The Agenda Podcast: Decoding Crypto

Bitcoin price hits new all-time high — What does it mean for crypto in 2024?

• Cointelegraph • Season 1 • Episode 31

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With Bitcoin price hitting a new all-time high above $69,000 on March 5, hosts Jonathan DeYoung and Ray Salmond reflect on what the bull market means for mass adoption, artificial intelligence, NFTs and community-focused projects in 2024.

The Agenda is brought to you by Cointelegraph and hosted/produced by Ray Salmond and Jonathan DeYoung. Follow Cointelegraph on Twitter at @Cointelegraph, Jonathan at @maddopemadic and Ray at @HorusHughes. Jonathan is also on Instagram at @maddopemadic, and he makes the music for the podcast — hear more at madic.art.

Check out Cointelegraph at cointelegraph.com.

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The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this podcast are its participants’ alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph. This podcast (and any related content) is for entertainment purposes only and does not constitute financial advice, nor should it be taken as such. Everyone must do their own research and make their own decisions. The podcast’s participants may or may not own any of the assets mentioned.

Ray: Crypto is for everyone, not just rocket scientists, venture capitalists, and high-IQ developers. Welcome to The Agenda, a Cointelegraph podcast that explores the promises of crypto, blockchain, and Web3 and how regular ass people level up with technology.


Jonathan: Welcome to a special, I guess, episode of The Agenda. We don't have a guest this week. We don't have a, like, particular product or project that we're focusing on. Instead, we wanted to take the time to just reflect a little bit on the crypto market, the state in 2024, what it means for sort of of the themes that we've been addressing on the show, these kind of unique projects — privacy, AI, music, whatever other fun things that we'd like to discuss on the show. Ah, so at the time of recording, it's Tuesday, March 5th, Bitcoin price just hit a brand new all-time high today. Uh, just above $69,000. Kind of a boop. And then it went back down. And now I think I just checked it's like $63, $64K somewhere around there. This episode is probably gonna come out on Friday. That would be March 8th. So there's a chance that we'll have blown through the all-time high and will be at $300,000 per Bitcoin by that point, or we'll be back at zero. You know, take whichever bullish or extremely bearish prediction you want to make, but we figured we'd just have a more casual conversation today. Chop it up a little bit about this bull market that we're now officially, undeniably back in, and what it means for the crypto space. So let me throw it at you real quick, Ray. Do you feel vindicated? You've been talking for a long time publicly proclaiming that we're back in a bull market. Do you feel vindicated? Did people listen to you? And, uh, should they have listened to you?


Ray: Man, that's a good question. To be honest, I do not feel vindicated. I think I've moved beyond those desires and emotions in the last bull market. So this is my third one. And like a Buddhist who is attempting to dislocate themselves from ego, I think that I've finally reached that level of crypto spirituality. I've not yet hit nirvana. And if one was a crypto Buddhist, I don't know how you would define Nirvana. Would it be it couldn't be becoming a millionaire in crypto, because then that's a material thing, and we're not really supposed to be focused on material things, or at least Buddhists aren’t? So I'm not sure what crypto nirvana would look like or feel like it might be. Pure decentralization and blockchain solving all the problems in the world, right? But to get back to the question, I do not feel vindicated, but I am content that price went to this level. So I'll use another cheap analogy. Even though it might not be cheesy. You know, Christians believe that Jesus is coming back and that he's going to take all the faithful to heaven when he raptures them and yadda yadda yadda, all that sort of stuff. So I think crypto people, like hardcore bitcoiners and investors, always knew that price would go back to an all-time high, or the new all-time high, or the old one, but they didn't necessarily know when it would happen. And similar to the rapture, it happened in the twinkling of an eye. So if I was to give you the egotistical answer, I'd say that in 2017 I, um, mapped out where I thought Bitcoin price would go, and it went there.


Ray: I did the same. And the previous bull market, I called the bottom at $16,800, and my price target was 300% from that price. And we still have a ways to go, you know, still got like another 100% to go before that target is achieved. That's where I think this bull market will end, possibly lowest price at around $120K. And I have been evangelizing and preaching in the Gospel of Satoshi for six plus years, and it has reached very few, and few have been converted or got on the ship and avoided the great flood. So I reflected on this a lot, to be honest, over the last 2 or 3 years, because, you know, it's been a rough ride with crypto, and the reason why I don't really have any sort of I told you so conversations with my inner circles is the last time price hit an all-time high, I felt really lonely at the peak of the last bull market, and I had really been telling people like, to invest, invest, invest. Here's how. Here's the data, here's the charts. Like I was doing my all passionately to try and encourage people to invest in Bitcoin or crypto, in position while it was cheap versus buying when it was high, and then being all mad when it goes down and they get their fingers burnt. And very few people did that. So when price hit an all-time high, there was no one to celebrate that with. And I just felt alone and like realized that it's not about the money, it's about the freedom.


