The discussion explores the current state and future trajectory of the cryptocurrency market, examining historical cycles, macroeconomic influences, regulatory developments, and institutional adoption, with a particular focus on potential catalysts for growth and shifts in investor behavior.
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All right, welcome everyone. Um,
really excited to have uh as part of our
first fireside of the day, two titans of
industry here. Um, we're going to zoom
out a good bit and really talk about the
broader state of crypto and and even
probably a good bit of macro as well.
There's certainly a lot going on that is
super interesting these days. Um
Dan, welcome back. You were obviously
you and I were on the same stage last
year. Tom, thank you for joining us.
This is your first time, but obviously
hopefully not the last. Um before we
dive into
2026, let's very briefly re revisit some
of the highlights of 2025. It's really
hard to believe it was only a year ago
that we were doing this last time. Uh
there's been a lot that's happened.
Certainly, we saw Bitcoin and Ethereum
hit new all-time highs. We've seen
significant retracement from that. Um,
we've seen tokenization continually
moving from theory into practice. Um,
stable coins processing even more volume
than I think even some of the most uh,
bullish stablecoin people would expect,
more IPOs of crypto-based companies, um,
and regulatory headwinds turning into
regulatory tailwinds perhaps. Um, so
what we're here to talk about is what's
next. Um,
you were already briefly introduced by
Ian on the way in, so I and I think
everybody knows who both of you are, so
I think we can really just dive right
into it. Um,
we've all seen multiple cycles. We've
all seen the bullish part. We've seen
the bearish part. You guys have
weathered that extensively. You're also all
all
probably well known for making really
great predictions and nailing those
predictions far more than u people on
Wall Street are comfortable predicting
first of all and then second of all the
actual track record. Um certainly
volatility is happening right now
probably forecasting more for 2026
but what are we thinking about right now
like what are we thinking about the
market in particular right now? And I
guess Dan if you want to take it away we
can start with you.
>> Thanks. Uh yeah, I'll admit that if you
had asked me on New Year's Day 2025
with all the things that Justin
mentioned happening, um you know, pro
crypto SEC,
um you know, all these great
developments, stablecoin legislation,
market structure legislation, you know,
being passed by the house, all of these
things, and you would have said crypto
up or down. I would have said up
[snorts] and it was down 9% last year.
So that is the surprise and I think my
takeaway is
you know when you're blockchain is going
to change the world and so when you have
something that important there is a hype
cycle to it and sometimes people get
ahead of themselves sometimes they get
uh too pessimistic and this is actually
our fourth cycle in 13 years of trading
and they're actually pretty similar for
better or worse is uh in the bull market
we all think we're geniuses and it's all
great and then now everyone's like oh
it's failed it's terri terrible and um
you know the perspective I would have is
you know just always be thinking 5 10
years down the road not you know five or
10 minutes down the road and one of the
important factors really is the
four-year cycle um when I first heard
about it in 2013 I was like hey if we
all know about it it can't happen but it
does keep happening and [snorts]
uh three or three or so years ago when
when Bitcoin was at like 2000 or
something we did all our work from our
previous four year having cycles and and
projected out where Bitcoin would be in
this cycle. We said, "Hey, our forecast
would be Bitcoin would hit $117,452
on August 11th of 2025." And when we
said that right after FDX and Teraluna,
everyone thought it was super crazy and
it did literally that day. And so we had
a call with one of our investors who
say, "Hey, great call. You guys should
be so proud of yourselves, but doesn't
that mean it's going to go down
tomorrow?" I was like, "Oh, no. This
time's different." You know, and uh it
wasn't different. So, you know, I do
think we are in that, you know, kind of
historically it's been about a year very
consistently of a down market and then
about 3 years of an up market. And
unfortunately, I think we're in that.
And the last bit of the kind of
historical thing is I, you know, I think
that there were two huge inventions that
are kind of the same uh publicly listed
ETFs and then publicly listed these
assasset treasury companies. Really,
really cool. and a huge number of people
piled into them. Collectively, they
bought over 100 billion of crypto and
we've kind of run that kind of initial
course and so without a 100red billion
buyer, you know, it just kind of reset.
