a micro cap, it's like like the smallest of stocks, right? The things you would um I presume would kind of benefit the most from like excess liquidity in the system, right? So it's very unclear to me,

it's

very unclear to me that Bitcoin is like actually like an inflation hedge versus just like the beneficiary of like the, it's just like the largest sort of like liquidity battery that might now sort of be discharged like I don't know like I think about these things right? But Bitcoin is like is like is like a good case right? You've got things like avalanche and salon or like like Harmony one, like that things going to zero, I'm sure, I'm sure all the coins but I want to ask you this like um So Russell 2000 on trading view, you can model this against like money supply. Uh and I've seen you do this before, like what's your thought on that? Like um like it's sort of just like a kind of I don't wanna say canary in the coal mine, that's not the right term. But it's sort of something that's like quarterly. But I don't know if that's the thing right? I think it's more complicated than oh we we print money because even the money printing is is nuanced, right? Do we? There's a difference between giving the banks all the money via Q. E. Basically versus like helicopter money and people via PPE and mailing them checks right?

seeing

like a like, okay,

hey, hey, hey,

look at the NASDAQ right now, there are some stocks that are down like 90 plus percent. Like their stocks in the NASDAQ, they're gonna wrecked worse than like all hell ones. Which is insane because those things are dead. Like obviously they're just dead, they're obviously dead. They don't have cash flows or any at least some of these companies like had some semblance of cash flow or there might be a cash flow in the future, but they're still dead, right? That's what I love about like sort of my client base or my peers who are saying like, oh well you're investing in crypto, you moron. And it's like, oh yeah, well my alternative was I could be invested in these like Shit codes and tech that were there only down 70% instead of I mean, arc is like a good, I think the arc like Bitcoin chart is really interesting. They're both kind of these bets on like opium and liquidity and zero interest like Bitcoin I think like does really good when you have like negative real rates because you're like, why I don't want to buy this long duration, but it's kind of similar to like gold, right? Where you're like, what? Why do I want to buy this? Long duration bond with a negative yield? Maybe I'll just buy gold right?

I've

been this was his answer to.

Okay, so, uh so you talked about monetary policy. You also talked about like a lot of these assets being dependent on liquidity. You're talking about how Bitcoin is just related to the, to the Russell, not to say that. Bitcoin just tracks russell. But also the Russell might be tracking Bitcoin, but it's more likely that they're actually tracking some more basil level things.

They're both sort of like liquidity batteries. Like there there's like this like liquidity is sort of like energy in the system and this isn't entirely my idea. I saw this on twitter once. I forgot who sounds like your inner Michael Saylor. It's like it's like the opposite of the Michael Saylor thing?

Is it? Is it a liquidity battery? Or are we just talking about the value of the denominator here?

It's like like when when you have a circuit right? Where like the fed is sort of like the battery and you think of money is like the current in the system, right? Are you familiar with the concept of like a capacitor in the circuit? The capacitor stores all this charge and it discharges it very quickly within the system. Right? So in in a in a situation where like the Fed battery is pushing like all this excess money, I eat energy into the system. It tends to flow to like the the the the capacitors in the system. Like that's where the bubbles form, where these things rapidly soak up and store that monetary energy. But capacitors once they have like a discharge gradient, right? They also very rapidly like zap out all of that energy. And like the system kind of like kind of returns to like a different state. Right?

first

of all this is David Auburn's like favorite scenario of all time.

No, no. Bitcoin is that Bitcoin are the memes

that I've been the biggest Bitcoin in this group for a while, right? I know there's been like a gripe of David's for some time, but I feel like I've been reevaluating my position on this because I think your time horizon is important. Important. I think a lot of Bitcoin as they talk in this kind of like elaborate sort of very aspirational multi decade or even century long time horizons. But like I want to, I want to buy a house and maybe have kids someday and buy stuff and like in the real world, so I care about what happens next.

Okay, so here's how I'm hearing all of this and like I agree almost 100%. And it sounds all about right. Uh and I do believe like it's all about capturing cash flows and Bitcoin had this premium in the last like two years Where it was the inflation narrative, it finally caught wind out of coming out of the bear market of 2018-2020 because the Fed started printing off money and to their credit. Bitcoin owners have nailed the Fed, they called the Fed monetary policy for like the last decade before before Bitcoin was even on anyone's radar. He said, this is what's gonna happen. Uh, there's gonna be some minor hiccup and for all intensive purposes. Uh, Covid was a minor hiccup as far as a pandemic goes, like it wasn't really, it was a worse common cold more than it was like a black plague. And all of a sudden that worse common cold causes trillions of dollars of money printing and Bitcoin sucks up all of

that. But

then as soon as money to as soon as the flows disappear, Bitcoin discharge is that it sends it back into the economy, right? So it captured the money during the bull market. But then because it has no value capture mechanism other than a meme, it puts it right back into the economy when the time comes to it. And so asking myself, David, are you bullish or bearish? I can't say I'll ask myself the question. Yeah.

Uh,

so I think that there is a short to medium term grit your teeth because there is going to be a culling of the herd as we know. Uh, and I'm actually not, I'm all, I'm bearish on all player ones as a category, but I'm waiting for one of those few Altmaier ones to make it through the bear market because there's enough of them or some of them will. And as soon as one of them is like the clear like survivor of the of the 2022 to 2024 bear market then I'm bullish and it's going to be the altar ones that figured out how to adapt and how to adapt to the new monetary policy, The new standard of the, of the economy and all of a sudden one of those things that's gonna make it through and all of a sudden it's going to be the next the ethereum that was of 27 2017.

So I have a question for you, David and I don't know if

That was only 1/3 of my rant by the way

you want to continue.

Yeah. And so we got all these other ones which for the first time our layer ones with like investor unlocks. So they have that to contend with

the way that bank is acknowledging

uh, we we got spanked for not doing that last like six months or

decentralization.

So uh so they have the the investor unlocks to contend with. So that's going to flood the market. They also are scaled block size which floods the market and inflation. And so Ether ethereum is like 4% inflation pre merge uh, in the proof of work form and solana avalanche phantom they are all higher issuance than ethereum is in well ethereum isn't as proof of work form. So they're already proof of stake and they still have higher issuance. So they have all this issuance to come to the market one of these trains is going to figure out how to deal with all of these things and one of these trains is going to figure it be able to go into into the next bear market deal with it and come out with it on the shiny colors on the other side. Chris brzezinski called this um uh the hazing cycle of ethereum to, to the salt layer ones where like bit corners hazed us going through 2020 18 to 2020 and now we are hazing the Altmaier ones and like we're hazing them into our principles like stop issuing all of your tokens like start having a decentralized block production and then maybe you'll make it through the other side and maybe we'll accept you then and a lot of Bitcoin has started accepting ethereum when ethereum came back and started going up versus Bitcoin starting in 2020 right? And so that that's my bull case for all player one's bull case alter one doesn't start until like late 2023 however, so they got a while ago and what one at least one of these things that's going to figure it out, maybe just one. Um if I put money on any of them maybe avalanche

yes I think the obvious but if you want to

see Alana is building towards something entirely different avalanche allowed for fees to go

Like two times the transaction capacity is ethyl one isn't like it's just like this giant has like you know, a bunch of billionaires, you're trying to get rich behind it, you can kind of ride that wave. You kind of make that, I don't think it's not like a text based, you need to get lost and I wanna get lost in it. I want the avalanche, we don't need to, I want to hear

it, but what's much more bullish than that and much sooner than that is the merge. You guys can't hear a bunch of applause uh and so talking about flows right as soon as the merge happens, coming in late august, maybe early september, probably late august ethereum goes from the first time ever a negative $15 million a day flows where it put leaks $15 million worth of monetary power. If we're talking about the battery, battery metaphor, $15 million a day is going outbound out of ethereum and it's been that way ever since genesis because a proof of work uh as a function of market cap divided by market cap, it stays the same. Uh and so there's always these outflows to secure a theory every single day. And so the flows are outbound that the battery is being discharged into the market in order to sustain the Blockchain. And once proof of stake happens that $15 million a day, leakage turns into $15 million a day. These are rough numbers, but these numbers are generally accurate, turns into $15 million a day of absorption. And so if if Stephen's theory about how Bitcoin is just like this monetary battery that sucks up all the liquidity at least, ethereum has this mechanism that actually collects the the energy and then retains it. That's the main differentiator is it retains the energy.