Ray: It's about the journey. It's cheesy as that sounds, and it's about sharing in that when with others around you, like we're all stronger together and can ball out together. And that wasn't the case. Unfortunately. The market blew up, and you know, we've gotten a chance to rebuild and do it better this time. So in this current bull market, I'm really emotionless. And I know this is a long answer, but I feel really grateful. And that's what I've been telling everyone in your life. You don't often, in your financial life you don't often get more than one opportunity to screw up. Like, really think about it. People make one terrible financial mistake, and it haunts them for the rest of their lives. Maybe they try to launch a business at the wrong time. It fails. They're broke. Maybe they try to trade options or trade the stock market, or buy NFTs or something. And it didn't work out. They got wrecked. Maybe they spent all their money on this really expensive car and didn't get the right insurance, and it got stolen, and they got wrecked. And like these types of bad financial decisions, even when they're purely ignorant and like not intended to be bad decisions, can ruin you for decades or for your entire life. And I feel like we've had three bull markets, multiple bull markets depending on when you got in crypto, but I've had three where I've been able to make mistakes, learn from them, come back, and do better the next time, and be successful. So for that, I just feel incredibly grateful and thankful that I'm here and not insolvent.


Jonathan: Definitely. Yeah, I feel like crypto is a place, depending on how you define a mistake. Like, I sometimes feel like I made the mistake of in 2020 when everything crashed, not putting everything into Bitcoin, moving back home, living with my parents, and just like making a ton of money in the bull run. Of course, who knows if I would have lasted all the way up, or maybe I would have sold earlier. Or maybe I would have just ridden it back down to the bottom like a lot of people did. But I sometimes consider that a financial mistake, even though, you know, there were reasons I didn't leave, and relationships and friendships and, and whatnot. So it wouldn't have necessarily been a smart life decision to move back in with my parents in my 30s. But it could have been a smart financial decision. But things crashed back down again, and you get another chance. You get another bull market. And here I am. But at the same time, as you were saying, I also kind of feel a bit emotionless this time. And I'm trying to think to myself, like, at what point, at what price level will I start to feel the real emotion again? Or have I just moved beyond caring as much about the price, like I remember in 2021? Like checking the price every day and checking my portfolio every single day. And I would walk down the street and I'd walk through Brooklyn and this neighborhood with a lot of very nice houses. And I would think, like, crypto is gonna put me in one of these houses if I just hold on.


Jonathan: It's gonna change my life forever. And this time around, I don't really feel that way. I don't know if I'm just at a better place in my life where I'm not, like, dependent on crypto for my source of dopamine like I was before. But I do think that part of it is that with the bear market and the crash, it kind of forced me to reevaluate, why am I in this space when — I think I've talked about this before, maybe in our intro episode, I'm not sure. But I apologize if I'm repeating a story. But when I first got interested in crypto, when I took this job and I learned a lot, what got me to stick around was not, oh, Bitcoin price go up or this is a great trade. It was the decentralization. It was the community empowerment. It was music. It was all the kind of actual use cases for the tech, the things that we explore on this podcast. So during the bear market, when I saw my portfolio turn into pennies, basically is what it felt like, I had to say like, okay, well, why am I here? Am I here just for the price, or am I here for something deeper? And the answer was no, I'm here for something deeper. So yeah, now that the price is back, I feel like I'm a bit detached from that. And I also think that we're just, I mean, you can correct me if you disagree, but I feel like we're just still so early into this bull run that I feel like getting super hyped up about hitting $69,000 is a bit premature, I guess.


Jonathan: So, yeah. I mean, one thing I was thinking about, just as you were kind of giving your answer to my question, was like, what is, uh, if and when we hit even higher new all-time highs like we had $100,000, we hit $200,000. I have no idea where we're going to go in this cycle. But let's say we hit $150,000, which I think is what you were saying, which you're kind of predicting roughly we could hit in this cycle, and let's say some of the OGs or maybe not the real OGs, but the people who've been around crypto for a long time, are they going to hit a price target where they say, okay, I'm out, like I'm going to retire? Like I might still be involved a little bit, but I'm not doing this full-time anymore. And then what would that exodus mean for the kind of quote-unquote core ethos of the crypto space? Like if all the people who've been around since 2017 get to a point or 2012 or whatever, I get to a point where they're just going to cash out and kind of retire like, and this new wave of investors are left or come in, I guess. Let me throw it back to you. Do you think that's a realistic possibility? And if so, like what do you think the consequences would be of having the old guard kind of cash out and the new guard come in?


Ray: I think that's a great question. One, I think at the top of every cycle and at new all-time highs, various people retire all the time, like certain influencers go dark, right? Certain accounts go dark. Some of them say goodbye, some of them just kind of vanish, and people quit their jobs and go start their own companies and hire their own people and begin to offer their own products and services. That always happens during...


Jonathan: And then some come back when the price drops, some come back.


