DePin is radioactive.

It is a death trap that will immolate value for investors and builders alike until a fundamental problem is solved. Solving this problem may take years 🧵👇 It is now consensus that the universe of participants who are willing to spend hard-earned fiat buying the Nth altcoin is largely tapped out.

There are just too many tokens out there, so alts no longer act as high-beta bitcoin.

Introducing the Las Vegas Framework for valuing altcoins 🧵

With the explosive run-up in AI tokens, it's worth trying to understand what these projects are worth and how much further they can rally from here: In an attempt to predict/explain prices, people have attempted to model crypto like every legacy asset under the sun:

-Stocks (discounted cash flow)
-Networks (Metcalfe's law)
-Commodities (Stock-to-Flow)
-FX (token velocity)

etc

Where crypto goes from here, sector by sector - 🧵

*not financial advice*

1. It's almost inconceivable to me that BTC doesn't blast thru $150k between now and the end of Q1. Dips between now and year-end are to be bought. Here's why: -Bitcoin is a reflexive asset. Higher prices beget buying interest, lower prices beget selling interest.
-The market has barely had time to digest the post-election rally to $100k. And by "the market" I mean real institutional money, not the degenerate retail gamblers on X.

Crypto traders want “alpha” (pocket aces), but they usually have no idea how to play those aces.

In poker, SIZING BETS is the key to results. Here's how I think about it in my personal trading account: 🧵👇 1. The first thing to do is tally up your liquid net worth (a.k.a. your "portfolio") and establish how much of it you can lose without your life becoming intolerably whack. This number is a function of:
-savings
-income expectations
-general life circumstances (age/freedom/etc)

How to make it this cycle - a trading guide: 🧵

1. Don't sell one penny worth of crypto until inauguration day (at the very earliest). 2a. If you are a normie who has 0-5% of your portfolio in crypto, it is not too late. The rally has not even begun to run its course.

Allocate to 5-10% of your total portfolio into BTC or IBIT immediately and worry about the other stuff later.

I think Israel's military response will rip oil and tank crypto.

I also think those moves are a huge fade.

Here's why: 🧵👇 Unlike the Israel/Iran flareup in April, when oil prices were sitting on local highs and positioning was max long, oil prices are near local lows right now and positioning is max short.

This is a nice setup for a crazy short squeeze in crude.

Jump's rumored exit will impact Solana and Firedancer.

Here's my take: 🧵 disclaimers:
*not financial advice*
*I don't work at Jump, and never have*

Thoughts on Jump supposedly leaving crypto: 🧵👇 To the best of my knowledge, Jump Crypto operated two main verticals in the space:

1. trading
2. "building things"

There are two kinds of selloffs:

1) fundamental
2) technical

This one is technical, meaning it probably won't last for very long🧵: This year, participants have been short volatility in a variety of ways:
-short options/collecting theta
-long USDJPY carry trade
-long AI/crypto momentum
-long commodity futures in backwardation

Yesterday was the first time I’ve felt very proud to be an American in a long time.

Quick 🧵: Leadership matters.

There’s something deeply humiliating about being an American when the guy in charge is slurring his words and struggling with basic cognition.

It’s also humiliating when your leader is as childish and petty as Trump 1.0 was.

I think it's incredibly sane and rational to suggest that BTC/ETH/SOL have a very bright outlook AND that altcoins (no, not all altcoins, just most of them) are going to continue getting smoked.

Here's why I think so:🧵👇 The emotional outrage in response to this tweet indicates that a lot of people still are overweight alts and praying for a repeat of the altcoin slingshot bull trade of 2017 and 2021.

https://x.com/jvb_xyz/status/1810070209010766085

I think this is the beginning of the final rinse before crypto rallies sustainably in the 2nd half of 2024: 🧵👇 A surprising amount of the traders I talk to are _still_ deploying substantial leverage, despite dozens of lessons in the recent past suggesting that this is a losing strategy.

My feed is amateur hour:

Euphorically bullish when the market is going up, despondently bearish when it's sideways or down.

Here is exactly what I think is going to happen 👇 We chop around for a while, probably hit $55k BTC but maybe not, then it's 🚀🚀🚀 mode thru year end.

If you're long-term-bearish post-halving, you're either shockingly risk averse or you suffer from an inability to see the bigger picture.

It's official folks, #Bitcoin is in a downtrend. Here's how I'm going to trade this: 🧵👇 In the next few weeks, I fully expect the market to break below the pictured trend channel.

@AviFelman is right when he says that selloffs such as these end in a bloodbath.

Leaving your TradFi job to become a professional crypto trader is literally the stupidest fucking thing you could possibly do.

If you are watching crypto prices rocket and thinking about doing it, just stop and go touch some grass.

Here is the cold hard math: 🧵👇 A top hedge fund, prop shop, or seed investor will almost never let you run more than $30-50M net notional in crypto.

How to avoid stress in trading🧵: TRADE LESS.

Stress management is critical. Stress = financial ruin. Cool hands are strong hands.

Max anguish/disillusionment in the crypto community right now.

AI is the new hot thing and the promise of blockchain tech seems overshadowed by a reality of casino-style use cases and hostile regulators. Altcoins and NFT floors are down-only.

Why this is the wrong take: 🧵👇 1/ Traders and entrepreneurs are well-placed to understand why periods where no one cares about your product or market are NOT a reflection of its long-term viability.

Recent regulatory enforcement has created significant uncertainty, but price action has been buoyant – while there is clearly a concerted effort underway to restrict access to the asset class, I would’ve expected a more pronounced rush for the exits. Instead, ETH is up. 🧵👇 1/ Regulators in Washington DC have a wide spectrum of options on the table for regulating the digital asset space, ranging from the China model (outright ban) to the El Salvador model (open season / legal tender).

Crypto has all the hallmarks of a market with staying power 🧵👇 In 2007, I was fresh out of school, on the rotational program at Lehman Brothers, and decided to pick the CDS (credit default swap) trading desk. At the time, it was the hot new product and I felt lucky to have the opportunity to participate in the gold rush.

@CryptoHayes Yesterday’s crypto collapse was part of a broader risk-off move, but was no doubt accelerated by the latest
@CryptoHayes piece calling for $30,000 bitcoin and $2,500 ETH. 🧵👇 @CryptoHayes 1/ Arthur is a fantastic writer and commands a prominent position of thought leadership in crypto markets, but the macroeconomic logic underlying his latest piece is mediocre at best, so let’s go through his argument and debunk it piece by piece. Here’s his thesis:

Yesterday’s crypto collapse was part of a broader risk-off move, but was no doubt accelerated by the latest @CryptoHayes piece calling for $30,000 bitcoin and $2,500 ETH. 🧵👇 1/ Arthur is a fantastic writer and commands a prominent position of thought leadership in crypto markets, but the macroeconomic logic underlying his latest piece is mediocre at best, so let’s go through his argument and debunk it piece by piece. Here’s his thesis: