based16z × Thread Guy

Hyperliquid became based16z’s defining trade after he recognized its superior product and exceptional founder before an investable token existed.Rare asymmetric setups—not frequent activity—powered positive crypto years despite a 25%–30% win rate, while oversized positions and 40x leverage damaged realized returns.Whop marks his shift toward positive-sum equity and products, but permanent holding remains unresolved.

Jordi Alexander × Justin Bram × Taiki Maeda × Dim Selk

Zcash was the panel’s highest-conviction, highest-fragility trade, with Taiki calling it “the coin of the cycle” as Project Tachyon approaches.Crowding across ZEC, HYPE, Lighter and NEAR leaves buybacks weak and downside unresolved, while Variational’s Q4 TGE, $4 billion-plus daily volume and 32% airdrop offer a competing catalyst amid expected market dispersion.

DeFi Dad × Lito

Ethena Pay pairs a non-custodial, chain-abstracted global neobank with USDe’s yield engine, targeting balance monetization as net interest margins contribute 37% of Robinhood’s revenue and about 25% of Revolut’s.Equity-basis trading is expected in “literally a few days,” while ENA’s remaining investor vesting was accelerated to October 5 as described at recording; over 10,000 awaited access and a US launch was targeted in three to four weeks.

Logan Jastremski × Armani Ferrante

Backpack pairs each freely transferable Solana token with a one-to-one real share, enabling arbitrage between Nasdaq or NYSE and on-chain markets.Ferrante says this produces “40X, 45X” better pricing than comparable Robinhood Chain stocks.Backpack sacrificed $100 million to $200 million in foregone profit for a unified regulated layer that could replace idle cash and delayed settlement, but still has “a lot to prove” against incumbents within one or two years.

Avi Felman × Jonah Van Bourg

Avi’s GP dispute alleges holders publicly promised to hold while selling concealed inventory, making on-chain wallet behavior the key test of verifiable trust.Both hosts contrast meme-coin speculation with positive-sum crypto built on “good product, good revenues, good team,” citing Avi’s ZRO-versus-ETH trade and Robinhood’s perpetuals rollout through Bitstamp.They frame five-year mega trends, retail investors’ tolerance for volatility and AI-driven concentration as the durable signals, while leaving the best expression—broad exposure or concentrated winners—unresolved.

Peter Diamandis × Emad Mostaque × Cathie Wood × Nikhil Chandhok

Peter said a Tesla-SpaceX merger could be announced this year, and Cathie said ARK believes it will happen, combining rockets, broadband, AI, electric vehicles and energy around Musk’s Mars-directed compute strategy, though China remains a major obstacle.Nikhil Chandhok expects AI agents to outnumber humans next year, while Arc tests agent credit and stablecoin rails whose capacity must grow from tens of thousands to potentially millions of transactions per second.

Kevin × Yan × Jose × Jason × Ceteris

Crypto returns concentrated in stores of value and revenue-producing protocols including Zcash, Ethena, LIT and HYPE, while ETH and SOL lagged.Zcash’s constrained mining supply and Bitcoin-relative reflexivity supported upside, but its store-of-value trade remains vulnerable to an 80% drawdown.HYPE’s buybacks, RWAs, HyperEVM and new products offer catalysts, alongside onchain options and tokenized equities, amid liquidity, protocol and macro risks.

rasmr

Tokenized equities could become crypto’s next major vertical, expanding access beyond borders while creating volume for launchpads, exchanges, DeFi, and social applications.STONK’s Solana-native alignment must challenge PUMP’s liquidity and sub-$100,000-cap culture, making social capital and visible winners as important as features.Adoption is the catalyst; durable market share remains unresolved.

SEC and CFTC signals have helped the rally outrun expected legislative clarity, but a 10-year yield approaching about 7% and revived old coins raise macro and froth risks.BTC, SOL, HYPE, Venice and Zcash show why consensus can beat costly rotation, while fund size can make attractive token trades structurally uninvestable.Meta’s Manus thesis is an App Store escape route, while tokenization’s value capture remains unresolved across exchanges, DeFi and infrastructure.

Thread Guy × Rekt Mando

Leadership has rotated from PUMP’s retail mania to institutionally favored, often revenue-linked assets such as HYPE, NEAR, VVV, and Zcash, whose roughly 10% pullbacks contrasted with 30–40% declines in retail-led coins.Thread Guy sees a one-to-two-year bull trend without requiring Bitcoin to reach $200,000–$300,000; liquidity haircuts, Zcash ownership concentration, Lilly safety litigation, and CoreWeave’s leveraged buildout remain key risks.