Ray: That's true. And if they're lucky enough, Cointelegraph will rehire them, right? Or wherever they're working will rehire them. But I think that, yeah, certain people will retire and leave the market. But I mean Bitcoin is an asset which is in demand and trades in an open market 24/7. So where there's a buyer, there's a seller and vice versa. If we look on-chain at like actual on-chain data, you can see that they call it smart money or whales, large holders of Bitcoin, people that hold like 1,000-plus Bitcoin or entities that hold 1,000-plus Bitcoin, at the top of every market they distribute to sellers. So when the market crashes really hard and is in a bear market, you see these entities year after year after year after year and every cycle buying Bitcoin. And then they distribute or sell those Bitcoins into euphoria and to new investors and to new market participants and new buyers as the Bitcoin price goes up or even tops. So that does kind of like, um, I guess it answers your question with, yes, people are going to sell, but it doesn't necessarily mean that Bitcoin price is going to crash. And then it's possible that maybe this time things are different because the ETFs are kind of like buyers of infinite demand, right?


Ray: They're like purchasers of infinite demand. Every day for the last 2 or 3 weeks, they've been buying $500 million minimum of Bitcoin daily, or $450 million daily. Even today, as Bitcoin price sold off after hitting a new all-time high, ETFs like Ibit from, uh, BlackRock traded like 1 billion shares. Right? And these are Bitcoin purchases that need to be filled tomorrow or the day after with spot Bitcoin. So my immediate logic when I saw, wait a minute, ETFs are still purchasing purchasing purchasing even though price is down 15%. My immediate thought was, hey, maybe tomorrow price goes up or the day after price goes up. So going back to your view on like looking at price every single day and the last market cycle and then this time not looking at price at all. I think that's a sign of maturity. Like we have 401ks, or once we had 401ks. And those are invested in stocks. Right? And I doubt that you looked at those daily. I sure as hell never even logged into Slavik to look daily. I don't log into Vanguard or Charles Schwab or anywhere where I have stocks or retirement. 401k, Roth, whatever. I never look at them, maybe once per three months.


Ray: So and people are profitable, and you're profitable, and people have their entire like net worth and pension and retirement and these things, and they don't look at them daily. So yeah, that's basically that in terms of, like, I don't hear anyone talking about buying Lambos either. I've not heard one thing about a Lambo. I've not seen any Lambo pictures. I've not seen anyone on yachts, I've not seen anyone like buying houses. And I mean, this market has been hot for a long time. I would say the market was officially hot when Bitcoin was trading in the $30,000 range. Like if you had bought around $15.5, $16, you're already in profit. And the smart guys are using leverage and trading altcoins and making money hand over fist. So there's been plenty of time to like, flex, right? And here we are at all-time high, and still nobody's flexing. So I find that really interesting one. Yeah, maybe you're right. Maybe nobody's spending their Bitcoin because they're afraid they won't be able to buy it at a cheaper price and they'll get priced out. And they all expect price to go much higher, maybe to 200,000. Or some people say 1 million. So maybe that's why people are holding. Maybe because um, it's difficult to collateralize Bitcoin right now.


Ray: So there's not a lot of trusted places. Previously we had FTX, Celsius, Binance, Nexo, Luna, Terra, like all these places where you could deposit Bitcoin and borrow off of it. And turns out those, most of them, were all scams. This time around, there's not as many. So people don't necessarily want to sell their Bitcoin or part ways with it. But then it's also very risky and kind of difficult to find a safe place to use it as collateral. So that could be another reason why people aren't selling and they're not balling out. But yeah, I know that's a long answer to your question, but I think this market is going to be okay. It's possibly different this time because the Fidelity and BlackRock have made it. Clear that they want to allocate Bitcoin to all of their products and services, every single financial product or bucket that they offer, they want to make some sort of Bitcoin allocation, whether it be 1%, 5%, or 7%, and they're just getting started. So I would expect going forward over the next year that you see more and more and more shifting of their assets under management going into Bitcoin, basically. And then the assumption might be is that that should bolster price.


Jonathan: Yeah, I think it'll be interesting to see what the trickle-down effects of all this money coming into the crypto spaces, because like what we saw last time is that all people just had, especially with Ethereum, just like they had tons and tons of ETH just sitting around, nothing to do with it. So they would… the NFT market exploded, or I feel like crypto donations become a huge thing. Like all these little projects and little initiatives got sort of the trickled — as much as I don't believe in trickle-down economics as a, just in general, it feels like it did happen in the crypto space to an extent.


Ray: I think that's a good segue away from price and being obsessed with price on the all-time high. I know that's something you and I had talked about earlier and previously is like, the market's hot now. Money's everywhere. What's going to happen? All these projects that we've spoken to, they all emphasize how valiant it is to build during a bear market we're building. We're hiring builders. Right? Like yeah, very true. Everybody's using that jargon and building and working and focused on building the next unicorn or decentralizing or doing charity or yadda yadda yadda, you know, pushing the blockchain revolution further. So now that the money's in everyone's pockets, are they going to deliver? Because I felt like, in previous bull markets, a lot of these ideological companies with these, you know, grandiose mission statements were not able to deliver, could not deliver. Sometimes it was their fault completely. Sometimes it was because of unforeseen black swans and terrible circumstances. But I know that's something you and I are curious about. This time is like, okay, what's the next step? Because there's more to crypto than just price. So what should we expect?