We're on the same team here. I'm wearing the shirt, man, I'm

talking about why I'm bullish. I'm not Okay,

can I go to the bathroom? Do I have to ask permission for

that? Not until I'm I just really have to go. Not until I'm done killing each other.

Like when I'm done, I need to dump on David's theory a little bit right here, just for the spice of it all. I think

like bring the microphone to the bathroom,

let me

I'm wearing

the shirt, I'm the same. I'm on your team, like it is going to improve and like, I think the price will follow, right? I think you're talking about the fundamentals and price and fundamentals don't always align.

Okay, And

I think the price were,

by the way,

I want you to I want you to follow me. Okay, so when when price and and fundamentals deviate, it's typically because some exogenous factor, right? And right now it's it's macro at large is causing that deviation. And I don't think that deviation is set to change any anytime soon. Okay. And I think you would probably agree with that.

Yeah, Okay,

But I

I think I think it will change in like within 6-9 months.

Okay, maybe, maybe 16 months, but maybe maybe a little longer. But like, I agree with you. Like there will be an accumulation phase where you can, like, you can buy back into eve, it's not gonna be v shaped. It's not just be like, Okay, merge and then goodbye.

Oh, I think that will happen.

Well in mind like squish chaos would agree with you. I, I'm, I'm not really necessarily think that what, what I'm thinking is that like, uh, you know, I think it was Kobe who said that like the merge is not an engine upgrade to, if he called it, like if you were like, uh, making the analogy that, that it is a race car, we're not changing out the engine where now this, this car just goes like 10 times faster than the other other car. It's, it's like, uh, he said, Kobe said that it's like we made this car more aerodynamic, like over a long period of time. It will improve against its competition. But it's not just going to like just take off and, and that's, I completely believe in that

no, I'll take the other side of that bad because the idea is that like, you can feed the same amount of gas into two engines and receive two different outputs from those two different engines based on their design. Right? And so one is leaking leaking gas as it goes and other, the other one is like very, very efficient.

You're right, but we're like, you're talking about fundamentals. I'm talking about marketing.

Right? Okay. So the, the argument that I'm making is that the merge overpowers macro because, which is a big statement to make, a big statement to make and I'm not saying it overpowers it like on a dime. It's not like we hit the merge and we just, we just reverse. The only, the only reason where that would be true is that we hit the merge and then we start reversing because that would happen because of narrative, not because of fundamentals, but the argument that I will make is that fundamental start accruing faster than people are expecting.

There's a reason why there's terms like buy the rumor, sell the news like it's because investor behavior also matters like for price not for value, but for press,

but all those people selling the selling the news are going to have to eventually They will get overcome by the $15 million 30 nets

I listened to your podcast with the Yeah, exactly North rock Digital and he was talking about how there's $12 million a day of sell pressure from, from miners and post merge. If that doesn't continue, it's gonna be hard to stop the price from going up. But I do disagree with, you know, uh, and the merge escaping macro fundamentals, but I do have a question for you in regards to either price going up post merge, you know, I think how press mentioned that he thinks the price is going to front run the merge and I disagree with that and I think you've said that you think the price will go post merge, but on on what time horizon, because I do think these narratives have to develop their the market does price in some technical risk. And so the market just may need to see this thing work for a little bit and then they're gonna need to see the yields and appreciate the yields and those will show up on CNBC and Bloomberg and what kind of yields you can get and then the market will, will capture of like how much electricity was decreased through this update and those narratives will will take time, but they will develop. And so I'm more of like Ericsson in terms of like a longer time horizon, it will definitely benefit Ethan the price. But are you more of a V shape like post merge immediate

pump? No, I'm more of a more of a curve, more of a curve rather rather than V and I, and I think the crypto industry will figure it out first because they're the, what will see a very big break away is the East Btc ratio because that will happen first because if macro hits once again the crypto markets and we all take a big a big leg down, Then we're all going down. But we're going to notice east do very, very well in that post, in a post merge ethereum, we're going to notice he's doing very well because it's not, it has $30 million dollars a day of less sell pressure than it previously did. And so the Bitcoin, the Bitcoin ratio is going to look much more violent than the Bitcoin dollar ratio, Stephen shaking his head. Uh but then the Bitcoin the eighth dollar ratio will over 90 days post merge will have started to accumulate 90 times $30 million worth of net by pressure in in comparison to his previous equilibrium. And then savvy us dollar investors, us dollar investors law. Uh we'll start to notice like, wait, why isn't either completely obliterated? It's doing okay. And that will start to, so the first the narrative will spin in the crypto world and then it will start to bleed out into the macro world.