Tom, same question to you, I guess.
>> Um, I might just add to Dan's comments
because I I largely agree. I know when I
was uh just recently at the end of last
year uh in the Middle East and meeting
with a lot of the original Bitcoin folks
uh many think there is a four-year cycle
and that is affecting their behavior. So
uh these folks who've made a lot of
money in crypto and their life cycles
have changed because they might have
been 20 you know 15 years ago now
they're in their 30s and have other life
decisions. uh they've been acting as if
it's a four-year cycle. So, some of it
is uh self-fulfilling.
But to me, I I think there are
differences which maybe want to
highlight versus the similarities. You
know, the first is uh usually activity
on chain starts to turn down um in the
four-year cycle and that's not
happening. Like if you look at Ethereum,
active addresses have actually been uh
accelerating higher. Um daily activity
has actually been accelerating higher.
Even total value locked on chain has
been going up. That's not what happened
in let's say even the last cycle. Um and
uh I think that there has been already I
think an accelerated deleveraging um
that's taken place. I think October 10th
>> frontend loaded all the deleveraging. I
mean that was a bigger wipeout than
November 2022.
>> The thing is November 2022 was the was
the last cycle low but the amount of
leverage wiped out was bigger on October
10th. So that was frontloading something
a year early. And then uh the last point
I'd make is
there is a four-year cycle but then
there's also uh the business cycle. And
I think if you look at like ISM for instance,
instance,
uh actually no Bitcoin cycle has peaked
without the ISM peaking. So in other
words, this would be a break of the
cycle. But part of it is because the ISM
has been below 50 for a record 36 months
now. It's the longest in 70
I'm sorry in in a 100 years of data for
ISM. It's never been um below 50 for
this long. And then the second is things
like gold versus copper ratio which kind
of is a proxy for industrial versus
monetary base. Gold copper has been at a
cycle low. Every Bitcoin high has
actually coincided with copper actually
peaking relative to gold. Um so I think
it could be a four-ear cycle but then
the things that normally link to the
4ear cycle actually are different. So
I'm going to be in the camp that I don't
think it's a four-ear cycle. So, I'm not
trying to disagree with consensus, but I
think we've already frontloaded a lot of it.
it.
>> Makes sense.
I guess maybe we can dive in a little
bit more into sort of what's going on
with some of the other
dollar devaluation, debasement type
things that are going on more broadly on
Wall Street, namely gold, silver, other
metals. You hinted on copper a little
bit. Do you think there's there's merit
to that as being some sort of moving
away from
from you know the you know the very
common thing is people call Bitcoin
digital gold. Um we've had a divergence
of the behavior of those assets here in
the short term. Is that something that
you think is
um is is that is is is has something
really changed or is this just a a
Um uh well
uh you know crypto is reflexive prices.
I mean um and I think it's changing
because now
the blockchain as Dan said is actually
become finding a lot of utility. I think
there's a lot actually being built on
the blockchain. But if we look at
historically uh crypto drew a lot of its
legions of users and actually traders
because of price um so when crypto's
price isn't working crypto traders are
trying to find things that are working
and I think the biggest trade over the
last 6 months and I've can see it from
our institutional engagement and of
course you know if you can see it on
social media or even just go to Reddit
and look at Wall Street Bets the two
most traded tickers
are gold and silver by a country mile.
Like just just Google Wall Street bets,
you know, most active and it's like it's
exponentially 10x anything else. And so
I think gold and silver's rise uh and
there could be fundamental reasons, but
the price momentum there has I think
drawn money away from crypto. Um,
that being said, I don't know if it's
really scary signal because I think a
lot of our institutional clients at
Fundstrat think that this is a sign that
the dollar is about to crash or there's
geopolitical risk
or uh you know something something's
wrong with the plumbing like that
there's going to be some bodies floating
and a lot of people think it's going to
be a commodity dealer or a major bank
that's short one of these things that's
about to have a huge capital Well, I
personally just think it's more
price is creating momentum, but I'd love
to hear Dan's uh take on this.
