EP3: Crypto Markets 2023 Recap & 2024 Predictions

Ultrasound Money: ultrasound.money

Guest Hosts:
Comrade Mario: @terramaxi

The conversation begins with Christmas stories and a discussion on Solana's price surge. They analyze the market and discuss the future of Ethereum, including the ultrasound money concept. The conversation also touches on the performance of altcoins and the value of Ethereum in the NFT space. Finally, they explore Ethereum's potential in 2024 and the importance of catalysts for its growth. In this part of the conversation, the hosts discuss the rise of meme coins and their impact on the crypto market. They also recap the major events of 2023, including the ETF news and the de-pegging of USDC. The conversation then shifts to the Saga Phone by Solana, a privacy-focused phone designed for crypto operations. Finally, the hosts share their predictions for 2024, with a focus on the potential growth of DeFi and the institutionalization of Bitcoin. They share their price targets for Bitcoin in 2024 and debate which asset, Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Solana, will break its new all-time high first. The potential of Coinbase and its valuation is also discussed. The conversation then shifts to the role of AI in crypto, specifically focusing on the potential of Tao. The participants also explore the narrative of AI and crypto and the potential of GameFi in the crypto market. The conversation concludes by discussing the future of AI in Web 3.0 and sharing their New Year's wishes and optimism for 2024.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/redcandleclub
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@redcandleclub

Dan Kazenoff: @DanKazenoff
Lawrence: @crypto_sieve

DISCLAIMER: This is not financial, tax, or legal advice. Hosts and guests may hold some of the assets discussed on the show.

Transcript

Lawrence: ​[00:00:00] Welcome. Welcome to the red candle club. We got Jimmy and comrade Mario. I won't share his real name he wants to stay anonymous. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll, we'll keep it there. At comrade, is it at comrade Mario, your Twitter name? Yeah, 

Terramaxi: I mean, he handles Terra Maxi on all, like, Oh, it is.

Okay. But, yeah. 

Lawrence: Alright, yeah, I'll put it, I'll put that in the, I'll put it all in the show notes afterwards, if people want to follow you and whatnot. Cool. 

Dan: Awesome. How's everybody's Christmas been? It's been entertaining. Yeah, entertaining. 

Lawrence: And I feel like a glutton. I've been eating, like, just tons of cookies and I just went to the gym and I sweat in the sauna for, like, a half hour because I just had to get it, like, I feel like half of my blood was just, like, sugar.

Get it all out, you know, 

Dan: I, I need a sauna right now. Yeah. [00:01:00] I, I was just eating and I brought like a dozen donuts to like my girlfriend's parents house and, but they already had like a giant tray of cookies and like, just like chocolate walnut pastries and like just cheesecake. Yeah. And like all the meals and the dinners were already like sweetened with like pineapples and like ham.

But yeah, anyone else have any good holiday spicy news? 

Jimmy: We all got sick. Yeah. Everyone in the house is sick. Everyone's congested. It's the wildest thing. Cough, cough, cough.

Everyone's sick. But great time. It's a great time to be around family. It's a good 

Dan: time. I've been 

Lawrence: hearing that too. People getting sick. Yeah. It's lovely, 

Jimmy: What's not sick is our market action here. This is amazing. It's 

Lawrence: very valid. Yeah, man.

Literally, Chris, I know it's the 23rd and [00:02:00] Solana broke 100 and I texted basically like everyone that I knew all that, you know, Normie and not Normie like this is, you know, this is pretty epic. You know, this is like seeing Solana back at 100 again was a really good feeling for me personally. I don't know if anyone else felt 

Dan: that.

Terramaxi: It's gonna get a thousand dollars, man. 

Dan: Yeah, that was 

Lawrence: Yeah, I, I mean it's, it's still 50 plus percent under the all time high, so it's got a long way to go before it's in full bull mode, but I mean it's, it's a pretty epic climb, you know, it's a 10x climb from the beginning of the year. 

Dan: I am curious, like, what the supply difference is since It's previous all time high if we've like minted a lot more tokens.

I mean, we definitely have minted a lot more, but I'm curious. It's 

Terramaxi: more, we're thinking it thousand bucks. That's it. Supply. You're right.

Dan: One, one normie I was talking to that was hitting me up like back in like the peak bull for like all the tokens to buy. They bought Solana like, Yeah, like around his previous all [00:03:00] time high, and they, despite this insane run up, you know, last year, they, like, still haven't, like, it hasn't, like, gotten into their news space yet.

So, I think, like, the typical Normie, like, probably still isn't, like, isn't aware of what's happening. 

Lawrence: Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, my brother is one of these, also. Like, my brother is, he's a, I consider him a Normie, and he most, he gets most of his news from me. And he bought Solana around 90, and he's in the green now for the first time in like two years.

So, he was like pretty happy about it. And I just kept telling him to hold it. Don't, don't sell it. It's gonna go back up. And, you know, now he's, he's in the green again. And I feel like the climb from 100 to 200 is gonna be a little harder for Solana because there's gonna be a lot of these people that log in and see they're in the green.

And they're just gonna sell, right? They're, they, they've been through hell the past two years. And they're just gonna like, be like, I'm done with this shit. And they, they don't, [00:04:00] you know, people that have been doing research and whatnot, but I don't know, that's, that's just my feelings that I think 2024 salon is not going to be the same trade 2024 as it was in 2023.

Terramaxi: Nah, you guys are bullish enough. 1, 000 plus. I think, I'm like, you guys are laughing, but like these ETFs that are, if they get approved, which like 99 percent will more likely than not get approved, like the, the love, the level of inflows that we're going to receive, we're going to get, it's just going to be absolutely Absolutely.

Insane. And I think Solana and many other coins will reach certain heights that we've never seen before. Like, I think a thousand bucks is, is completely doable. 

Lawrence: I agree with you. But maybe 2025? Not, not 

Terramaxi: 2024. Yeah. I'm not saying 2020 $4,000. I do agree. I'm not saying, oh, it's gonna go to a thousand bucks.

Yeah. But I'm just saying like the ETFs is is like a, like a, is like a catalyst that hasn't been really like. Process even by like the most malicious [00:05:00] people because like because once we have the BTC ETFs attention will go to the ETH ETFs right and that which is admit which got delayed to May right so once BTC and ETH is like a lock We will then move towards AVAX ETF, XRP ETF, and then eventually a Solana ETF.

Like, it's just gonna keep on going down the loony bin. I'm 

Jimmy: yeah. Just to jump in, you, the reason why is that this Solana move up is really degens and crypto. I mean, it's just people who are just ditching Ethereum. I mean, they're literally saying, F Ethereum, I want a shit coin. Let me go to a place where there is no fees. And that's basically a lot of that money's going there.

So it's like a, it's like a whirlwind. And you have. You know, Bonk, you have the airdrops that are happening on Solana, and then you have people just, [00:06:00] the beta is just following and saying, you know what, I want to speculate, I want to have fun, I want to have a 20, 30, 50x, you know. You can't, you can't put a 5 trade in on Ethereum or a 10 trade on mainnet Ethereum.

It's impossible, but you can do that on Solana. So I think a lot of this is just Solana stealing Ethereum's lunch. It's just, it's crypto native people coming in and saying, Hey, I want to go to Solana. I want to have a lot more fun. I don't really care about anything else. And that's what's happening. 

Dan: Yeah, no, I think I think we should definitely get into that.

Before we do, I'm realizing like Jimmy or Mario, did you guys want to like, give like quick intros about yourself, like how you got into crypto and like, kind of what you're generally doing now in the space? 

Terramaxi: Yeah, so I'll start off. I joined crypto in October of 2021. Even, but I was involved in 2020, but I was just like a complete noob.

Over the last two years, I've [00:07:00] like grinded the bear market. I've worked for six different crypto companies Trader Joe, Algorand, Polygon, just to name a few. I'm just like your, your local DJ and you know, super, super into DeFi. As, as for how I got in I, I got in like everyone else as a Bitcoin maxi.

Once you, once Bitcoin clicks for you everything else falls into place. I saw like these grifters, like Chamath, I don't know his last name, but Chamath and Kevin O'Leary were shilling Bitcoin heavy in 2020. And that appealed to me at the time, bought a little bit of Bitcoin during the COVID crash.

And then. Learned about like, there's these like places where you could deposit Bitcoin and, and, and earn yield on your Bitcoin next sell Celsius. Right. But the thing, what, what, what I did a little bit differently than everybody else was like, where did, where was all this yield coming from? Like. Why is it that I'm getting six, 7 percent of my Bitcoin?

Learned about UACC, learned about Ethereum, started going on the, on the rabbit hole. I, I, I, I quickly realized that, you know, spending 200 on [00:08:00] gas on, on year in finance and, and, and all these different protocols that are on, are on ETH at the time, like I'm poor, bro. Like I can't, I can't, I can't sustain that.

So that quickly led me to discover Terraluna and Avalanche and then, you know, like the rest is history.