And you think that the crypto world will use the BtC met metric as a signal? And do you think we were in this channel? The BtC ratio. Do you think we'll we'll break down of that channel in the short term.

No,

okay. So because like in in your episode with Ben cowan, he go he literally said himself, he's like, okay, you're probably right on this, but it will take longer than then people are thinking

How long that was, like six months ago, 20,

20 for he was predicting or whatever, and I'm kind of on that time horizon, but

though the fundamentals of the murder, because, like, a lot of people, okay, it's one thing to know about the merge, but it's, it's different to know the magnitude of the merge, and so I'm, and I'll say I'm not 100% confident on that the merge overpowers macro, but I'm more than 50% and of those cohorts of people, if I'm in the right camp, the cohort of people that think that the merger is more powerful than macro is like less than 100 people.

Let's get okay, first of all, let's get stevens take on this, because I want stevens, but now, alright, so I have a couple have a couple of thoughts on this. I find it really peculiar, right? That everybody seems to think like the merge is this like, revolutionary event that everybody at this table knows about is and is talking about and there's billions of dollars on the line, but for some reason, like nobody else understands it, right? Like we're the only ones who understand it's not priced, right? So I'm very skeptical about that point, and then there's this other narrative, right? That's like, there's gonna be so many fewer outflows of ethereum being dumped on the market post merge, right? But what I never hear people hear people talking about is the idea that leading up to the merge, there's also probably way more by pressure on ethereum than is going to exist post merge because a lot of the market is probably buying more ethereum than they would be post merge because they're betting on this narrative happening, right? So I'm not buying this like the idea that like the by pressure is going to remain constant pre merge and then post merge and then because the by pressure is constant, the cell pressure drops off and then the price moons, right? I think by pressure is way higher now than it will be post merge. I think obviously post merge by pressure way drops off because people trading into that narrative goes away. So I'm like super skeptical about that. I am definitely not of the camp that like the merge like erases macro, right?

like

It was like 12 guay to do stuff, right? So like I don't, I don't see that demand just suddenly returning because the merge happens in August, I'm very mid long term bullish on this, but I'm not really trading around it and I find it to be like very opium and it's exactly the stuff I would be wanting all of you guys to think if I was just about to dump on your head, that's exactly what I would be saying. Pretty good at it. They're pretty good at 4200 and I'm skeptical of every narrative that comes across crypto twitter as though it's like you're the first person to hear this narrative and nobody else knows it except you or maybe other people knew it, but you're like the next in the chain and then retail is gonna get this after you say like who else is buying into the merge narrative after us, that's like what I want to know, like who's gonna come after us in august and like support the price of each, I just don't see it in in in the short run, the same people who think there's technical risk, the same people who think there's like a climate issue with with proof of work. I mean all those people that need to be brought along, they need to be shown evidence and I agree with you that like obviously this is priced and you need to see evidence that proof of stake doesn't hurt the climate that that's not an execution risk. We don't but I do think that the general financial markets need to see that it's true and they need to see someone published some data and the and the narrative to take hold that is true that narrative, it's like it's the next 100 million users and like to be fair there are not that many users in crypto right now, like on a global scale there there aren't that many. So like it's not gonna take much to like increase buying demand really. Like globally. Who who's buying right now globally globally from where where's the money coming from? Where is the money coming from? Everybody's wealth is being destroyed? It's been sucking annihilated, like eviscerated right?

The the whole point of the merge fundamentals is that it doesn't no one needs to buy because the ethereum ecosystem has established itself around an equilibrium of a certain amount of daily sell pressure that all of a sudden inverts from negative 15 to positive $15 million dollars a day. And so the whole idea is that no we don't need anyone, it's baked in. It's literally

refute my point that like I believe that the market has put additional by pressure in in the lead up to the merge, that would not otherwise be there go negating the whole existence of emergency.