Jonathan: Here's a sneak preview for everybody listening. We will be doing an episode where we check in with some of the projects that we spoke with over the past year, or I guess it's been a year and some change since we had our first episode. I think it was the end of December 2022, so we'll be checking in with some of them. And I mean, I guess we'll find out now that the market is back, what they are up to. But yeah, I do think it is important and valiant, to use, steal your word, to build in the bear market when you don't know if money's going to flow back in and you're just there for the tech and you're preparing for when the money does come back in. But to your point, like the money is here now, presumably. I don't know how much of it is trickled down yet, but it definitely will be starting to trickle down. I mean, altcoins are going up as well riding the Bitcoin wave. And yeah, what does that mean for like a small project with a team of three people that's doing something super interesting? I hope that it means that some of the people that are riding the wave up will then take some of their money and throw it into the kind of the more passion projects like that they've made their money with the more institutional bets, but the more like hype plays, maybe the bigger projects that make a little cash.


Jonathan: Now they got an extra few ETH lying around, and they can throw it into their friend's passion project and help that get off the ground, or the kind of the cool, unique use cases. But I do think everybody is kind of just waiting at this point for that money to and those people to trickle down. But the other difference is, you kind of alluded to this time around, is that I don't see all the same hype in the popular world around crypto. So what does that mean for like a gaming project or an infrastructure project, if the user base is still just crypto folks and the kind of noncrypto folks haven't come in yet


Ray: Hey that could kind of line up. The lack of euphoric talk could kind of possibly reinforce that buildable mentality that maybe everyone's walking on eggshells, everyone's learned their lesson on being egotistical and too risk-loving in the last cycle. And therefore, it's kind of like, you know, you've been in a really abusive relationship, and then you meet someone, and they treat you really nice, and everything's good, and you're like, maybe this is real. You get hopeful, but you walk on eggshells because you're like, I don't know, maybe she'll cheat on me. Maybe she's like a narcissist or something. Maybe she's gonna manipulate me. You know, like you have that kind of abuse syndrome, that PTSD. Sure. So maybe the lack of euphoric, and the fact that people are still being quite muted, means they still have their heads down and they're working. So yeah, I'm there with you on that. If I could ask you a question, I would want to know from you, like, what are three things that are on your radar for 2024? What are your expectations from builders, blockchain projects and philanthropists, and the technology within this space? Like what are your expectations for that? Or just what are you keeping an eye on and excited about now that market conditions are better? And adding to that, it's just not the market conditions.


Ray: It's that the judicial system here in the United States basically told Gary Gensler, you've been unfair and very partial in the way you deal with fintech companies versus, you know, with crypto companies versus everything else. And they forced his hand. So with that, I think you also get some regulatory clarity. And we're in an election year and Bitcoin and crypto and blockchain are on Capitol Hill. And it is something that is discussed among some of the candidates. And they want constituents. And you know, a certain portion of America is pro-crypto. And that's becoming a relevant vote, even if it's like an identity kind of politics vote, it's still becoming a relevant vote. And big money runs the world, as we know. So with BlackRock and Fidelity now being all pro-crypto, that's got to have some impact on campaign financing and lobbying on Capitol Hill and just general bank politics also. So with that, my assumption is that we're going to get further regulatory clarity, which makes it easier to do business in crypto in America. So with that, I think we could possibly have boosted expectations from these projects also. So with all that said, I wonder what are like three things that you got your eyes on?


Jonathan: All right. Three things I was thinking while you said that the first thing I'll say, based on what you just said, is the politics aspect of it. I think that when you think about how little our politicians actually know about technology… like you saw this with the hearings on, just I'll speak from a US context. I'm assuming it's similar in other places as well, but at least here in the US, you saw this with a TikTok hearing. Either politicians don't know anything about how the tech works, or they're just trying to take it and turn it into a political play, like asking, I forget the CEO of ByteDance, or maybe he's the head of the TikTok part of ByteDance. I'm not sure. But anyway, he wasn't even Chinese. And people were asking him all these questions about like, the Chinese government and living in China and like, dumb stuff like that.


Ray: Oh, Liang Rubo.


Jonathan: I can't remember. I just I saw some clips that were like ridiculous of politicians, just basically not even asking legitimate questions, just turning it into like a kind of a political moment, trying to get their question to go viral.


Ray: Yeah, kind of like they did, uh, the former head of, I mean.


Jonathan: And I trust me, I'm not pointing fingers at any one side. Everybody does this. I've heard from multiple people who've worked in Washington that politicians are like buddy, buddy, chummy, chummy, very agreeable. A lot of them, not everybody. When behind closed doors, they have very rational conversations. Then as soon as the cameras turn on. Well, you, sir, are a disgrace to our American democracy. And and they, they just like they're playing characters for their voter base basically.


Ray: Terrible.


