The Bitcoin ETF Impact | 1000x

This is the first 1000x podcast recorded with Bitcoin above $50,000. The last time we recorded, Bitcoin was hovering right below $50,000—$49,979, I think—and then it broke through. As we talked about, you actually had a solid amount of time once it broke to realize what was happening and buy it, which I advocated for because I think that’s generally the most risk-adjusted way to play these things if you’re a trader.

Jonah, on the other hand, is an absolute gigachad with balls of steel. He’s been sitting massively long Bitcoin the entire time and telling everybody not to sell because why would anybody sell when this many flows are coming into the asset? As always, Jonah was vindicated. He was right.

Not as always.

I had to give you something, Jonah.

1. The Bitcoin Rally Gets Frothy

Thank you. This is a big win. We’re sitting at $63,000 right now. Bitcoin is obviously leading the charge, and ETH is catching up.

I think this has been an amazing run. For the first time, I’m exercising a bit of caution just because it’s been so insane. You have all-time-high Bitcoin futures open interest, a tremendous amount of froth in the market, and a lot of money flowing into alts.

If there were ever a point to at least go from 100% long to 90% long, this is a good point to start taking some length off, in my humble opinion, especially as we approach all-time highs. For the first time, I’m really thinking, “Hey, this has been a crazy run. Maybe it’s time to cut back and go to the barbell strategy instead of being super Bitcoin-heavy”—being alt-heavy and cash-heavy. What do you think about that?

I don’t want to be cash-heavy. I’m still all in on this.

I trade less actively than you, so if we’re going to try to monetize some of the chop around here—and, as markets melt up, it doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about crude oil, crypto, or the price of bananas—they get really volatile, and the pullbacks get severe.

I’m not watching crypto tick for tick every day anymore like I used to. I think you’re right: if you are watching it tick for tick, it might pay to lighten up and then buy one of the inevitable savage dips that happens amid this sort of upside volatility.

But in terms of being cash-heavy, I wouldn’t want to be cash-heavy. I’m still so bullish I can’t fucking see straight, and I think this thing is going to $100,000. Do you think it’s going to $100,000 promptly? What’s your view here?

Yes. These ETF inflows are sustainable. We’ve had crazy, crazy inflows. They’re enormous. You go to the Farside Investors ETF tracker page, and it’s something like $500 million a day. It just isn’t stopping.

Your dentist, your grandpa, and your doctor are all buying it because now they can. We talked about this on the podcast six months ago: the ETF launch was not a front-runnable event because there wasn’t enough capital in this niche, weird, self-custody little token space to front-run what would be unlocked by ETFs, institutional asset flows, and broader retail. So far, we’re being proven right.

To me, the halving hasn’t even happened yet. Miner selling has to slow down. Maybe the miners are hanging on to BTC right now to sell after the halving and some expected melt-up, so maybe it doesn’t melt up as fast as you expect. But come on—what is it, 3.125 fewer BTC per block forever?

I just can’t imagine lightening up before that, unless the plan is literally to trade around the volatility.

I do think that if you’re 100% long, you should take a bit of profit. But Jonah, three-month futures are now paying out 20% on BTC and, I think, 17.7% on ETH. That is massive.

Historically, even if you’ve had a tremendous amount of interest in this asset class, that has been the start of the end. When there’s that much leverage and that much euphoria, you tend to get reflexivity toward the downside.

No matter how many inflows are coming in or how much is unlocked, when you have that amount of leverage in the system, you get nasty pullbacks. It scares people off from buying. What I’m trying to say is, first, you can’t put yourself in a position to get carried out right now, because this is a more likely time than ever to experience a 30% pullback.

You have to manage your risk super tightly here—ridiculously tightly. I think the best way to do that is to be allocated to alts that you think can run or that you’re comfortable holding long term, because I do think capital is going to rotate out of BTC.

Being 150% long BTC here is no longer the right move. At $40,000, you could make an argument for it; at $25,000, it was obvious. I think it was a simple argument at $40,000 and a little bit harder now. I don’t think you can make an argument for being 100% allocated to BTC right now.

I think the argument is to be 80% allocated. That’s still super bullish—ridiculously bullish from my perspective.

No, you’re absolutely right. I agree with you. Maybe I didn’t express my point clearly enough.

If you’re running tons of leverage here, you should start to get careful because the volatility is about to get insane, and there will be some big drawdowns. But if you’re just long, 100% maximally allocated, with cash only and no leverage, you can withstand a 50% drawdown.