Jimmy: Yeah, I'll jump in. The, I first heard about Bitcoin in 2013 this kid in the club was like, Hey man, did you buy any Bitcoin? And I'm like, What is this? He's like, yeah, you got to buy it is the next big thing. I was like, all right, man, whatever. And then like next year the year after, I think like 2015, for some strange reason, I thought of Bitcoin, like I woke up one day.

I'm like, you know, I got to read about this Bitcoin, very random. So then I read about it. It took me like an hour and I was like, I was already convinced I didn't even more than an hour. I was like, this is it. So I just started buying Bitcoin. 2016 came around. I was able to buy Ethereum. And I wasn't really paying attention to space and then 2017 happened, the magical golden bull [00:09:00] bull run, as I call it, and you know, I just jumped in all in and started getting into ICOs, you know, route that wave, obviously the 1819 bear market was I still have PTSD on that one more than this one but always stayed in and, Always like to learn.

And, you know, right now I'm working on an NFT startup. It's mostly it's to leverage. Intellectual property within NFTs and then help new brands join the web three foray by linking the two through like an ad tech medium and just thoroughly interested in everything. I have a lot of fun.

I'm the resident bull. I love I'm pretty much a Bitcoin guy. I think that's the only real asset right now, but I love everything. I love everything. You know, now I'm learning more of the Solana ecosystem in this last, like, You know, last couple of weeks, well, a couple of soul and shit coin there.

And it's a lot of fun, you know, it's, it's [00:10:00] opening my eyes to new and better places. So I'm excited to be here. 

 Love it. Yeah. Did you guys want to like jump into like a quick, like market analysis? And then we have like a couple of things we can cover, like 2023 recap, and then we can just kind of dive into 2024 predictions. . 

Lawrence: Should we, should we pull up some charts or you just want to, just want to riff? 

Dan: leT's pull up these charts. 

Jimmy: I 

Terramaxi: see. We have a little dip today.

Lawrence: Yeah, we, we did. Let's see, let's go to, yeah, yeah. Bitcoin did dip a little today. , I mean, I don't know. I mean, it's Bitcoin's been kind of struggling here. It's been it's try to break 44. Try it again. Failed. I just wonder if like it's gonna just keep consolidating here for a while and then move up or I mean It's really it could go either way.

Honestly, I really don't know Yeah, I think 

Terramaxi: it's, it's, I think it's like, it's not going to go anywhere until we [00:11:00] get like until January 10th, which is like when the ETF needs is supposed to come out. I don't think we're going to be anywhere. Meaning there's not going to be any meaningful like price moving either way until we reach closer and closer.

So I think that once, once we reach closer to that day if it's going to either have like a violent move up or a violent move down If the ETFs get denied, you know, obviously we nuke and then if, if it gets approved then, you know, it's, I think it's like party, you know, party, it's party time.

Lawrence: Yeah. So do we, do we think the Bitcoin ETF is going to be a sell the news event or not? 

Terramaxi: I've seen like a lot of like people call for sell the news. It's, it's, it's almost becoming like a consensus. tRade, like, like everybody's like coalescing around. I, I kind of disagree. I Think that there's a decent chance that we, it doesn't like we, we don't dump it, we'll just continue to grind higher because we [00:12:00] were talking before about how, like like normies that bought Solana, they're just now waking up or, and realizing, oh, their prices, the prices are up, or some people are not still aware.

I think that we're still in our own little bubble. Right. And. Once these ETFs, like the news comes ahead, like it shows up in CNBC and the Wall Street Journal, like a huge amount of people outside of our bubble is going to start to realize that, oh shit, wasn't, isn't Bitcoin dead? Isn't crypto dead? Like why, why is there ETFs?

Why is the head of BlackRock shilling these products? Like, I think there's going to be like a repricing. I think we're, I think that a lot of people are going to. Start to realize that, oh shit, this shit's, this stuff is actually real, like, this stuff is, there's something, there's some, like, substance here, and I think we're gonna have more inflows, like, I don't think, I don't think we're gonna necessarily dump, and also, like, any time the market, like, crypto Twitter, or the market, like, has an extreme view on something, And everybody seems to agree like usually more than not, like, like it's, it's been profitable to like bet against it.

Like everybody [00:13:00] was super bullish on like the ETH merge back then. You know, like if you guys remember, everyone was super like, there was like a consensus view that Solana was like, you know, fuck Solana. It's dead. Like AVAX is dead. Cosmos is dead. Like you guys, you have to be very wary of like anytime the market is like really like.

Agreeing on on on something because I found it more often than not. It's usually opposite happens I don't think it's that easy that oh, everybody's gonna sell before like Christmas and we'll celebrate the holidays The market dumps they'll be able to buy the dip cleanly. I don't I don't think it's that easy But if it happens it happens I'm gonna be that you prepare for any 

Dan: Yeah.

We saw like when there was that fake, like ETF news a couple months ago, like the price like shot up like crazy. Yeah, I feel like we're going to get a similar situation again. 

Terramaxi: There's, there's so many people that think that crypto is a scam and they did just written it off completely. The [00:14:00] fact that trad size now positioning themselves to start.

Like marketing these products as if like, this is like, these are serious products backed by serious people, you know, by serious professionals, like. I know, I know for a fact that a lot of people are just gonna be like, wait a minute, like let me download Coinbase, let me start, you know, let me start looking into this, let me start researching, let me start buying, you know, like, I think that that's more likely to happen than everything dumping, like, I just don't see it, like, I really don't see it, but, but hey, if it happens, it happens, like, I'll buy the dip.

Jimmy: Yeah, I just want to jump in. I don't think it's a sell the news. I think that, There's a lot of PTSD within the crypto, you have to take ourselves out of the, the loop. We're always in that, that crypto native bubble and crypto native people, they have like PTSD from bear markets that lasts longer than bull markets.

So I don't think it's a sell the news. I think if they approve it, it's going to go up. Because obviously they're gonna have to buy Bitcoin to put in these ETFs to make them legit. [00:15:00] And the amount of money that's gonna be poured into this space in the next I don't know, 18 to 24 months, upon approval, can be an easy 10X here just on Bitcoin.

So, I don't think it's a solid news at all.

Lawrence: 10X on Bitcoin. Price prediction by Jimmy. 425 by the end of the cycle. I mean, hell, bring it. I'm positioned well for that. So, 

Jimmy: you never know. You never know. I it just takes one or two countries to say, Hey, listen, we want Bitcoin as our national currency. And then that will speed up the process 

Lawrence: for sure.

 I think. This is going to be, obviously this is looking like the ETF cycle, you know, the cycle, but I think if you look at further cycles, I could definitely see there being like a sovereign cycle where the next, the thing that kicks off the next one is, you know, a country goes fully on Bitcoin and it ends up like stabilizing their economy and that's it, that it actually brings prosperity.

[00:16:00] Like if that happens, that's, it's going to be a domino that just kicks off every other, you know, like all the Latin American countries are going to start looking at that. You know, I mean, yeah, so I think it's possible 

Dan: looking at Argentina and just watching them very closely and seeing how they, how they perform, how their economy like recovers, if it recovers at all.

So they're, they're going to be very important as a bellwether. Yeah. Bitcoin for sure. 

Lawrence: Yeah. But I mean, that would be a D dollarization, right? I mean, where that's essentially. Bitcoinizing the world, you know, so that, that would definitely propel it to insane heights. 

Terramaxi: I don't think we're there yet, but I mean, we're seeing like small moves by governments, like leaning towards more with, , with crypto adoption.

Like I saw like Japan removed like capital gains on crypto, Nigeria. Removing restrictions crypto restrictions on the, on the bank, the bank level, obviously [00:17:00] Argentina recently came out with the news that that you get to settle like contracts and, and, and Bitcoin. So I think like we're slowly moving towards different countries, like experimenting with Bitcoin and, and, and, and, and these other crypto assets.

Like, I think it's just a slow march. And then maybe all at once later down the road as, as we get closer to the, to the bull or, you know, future cycles. 

Dan: Yeah. And then even on America, it's very interesting. Like the former president literally like launched two NFC collections now. So like, that's also wild.

Like I don't even know any other president or leader that's like launched an NFT collection. . So that's like just, I don't know, another example. And we have a couple, 

Terramaxi: owns a couple million dollars worth of ETH. Like Hehehe. He has like a wallet and everything.

Yeah,

Dan: yeah. Did pretty well. Yeah, any other, any other charts that you think are interesting? I mean definitely Solana I think just been ripping like crazy. Chainlink as well. Nier I'm [00:18:00] seeing also like very little about it. Yeah, they're going crazy right now. I don't have 

Lawrence: Nier up here, hold on. I haven't been looking at Nier really at all.

Terramaxi: They've been killing 

Dan: whoa, damn, okay. 

Terramaxi: No, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, it's interesting to see that ever since, like, Solana did well as it did, right?