I thought everyone has been selling for the last like six months because the price is going down, so it's

still like astoundingly high

because of the merge, correct?

So what's the narrative doesn't exist anymore? What's going to keep the price of

all of the people who knew about the merge haven't sold and all the people who don't know itself,

let's play a little bit of a mediator because Stephen on Alfalfa on our episodes has has said himself that he's setting his own Beilin or like right? And you've set your own bile emerges that 1815 112 100 whatever, right? Like there is a level at which you want to buy and like I agree with you like and we would all agree that like we want to own any long term and I think that is irrefutable like we do want to own this asset, it's just at what price do we want to own it? You guys saw Snapchat right? Like it retraced its entire run up the entire thing gone. So the idea that like it is here like two K when it was $200 during Covid we're all like you can only go up from here.

Yes,

I did because at least the dick pic app has a lot of utility and people sending their

pictures of their

People right? Much more utility than me creating some weird financial derivative than borrowing against it 17 times and having it blow up right? Like that. Like I would argue that sending dicks is like a very human human. The fact that ethereum right now is trading lower than like individual companies is laughable long term, like long term, maybe I agree with you. But in the short term, I don't think any of that matters. I think in the short term everything is just liquidity flows. It's just like everything is risk that we agree. It's just like what price do you get back in your, your bids are gonna be there to support us at 1200. Yeah, I will buy

13,

I feel comfortable like I think, I think I would be stunned if we don't like run those 1700 lows like at a minimum, I would be shocked and like the Bitcoin chart by the way, which you got like that To me that chart looks terrible to me. Like I look at that chart, I'm like this is, this is losing like percent

like

chart, it looks like it just, it's just wants to roll over and die for reasons like I don't understand because like I think this is better than Bitcoin for the next five years. I do and I don't own any Bitcoin but I own ease but also like as an objective person, I look at that chart and I go that chart looks really bad, that it's not a bullish, it's not a bullish chart.

Do you do you accept that if it's all based on flows that the east merged with the inversion of 15 million negative 2 50 million positive is bullish under that same reasoning,

I my my point is that there have been excess inflows on the basis of the merged trade and when the merge trade doesn't exist anymore, those inflows will go away possibly at an exact equilibrium point of the reduced outflows, right? So I don't, I mean like I listen to this, this episode with whatever is face the hedge fund guy and like to me like that point didn't like and I was skeptical of this with like the Bitcoin and have oh the happening, it can't be priced in, it can't be and then people make these like tortured analogies of why like, oh you can't cause it's so stupid, like like you just buy like why can't I buy more Bitcoin in advance of the happening knowing that there's going to be like this reduced sell pressure at the end and it never made any sense

right? So right now you are nick carter and I'm the bit corners were like nick carter writes this like massive essay about how the merges completely priced in because of just like efficient markets and all the big corners. Like it's not my match pricing, but what they're saying is what I'm saying is where as soon as the flows, the outbound flows gets kneecapped all of a sudden it slowly manifest the bull market and we can with the whole triple point to the triple happening like it happens three times as fast in ethereum land, I

think you are right on a different time frame, I think like 123 years from now, you're definitely right, but I don't think you're for september or like november or december and that's kind of what I care about, right,

I can see down only for the rest of the year but like it's gonna be, it's gonna be if that is true that it's gonna be a green 2023. I think it's gonna be a green 2023 for each regardless All layer one still have another year for a head.