On Crypto Twitter, everybody is insanely bullish and victory-lapping right now. The Fear and Greed Index is at maximum greed. It hasn’t been there since 2021. When we hit these prices in May 2021, the first thing that happened was an obvious, savage, brutal 50% sell-off to $30,000, followed by a rip-roaring explosion to all-time highs.

My personal trading strategy is that I don’t use leverage. If it goes to $30,000, I’m just going to buy more, especially if it happens before the halving. I’m not going to panic. But if you’re 150% long and you’re going to panic if that happens, then you’d better be lightening up right now.

On your second point, about the rotation to alts, I’m seeing some really compelling arguments on Twitter that we’re not going to get that rotation into alts this cycle. You would know better than me—you’ve seen multiple cycles, and this is still kind of my first one—but the argument is that this cycle is not going to see rotation into alts because this is just ETF money coming in, not degens trying to play frog coins.

You’re on mute, by the way.

2. Crypto Natives Rotate Into Alts

That is a fucking lie. It is such a degenerate, stupid fucking lie. I cannot stand it when people say this. Whoever tweets this has the brain of a monkey—and one of those small, tiny monkeys, not a gorilla, because gorillas can get to 70 IQ. You are a negative-IQ human.

I’ll explain this in the simplest terms. It doesn’t matter, because if Bitcoin goes up, the people who held it—and there are a lot of crypto-native people who have held Bitcoin—will rotate out of Bitcoin. They will rotate out of Bitcoin, and retail will come back in. It’s just a matter of time. Meme coins will pump, shitcoins will pump, and of course alts are going to go up.

The question is: which alts?

Historically, the answer was that it would go from Bitcoin to large-cap alts, then to mid-cap alts, and then to small-cap alts. Here’s why these monkeys have a point but are still incorrect: that type of rotation might not happen as much because there is less capital coming directly into crypto rails, buying Bitcoin, and then filtering down the risk curve indiscriminately.

What’s most likely to happen is that the people who are already allocated—the original crypto natives—will take the money they made on Bitcoin and rotate into smaller caps and into the quality stuff they like. Crypto-insider and crypto-native coins are probably going to do well as people rotate out.

Your average mid-cap is not necessarily going to do well. MATIC has been disappointing. AVAX, after its major rally, has been disappointing. Solana, after its major rally, has been disappointing while Bitcoin has ripped.

What hasn’t been disappointing are the meme coins and the AI coins. You nailed that, by the way. You called for the AI coins to rally, and you nailed that one. Props, Jonah.

Speaking of nailing things, what was the one specific thing we talked about on the previous podcast? The SEC getting blown the fuck out, and then coins related to SEC judgments doing well. Guess what’s doing well? DeFi, Coinbase stock—all the coins and companies the SEC was trying to strangle are now ripping.

That’s going to continue. These are the types of things I’m looking for. I’m not looking to buy your MATICs of the world. I’m not looking to buy your Solanas. I’m not looking to buy your—definitely never—Cosmos. Basically, the large caps.

I’m going to rotate down the risk curve, but I think the key is to find what the crypto natives are going to get into. AI is obviously a huge bucket. DeFi is a good bucket, especially now with the talk about turning on fees and the lack of the SEC coming down.

In the ETF world, it’s possible that people rotate from the ETFs down the risk curve. Maybe they’re going to buy ETH. Maybe they’re going to buy Coinbase stock.

The one thing I can’t explain—and I would love for anybody listening to this to comment if they have an explanation—is why is MSTR ripping? MSTR is trading at a 50% premium to its Bitcoin holdings right now.

I was always under the impression that after the ETF launched, that premium would collapse because people were only buying MSTR to replicate Bitcoin exposure. But for some reason, MSTR is still ripping. That’s a weird one.

No, I think it’s weird too. Honestly, I think that’s an anomaly.

Another one is that I didn’t expect CME futures to trade at a 20% premium to spot after the ETF launch. Now any arbitrage trader can show up, buy the BlackRock ETF, short the CME future, and collect basically risk-free arbitrage. I do not, for the life of me, know why that money is there.

Levered capital is not that expensive. Leverage shouldn’t trade at that kind of premium to what is now totally arbitrageable Bitcoin. It doesn’t make sense to me. The MSTR thing doesn’t make sense to me.

In terms of your thesis about alts, I agree with it. I rarely do this, but I actually felt stupid looking at MAGA, the Trump coin. How the fuck did I not see that one coming? Of course.