We're seeing, like, money rotate to, like, different ecosystems now. Like, it went to Avalanche, and then it went to Injective, and then it went to Say, and now, and now it's, like, Polygon's pumping, too. Like, it's funny, like, money's moving. 

Lawrence: Yeah, well, if you look at the Bitcoin dominance chart, it does paint a picture of that.

Also, I mean, the Bitcoin dominance has been dropping and if it falls through this level, which it looks like it might you know, yeah, it's, I mean, this is telling a story that we're, we're in a different phase of the bull market now. Like we're getting into more of like the third and fourth inning where the Bitcoin dominance starts to decrease.

And you know, thing like the total three, just keep ripping higher. I mean, this is, this [00:19:00] is this is basically the alt coin indicator. And this is like the momentum is clearly on the upside here. So yeah, I Bitcoin dominance falling total three going up. This is an interesting chart to eat PTC. So this one we're still at the bottom here for since June 22.

So. Ethereum really has to, the bulls really have to step in here for Ethereum and if they, if they can hold this level, you know, but it's tricky, man, you know, Ethereum, Ethereum is, has taken a, taken it on the chin this year with the Solana run for sure. 

Dan: I 

Terramaxi: don't get why, like, I personally don't get why people think like ETH is gonna, like, like, why, why it's going to pump because.

Like, right now, as it stands, like, there's still no, like, new money flowin in, like, it's all just, we're all trapped within our bubble, right? And, all those new money, like, flows that we're seeing, it's just sidelined people, it's not actual, like like, like it's not even institutions. [00:20:00] It's not retail. It's none of that.

So, within the context of that, like, ETH is perceived as, oh, it's, it's this, it's this, like, there's Bitcoin and then there's ETH, right? And people like to, it's, it's, people perceive ETH as like a store of value. And the other thing is that people who wanted ETH already have ETH, like people who are bullish on ETH have already positioned, they bought it at like 900 bucks, when it bottomed, when it went to like the 900 ring, like everybody who wanted ETH have bought ETH, like now it's, when it comes to like, in the short term at least, right, like, money's gonna flow to the coins that haven't Right.

Like, gone, like, haven't gone into like the billions of market cap. That's what we're seeing, say, Injective, we're seeing all these different Cosmos coins, Coogee, Celestia, like all these different coins they're pumping because it's not at the level that, it's not, it's not at like the billions and billions of dollars that, that Bitcoin and ETH are.

, And the thing is that I'm not, I'm not even, I'm not even embarrassed on ETH. Like, ETH will have its time, right? Like, it, it, [00:21:00] you know, wait for the ETH ETF, wait for the institutions to start buying ETH and get into liquid staking, right? But, what, I just, I just don't see it. Like, why would it pump now, right?

Like, everybody's having fun on SOL, everybody's having fun on Injective, everybody's having fun on Avalanche, like, like, that's where the money's going, 

Dan: yeah, I mean, I think, like, the bull case for ETH, And then, yeah, I definitely want to hear Jimmy's thoughts on this. But yeah, I don't know if you're able to pull up that link, Lawrence, the ultrasound money.

This is probably like a, a chart that many people are familiar with. It's like when they activated the, the burn mechanics for Ethereum, I guess that was like a year or no, maybe like two years ago. The supplies has been like steadily decreasing. So, but then peak there, the supply kind of slowly was increasing.

And then once the merge hit we, you know, went down and kind of was, was leveling out and it dropped a lot went up. But yeah, we recently did hit [00:22:00] the lowest supply. So if you scroll down a little bit, there's like a panda icon over the time frame it's kind of like in the under the current supply tab where you have like the time frames.

And then, yeah, you'll see once you click the panda icon, the chart is, yeah, you hit like the all time low, Of Ethereum supply post merge. 

 And then that basically shows you the supply over time. So this is, I'd say is what kind of like Ethereum people are, are like most jazzed about when it comes to it as like an investment. I still think the layer one is, is just very terrible for like general users.

And I guess the hope is, is that like all these layer twos are, you know, make it easier to bridge to them. And then you just kind of chill on them and do everything you want to do. So I think base is kind of like, had a moment kind of recently with Frontek and like other meme coins on there. But yeah, bridging across the different layer twos is pretty annoying.

[00:23:00] It's not the worst thing ever and there are like jumper exchanges that allow you to switch everything over. But yeah, so I think like the developer experience there and then like protodank sharding, which, you know, at that point would easily enable full sharding on Ethereum to make like the base layer a lot more affordable.

So there's like some upgrades coming that are exciting, but I think definitely recently there's been a lot more excitement on Solana. I feel like Ethereum has been more infrastructure related excitement, like Eigen layer and you know, all these rollups that are kind of, you know, launching, but Solana has really captured the minds of like the user.

And yeah, I think that it's going to have a lot of competition in this cycle. I think it's the most legitimate. Like quote unquote, ETH killer that, that I've seen. 

Lawrence: So for anyone's listening and not looking at the video, this is ultrasound. money is the website we're looking at.

 I mean, this, this does paint a picture of, I [00:24:00] mean, decreasing supply, but the demand's gotta be there too.

That's the thing. If, if the demand goes away for Ethereum, then all this kind of doesn't really mean much, right? I, I don't know. I mean, I, that's just my perspective. I, that's my I DJ brain take. If the dang charting works. And, you know, Eigen layer comes out, it could breathe life into this system.

And you know, we could see a surge in some price here. And Ethereum is starting to get pretty hated now on crypto Twitter. Like people are, people are just like bashing Ethereum now. Typically when that starts happening, I think, you know, if sentiment's that low on something, then it usually means that you should take a second look at it and maybe buy more.

so That, that, that's my thought 

Dan: on it. I'll 

Jimmy: just jump in real quick. I think that Ethereum is going to be institutionalized just like Bitcoin. So, and I also think that Ethereum just by the stake of it by the business of staking actually creates value for people who own the stake. So it's going to be looked at, it's going to be viewed [00:25:00] differently by a TradFi investor.

As opposed to other protocols. I think that right now, I think I said this earlier. I think there's just a lot of people who are just shit coining on other. For lack of a better term, they're shitcoining on other chains, they're chasing the beta they're dumping their ethereum for it, and at some point, you know, that party is gonna end, I mean, I already see it now, you know, I play a little shitcoining here and there on Solana, I see how many people jeet the charts, you know, they just, you They're not willing to stay the course and see like a 3, X.

They just want the quick 15, you know, whatever percentage that they can get. So, you know, that ultimately tells me that the money circulation is a little tighter and it's going faster. So that means that. The charade will end at some point because there'll be more losers than winners. And I think Ethereum is set up very well for 2024.

You know, you have the Bitcoin ETF, you [00:26:00] have an Ethereum ETF application out there, Eigenlayer is coming, Providence sharding. I still think the NFT community is 95 to 98 percent on Darium. I know we don't talk a lot about that. You know, I own ETH NFTs. I don't think I would own any other NFTs. I think that the culture is still on ETH.

So You know, it takes a lot to dethrone the quote unquote king or the first smart contract platform like Ethereum, you know, people are seeing the possibilities that a super fast monolithic layer one, like Solana offers. I just don't, I personally believe that 2024, you have to look at it from a, instead of a degen like eyes, look at it from like a Tradify regular normie view, you know, people have actually texted me about Ethereum.

Not Bitcoin, not Barcelona. They asked me, should I buy Ethereum? And I'm like, yeah, why not? You know, I think it's a, [00:27:00] I think it's a good platform. I think all the liquidity has stemmed from Ethereum pretty much. I just think Ethereum, the ultrasound money, I always was against. I just think that you're trying, like, Ethereum is in a weird position because they're trying to compete with Bitcoin on one side.

And then they're trying to like suppress other alt layer ones on the other. So they're trying to say to themselves like we're ultrasound money better than Bitcoin, right? Which not and then oh, yeah These are old layer ones scam, you know throughputs or shit. Blah blah blah. These are all fake things So they're in a kind of a weird position of that.

They don't know how to They're not talking to people directly like this is why you should own Ethereum. And I think once Ethereum or the people behind the like the maximalists, for instance, like bankless people and, you know, the rest of the Ethereum max is not even coming to my head. Once they realize that the culture hasn't left [00:28:00] Ethereum and NFTs are the real reason that Ethereum is that strong, then.

Things are cyclical life is cyclical right now. I would be buying the dip if I was in Solana from 10 and I wrote it to a hundred why not take some profit in and shove it into a more quote unquote safe You know point, you know, why not take some profit here, but we'll see. We'll see how the time progresses 

Dan: Yeah, I agree with that.

I mean I remember as like a former I would say pseudo theory of maxi like when I was first like getting into aetherium You You know, I, I, I didn't see any reason to hold Bitcoin 

and like, I totally see the value that Bitcoin offers now and. Yes, I wonder if that's kind of like a similar thing now where Solana is like this very new age kind of cool exciting tool and like a theory I'm just kind of viewed as like this boomer coin but [00:29:00] like the Ethereum community is still very advanced and and developed and mature, so I think they've probably thought through a lot of these problems already and You know, you just got to give it a little bit more time for them to keep launching more products around their their EVM 

Jimmy: I'll just jump in.

What saves Solana at 9? Bonk. 

Ethereum can stop being such cheap people that they are. And why don't they just Airdrop 500 every Ethereum holder and see how that will drive liquidity right back from Solana back to Ethereum. Yeah, 

Terramaxi: I think the Layer 0 airdrop or any of these like up and coming L2s like ZK Sync or Mantle Network, like, I think one giant EVM like related airdrop will result in inflows coming back.

I think Layer 0s will probably be it. LiKe, I, I, I, I, I really think that the money will flow back, eventually, to ETH.[00:30:00] buT I do want to disagree with Jimmy though, with, with the fact that the culture's on ETH, I think that culture can be created on any chain, as long as the number goes up long enough, and people cash out, like, people will, will just form culture in, in and of itself.

Like, there's nothing special on ETH, other than the fact that it's been around longer. 

Jimmy: Just to rebut that I understand where you're coming from. I'm simply talking from someone who invests in NFTs. I just wouldn't buy an NFT on any other chain. I wouldn't buy an Optimism, wouldn't buy on Solana. All the premier NFTs, the blue chips, the stuff that's going to be in like Sotheby's, they're all right now on from Ethereum.

That's what I meant by culture, not anything else, like NFTs. I'm talking about DeFi. I'm talking about meme coins. I'm just talking about NFTs. That's what I was referring to in terms of the culture, to be honest with you. But also, I was, that, that's, that, that, that's really why I wanted to clarify that

but one thing about the EVM airdrops, you have to participate in the EVM airdrops. [00:31:00] So I have to bridge over to and start farming, you know, layer zero, ZK single, all this other stuff. Bonk was very strategically like airdropped when, when Solana was like 9. Like Solana is going to zero, everyone's scared.

Then all of a sudden last year, Bonk is just dropped. And then Bonk helps pump Solana back, like, over to like 20 bucks. That's the kind of airdrop that I think Ethereum needs. Like, everybody who's ever owned Ethereum gets this airdrop. And that's what I think Bonk and what Solana did was really cool. Like, I think that really brought back a lot of interest.

Lawrence: I wonder if I wonder, I wonder who came up with the money for Bonk initially last year. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm kind of like wondering if it was Anatoly. You know, he just like took some of his net worth and was just like, listen, I need to save this shit. I've been doing too much work to let this thing fail.

And, you know, he just reached out to someone and got a legal structure set [00:32:00] up and created Bonk, you know, and just arrow dropped it. 

Dan: So, 

Terramaxi: like, don't quote me here, but I do have anecdotal evidence based on, like, people that I've spoken to and in group chats that I'm in. But Bonk was, yes, it was heavily pushed by, like, Anatoly and the Solana Foundation.

They really wanted this meme coin to like really take off. And they were willing to do like, they were willing to do whatever it took to make sure that this, this meme coin did well, because they knew that if they could get Bonk to succeed, then it would kickstart the Solana ecosystem narrative. And that's what, and they're ultimately right.

Like what you need is a solid meme coin. Like they saw like Pepe and these other shit coins on ETH doing really well, and they wanted to replicate that success. And they ended up doing it. Yeah. So like, it's funny, like the story of story of Bonk, right? Like it was only distributed to people that were developers at the time and no one else cared about it in, in the, in the bottom.

And it's funny to see it's funny to [00:33:00] see now that it's, now it's like, what, it's a billion dollar market cap.

Lawrence: Very huge success story for Bonk. So I'll be watching this closely. I think is Solana keeps, keeps ripping that this is just going to keep ripping to, I don't, I don't see what's going to stop bonk.

I mean, I think we could just go through really quick 2023, like what are the big, biggest things that we've, we've seen, from our perspective, what was the biggest news? Yeah, I think that's appropriate. I'll just give the obvious one is, is the ETF news.

You know, I think that was pretty, you know, back in the summertime when I think Bitcoin was at like 25 K and it looked like it was about to go under all of a sudden the ETF news came out and it started pumping again that, that, that, I wasn't expecting that for this year. That was, that was a big one for me.

sO that's my pick. .

Dan: I think my 

Jimmy: pick is USDC de pegging due to. Banking failures in trad five. I mean, that's the biggest story of the year, because if you think about it, like we had like a little bit of a resurgence in Q1 where [00:34:00] everyone was kind of stable, but they kind of were forced back into the market.

But then that happens and it's like all Armageddon. Holy shit. Like this is another, you know, FTX. This is another, you know, Luna situation and crypto is going to zero. USDT is going to lose its peg. It turned out to be like a 36 to 48 like fiasco and Bitcoin pumps because of it. Right? And then everyone's like, Oh yeah, this is why, you know, Trafi and banking is all bad.

The Bitcoin started pumping and then that narrative afterwards of the ETF. I think that's, to me, that's the biggest story of the year. That happening and then we are not at zero, we're double where we are. So that's pretty cool. I 

Terramaxi: remember the USCC Deepak very, like, vividly. I had to calm down a lot of people.

When it was going to like 80, when it went to like 85 cents, like, a lot of people were like, Oh my god, next Carolina. I'm like, bro, [00:35:00] like, chill. Like, the situation is completely different. It's just, it's just, it turns out that they have a hole in their balance sheet. And, and, and It turns out that they're able to plug that hole if you just wait long enough.

So just relax. I remember like the tether rates were, were super, super high across all money markets that were like a hundred percent. Like you, you would be able to lend out your tether for a hundred percent APR because everybody was like max borrowing tether in order to swap into USCC and they were like, like leveraging on chain.

And I was lucky enough to have tether at the time. And I was, I was farming out my tether and was enjoying that 50 to a hundred percent, but, it's funny because no matter like what happens like whether it's a USC deep deep egg or a tether deep egg or what have you It'll always be a way to make like money off of it.

And and I was like a very interesting time to go through

Dan: Yeah, yeah, that was like a an intense moment. I remember that I had already kind of like toned down my like [00:36:00] daily tracking of Everything I would occasionally pop in and I would see like, yeah, that that happened. I was like, oh shit, but I'd already like gotten so wrecked like at the start of the bear market that I was like, what more could possibly happen right now?

Yeah, I think. Yeah, I mean, the whole SBF situation is kind of coming to a resolution. I guess that was kind of just like entertaining to just see him constantly just make a fool out of himself. 

So that, I guess, was kind of like a little entertaining popcorn news just for everyone. It's like, we've all just suffered. Like, let's just watch this come to a resolution. And yeah, CZ stepping down that, that was certainly I guess a surprise. I never really had like a true super strong opinion on CZ either way.

And I, I guess, you know, there's going to be massive payout. You might have to do a little bit of jail time because of Binance, you know, facilitating [00:37:00] possibly, I think knowingly certain money laundering activities. So you know, I guess we're going to justice will be served there. 

Lawrence: A lot of exec execs at finance left too.

Right. Didn't we see like a big rotation of the top leaders there, you know, just, just leave the company before CZ steps down. 

Dan: Yeah. Yeah. Like their compliance and like legal, I, yeah, they had a big exodus over there, so, but I guess a lot of people felt that CZ was still an important. Figure in the space, so I, I don't think he kind of rises the same level near like at all is S.

B. F. or like Doquan. And then, yeah, I mean, we did have Doquan also get arrested in March. And then, yeah, I'd say, like, the biggest positive thing was the grayscale winning. 1 of the lawsuits, I feel like that kind of was it was a huge reversal that [00:38:00] started the reversal. And, yeah, based on information that I received, basically, it seems very likely that it will drop between January 8 and 10.

I think just the providers are kind of, getting their last sort of files and ducks in a row, and I believe that there are talks with the SEC that seem to point very heavily toward it going through and also kind METF would be probably less likely than the SEC. aNother ETF because like Ethereum proof of stake, you do have that queue to exit.

So I don't think it would make as much sense for there to be like an Ethereum ETF anytime soon. Because if you are a provider and you, you were to offer that like spot ETF and you have a massive withdrawal, like that's just kind of risk you're fully taking on. You [00:39:00] can't have like liquid tokens in the same.

ETF holding, there's like various like regulations and rules around like how you can do an ETF. So Bitcoin is very easy, or it's like relatively easy compared to other like proof of stake tokens. But yeah, I thought that was kind of interesting news piece there. 

Lawrence: Yeah, 

Jimmy: it was a good year good year, if I can tell you, 

Dan: yeah, yeah, finishing strong.

It was a good 

Jimmy: start off, good, then we had this huge lull, and then finish strong. I love it. 

Dan: Thank you. Yeah, I think now's good a time as ever to get back in the masses still are not really plugged in. So I'm like, yeah, we're kind of building up that that groundswell of interest slowly, but surely.