I I agree with you. Like I do think there is going to be this pivot right? But I think the pivot is going to, it's going to be like a different investment environment, right? Like I don't think the pivot is just gonna be like risk is back on, let's by all the dumbest shit possible. I think it's gonna be like okay it's back on but like interest rates are probably gonna stay high. I think persistently now. I think like we're probably gonna enter a paradigm where we have like really high rates but also like a lot of money printing and we try to like pull money from all the rich people and like helicopter to the poor people and there's gonna be like persistently high commodity prices and all this stuff we haven't had to contend with before. And I think there is going to be like a premium to invest in things that have actual utility that like you can actually derive some sort of valuation or price from, which is why I think in the medium term like I like over over Bitcoin because I look at Bitcoin and like to me Bitcoin is like, it's pure speculation. It's it's just like it's like a call option on beta liquidity, right? Like on like it's basically just some call option on or like some massive put I guess on like worldwide fiat. But like, okay, I don't think the dollar is going anywhere anytime soon. And like I said, I think if the dollar does go somewhere, there's still going to be like an extended period where everything gets wrecked while the dollar goes to the moon, including probably Bitcoin.

even

say it,

I

want you on record. I really don't want to lose everything before Valhalla. I'm like, hopefully it goes there and I think it probably will. But I don't wanna I don't wanna I don't wanna David, I mean, part of this is on your shoulders. I mean, like these narratives will be seated with the crypto native media and post merge. Someone's gonna have to prove that electricity and power consumption is down. And you know, these yields exist. Like, do you ever feel like a little weight on your shoulders that you're gonna have to bear the inception of these narratives and how they grow?

Haven't been wrong yet, brother,

that's right, man, Our money's on you, my man, Money is on you. Alright

guys. Well, since the camera on Youtube keeps on cutting out, I think we'll have to have our our last final words until I'll ask the group 11 question, guys, who will each get to ask is why should the listeners listen to Alfalfa Armand number one

1? Oh God, I like the compilation of their answers. Synthesizing why you should listen to us. Um you shouldn't if you didn't enjoy

this

and if you did, you should well be your homies and we're taking this very seriously. I think that's something that I want to um really put out there were really enjoying this, we're really taking this seriously and we're really having a fucking grand old time. And uh yeah, come join the journey with us.

Eric number two,

the Mask al just hit me like a freaking ton of bricks, I just slumped

way down in my

chair because like,

I don't know,

I'm feeling the way to the mosque Al uh, I'm sweating.

Is it a

uh, okay. Um, bottom line is this like, this is the type of conversation that we have on our, on our Wednesdays and our podcast. And like, I think it's valuable. Like for me, it's valuable. I've gotten like immense value just from talking to you guys over the years. This is an example of that. And like, that's why we did the podcast. That's why we started. It's like to share this type of talk Stephen. Yeah, I mean if anybody just heard me rant for a while and they were like, that was phenomenal. I really enjoyed it. If you enjoyed that, then I guess you should.

Nick. Can someone please tell the listeners why they should listen to your

circumstances, man. Well, I'll give you the facts and it's straight is that I've become richer talking to these people, listening to these three other guys in debating topics and it's made it's made me money and yeah, maybe a little happier.

Yeah.

And and I I think like, like we mentioned like the Grant study has proven that when you have a core group of people that you respect and that you you dissect the world around, you get a little wealthier, a little healthier and I think that's what we're trying to, trying to, you know, develop on the podcast. And so come join us. That's why you're the marketer in this group. Well, come join us. You know, let's let's try to make some money together and uh at the very least, top in the discord and and make fun of our logo so I can convince these other guys we need to change it. Yeah, we like that

for sure. Alright guys, well, bank this nation, you know what to do. All the links per usual are in the show notes. If you want to listen to Alfalfa. If you want to listen to these d gents and if you want to listen to them yell at each other for various topics of which you will not see it coming. But the Alfalfa is with the Alfalfa boys guys. Any last words bro.

You're the man. We love you, we appreciate you. That was phenomenal. It's an honor. Like I'm actually really sad you're leaving Sydney ago, but to be continued in many ways and this has been an honor for us. I I am sad to, on a personal level that you're leaving because you are the only time in my life I've like walked into a group and there's been like a person there who's like, like crypto more than me.

It

was so refreshing to be able to like even just take a step back and go like ha! Because I've I've just always been like the totally off the defense. So I love that and I'm going to miss you now. I'm going to just be just the most vulnerable and the most vulnerable stevens ever been.

That

was huge

for

you guys.

Well guys, uh, Brooklyn feels very, very uphill as in it seems like I could roll off of that thing real quick and san, Diego has treated me well and a large part of the story because of you

guys. So thank you

for welcoming me and

then I'll see you guys again in the future. Thanks,

cheers guys,