3. NFTs Become Status Symbols

One thing that I did, by the way, is buy a bunch of the Trump NFTs. First, you get to have dinner with Donald, and obviously I want to have dinner with Donald. That’s a meme in itself. I’m going to whisper in his ear to buy all my shitcoins.

The second thing is that you can resell them, and they’re such a good play on a Trump presidency, which I’m particularly bullish on. I think he’s going to win, and I think it’s going to be very pro-crypto. I think it’s going to get very meme-y, and PEPE and all this shit will do well.

My theory, to your point, Avi, is that my favorite altcoin is CryptoPunks. I’m mulling buying another Punk. I think the reason is that you just watch Punks and Apes start gassing higher.

The longer crypto sustains this rally, the more being invested in crypto is going to become a cool symbol of social status again. There are rumors that Bernard Arnault, the LVMH tycoon, and his son, who runs Tiffany’s, are bidding on one of the alien Punks.

If you show up to a date in New York with a Solana Saga phone, it’s not necessarily guaranteed that you’re going home without getting laid anymore. These crypto status symbols are coming back, and it’s going to be okay to be invested in crypto again.

Jonah, have you ever seduced your wife with a Punk? Is that the thesis for you?

No, definitely not.

But I think that for many people there will be some status attached to crypto again. Let’s say Bitcoin slingshots past $100,000. Sure, it may go to $30,000 first, but if it slingshots past $100,000 before the end of next year, you’re cool if you’ve got crypto. You’re not a pariah anymore, and you’re not getting laughed out of the room.

The NFT flux is coming back in a large way. I’m excited to see it happen. I think it’s going to be a very good investment.

You know me and my Ether Rocks. I love my Ether Rocks. I think they’re an amazing flex. They’re a super-expensive NFT, so not everybody can afford them. The group chat is lit, and you get access to all these people.

What does a rock cost? I love that they’re all floors. They’re all just as shitty as each other.

No, no, no. They’re different. There are regular shitty rocks, and then there are blue rocks and red rocks, so there are slight variations on the rocks. Jonah, please educate yourself before talking; otherwise, you just sound dumb.

I’m not afraid to sound dumb so that other people who listen to us can become smarter. I’ll sacrifice myself on Twitter.

That’s very kind of you. It really comes from a selfless place in your heart.

What’s the floor? What does a basic rock cost?

Under 200 ETH. Two hundred ETH is the floor right now.

Damn.

That’s an Autoglyph to get in.

To get into the Rock Club?

Yes, because there are 100 of them, and they’re the second-ever NFT created.

Do you get access to an exclusive club? Do you go to some private island and make out with each other, or how does it work?

I can’t comment on that. A lot of NDAs have been signed, so there’s no ability to discuss it.

I’ll just say that if you go to my Twitter profile and check the DMs, it’s accurate. It’s accurate. That’s what we do: the war room.

Now it’s the War Room.

Exactly.

The rocks are a pure form of flex, and I think pure NFT flexes will do well. The art will do well, too: the Squiggles, the Autoglyphs, Fidenzas, and Punks. That stuff is going to do well.

I do think there’s going to be another boom of people trying to launch NFTs, but that’s probably not going to go so well. What you’re going to see is more established artists releasing NFTs and brands releasing NFTs. That’s where a lot of the value accrues.

Even Trump is releasing NFTs, and there’s actually some interest in those things. I think that shows you the direction of the NFT market.

If I’m allocating right now, I definitely want NFT exposure because I’m bullish on ETH. But I’m not so bullish on ETH that I want to hold a ton of ETH directly.

I like NFTs because they have 2 tailwinds. If ETH goes up, they probably go up in aggregate, because all the NFTs I’m talking about are effectively issued on ETH. They’re the older ones.

The second thing is that they have that NFT tailwind. It’s basically the ETH tailwind and then the NFT tailwind. I think that’s good. I like the ETH tailwind, but I’m not super confident in it.

It’s very possible that an ETH ETF gets denied or punted, or that the SEC comes up with some ridiculous argument as to why ETH is a security, and therefore there needs to be litigation, and this and this and this.

If XRP isn’t a security, how could ETH be a security?

I don’t know. The SEC jumped the shark when it made the argument that we couldn’t allow a Bitcoin spot ETF because the Bitcoin spot markets were manipulated, but we could allow a Bitcoin futures ETF that settled to a spot reference rate because the reference rate could be monitored.

They completely jumped the shark with that argument. It’s so obviously logically flawed that I don’t put anything past them.

The only thing that gives me hope, as we’ve talked about in the past, is that these guys have been blown out so many times trying to come after crypto.