Jonathan: So I think that crypto has just become another point of something to latch on to, to try to get votes. I don't think these politicians actually understand what blockchain is. And I think that you have a lot of people who 20 years ago would have been anti-crypto because the perception would have been that it's a way to bypass American financial whatever, or like to escape the American financial system, which they didn't want, or they would have been pro-CBDC because it's a way to surveil Americans. But now they're anti-CBDC because it's a political point to make. So I think we're going to potentially, especially if Bitcoin and the crypto market continue to expand and grow and grow, see that become more of a talking point. And as the race between Biden and Trump is just going to be so tight that people are going to be looking for, each prospective camp is going to be looking for any edge at all to kind of take voters away from the other party. So that's one thing I'll be looking for. The second thing I'll be looking for is money flowing back into NFTs, as even if ETH doesn't, like, grow a crazy amount, I think altcoins are certainly going to continue to grow, and we'll probably see some new all-time highs and big projects or, well, you'll have these projects that will do a thousand Xs, and people will want to do something with that money.


Jonathan: And so I don't know if we'll see quite the NFT euphoria that we saw before. People are going to want somewhere to park their money into something potentially speculative where they can maybe make even more money. And I think that, uh, if not art NFTs, then maybe music NFTs will have a moment. Or maybe if there's a successful gaming project that uses NFTs launched this year, maybe that will see some crazy speculation. But people are going to want to speculate with that money somehow. NFTs, memecoins, people are going to start gambling if they have extra ETH lying around, like tons and tons of extra ETH. So maybe it'll be a moment for some of these music NFT platforms that have been building in the background. Or maybe we'll see more musicians launch NFTs. And to your point earlier, I think that audiences are going to be more skeptical because people are burnt out by NFTs. So but already, like, I've had people reach out to me about their NFT projects that they're being a little bit more, not hush hush, but like reach out for wanting me to write stories about it, but about their NFT projects.


Jonathan: And what I'm definitely noticing more of is it's less I have, I am artist Big Artist A, and I'm doing an NFT drop, and it's literally just a picture of the artwork, and I'm selling it for $100 a pop, and fans get nothing, which is like kind of the narrative of the last bull run or the critique of music NFTs of the last bull run. And now it's more like, okay, well, we're doing NFTs, but if you buy the NFT, then you get a lifetime pass to our shows, or you'll be in the running for a one-on-one FaceTime call. And each month, out of the thousand people that buy the NFTs will, ten people will get a FaceTime call, and then it'll be a randomly selected lottery or whatever. Like people are really focusing on the utility, or I'm also seeing projects that use NFTs or crypto on the back end, where it's just not even being spoken of like it's not even on the website publicly, it's just on the back end. And if you know, you know, kind of thing, like I spoke with Verité for a Cointelegraph article, this was last year where she was talking about how she is now, especially focusing on things where NFTs are just an option, where like it'll be a digital product, you get the physical product and you have the option of using the NFTs.


Jonathan: If you want to access this extra layer of verifiability for your product. But you don't have to. And I think that that's probably the future that most artists are going to take. Either it's going to be you will have the option of using the blockchain capability. You won't know you're using blockchain at all. But again, if money starts flooding in, then you'll also probably see artists who are just more artists who are just doing stuff on blockchain only like only releasing music as NFTs. But I think that that's not super sustainable in the long term, if you want my honest opinion, because what happens if you're only releasing on Sound? You're making a ton of money now, and then Big Daddy Gary Gensler comes along and says, that's a security, and the platform gets shut down, and all of a sudden you got nothing. Then the third thing then I'll let you share yours and, uh, reply to anything I said, but to get my third one off while I'm thinking about it would definitely be AI — and that feels like kind of a cop-out answer in a sense, because it's like the biggest topic right now in all of technology and kind of in the world in some aspects, if you're kind of really tuned in to tech, obviously with Nvidia share prices like or stock prices exploding through the roof, it's everywhere.


Jonathan: But I think what's interesting with AI and crypto is that it feels like it's giving kind of a new life to a lot of crypto projects that were previously kind of struggling, maybe to figure out, okay, what is the unique thing I'm bringing here? Or what do I market here? And now? There's like a ton of projects that are like AI projects that maybe even before weren't even calling themselves AI projects. And I think that it has given a new, more powerful use case to blockchains, especially the kind of, uh, the idea which we talked about a little bit with our most recent guest of Atlas, of this idea of can you like in the age of deepfakes, can you verify, like what is verifiability and can blockchain play a part in that? You see these AI tokens just skyrocketing. And I do think that this could potentially be a place where the crypto world proves itself as having more use cases to the sort of masses in the mainstream, whether or not that the mainstream realizes that this deep fake or whatever is being verified as false because of blockchain, like, uh, I listen to Gary Vee sometimes, and he was talking about how he thinks that in the future, like within the next however many years, every video he uploads is going to be verified on a blockchain that this actually came from Gary Vee.