Did anyone have any other points on just like 2023 recap? 

Lawrence: Nothing specifically. The only thing is I should have bought more soul. Yeah, that's really, I feel like everyone's saying that , we're all collectively like, why the fuck didn't [00:40:00] we buy more? More ? It's more bon. 

Dan: I mean, that's 

Lawrence: the real play.

Yeah. And should have bought bonk. I was, I would. I was eyeing it at the bottom too. 'cause I remember hearing about it and early in the year and then I looked at it in Octo, like just randomly September, October. Looked at it and was like, man, it's really sold off. It's basically just totally gone. I'm like, I should throw a little in.

I just, I just didn't. And I big regrets. So I'm taking that lesson with me to 2024 that if you want to buy something, you just should, because it could pump. And if you, you know, regretting missing out on that pump really sucks. Yeah. The best. 

Jimmy: Don't forget about your 

Terramaxi: moon. For me, it was the hamster racing.

For the, like, those fast, those, like, that week or so, like, everybody was just betting on hamsters, like, fighting each other, and, and, and, it was those, and then it transitioned into, like, turtle racing, and rock fighting, it was, it was amazing. It just, everybody just just letting go any sense of [00:41:00] reason, and just, you know, just vibing.

Jimmy: The levels of degeneracy that this market offers, its market participants, is absolutely insane. 

Lawrence: Yeah, it's true. Yeah, I mean the meme craze on Solana shocked me. I, I, if you go to the subreddit It's, it's literally all just memes. Like people are like, what do you think I should buy? And the comments are all just Like meme shit tokens.

It's nothing not like actual projects that I've built products that people are using just all memes And it's just like damn. 

Dan: Dog with hat. Yeah 

Lawrence: Yeah, that's another one. I saw that on Meteora I saw the LP pools and I saw it on there before it went meteoric and I'm just like man I This is like really dumb.

I'm going to avoid this and now it's like 200 million market cap. So I don't know. Apparently I'm the stupid 

Dan: one. Memes are 

Jimmy: strong. The memetic value of something is, cannot be replicated. [00:42:00] It's like the Mona Lisa. Yeah. Mona Lisa's alpha and everything that's ever replicated is, it strengthens its memetic value.

So, memes are very strong. For some reason If you have a very good meme and it becomes a meme coin and it really hits zeitgeist, like, that's, it's, that's a thousand 

Lawrence: X right there. For sure. Yeah, memes are one of those things that's like, to me is like just purely a crypto phenomena that I really love, you know, and I've, I've, I hated it first, but now I've come to respect it because it just , it like makes a mockery of the financial system, like, and just investing in things, right?

Like, these are tokens that have no value fundamentally at all and, things that will make Charlie Munger and, you know, Warren Buffett. Sees up if they saw it, but people are getting rich on it. So it's like, you know, it, it calls into question really like value investing big time. So it's, I don't know.

I just find that to [00:43:00] be, to buy pretty funny. 

Jimmy: I think I also think mean coins killed NFTs NFT market during the quarter one of 2023 was quite strong. And then as soon as Pepe came out, all the mimetic value, the NFTs held. We're just like just shot and it was taken by fungible tokens. People are like, you know what, we're speculating on being ARP investors.

Let's just speculate on being fungible token investors for the correct ticker. So, you know, that, that's for kill the NFT market especially on the Ethereum side, but I think 24 will be different. I think there, I think. Right now we're kind of like, I think we had a meme coin season for a while on Ethereum.

And I think all those degenerates just moved into Solana and like Ejective because they realized like, Hey, like we're not going to spend like all this money on gas fees and failed transaction fees. Let's just chill here. And then I [00:44:00] think this is good for Ethereum NFTs just because if you've stayed in Ethereum after seeing Solana just like 10x.

You're like, you know what? I'm a serious investor. Let me go praise like real artworks. You end up buying like a crypto dickbutt for under one eth. You're like, yeah, that's a good value. I see the value in this. So I think it's going to be good for Ethereum NFTs in the long run that the memetics have moved.

The meme coins have moved to other chains.

Dan: Yeah, I mean, I think it's like way easier to just buy a meme coin and hold it. And you can, you know, you don't really need to worry about it too much. I feel like NFTs, there's a lot of pressure, like for the community and team to execute. And, you know, there's like all the file hosting and then.

I mean, there's like the risk that I guess like the image might not be pinned or like you might lose the image eventually, then your NFT is just like absolutely useless and you can't really appeal to as large of a crowd. It's more of like a small crowd that's super passionate [00:45:00] as opposed to like a broad base of hundreds of thousands of people that can just.

Put in a dollar or 2. So I do feel like NFTs are more limited in that way. I think fungible 

Jimmy: tokens are built for a flippage, like it's built for it. Non fungible tokens are not a good financial instrument to flip. Right. It's, it's, it's not like you could put it for sale on the floor. Someone could undercut you on the floor.

Then you got to undercut them. Now you're facing slippage. Oh, I really need to get out and I have to pay 18 percent slippage plus this. It's not a good financial instrument for flipping, but it's a very good financial instrument. If it's the right artist, it's zeitgeist and you're willing to just park your money there and just.

Forget about it for, let's say, 6, 12, 18 months, you can seriously make cash. Fungible tokens are way better for flipping. And a lot more fun, you're in and out. Right. 

Terramaxi: I think with meme coins, like, it's easy to [00:46:00] say, oh, I should have put money in it, I should have done this, I should have done that.

But, as regular market participants, you need to have some kind of process in which you'd be able to actually ape into a meme coin, right? Like, maybe that process will look like, You know, I will only have 1 percent of my portfolio into meme coins, right? Like if you have like 100, 000 portfolio, maybe only put like a thousand bucks into meme coins.

And then of that thousand dollars, maybe you decide I will ape into 50 increments at a time into. A meme coin that fulfills a set of criteria. A, is it funny? B, is it a honeypot? C, is it like, like, what's the social sentiment like? Like, you have to have like, some kind of process in which you can actually ape a meme coin, because other, if you don't do that, then what's gonna happen is another one's gonna pop up, and another one's gonna pop up, and you're gonna be like, oh shit!

I missed out that one too, but like, realistically speaking, would you have aped into Bonk at the bottom? Would you have aped into Pepe at the, like, what, at the, at the price that it was? Like, no, realistically speaking, if, if you want [00:47:00] to learn anything from it, you need to have some kind of pro Like, if you're going to actually take Memecoin investing seriously 

but like, if you really want to take that seriously, there is a method to the madness. There is a way to go about doing it. There's like, you can go to like, Ethers, well not Etherscan, but you can go to SoulScan and look at like, newly, like new contracts that are popping up. There are tools that you can use.

There's like, Telegram bots. There are like, Sniper tools, right? Like, there's, there's so much, there's so much, there's, there's so much into this. And it's just beams, right? Like, you need to have some kind of process if you're going to take that seriously. Otherwise You know what, you're just gonna have to say, you know what, this is not for me, I, my strength lays in other areas, and if I miss the next bonk, so be it, like, I, it's not, it's not for me, because, you know, crypto, there's so many ways you can make it, like, I don't, I, I don't participate in these ones, I just buy and hold, and buy and hold has been proved very, like, profitable for me, but, it's, it's just a matter of sticking to your strengths, are you gonna be like the shitcoin master, like.

Some people do that. Like, like there are wallets out there that, that, [00:48:00] that just keep on aping and keep on, keep on aping and keep on aping. And, and these wallets tend to be the ones get the, the pepe's and the, and the banks of the world that they like. There's, there's a lot of wallets like that, but the, the question is, are you going to like, dedicate yourself to building on a process that allows you to capture that next coin or not?

That's just what I'll, I 

Jimmy: just want to throw that in. I think the word meme coin followed by the word investment should never be Sentence. I think it's just speculation. There's no process, dude. Like, I'm on these chats, like, it's like, oh, Gat, oh, Dog, law, wolf, like, there is no process. They just make sure it's not a honeypot, and then you just get a contract address.

Yeah, 

Terramaxi: yeah, that's the process, though, like, Like, you need to have like a, a quick checklist to go through when you're aping and that will allow you to like, I, I, I believe that that will allow you to outperform compared to the other people that just go onto Deckscreener and just ape into whatever, like, you, you do need to see, you see, yeah, [00:49:00] honeypot, check if it's a honeypot, check if check the, check like what's going on on Twitter, if there's any social mentions, check if your buddies are showing it, like for instance, like Cock Inu, like I knew Cock Inu was gonna, was gonna do really well in Avalanche because, It was made by the chicken out of sea people.

And all of my, all of my avalanche friends were like, Oh shit, cocky, you know, let's go. And then it was, and then it just took off. There, I, I, I disagree. I think there's a process to it. It's just it, it, it's very hit or miss, right? Like, even if you have a process to it, you still lose everything. But in the right place, right time, especially when, when the market's heating up and it's like shitcoin season, I, it, it, it, it, having a lack, like a little bit of like a process in place will, Allow you to outperform other people otherwise you're, the point of the process is just that you don't overextend yourself so that you don't, you're not the guy who put 20 grand into like a random shitcoin.

It's, it's, it's just about having risk management, like it's, you know, like having limits. And having an exit strategy in mind just little rules that you need to implement. 

Jimmy: Dude, by the [00:50:00] time you do all that, this thing flew from 1, 000 market cap to 500, 000 market cap. So then you're saying this was a good investment.

So you buy it at 500, 000. You go to the bathroom, you come back, it's at 200, 000 market cap. You just lost, what, 60 percent of your money. And there's no process. You just see the ticker. And you say, oh bye. And that's it. That's 

Terramaxi: it. There's nothing else. I, I, I disagree, bro. Like, I think there's a little bit more.

I've seen people do it. I'm doing it. I'm saying process in terms of like risk management.

Like, I'm saying you allocate, you allocate a percent of your portfolio. Let's say one or two percent, right? And then within that, you will say, 100 percent of your profile. That's what they tell people 

Jimmy: who do it for Bitcoin. Put 1%. Okay. Yeah, 

Dan: I was just gonna say that. That's what Bloomberg is like. Yeah, like 1 percent in Bitcoin.

Yeah, so, we are the provider against mean funds. 

Terramaxi: I think, yeah, you have to think in terms of your, [00:51:00] of your portfolio percentage. Even if you hit a 50x on something, if it doesn't do, like, a 20%, like, if it doesn't make a debt in your portfolio, then what's the fucking point? Like, you know? 

Lawrence: No, I think this is a good, good take.

I think risk management is super important. And I, if you're, if you look at your portfolio and it's all memes, I think you're, you're in trouble. You know, I think generally you should, you should rethink like what you're doing, but again, I, I'm not a successful meme investor. I typically just buy what I think is funny and if it goes up, that's great.

If not, that's fine too. Like cocky and it was great because the ticker is literally cock. And you're like, you tell your friend, Oh, what'd you, Oh, I bought some cock today. Like, I just think that's hilarious. It doesn't even matter what it is, you know, like I, you know, so I'm going to buy that just because it's funny and no, no other reason.

And that's kind of my, my thinking is if I think something's funny, I, I buy it, you know, and if it takes off great, if not cool, I have fun looking at my portfolio and [00:52:00] I see it there, you know, on the list, even if it's not doing well. 

Dan: Yeah, I do think we, we should we should build, like, a quantitative hedge fund based on meme coin trading. And see how many millions of dollars we can make or lose.

Terramaxi: Honestly, we should, yeah, we should, we should go to chat. gg and build up some tools and try to, like, execute. 

Dan: I wanted to talk a little bit about the Solana phone cause that was like another pretty huge story for 2023. And I can kind of share just kind of where we're at right now with this. This is the story came out. Recently, basically they announced you know, that they ran, they sold out of their saga phones recently in the U S market. And, you know, they recently had to slash prices down from a thousand dollars per phone down to 600 bucks. So that is the current state of it.

And [00:53:00] let's see. So basically. I guess they hit their critical mass of 25, sales or 50, 000 units sold. And yeah, they, the phone comes with, it comes baked in with like air drops. So then, yeah, Bonk obviously went up a huge amount and now to get a phone, if you go on eBay, like. There are thousands of dollars to, to get one that's new.

So yeah, like 2000, 4,000, 1500. Like it's, yeah. So this is kind of like pretty insane. And, but interestingly enough it was. So, you know, the guy like Marcus Brownlee who does like the tech reviews, he's like super into like Apple products. He has a lot of like phone reviews. He has like 18 million subscribers and he basically gave like a scathing review of like the Saga phone.

And he was essentially like, don't buy it. It's garbage. And [00:54:00] he, he like admits himself that he was never really like into crypto and like web three. So I don't really think he understands like the, like what's being offered here. Like having like a phone that is custom built for like crypto operations. So yeah, I guess the phone launched in April 2023.

So yeah, I guess quick kind of like historical context here. Basically there was A phone kind of like an offshoot of Android, a team formed and launched something called like the essentials phone. So it's like a privacy focused Android phone. Gary Anderson, I think, founded it or no, not Gary Anderson, Andy Rubin.

So as in 2017, there wasn't really much interest for is kind of like a niche phone enthusiasts project and then part of that team, there's some controversy around the founder and a new team kind [00:55:00] of sprung out of the essential phone and started this company called awesome and. They kind of honed in more into privacy and built this, this additional like enthusiast phone that was another kind of like, didn't get a ton of adoption.

And that was in 2020. And then at some point along the way, I'm not sure when. Solana formed a strategic partnership with awesome. I think they invested into their like series a and awesome is going to be building the hardware for the saga phone and Solana is going to be bringing like the community and the cash and everything else.

So right now on the awesome site, yeah, they basically are entirely focused on this, this phone. So essentially it comes with like a Solana mobile stack so you can develop. Slot apps and plug it right [00:56:00] into the phone

I could see like they're not being a theory of support being interesting, but yeah, it comes with like an onboard cold storage seed vault. So that allows you to authorize transactions to different apps with like a tap of your finger has its own DAP store. So. Instead of needing to go through Apple or Google's really restrictive play stores that take, like, a 30 percent tax on everything you do, and there's been, like, a lot of controversy over this and, like, Epic has been very vocal about.

Like hating that 30 percent tax and like really wants the industry to to avoid that there's like a huge monopoly right now in the app stores Which is like killing? rEvenue or it's like eating in net profits of a lot of companies and it's caused all sorts of ux issues Yeah has like the helium network built in and there's like all these rewards that get built into users of the phone and Yeah, and then I guess as far as [00:57:00] specs really quick has like a snapdragon a plus gen 1 chip 500 gigs of storage OLED display overall maybe not like the most stellar phone.

It's kind of like an average phone. I guess hardware wise but As far as like what it offers, I think is like a huge threat to the standing monopolies of Apple and Google as far as like the cell phone markets go. And it's, yeah, it's all under this umbrella of privacy and not really like selling everything that you have to these companies, which basically control control you and own you.

So, yeah, I don't know. How do you guys like feel about. This is a lot of fun. Would you, would you guys use this or like, you know, what's your vibe on it? 

Lawrence: So my take is I, I'm not sure how many mobile users there are of crypto right now. I imagine there has to be a lot, but I'd be interested to see like how much they get hacked compared [00:58:00] to, or how much they lose their crypto compared to like desktop users.

I think something like this could really be a game changer to how people use their mobile phones to access crypto. I, I personally don't feel comfortable using my phone to access crypto right now. I'm much more comfortable using my ledger on my desktop. 

Terramaxi: I use, I use mobile like 95 percent of the time desktop for like cold storage.

But when it comes to like my hot wallets I am a mobile user and there is a growing trend of people just being mobile only. So that, that's like a trend that's been ongoing. So yeah, I think the phone and any like feature products like that would be very appealing to people. Going 

Jimmy: forward. 

Dan: Yeah. I, 

Lawrence: I mean, I also think that, I do think that if this is, this is risky and it's a big ambition, but if Solana is able to pull this off, like I actually, like for example, the app store idea I think is great.

I think that the monopoly that Apple holds over the apps is, is a big deal.

[00:59:00] Yeah, there was some, some issue with Apple. Like I think it was NFTs, like they banned NFTs or something, NFT apps on the phone. But I think this is a good idea. Honestly, I think it's going to take a lot of time for them to work through beating the monopolies of the other companies, but I think for, you know, I, like how they have these big ambitions, you know, Solana has big ambitions and that's one of the reasons why I really liked the chain and if this.

If this does work out and we have another option for a cell phone, then just, you know, Google or Apple, I'm, I'm all for it.

Jimmy: Yeah, I, I I don't have much to say other than I think that it's a good development for crypto in general. Like you said, to break, to even put a, not a slight dent into the monopoly that Android and. Apple own over basically all of us. We're forced to either be Android users or Apple users. When we use our, our cell phones, I think this is going to be, [01:00:00] you know, if we're able to, if it's able to get developed and more people adopt it, I think that it's an incredible ambition to try to break that monopoly.

And I also think that if we're able to add more web three mobile apps, I think you'll onboard a lot more users. I'm a person, I don't use crypto on my phone at all. I don't even have like a wallet tracker. I don't like that. Just, not for me. But, I do see the use case for like, A very hot wallet or if I'm going to play a mobile game and I'm earning tokens from it.

I think that's a really cool use case to be built into the phone. I just want to add one last thing. I think one of the bigger things on the mobile side was FriendTech earlier this year. When FriendTech came out, it was strictly mobile. And you had to download it directly from the, from the website. So when I download it, you don't, it's not on Android, it's not on the Apple [01:01:00] Store or, or Google Play.