>> Thanks. Yeah, I think I I really do
think there's a big macro shift
happening. Um the uh kind of the the
willingness of all constituents just to
print money is just off the charts now.
Um 10, 20, 30 years ago, we had an
independent Federal Reserve. We had a
Congress that want balanced the budget,
you know, in the '9s. Um and it seems
like both parties and you know kind of
all the constituents in the US and then
often in foreign countries are willing
just to print. That's so bullish for
crypto and it's bullish for gold too. Uh
and I and I think you know the
perspective I have is um you know it's
funny our current president is negative
on Jerome Pal and we've been very
negative on him since 2021 for not
hiking rates high enough and the
president's complaining they're not low
enough and paper money is being debased
at 3% every year and that's called
stable money now over your lifetime
that's 90%. you know, so it's totally
rational to invest in something with a
fixed quantity like gold or bitcoin. So,
um, you know, I really think there is a
big kind of change in people's mindsets
with this this new, you know, kind of
ease at at watching paper money be
debased. And we once did a cool graphic
that I think is still in our Twitter
feed of essentially the price of paper
money in so it's US dollar priced in
bushels of corn, barrels of oil, ounces
of gold, you know, Bitcoin. And that's
really the story is paper money is
crashing. Not that real estate's at a
record high or that S&P's at a record
high. Bitcoin's near a record high. It's
really paper money is at a local low,
but over the next 10, 20 years, it'll
keep going down. So people keep cycling
through and and we do track the gold to
Bitcoin ratio and yeah, gold got way
ahead. Uh but they they do alternate
back and forth and actually I think it's
kind of cool that the total inflows to
ETFs for both gold, old school gold and
digital gold, Bitcoin are about the same
over the last couple years. So, you
know, markets, you know, they kind of
get excited about one thing, it goes up
a bit more, and then I think it'll cycle
back into Bitcoin, and it'll catch back
up to gold. And 10 years from now,
Bitcoin will massively outperform gold.
That's very obvious.
So, do we think that the new nominee for
Fed Chair Walsh is going to
exacerbate that, continue the current trend?
trend?
To be to be determined.
that that might I think Dan may know
more than me.
>> Yeah, I've I've met with him a handful
of times over the years. It's definitely
super smart. Um but it it is really hard
to know uh you know kind of what you
know what the stance is now. Um you know
obviously the Fed should be independent
and should make its own choices and
countries that have governments that get
involved in their uh central banks end
up being banana republics.
With that, let's turn a little bit
towards the more institutional side of
the question here. Um, I think over the
years, we've seen institutional adoption
of both crypto and tokenization
increasing. Um, certainly the Bitcoin
ETF was a major event, you know, largest
um, ETF launch of all time.
How do we feel about
where they're at in terms of their
[snorts] adoption cycle? um to some
extent we have pretty material
deregulation. I think if you chat with
major bank executives in a in a private
room or asset managers or really anybody
with traditional finance, I think
they're actually largely relatively
prepared. You know, they've been looking
at this stuff for a while. They've been
doing pet projects for a while. Um do we
see that side bet turning into more of a
larger scale bet? Um and what what
really does that mean? Is that something
that's positive, you know, from a from a
crypto perspective, or is that something
where um you know, they're going to try
to sort of co co-opt the narrative perhaps?
perhaps?
I was on a panel with the heads of a
bunch of big huge publicly listed alts
firms and almost all of them were super
negative on Bitcoin and crypto and had
no exposure whatsoever. And this is
within the last 12 months. And it's like
that's why I'm so bullish. Like all
these hundred billion dollar crypto or
alts firms have zero Bitcoin or crypto
and that's why I'm still so bullish and
that's why I think the next 10 years are
so good. And um I was on a CNBC thing
once and they were like, "Hey, Bitcoin's
a bubble." I'm like, "How can you have a
bubble nobody owns?" Like you can't have
a bubble when the median holding for
institutional investors of both
cryptocurrencies themselves or
blockchain venture is literally 0.0.