Jonathan: How like the proof that something is real has been video in the past however many decades. Like we've, we see it on video, we know it's real. And now increasingly, that's becoming just impossible to know. Unless you're like an AI expert, you know where to look for the giveaways that this is AI-generated. So I do think that blockchain presents, like I was saying just a second ago, kind of a very unique use case, that if these projects can capitalize on this specific use case effectively and properly, that could be potentially something that helps to bring the mass use and mass adoption of blockchain into sort of the mainstream. And again, like I said before, I don't know if it even matters that, whether or not people know that like something's being done with blockchain or cryptography on the back end, as long as they feel that they can verify and believe that something is valid because this awesome new tech makes it provable that it is. So I think I talked for a while, kind of gave you a mouthful there, but those are the three things I would say. So I'll, uh, pass it back to you.


Ray: Yeah, I think I'll work my way backward on that. And I agree with you. One thing I'll be looking for this year, and I think we starting to see it happen already, is putting a more seamless and easy to interact with, and something that people are more accustomed to user interface up front. And then all the weird blockchain stuff and crypto stuff and crypto wallet stuff being far on the back end, where it's an automated process, one step button, you know, one function button that you press in an app to make a payment or make a transfer or accept something. And then all the weird machinery of blockchain and wallets and seed phrases and all that happens deep within the app on the back end, where users don't see it and have to memorize a whole bunch of junk and set up a whole bunch of stuff. So the companies that make that really easy, maybe like Coinbase and others, Strike, Cash App and whatever else comes out, those are the ones that are probably going to succeed. And the entertainers or the artists or musicians or, you know, the intangible and tangible. Well, I guess people that offer kind of like enjoyment services and things that are intangible if they figure out a way to also provide this kind of like easily something that the consumer is really familiar with in terms of the product or service, if they figure out a way to do that also and have all the kind of crypto stuff on the back end or the jargon altered and redefined so that it's not having that negative kind of connection to NFTs or Web3 or crypto, then they will probably be the ones that are successful and this market cycle also.


Ray: So I totally agree with you on that. While it is cliche, like you said, AI obviously is the elephant in the room, and it's going to continue, I believe, to have an impact on crypto. And I like what you said about how the challenges presented by I give an excellent opportunity for blockchain itself when it comes to authenticating content and making sure that it's original or fact-checking, so on and so forth. Like, yeah, for sure. So many blockchains out there that can do wonderful things but have no users, right? And have no market share and have no application. So the challenges and opportunities that AI will present also is going to give the opportunity to all these different blockchain projects that are focused on that type of thing, which, like you said, it's going to become more and more and more and more pressing in the coming years. Something else that's on my radar, that's AI related is Sora. Yeah, yeah. You know, Sora is a thing where you can write in a prompt and it converts it to video. Tyler Perry, this producer and screenwriter, and actor, he was building a $800 million studio for the…. You know, he produces movies and Netflix stuff. Everything, right? He's like Black Steven Spielberg, basically. And, um, after Sora came out, he put a pause on the construction of this $800 million project because it was just so incredible.


Ray: So think about the impact that's going to have on workers. Think about the impact that's going to have on workers who are in unions, who feel threatened by this. Think about the redundancies that it will create within the entertainment space. Think about how it can be used to do incredibly wonderful things, but also be used to do things which are kind of dark and damaging. So obviously, there's going to be an application for blockchain in that regard, even on like the unionizing and protection of worker rights side and all that. So I'm excited to see where we go from there. And we might have had an episode titled What the Fuck Happened to Music NFTs? And I know our next guest that we have on is actually building a music service and platform for musicians and artists, and it uses NFT tech. But it's not really NFTs that he's focused on. It's just that's what the tech is. But, you know, I'm looking forward to having him on because it's going to be an interesting conversation. But I really thought of all the NFT stuff. You know, the market blew up two years ago, so I thought the phoenix of NFTs would be music NFTs. I really thought that that was the one kind of subsector of the industry that made the most sense and would have the most growth, and it would just be easy to kind of bridge between Web3, blockchain and the traditional music industry.


Ray: And there were so many platforms and people that were fundraising to the tune of tens of millions of dollars for music NFTs, that I'm surprised nothing has happened. And one thing I've learned investing in Ethereum, Bitcoin maybe, but really, Ethereum and some of the other Ethereum-like coins. One thing I've learned about tech companies is you don't expect results at the end of one year, or even at the end of two years, or even at the end of three years. You expect the payoff and the result at the end of 5 or 10 years. Like ETH, is clearly a 5 to 10-year investment. Everybody thought ETH at $4,500 or $4,800 was amazing, but also the highest it could go. And most people I knew the last two years never thought that ETH would achieve that price again. Right? But here we are with Ethereum coming close to $4,000 again. And I've always heard about Ethereum is going to go to $10,000 or $15,000 or $17,000. I didn't believe it. It didn't make sense to me. I didn't understand how, it just it didn't make sense. But this year, it began to make sense to me that price could go there because of the technology and because of how multifaceted it is. So, so maybe music NFTs are still, maybe the guys that are working in that are still putting in the work and developing that, and it's going to take a long time before we really see what the end product is, because my understanding and expectation of a music NFT could be too simplistic.