You had to go to the website, download it, and then it unpacked it for you there. And then that's where you connected your wallet and you had to add. money to your base account. So I thought that was pretty cool in terms of the mobile integration of crypto for this year. Cause like FriendSec was, that was Zeitgeist for like two, three weeks back in like the doldrums.

So I think it was, I think it's going to be a trend where there's going to be more dApps that come out for mobile. I personally am very bullish on gaming. Coming forward in 2024. 'cause I really think that that's the, the killer use case where NFTs in game economy and people, you know, interacting and being addicted to like what they want to do in, in a game.

Like, you're not gonna be addicted to Defi. Like you're not gonna be addicted to D Pin and you know, de like, but gaming you can be, and we know what gamers already spend for files. Files, you know, skins, you know, power [01:02:00] ups. So I think it's a, the Solana ecosystem is. It's etching its own niche within the crypto ecosystem, and I think that it's a major step in the right direction for not just Solana, for crypto in general.

Lawrence: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I think I also want to add that, you know, Anatoly came from Qualcomm. He was, he was there for many years building cell phone hardware. So, if there was a crypto team that could build cell phones, it's, it's this team. You know, so they, they. I think they got the team. I, you know, so it's, it's a, it's definitely a big lift.

It's hard to, to imagine something challenging Google and Apple phones. Cause they just. They've just monopolized, you know, the whole market. But if they do, that's, you know, up only for soul, I think.

Dan: Yeah, absolutely. Cool. All right. Yes. I think we can maybe jump into 2024. 

Lawrence: [01:03:00] Yeah. Some predictions. 

Terramaxi: We go to zero. You want me to start or you want to start Mario? Yeah, I think we go to zero. I think we should sell everything. I think we should open a hundred X short. And yeah, we'll be doing it. 

Jimmy: Yeah, it's not fun 

Dan: to do.

Lawrence: You know, speaking of 100x shorts. I mean, if they did deny the Bitcoin ETF, that would be the biggest rug pull. I feel like we've, we've ever seen. Like that would be, I mean, that that's the Kingmaker trade. Take a hundred X short, deny the ETF, and you're going to make, you're going to make your living on that trade.

Yeah. I don't think I've done that. I know. Very low probability. I, I don't think so either, but it's just interesting to think about like, what if, you know, that, that would be, we would see some big ass red candles if that happened.

Yeah, 

Dan: not likely. 

Jimmy: I would say 2024 is going to be a great year. I would be very wary post happening for like [01:04:00] Three to like eight weeks. I think there's gonna be massive pullback I think there's a lot of front running that's happening for the happening. The ETF is also A narrative, but I think a lot of people are buying for the happening as well And I really believe that happening will be front ran so hard where there's just going to be like, Whoa, what happened here?

And there's going to be a pullback. I also think that the blow off quote unquote top will probably take place next year around this time into like Q1 of 25. So in, it all depends what narratives are hot. I still think that gaming and NFTs are going to be. front and center because they're very, very easy for the layman to understand.

I think DeFi is going to be interesting if there's going to be more on chain perps because on chain perps need liquidity and liquidity and leverage create opportunities for yield. But I don't know if it's going to [01:05:00] be what we saw like in DeFi summer of 2020. I think that that's not going to take place.

DePin is a while's away, DeSocial while's away, you know, FriendTech is interesting. I don't know what happened to them since, you know, August, September. They were going to need like an airdrop for people to start using it again. But I think that we're going to have a very good year. I think that Bitcoin's finally going to be institutionalized.

And I think that's just going to bring a lot of equity into the space. And it just depends what narrative is going to be out. What narrative is he? 

Terramaxi: Yeah. On a serious note, I think Defi is gonna get a massive bid this year pure. My, and my thesis is simple. It's just as Tradify takes crypto seriously, and as the money flows in, I, I really don't see Tradify or like these quote unquote serious investors touching meme coins with a one foot pole, right?

Like, they're just gonna like, they're like, what the fuck is this? I'm not, I'm not gonna touch that. Right? But a lot of these defi coins like compound [01:06:00] maker, ve right. These are legitimate products, right, that have stood the test of time. And I think, like when it comes to the people that are more TradFly minded, these are, these, these are obviously way more investable than, like, fuckin PepeCoin, right?

So, I think a lot of money will flow into these DeFi coins because I, I, I, I believe that TradFly wants to know, like, like, they want to, like, position themselves as they know what they're doing, right, to the, to their clients. And, What better way than to invest in CURP, right, like, and, and, and invest in Compound, and invest in Aave, and invest in all these DeFi cores that do all these magical things, like Like, I really think DeFi will catch a bid because it looks presentable.

It's, it's, it's something you can explain to someone, and it sounds you know, it sounds legit, but it really isn't.

Dan: Yeah, I think likely this administration is going to want to make sure that things are looking strong going into the election, [01:07:00] and I think, yeah, it's barring any crazy foreign conflicts, and there's a lot of crazy stuff going on in the world right now.

So anything is possible. But I think it seems like, you know, we'll be seeing more rate cuts, and I think there's gonna be a big kind of risk on push generally. Yeah, I don't know if This is just like too crazy to do like price targets, but I just did like a little bit of, I think I, you know, if everything goes well, and we'll see, like, if I get absolutely wrecked here, but I could see Bitcoin going in the low end, maybe 70 K to 100 K I think like, yeah, it is a low.

But it could, yeah, I don't know. I'm really, it's, I'm trying to be like somewhat conservative here, but Ethereum, I think 5k and then Solana, you know, 300 range, or I think possibly past its prior all time high, I mean, these are like very, you could argue these are like very [01:08:00] hopeful or very like super conservative.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, that's kind of where I am. I don't know if you guys had, like, price targets for this year for, like, Bitcoin ETH or SOL? 

Terramaxi: I think 100, 000 to 200, 000 is within the Rumble possibility. Maybe even more. But 100K to 200K range. ETH, like, 10K to 20K range. And then every other coin will reach all time highs, if not more.

thAt's where I am. 

Lawrence: Wait, you mean by the end of the cycle? Or the end of 2024? 

Terramaxi: Oh, oh, right, right. I mean, I, I think the end of the cycle is 2025, so, right. Yeah, I, I think that by the time we reach 2024, the end of 24, like, we're already reaching the end of the cycle anyway. Like, 'cause if you calculate like when you should quote unquote theoretically sell, like it's, it should be, you should be buying Bitcoin 500 days before the happening and then it's 500 days after the happening, right?

When you run the numbers, it's spring of 2025 that you should be selling. Wait, no, it's, yeah, spring to summer of 2025. So [01:09:00] by the time we reach 20, 24, like the end of 24, like much of the bullish cycle is already done. And then we have like a, a little bit left to go. So I would say, yeah these price targets is for, I guess.

Yeah, for, for end of 24, 

Lawrence: gotcha. Yeah. I mean, I oh man, I'll play this game. Let's see. So end of 2024. I actually like the 70k to 100k price target. I would say I'm gonna, I don't think it's gonna hit 100 in 2024. I'm gonna say it's gonna, it's between 60 to 80, you know. I think if it breaks, it breaks the all time high.

I don't think it goes all the way to 100 just yet. You guys are not bullish 

Terramaxi: enough. Like, come on bro, like 69k is the all time high, right? Like, 

Lawrence: why wouldn't we go to I'm already, I'm already positioned. You 

Terramaxi: know, like why can't we 3x the all time high? I don't, I don't see it, like why, why not? Well, 

Lawrence: I do think so in 2025 though, but 2024 is like, if you look [01:10:00] at 2020 Bitcoin, I don't think had broken.

It's all. Oh, no, it had, it had. 

Dan: It had broken it. 

Lawrence: So, but it hadn't gone to three X, the all time high just yet that happened the next year after. So I do think it could break the all time high, but it's not going to be by, it's not going to be by an insane margin. You know, it's, that's going to be when everyone.

One sees it and then retail piles back in, you know, 

Dan: 25. 

Terramaxi: Yes, man. Like once, once we get registered, like once the announcement comes out, it's going to be like two or three months until the products go live. It's what I've read. And then once the products go live, you're going to, there's going to be like a heavy marketing push.

And then the halving is going to come around. There's gonna be the halving the narrative like I really think like there's gonna be billions and billions of dollars flowing in And we could easily hit 100k plus like I don't think like I still got think you guys aren't bullish enough 

Lawrence: Point taken. So what which I'll pose this question So which asset do you think breaks its new all time high first Bitcoin, Ethereum or Solana?

Dan: Bitcoin. Bitcoin. [01:11:00]

Lawrence: Yeah, I'm with yeah, totally. Yeah, that's 

Dan: mine. 

Jimmy: I think Ethereum is just a true beta to Bitcoin I think Solana right now is just having a moment, but it's all about Bitcoin. I mean, let's just, you know, I'm just stating the obvious. It's really about Bitcoin. Because if Bitcoin doesn't, like, the space is not going to get the liquidity it needs to do the multiples 

Lawrence: that it wants to do.