>> So that's you know [snorts] that is why
I'm so bullish. And then you know Tom
and I have been doing this for a long
time and the list of reasons to say no
to crypto used to be super long. No
custodian and no this no that no
regulatory stuff. The SEC is trying to
kill it. They're pretty much all crossed
off right. And so that is, you know,
such a huge inflection point. We, you
know, still need one more bill in the
United States, you know, but from then
on there really aren't reasons for
institutions to say no given they have,
you know, very little exposure. And
then, you know, blockchain uh as an
asset class has a 12 year 80% IRRa with
a 0.2 correlation to the S&P 500. Like
there's never been a better asset class
in history. So it takes time and
everyone's reactionary and it you know
grinding them down takes a while but
it's inevitable that big institutions
will come into our industry and I think
the regulatory stuff in the US is kind
of the last big you know reason to say
no that'll help them get in and then one
of the things that's that's helping
institutions is there used to be this
perspective that uh you know crypto is
super risky and we all grew up in the
capital asset pricing model era where
volatility ility equals risk. And crypto
is super volatile. Not going to not
going to lie, it's super volatile. But
it's actually not that risky. Anyone's
ever owned cryptocurrencies for four
years has doubled their money or more.
And then our venture investing over 12
years, we've only lost money on 14% of
the companies we've invested in, which
is crazy compared to the real world
where 70% go broke. And partly it's our
team's good and we work really hard, but
partly it's crypto is just so awesome
that it, you know, makes most things work.
work.
>> Dan, by the way, what do you mean by alt
firms? Are you talking about alternative
asset managers?
>> Yeah, you know, the big listed
alternative asset managers. Um, I'm I
want to add to Dan's comments, but take
it from a different angle, which is um,
you know, are Wall Street firms
embracing crypto? And we have our chief
operating officer from Bitmine here,
Young, who's sitting right there. I'm
calling him out because he's uh, going
to be working with a lot of traditional
Wall Street firms to understand really
blockchain. But I I have two
observations to make. Number one,
I don't think crypto is viewed as
legitimate uh within most of the key
decision makers of an organization. So
there's evangelists like at JP Morgan,
anybody from JP Morgan here?
Um that's my old firm, but I'd say like,
you know, there's obviously a blockchain
team, but like at the at the senior
level, the top 20 managing directors and
executive team members, I don't think
there's buyin into crypto. And it
reminds me of like I used to be a
wireless analyst from 1994 to 2007
from when wireless was only 75 million
users to over four billion. And I
remember once Bill Harrison asked me to
do a cha chase board meeting where I
talked about wireless. And I was uh I
think I was like 29 at the time. And I
went in and I said, like, see this
Blackberry? This is going to be more
important than that phone at people's
desks. And Chase is going to spend more
money on cellular than landline. And
Bill looked at me like, you know, um,
like I kind of like was saying something
like heretic because, you know, the
telecom companies were big clients at JP
Morgan and Chase. And so I never got
invited back actually at the board. Um
but that as you know like that was the
reality because like wireless basically
was a better business than landline and
uh I think that's true today like if
someone went into a bank and said
blockchain offers finality um and speed
that uh your current systems and can
prevent fraud at a at such at scale and
speed that your systems can't handle. I
think you'd get the same look in a board
meeting. But there's already proof
because uh take a company like Tether
which is basically a simple it's a it's
a monoline company. It's a stable coin
issuer but basically operates as a bank.
They only have 180 billion of um of
stable coins tokenized dollars. It's not
even 1% of M1
and their profit this year. Okay. And
I'm I'm projecting uh because I don't
actually have their numbers, but uh I
think if you look at their gap net
income in 2026, it might be 20 billion,
which would make them a top five most
profitable bank in the world. And uh
just put a I don't know 15 multiple on
it, 300 billion or 20 multiple, 400
billion. That would make it top five
most valuable bank in the world. The
thing is they have 300 employees because
they do everything else on the
blockchain. JP Morgan, which is the
largest bank in the world, has 330,000
employees. So to me, like it's, you
know, crypto isn't accepted. Things are
changing, as Justin said, but I I think
Wall Street wants to hijack that
narrative, but I think native blockchain
companies are like open source. They,
you know, they may end up being better businesses.