Ray: Just like my understanding of Ethereum as an asset was kind of like a one-sided understanding. I didn't really realize that it's a bond. It functions like a treasury that gives you yield, that all these L2s would spring up off of it, that it could be a collateralized asset with its own lending and borrowing markets, that the actual blockchain itself is a technology which will be adopted across the entire world and probably be at the base of our financial infrastructure in the future. And I didn't realize that all that activity on the network, now that it's proof-of-stake, makes the currency deflationary and gives it more value, like there were so many ways that Ethereum can be used and is being used all at once, that that helps you understand why people believe it can be worth $10 to $17,000 a coin in the future. So maybe my understanding and expectations of music NFTs are too simplistic, and whatever amazing thing they're going to do, they haven't done yet. But I'm still wondering. So that's probably one of my biggest expectations of 2024 and 2025, because currently, the NFT market that's hot is Bitcoin Ordinals, and it's just little pixelated 12-bit pictures of inscriptions on the blockchain of silly stuff. It's the same as the previous NFT bull market, except it's not on Ethereum. It's on Bitcoin this time, but it's still goofy little pictures.


Jonathan: Yeah, I mean, I'll save most of my thoughts for when we have our guest on when we have our What the Gosh Darn Heck Happened to Music NFTs episode. But the very quick answer that I think at least is part of it, And just in terms of the long-term nature of technology, and when the payoff comes, so to speak, is that it's one thing to have music, NFTs like you have it on a Sound.xyz, for example, where anybody like a Zora, where you can just go on and upload an NFT that you theoretically own all the rights to and then set a price, and then people can just buy and mint the token. There are still some legal questions surrounding that as to whether or not that is considered a security in the US. But that aside, that's kind of the entry-level to a music NFT. But when you go beyond that and start thinking about, okay, well, how do you integrate this with the real world? Like how do you attach a royalty to it, where if you own this NFT or automatically guaranteed 5% of all future royalties from the song that I released, then it starts to get incredibly complicated because then you're talking about this ancient like dinosaur industry that is the music industry, where everybody's out to exploit you. At least among the major labels. The major labels control a lot of the infrastructure behind the music industry. They control a lot of the distributors, for example.


Jonathan: And you've got this extremely complex system, and it's different in each country in terms of what the laws are, who collects royalties, what royalties you're guaranteed. Like it just becomes extremely complicated. And so that's, I think, one of the things that's prevented just music NFTs from being that sort of killer app of the NFT space. And I think also just the public perception of NFTs is so tarnished. Like if you say the word NFT in a lot of circles, they'll laugh you out of the room or they'll call you a scammer. And I think people have become hip to that digital collectible just means NFT. And so they, a lot of people, if you say that, will just think you're talking about NFTs anyways. So speaking of NFTs kind of coming across as scammy, uh, I was just thinking about one of our previous guests, Molly Jane Zuckerman, who wrote an op-ed about how she sometimes is afraid to tell people that she has anything to do with crypto because of the reputation, that it's just scams and NFT fraud and gambling and whatever. With this current bull run that we are in, we talked about a little bit earlier, or you mentioned that it doesn't feel like people are talking about Lambos and some of the hype that was here at the same price last time, or all the hype basically doesn't feel like it's here this time around. So I'm wondering if that might have something to do with the fact that people are kind of just, at this point, nervous about getting into crypto, getting back into crypto because of the collapse of FTX and Celsius and the NFT market implosion.


Jonathan: And I think that one thing that we're trying to do with this podcast is to show people that crypto is more than just crypto. First of all, it's also the technology behind it. It's blockchain, which doesn't even have a financial incentive necessarily associated with it. Although we live in a capitalist world, and so most often, more often than not, there's going to be a market mechanism behind these tokens in economy behind the tokens, and you want incentivization and whatnot. But like part of what we're trying to show with this show is that you can use this technology for things that go beyond scamming people or gambling on shitcoins to make money or whatever the critiques of crypto is that it's all vaporware and nobody really uses it for anything meaningful and whatnot. Like we believe and we understand that that's not the case. And we have people on the show who believe that as well and are doing things that prove that it's not. But do you ever think about, like, that idea that some people are just nervous to get into crypto because of the reputation that it has, and maybe what we should be doing to educate people beyond what we're doing in this podcast, but what people can be doing to show people that it's not just negative stuff.


Ray: Yeah, I do, and connecting with what Molly Jane had told us about, you know, she doesn't invest in crypto, and she doesn't like to talk to people about it. It's the same for me. As recently as, like two days ago in Denver, someone asked me what I did, and I was just like, ah, you know, stuff. Or they ask me what I was doing in Denver. And I was like, I'm just here for work. And they're like, well, what's your work? Ah, it's just work stuff, you know, conferences, technology, yada yada yada. Like, I am very averse to telling people that I don't know that I work in crypto or that I'm a market analyst, or that I'm a blockchain and cryptocurrency-focused journalist. It's even difficult to explain what Cointelegraph is. Like it's a finance journal focused on blockchain, and you just lose people there. So yeah, I get you on that. There's there's definitely an eye-rolling boredom, and you're not a serious investor type person, uh, a response that I get on a regular basis. When I used to talk to people about work, to the extent that now I prefer to not talk about work or crypto or anything in public to anyone and just leave it at that. And when people do and it very seldomly happens, ask me about Bitcoin. I'll be like, what are your questions? And I'll answer them for you.