Gary Gensler has gotten so beaten up that it’s embarrassing. They’ve filed around 100 lawsuits that are nearly identical, lost the first 10 of them, and the other 90 are going straight down the toilet. They should be ashamed of themselves.

4. The 2024 Crypto Triple Whammy

But here’s the thing, Avi: this is why I think we’re only in phase 1 of the triple whammy—the hat trick of crypto in 2024.

The first thing that happens is the BTC ETFs land. The second thing is the halving. The third thing is Trump is going to fucking win.

What happens when Gensler and the entire SEC get sent packing, and we go back to this low- or no-regulatory regime with a crypto-friendly, NFT-issuing maniac as president? I think it could get pretty fucking degenerate up in here.

I don’t even know if they have time to start denying ETFs, because they’re probably all looking for other jobs right now. They’re about to get sent home from Washington, DC.

To me, that’s the most bullish medium-term catalyst for crypto—more bullish than the halving and more bullish than the ETFs. The thing nobody is talking about is that the single greatest headwind to crypto, the headwind that has fucked with both of us in our recent crypto careers, is about to get rinsed.

That is such a bullish rant, Jonah. I 100% agree with you, and I’m excited to see this play out.

This is why basically anything that’s been attacked by the SEC is such a good buy right now. I think it’s still underpriced. Look at the perp platforms in general: dYdX, Synthetix, Uniswap—all these guys are underpriced.

I still think so because they’re no longer the target of the SEC. That doesn’t mean ETH is a given. It doesn’t. I think that’s still a big risk to the market, and it would hurt alts in the short term.

There needs to be some investigation into what the timelines are for this, because I do think it’s important. At the same time, my personal view is that we’re coming close to the end of the Bitcoin rally relative to the alt rally.

If you look back at 2021, when Bitcoin first breaks its all-time high, it tends to rip. After the first blowoff following the all-time-high break is when the alts come out to play.

You don’t necessarily want to try to time that perfectly. You want to get out slowly from Bitcoin into alts because you can never get it perfectly.

If you’re in a hypothetical portfolio that’s 100% BTC and 0% alts at all-time highs, you probably want to be 80% BTC and 20% alts. Every 10% after that, you shuffle another 5% or 10% into alts—more and more.

Then, on the blowoff, if you can trade that, fine. Generally, what tends to happen is that Bitcoin does badly during the blowoff, but the alts actually do okay. That’s your sign: when there’s a blowoff in BTC and alts actually do okay after the all-time-high break, that’s alt season.

Watch the BTC pairs. You’re probably in for 2 to 3 weeks, and no more. Take it, and then get out.

That’s my plan when it comes to trading this market. I think now is a very difficult time to be a passive investor in this market.

It’s actually okay to be very passive during bear markets, because you’re accumulating and finding the right allocation. You’re just accumulating.

In a bull market, you can lose a lot of money very quickly if you’re not clipping profits. At some point, we will have another 80% drawdown. It’s just a matter of time.

The way to do this, in my opinion, without blowing up your whole portfolio and round-tripping everything, is to set levels to take profit, set aside that cash, and then not get back into the market with that cash.

That’s how I’ve outperformed over the last 3 cycles. When Bitcoin is at $80,000, $90,000, or $100,000, what’s the probability that we’ll be 30%, 40%, 50%, or 60% below that price again at some point in the future? In my personal opinion, it’s pretty high.

When Bitcoin trades at $100,000, I’m not going to be more than 50% exposed to the market. I’m just going to slowly chip out.

You have to detach yourself from this. You can’t get caught up in the euphoria or the craziness. Take out a notebook and write down your targets. Whatever your portfolio is worth, write down your targets for your coins. That is your guidebook. Pay attention to it, and don’t get caught up in the euphoria.

The worst thing—and I see this happen over and over—is that one coin hits your target, you sell out, and then what do you do? You buy another coin. Don’t do that. No—cash.

5. ETH Is A Cheap Call Option

Let me ask you a question, Avi. We’ve got our thesis on Bitcoin, our thesis on alts, and when to rotate in and out. ETH is a weird one. It’s kind of in the middle of that sandwich.

My investment thesis for ETH is that, at worst, even if some other L1 like Solana kills it once and for all, ETH is always going to stick around as the legacy art chain, with cultural significance and relevance, and as the zeitgeist of the early 2020s.

I think that use case alone—preserving these important cultural artifacts—is worth, after another bull cycle or 2, half a trillion dollars over the long run.

Then there are the use cases for crypto. If even 1 of these lands on ETH, you’re looking at $10,000 to $50,000 ETH.

Decentralized games and social networks. Payments. A global, decentralized casino industry. Meme coins on ETH. NFTs, certificates of authenticity or ownership, and tickets. Decentralized physical infrastructure and networks, like Helium and Hivemapper—that looks like it’s going to Solana, but if it goes to ETH, it goes to ETH.

There are tokenized funds, assets, and other financial products. Global settlement—near-instant transaction settlement. Smart contracts as replacements for legal documents. Proof of identity.

There are 10 to 20 use cases. If even 1 of them lands on ETH, you hit the jackpot over the medium to long term.

It’s easy right now to say, “ETH is still finding its footing. There’s Bitcoin, and there’s the alt barbell,” but I still believe in ETH because you’re buying this extremely cheap call option. Your downside is capped by the fact that it has already found a use case.

If the only use case for a non-Bitcoin L1 is cultural-artifact preservation, am I off the mark here, Avi? What do you think?

I think you’re off the mark, but not because what you said is wrong. Take a step back. Whenever you see a trade presented in front of you, your first question should be: what is the best way to take advantage of this trade? How can I take advantage of this trade?

There’s a famous story about a guy who wanted to bet on Japan—on Japanese real estate and Japan in general. He flew to Japan because he wanted to meet people and figure out the best way to bet on Japan.

He looked at real estate, the stock market, technology companies, car companies—everything. He met a real estate agent who was showing him around, and she said, “You can look at currently built apartments, but why don’t you also look at the apartments that are coming in 3 or 4 years?”

He asked what the deposit looked like on those apartments. She said 5%. He said, “Wait. You’re telling me I can put down 5% for the right to purchase this apartment at the current price in 4 years, when it’s built, but I don’t actually have to buy it? It’s just the right to buy the apartment?”

He ended up buying 50 of these apartments. He put down the 5% deposit and had a massive call option on the real estate market. He ended up 20x-ing or 30x-ing his money because of the way he structured the trade. If he had just put all of his money into buying a current apartment, there’s no way he would have 20x-ed.

That’s how I feel about ETH. I think ETH is going up, and I think ETH is going to do well. But even in my best-case scenario, the way ETH goes up is 2x or 3x.

I don’t want to own any ETH because that’s not a great return relative to the rest of the market, personally. You get way more with Bitcoin, with less risk.

The way I would like to own ETH is through NFTs. If I wanted a long-dated call on ETH, I would own NFTs or DeFi projects built on top of ETH. I would much rather own those things, which I think have similar risk to ETH. Actually, I think if you buy a Punk, you’re basically just taking ETH risk.

I really don’t think Punks are going to go down that much in ETH terms. They didn’t during the lows. I bought my Punk near the highs and then watched, with bated breath, through the bear market. It didn’t really nuke that hard. It’s kind of back. For something with 16 pixels in it, those things really hung in there. It’s impressive.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I like ETH and I agree with all your points. I just don’t think buying and holding ETH is the best way to express that view.

Okay, fair enough.

Let’s say one of the use cases for crypto that I mentioned lands. I think there’s a 25% to 50% chance that it lands on ETH, and by the time it lands and catches on, it’s already too late.

That’s why I think ETH could be a 10x. I don’t think it’s a 2x or 3x if one of those use cases lands. I think it’s a solid 10-bagger.

Maybe we disagree about our potential bullishness, but I’m not going to lie: I’m getting caught up in the froth. I’m a bit starry-eyed here.

I couldn’t agree more with the NFT thesis in terms of ways to play crypto finding an actual use case outside of Bitcoin as a store of value. With any of the use cases I mentioned, I think your odds are as good as they are with Bitcoin, ETH, or Solana.

You’re supposed to hold some of that, because you could get a 10-bagger if it actually becomes useful to the broader population.

It’s not an easy trade right now. At the very least, I think ETH/BTC could continue to run upward for a little while as we get hyped about the ETH ETF. But you don’t want to hang on to that one hoping for 0.008. It’s not worth riding it that high.

It’s a trade. It’s not an investment.

I think Su Zhu, for all his faults, had a hilariously good tweet. He said, “Don’t directionally buy ETH/BTC. Just don’t do it. Don’t put that spread trade on.”

It’s kind of a nothing trade. You’re taking crypto risk and probably getting no return for it.

6. Bitcoin Finds Its Global Use Case

In terms of good, solid crypto risk, all of this ETF bullishness and froth is a confirmation of crypto’s major use case thus far: Bitcoin is a store of value.

There are rumors in the oil market right now that the Saudi government is buying Bitcoin as a reserve asset. Dollarization is a major narrative in the physical commodities space. You can’t sling a cargo of crude oil in exchange for bars of gold, but with Bitcoin, no problem.

There’s only so much utility for some of these countries. How many Chinese yuan does India want to hold? How many Russian rubles does China want?

Bitcoin is the only bulletproof, fungible internet money that has any hope of competing with the dollar. The rest of these currencies are completely unusable for global trade.

I’m getting excited about the dollarization narrative, and it’s happening. There are geopolitical events furthering this acceptance.

You’re starting to see the nervousness. Look at Nigeria. The Nigerian currency, the naira, is inflating like crazy right now. One of the steps the Nigerian government has taken to stop that is banning cryptocurrency.

I’ve had conversations about this. People are trying to get their money out of the country, and crypto is an avenue they’re looking at and exploring.

With the ETF, there has been a truly amazing legitimization of the market that we’ve all decided to spend our collective mind power on. People are taking it very seriously.

The government in Nigeria is cracking down. There are now discussions about not only freezing the Russian reserves, but seizing them and giving them to Ukraine.

That would be insane. It would be an unbelievable death blow to our current financial system. Nobody would trust it ever again.

The Web3 thesis is that you should own your own data. When you post a picture of your cat on Facebook, Facebook owns the picture, not you. Who cares about a picture of your cat and who owns it? But if you don’t own your dollars, holy crap.

That’s why Bitcoin is money that can move across the globe much more easily than bank money or petrodollars.

When the United States, the ECB, and the SNB took Russia’s money, that was financial nuclear warfare. No one expected it. I certainly didn’t. But if they’re going to give it to Russia’s enemies, China and Russia will certainly let the rest of their petrodollars and petrodollar-denominated securities roll off.

They’re going to have to replace them with something, and Bitcoin is kind of the best thing to replace it with. It’s not gold.

It’s an unacceptable risk if you’re the government of a country that isn’t 100% aligned with America. Even if you are 100% aligned with America, if it’s possible to not only take your money but give it to your enemies, you have to find alternative solutions.

You have to. It would be completely irresponsible not to.

I think we’re heading into a world where we have geopolitical tailwinds for this asset class, institutional tailwinds, and abating headwinds. It’s a phenomenal time to be in crypto.

The only use case that has panned out for crypto so far is this. I’ve been in the industry for 8 long years. Casinos and people preferring Dogecoin to a slot machine? It’s just moving money around. But this is such a good use case.

I’m still very bullish on BTC, and I’m still very bullish long term. I just think we’re heading into a period where governments will try to fight it, as we’re seeing with Nigeria. That will create problems and probably create the next major buying opportunity.

The way I think about it is that every cycle it gets harder and harder to buy the bottom. My prediction is that Bitcoin will probably bottom around the time that some reasonable country—not necessarily the U.S. government—outlaws the private use of Bitcoin.

Whether it’s Korea, the U.K., Spain, Italy, or one of these countries, at some point one of them will outlaw it, and there will be fear.

I have a more nuanced view on that last point, and I want to pair it with an anecdote.

You mentioned Nigeria. When I worked at Vitol, we used to ship a lot of Nigerian crude oil. One day, we couldn’t access one of our big streams of crude oil anymore because a rebel group called the Niger Delta Avengers had shut it down.

Google them. These are some of the scariest-looking people you’ve ever seen on the internet. They set up a Twitter account and tweeted, “You are not getting any more of this Forcados stream of crude oil from an area called the creeks.”

It’s an ecological disaster in southeastern Nigeria, where a lot of oil comes into creeks and then gets shipped to an offshore platform. These guys dove 60 meters under the Atlantic Ocean, completely vandalized this pipeline, and mined the area with undersea mines—real scuba special-operations stuff.

They came from villages. This is insane technological sophistication for a group of warlords in the middle of the jungle.

They did it because they were upset with the Nigerian government for not giving them a big enough kickback from the petroleum revenue it was receiving from the oil. They wanted more because the price of oil had gone up and their bribes had stayed the same.

I had this all explained to me at one of these sort of evil James Bond villain offsites that Vitol had, at a chateau in the Black Forest near Frankfurt. Anyway, the guy who dealt with West Africa was talking about the sophistication of their operation.

If you or I come from a rich country like the United States and want to be successful, we go to good schools, attend highly ranked universities, and go into trading or some other high-paying job.

If you’re a smart, hardworking, talented guy from the creeks, this is how you make your money. No matter what the Nigerian government does—and the same goes for the Argentine or Turkish government—to ban Bitcoin, quell inflation, or try to control the currency, there will always be a black market.

There will always be Niger Delta Avengers out there hoarding what they need to hoard to make their money. I don’t think you can hold this movement back, because this is literally stateless money.

I continue to think Bitcoin is a better store of value than, to be generous, the world’s bottom 50% of currencies—probably more like 60% to 75% of them. Bitcoin is simply a better place to hold your money than the Nigerian naira or the Argentine peso. There isn’t even a debate about that anymore.

The United States could have killed crypto. It made it as hard as possible to trade and own crypto, and it’s still fucking roaring. I don’t think a consortium of developing economies can ban this stuff and make it go away, or even make it sell off.

For every Nigerian ban, you have an El Salvadoran president tweeting, “Hey, @PeterSchiff, you fucking idiot economist.” It’s crazy what’s going on right now.

I 100% agree with you that this technology is unstoppable. Should we create a Discord group chat called the 1000x Delta Avengers? That’s what we have to call our community.

People are going to think it’s about Marvel.

The way that story ended was that the Nigerian government paid them off. They went back underground, repaired the pipeline, laid down their arms, demined the area, and deleted their Twitter account. Or maybe woke Twitter under Jack Dorsey took it down. Who knows?

The 1000x Delta Avengers. I can’t wait to drink with you somewhere.

We should have meetups. Both Jonah and I are in the Holy Land right now, so for Shabbat we’ll be hanging out, which is going to be great. If anybody’s in Jerusalem, come say hi.

If anybody wants to go visit the Kotel with us, give us a shout. But do it before sundown, because otherwise I won’t respond.

As I’ve unfortunately learned too many times.

Don’t pretend you don’t vanish sometimes too, Avi.

I vanish for unrelated reasons, such as learning how to play roulette in Monaco.

I still want to go to one of these EtherRock outings. You’ve got me intrigued.

Jonah, we don’t have outings. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Stop bringing this up.

I imagine it like the commercial for the Fyre Festival—what it was supposed to be.

You can imagine whatever you want, because it’s correct.

It’s imaginary because it doesn’t exist.

Exactly. Let your imagination run wild, because it’ll be more interesting than whatever we’re up to.

I agree with your general take that this technology is unstoppable. But if I’m thinking about what could cause a bear market—what could cause this to spiral—I don’t think enough people are paying attention to the fact that Nigeria is legitimately banning cryptocurrency.

I think what we just saw is the seed of where the bear market begins. I don’t think the bear market begins for some time, but keep an eye on it. Black markets take time to form, and Bitcoin will take time to recover.

China banned mining, and it tanked Bitcoin a ton. A bunch of people started selling in May 2021. Again, it meant nothing for the long-term prospects of the asset, but it did lead to a short-term depression.

All I’m saying is that this little sliver of information we just got—information everyone is ignoring because Bitcoin is rallying—may hold the key to getting out of this market at the right time without suffering an 80% drawdown.

That’s why I care so much about it: how they came to the decision, and what other countries might come to a similar conclusion. I want to make sure that, even if it doesn’t happen, I know what the warning signs look like.

That’s how I think we end up in the next bear market. My personal opinion is that it happens when 50 countries come out and ban it.

Exactly. Or 50 countries come out, add it to their balance sheets, and start trading commodities denominated in it. Then you get the opposite price action.

It’s kind of binary. They either ban it, add it to their balance sheets, or do nothing—which is what they’ve been doing. We’re teetering on the edge.

If there’s a cascade of Bitcoin bans around the world, get the fuck out of the way of that trade.

You just have to pay attention to the warning signs. If 3 countries come out and ban it, I’m probably taking my exposure down.

Even if they’re Nigeria, Kenya, and the DRC?

The DRC is actually the second country besides El Salvador to legalize it as money, right?

Isn’t that the Central African Republic?

I’m sorry—not the DRC. I mean, 100 million people live in Nigeria. It’s Africa’s most populous country, and Bitcoin is super popular there.

I can imagine why. If you’re born there, that isn’t necessarily the luckiest place to be born, especially in the more rural parts of the country. I can see why people are storing their money there. For a lot of people, it’s a path to financial independence.

It’s got to be crazy to live in a country where it gets banned.

Bitcoin is really becoming the global asset right now, which is satisfying for somebody who has watched this thing grow from $500 a coin, when nobody took it seriously.

I’ve always thought this was the endgame. There are people out there like Nayib Bukele, who is an absolute gigachad. By gigachad, I mean—you know, I think, how much did he buy? He bought a few million bucks, but he’s a gigachad in terms of his rhetoric when it comes to BTC.

El Salvador is a very unique country. It has proven itself willing to do things that the rest of the world doesn’t have the stomach for. The rest of the world doesn’t have the stomach for cracking down on crime the way El Salvador does.

The rest of the world also doesn’t have the stomach for offering economic freedom through cryptocurrency to its people, because governments want control.

I think it takes these renegade leaders to actually do that. Maybe Saudi Arabia will do it. Maybe the UAE will do it. It’s possible that Argentina will do it with Javier Milei now in charge, whom I really like.

The world is trending in that direction. You’re seeing it in one half of the hemisphere, while the rest of the world that currently has the power is sort of hanging on to itself.

It’s a battle between the entrenched powers and the newfound powers. But at least in the U.S., those entrenched combatants are losing.

Jamie Dimon looks like an ass. Gary Gensler is openly ridiculed now. I don’t want to pretend that the SEC can’t be threatening to crypto in the future. It certainly can, especially if Biden wins reelection.

It’s more that, as you said, you’ve been following Bitcoin since it was $500 and have loved watching it grow and flourish. I’ve been watching it too, but I didn’t understand it until one day the light bulb went off.

I saw it through the lens of commodities trading and what it offered people in emerging economies and petro-economies. Through that lens, I was able to see what it offers an economy beyond a speculative, penny-stock-type casino outcome.

I realized, “Oh, this is money. This is money that can move across the globe much more easily than bank money or petrodollars.”

I hope our listeners come up with their own framework for why Bitcoin clicks for them. You need a framework to trade effectively. Otherwise, you’re untethered, buying high, selling low, and acting like an unprofitable trader.

I hope we can all come up with these interesting frameworks and monitor either the confirmation signs or the things that aren’t necessarily in accordance with our thesis. Maybe that’s a time to lighten up, get out, or get short.

I agree with that. The sober and honest part is the most important piece.

When you’re in a bull market, it’s so easy to get carried away. It’s easy to smell your own shit, for lack of a better term, and believe the things you’ve convinced yourself of.

That’s why these conversations are important. You might be listening to this podcast on YouTube or Spotify and hear a new thought. You might have had these thoughts before or discussed them with your friends.

Writing them down, referring to them, and being sober and honest in your assessment of the situation is extremely important. Trying to predict the future and then seeing how your predictions perform is also extremely important, especially now in the bull market.

It’s very easy to get carried away. I recommend that everybody take the time to go touch grass.

I touched a lot of grass today. I touched some oranges too.

I harvested some oranges outside Tel Aviv. I didn’t look at the market once because I was positioned.

I think I picked around 10 kilos of oranges.

How long did that take?

About 5 hours.

Does it feel good at the end? Do you feel a sense of accomplishment?

Do you see these scars? You want to know how I got these?

For everyone listening on audio, Jonah has some little red lines on his arm from touching a tree—tiny red lines from touching a tree.

There have been times when I’ve earned a lot of money doing something at work and haven’t felt a thing, or maybe even felt a little shitty about it. There are other times when I’ve planted a tree, and it felt amazing.

The amount of money you make isn’t necessarily correlated with your level of enjoyment for an activity.

Absolutely not. I generated more dopamine from picking 10 kilos of oranges with a bunch of retirees from Bat Yam.

Everyone volunteering is coming from abroad right now. There was actually a really cute Japanese couple volunteering with us too. I asked them, “How did you guys end up in Israel picking oranges?”

They looked at me and said, “We just really like you guys.”

We really like them too. A little too much sometimes. We eat their sushi and marry their women.

It was really heartwarming and sweet.

The amount of happiness I generated from being out there, not looking at my phone, picking oranges with my friend—it was a really great feeling.

All of this is to say: if you haven’t touched grass in a long time, I highly suggest you go touch grass. It can be any amount of grass, at any point, anywhere. Just go touch it.

What a great note to end the podcast on. I couldn’t agree more. You’ve inspired me, Avi. I’m going to go outside and touch a pint of beer.

That used to be grass—specifically wheat.

No, but it is no longer.

Awesome. All right, Jonah. As always, it’s a pleasure chatting with you.

Pleasure chatting with you too.

None of this is investment advice. We don’t know anything. Don’t do what we say. Do your own research.

Jonah knows some things. I know absolutely nothing. Great talking to you, man. Until next week.