How about you, Dan? What's your take? I 

Dan: think I agree with that, actually. I was going to say Solana, but then I was realizing, like, yeah, I think there's just going to be massive institutional push into Bitcoin, and that I think will be way more fuel than is available to Solana. But I think things can spill over very quickly, so I don't think it'll beat it by that long.

Yeah, I am curious of Coinbase. I mean, I know they're They've been absolutely ripping and they're also kind of indirectly tied to this whole ETF business.[01:12:00] As like a custody provider, but yeah, I mean, I think we're going to do that. 

Terramaxi: I Think Coinbase is like 500 bucks plus by the end of 2014.

I 

Lawrence: could see that. I could see that. I think Coinbase. Yeah, I, they're so well positioned, it's insane. 

Terramaxi: No, yeah, gonna do perps you know, base chain, sequencer revenue, then there's like the, you know, retail trading on their exchange. They're gonna print so much fucking money I don't think Wall Street has, like, priced that in.

Yeah. When it comes to, like, their estimates, because Yeah. Yeah. So it's like 500 bucks a share, maybe more.

Lawrence: What do you, how do you guys feel about the whole AI and crypto narrative? Like, do you think that like Tao for instance, right? Yeah, I know it's laughable, but I feel like, like Tao is, I know it's like the big meme right now, it's like a joke, right? But I mean, if, if what Tao is selling is actually real, and I think this, I personally think it's worth much more than 1.

5 billion dollars. I feel like it's a centralized AI [01:13:00] marketplace. And all we're going to hear about over the next two years is AI. It's going to be constantly in our faces all the time. It's going to get way better. You know, so I 

Terramaxi: For me, like, AI is really not investable because I don't know anything about it.

It's not within my competency. Like, I like DeFi coins and I just mainly stick to DeFi coins, but I am curious to hear your perspective like what what why is like this coin? Why is this AI coin gonna actually be a thing like what like what is it like? Like that's something that like sure people have struggled to like explain to me, and I would really like to hear your thoughts on that 

Lawrence: Yeah, so essentially we have centralized banking and centralized financial institutions and crypto is meant to You know, with the self custody and the defy and all that it's meant to, to decentralize finance.

Right. But now what we're seeing is we have these huge centralized AI models. So we have, you know, GPT, we have anthropic, we have, you know, all of these big companies that, and we don't know what's going on behind the scenes. [01:14:00] And they, they're the best models, but we don't, you know, it's, we're, we don't really know what they're doing.

And tau is meant to decentralize that system. It's meant to have. Smaller models that are essentially let the best, you essentially can earn tokens on your models. So you're mining TAL tokens based on your, your AI models. And then there's validators on the other side that like validate model results.

So you could think of like a decentralized marketplace for, for models where people are making money based on how good the models are. 

Dan: Now, if someone 

Terramaxi: had said that like four months ago, I probably would have aped. 

Lawrence: Yeah. I mean, that's what I'm, that's what I'm saying. Like, you know, Tau, Tau actually has been correcting for a while and I'm, these prices are actually kind of nice here.

I feel like 250 is not bad. so I, I'm thinking of just aping and seeing what happens, but I mean, the, the, the fact is like we, there's no,, historical thing we could look at to see how much [01:15:00] this is valued. Like this could easily be, this could be worth nothing. I think it's actually worth a lot more than this.

If, if this really does work out, I feel like this could be, we could be looking at something really big here. And at this valuation, it's like nothing compared to what it could be. Maybe a midterm. That's just my take. 

Terramaxi: Maybe a midterm. I guess my question is, is like, we already have like. Like these tools out there in the internet that allows you to build your own models, import your own data set, et cetera, like this, like, I guess my question would be like, is this actually a genuinely useful tool when it comes to like building out your own, like your, your own bots and stuff like that.

I'm very curious to hear if this is something that people are actually using, or is it just a meme? Right? Like, sure. Yeah, like how much of it's actually a meme and you know, like, or versus there is a small group of people that are actually finding like genuine utility out of the stuff that Tao is providing.

I mean, if, if I could, if. If it turns out that it's actually legitimate, then yeah, I, I think that, yeah, [01:16:00] market cap, 10 billion, 20 billion. Why 

Dan: not? 

Lawrence: Yeah, no, I mean, it's a fair, it's a fair analysis, but I've, I've already seen some projects that are launching on towel like mind is one of them, MND and you know, again, these projects are, they're hard to understand, but I'm, I'm kind of seeing this vision where, you know, you have these deep in projects like Akash.

You know, so you have the infrastructure, it's decentralized for AI. Now you have the actual decentralized platform for like the models themselves. So like we, we are getting to a world where it's possible. And you know, we, we can kind of break the hole that like GPT has on us, but it's going to be a long climb.

I, I, again, like we're kind of in an AI super cycle too. So I don't know where it takes us. And And I don't fully, I need to understand these things a lot more too, but it's it's, I think it's worth looking at on a deeper level. I 

Dan: think the narrative is 

Jimmy: strong. For sure. AI, crypto, they both need each [01:17:00] other.

Infrastructure, decentralized, decentralized marketplaces. Like this is, it's a strong narrative. It's just a matter of, do you want to put time and effort into researching the real gems that are going to do 100, 200, 300, 400, 500x? I, I, I think it's, I think it's very bullish. I think it's going to be a narrative regardless if there is no let's say like Killer app for AI.

I'm just using the word killer app just so we know like there's not like this. Whoa, it blows everyone away with AI and crypto. I just think gaming. I'm just going to go back to that. I think gaming for this specific cycle for 24. I think it's going to be huge. I already see it. There's a bunch of tokens that have been pumping like prime, you know, some, some Valeria tokens.

I think that's their primes for pun intended, but They're primed to just move. 

Lawrence: It's the time. Yeah, I I'd have to echo that. I [01:18:00] think for Crypt, going back to Crypto, if there's one narrative that I think takes off, I think a Gamefy summer is definitely possible. You know, there's, there's a lot more to Crypto gaming than it was when Axie was around, you know.

Axie's not the only game in town anymore. It's, there's a lot of other stuff out there, so. Yeah, I would echo that. 

Dan: That's another episode we should do is just like a deep dive on the games and like just playing them. I I think I've been a little out of the loop in all these games. I remember like getting into Star Atlas when they were just doing the NFT drops.

But I think I was just getting into the wrong games and like they, you know, haven't really launched it yet. So it's like a large project. But yeah, as far as like AI goes, I think for sure narrative is incredibly strong right now. I don't know. Yeah, we need to research it more. Tao, as far as like. If, if the, I mean, it's looking at the docs, it seemed pretty complicated.

I need to kind of see like if, if those incentives are real and like easily obtained. I Know there's like civet AI where [01:19:00] people kind of upload a lot of models, but yeah, models are going to be getting better. I think pretty soon we're going to be seeing just like all sorts of like just sex bots popping up and I'm sure there's going to be like a models that are proprietary that have like some crypto mechanisms to them.

But I don't think we're quite there yet as far as like AI agents that are like paying in crypto. Like I don't know that I could see me being like two, two plus years out. So I think probably for now, the products are just going to get really good on like the Web 2 platforms, and we'll, you know, we'll have, I guess, chat 5.

I mean, who knows what else is going to come out next this year, but I'm sure they're, they're working really hard and then everything will get better in Web 2. I think Web3, it's still kind of like, a little kooky, and like, difficult to maintain. But yeah, I do, I do need to read much more deeply into TAO, and try to see if I can get some [01:20:00] like, tutorials working, or something like that.

Cool. Yeah, I guess Do anyone else have any, like, final parting thoughts here? 

Jimmy: I just want to say I had a good time today. Tonight was a lot of fun. Just chit chatting with my folks. And I wish you guys a happiest New Year's. And 2023 was a good year overall. It was a lot of fun. A lot of tumultuous.

It was very tumultuous, especially early on. But we got through it together. And 2024, we're going to be printing together. So I'm excited about that. 

Terramaxi: I'm hoping that everybody hits seven figures, everybody hits eight figures, and you know, later as the cycle's about to end, we all, we all pull money together into like a fund, we'll call it the Red Candle Club Fund, and then we ape into these seed rounds, man, like, like, I'm, I'm, I'm, fingers crossed.

Dan: We'll get the DAO going. Yeah, no, I'm, I'm fully on board with that. It was a crazy year. I'm happy to be moving [01:21:00] at 24, and yeah, I'm feeling good, feeling good about everything. I learned, like, a lot of hard lessons from, like, the last one, the last cycle, and I'm ready. I'm feeling ready right now, so. Yeah, this is a really fun dudes.

Great chatting with y'all. And yeah, if I don't see any of you guys have an awesome new year's celebration. 

Lawrence: For sure. Yeah, I would echo that. Have a happy new year's guys and cheers to 2024 and let's all make some money.