Ray: And if I'm talking too much, just tell me to shut up. But you tell me exactly what you want to know, and I will attempt to answer that. That way I can at least, like, try to answer the questions to the interest point of the person who's asking, because people are sometimes curious. But getting back to your other question regarding like people being generally turned off by crypto, mystified by it, confused at it, scared of it, or having a negative reaction to it. I think this would be a good call to action to all of our listeners in the audience, all of you regulars. If you're listening to us regularly, then you're clearly interested in blockchain and cryptocurrency and the different builders and projects that we talk to bi-weekly. So, I would say this is a call to action for all of you to, you know, go out and tell people about cryptocurrency and about blockchain and encourage them to be curious. And if you have resources that are entertaining and light and easy to digest and informative, share those with your friends and family. And if you're a super successful crypto investor and people wonder, you know, how did you get so successful and wealthy, then put them on the game, if you know what I mean.


Ray: So everybody's interest in blockchain or cryptocurrency differs, but I think a lot of people will be attracted to the idea of becoming more financially self-sovereign, becoming more financially literate, understanding how to use money to their advantage better. You know, like everything that I learned from crypto has translated to my personal finances also. And I understand the stock markets and macroeconomics and fed and central bank policy a lot better than I ever would have if it didn't have some bearing on my cryptocurrency portfolio or my interest in crypto, because I eventually found out that these things are correlated and kind of exist in the same ecosystem, where if one thing happens to one and it has some impact on the other, usually. So I think that audience members should, you know, share your knowledge with others and encourage them to be curious whether it be on the tech side, on the finance side, on the philosophical and ideological side. It's definitely, I think that crypto is a gate, and it opens doors for people, for freedom, for ideological freedom, for financial freedom, and for self-empowerment. So it shouldn't be something that anyone should be ashamed or afraid to talk about, even though I said I was earlier. So I encourage all of you to share the good word.


Jonathan: Yeah, I agree, I have heard a few people say, and I generally agree with the sentiment, but a few people I've talked to who are active in the crypto space that blockchain and crypto aren't going anywhere, if I'm to paraphrase them, that crypto is NFTs, blockchain, they're not going anywhere, and they're going to continue to grow, and somebody is going to be using it to their advantage, and they might even use it against you if they're like politically motivated or something like that. So you can either just ignore it, dismiss it, pretend like it's not there, hate it, and then get left behind, or risk having this technology used against you in some way. Or you can learn about it. You can understand it. You don't have to like it. If you don't like it, you don't want to do anything with it, if you think it's not for you, that's fine. But I think everybody should at least educate themselves because I don't think for a second that in the near future, at least pending some crazy regulatory crackdown that's unforeseen, or like World War Three, some insane world-stopping event, that crypto is going anywhere. I think it's not going anywhere anytime soon. And yeah, I don't think that anybody, especially people who have not always had access to the financial system or been the kind of person that the financial system wants to give access to.


Jonathan: I think that especially those people should be taking some time to learn this technology and learn the finances and come to their own conclusions about whether or not that this is something that they think will help uplift them. And I personally think that for a lot of people, it certainly can. If you're patient and you follow sort of the general best practices for investing and not investing more then you're willing to lose and yadda yadda yadda, etc.. Basically, I agree with you, Ray, and I think we're on the same page here, so I think that's a good note to end this episode on. I hope that this has been enjoyable. For those of you listening, it's a little bit of a detour from what we normally would do with our guests. But hey, if you like the episode, if you like us kind of just shooting the breeze about kind of topics that are on our minds or in the news that week, let us know. Shoot us a DM, respond in a comment on Twitter, send us an email. Whatever the case may be, let us know and maybe we'll do, uh, more of these. Who knows?


Ray: Yeah, that was a great episode. It was nice to just catch up and kind of take stock of what's happening in the market, and what sort of meaningful developments we should expect to see over the next year or two. Now that crypto apparently has gone mainstream. So should be an exciting journey, and we'll see you back here for the next episode.


Ray: The agenda is hosted and produced by me, Ray Salmond.


Jonathan: And by me, Jonathan DeYoung. You can listen and subscribe to The Agenda at Cointelegraph.com/podcasts, or on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever else podcasts are found.


Ray: If you enjoyed what you heard. Rate us and leave a review. You can find me on Twitter at @HorusHughes.


Jonathan: And I'm on Twitter, Instagram, and just about everywhere else at @maddopemadic.


Ray: Be sure to follow Cointelegraph on Twitter and Instagram at @Cointelegraph.

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