Never Short Stocks, The Great Bear Trap, & Why Crypto is Weak - Tolks

Threadguy sits down with Tolks, the anonymous trader behind the macro substack crypto twitter actually reads. They cover why crypto stopped tracking equities, why he hasn't shorted since Trump's Easter V-reverse, and why every institutional adoption headline is bullish for everyone except crypto traders.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Yo yo yo. Yo, what's good? What's up, man? Mr. Tubs. Welcome to the stream, brother. How are you?

SPEAKER_01 0:06

I'm good, man. I'm good. Long time, long time watcher. First time uh interviewee.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Dude, I'm a big fan. Um, I was just giving you like a little glaze before you came on, but I think uh dude, for for like a lot of the things that I've been talking about, I feel like you're one of these guys that really understands the macro markets, understands equities, but you have this crypto first principles sort of mindset through a lot of it. And so I resonate with a lot of your writing, a lot of the things that you talk about. And uh yeah, I don't know. I I'm I'm into your your whole bit. So I uh appreciate you coming on. It's it's a good day to have you on, too. There's a lot happening.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Man, when is there not a lot happening? That's uh that's the problem these days, you know. It's funny. Uh, last night eating dinner with my girlfriend, she's asking me just you know about my day, and it took me like 15 minutes just to get through kind of like what happened in the market, and I looked at her and I was like, I can't fucking wait for the day where I can just say, you know what, nothing really happened. Like it was everything was just kind of chill, but it's probably gonna be a little while.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Nothing ever happens and everything always happens. I mean, look, we could just start like today's kind of a crazy day, um, because I'm trying to figure out what to I don't like okay. So you wrote a pretty good article I was reading back April 19th, I think. And you were I think you were like relatively bullish in in this, um, all things considered in like equities and how things are playing out. We just had had the V shape recovery and things had done very well from there. Um, now we're sort of in this crazy spot. We just had all these earnings, Google looks really good, everything else, not so much. Crypto looks terrible, stocks are at like record high. It's ridiculous how strong uh some of these you know tech stocks are semis, and oil. I have hyper liquid up right now on my computer. WTI is 108.50 and Brent is like 112, and the parliament speaker of Iran just threw out a hundred and forty dollar price prediction for oil on Twitter. So uh it's uh like what the I mean, what do you make of where we're at right now, and maybe specifically on caring about oil and war, not caring about it, stocks going high. Like, where what is your general read of where we're at right now?

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Oh man, um I think things, you know, as you can see with the bearishness and bullishness and what I wrote back in like April 19th was just kind of the you'll see a lot about it talked to I'm like FinTwit about kind of, you know, and I'm a little less versed in it, but you know, the CTA buying the forced buying, the forced selling that happens when certain assets, you know, trend higher or lower. And that's kind of what I was writing about, mainly when it relates to uh oil, you know, dollar and VIX. Um, and I think heading into this week, well, back to the 19th, I was kind of like, you know, um we saw the massive spike in those assets, and then you know, eventually they're gonna come back down. But I think we're in a structurally, structurally higher environment for those assets. Um, so we're just kind of waxing and waning between those two. And we came into this week with you know, those assets, you know, oil was was starting to trend a little higher, but VIX was back down, you know, at like 17. Um, and the dollar's still grinding higher. So I mean, those are kind of you know the key assets. And the interesting thing with me, I think I tweeted it um last night, was crypto's really, really closely following gold in recent weeks. Um, and gold has a very strong inverse relationship to oil over the past few weeks. Um I'd have to pull up the tweet there, but I kind of drew lines on on that there. And so I think that's a lot of the crypto weakness we're seeing now is that it is unfortunately choosing to follow gold instead of uh equities. And you know, there's times where it waxes and wanes between the two, and right now is a bad time to be following gold. And so I think that's kind of what's happening uh with crypto. And then as far as equities go, um, I haven't really seen too much about the the earnings that happened today. Um I was prepping for this and getting the dog out before this. So I'll catch up on that later. But I mean, as you know, things wane, the the bullishness to bearishness, it was cool to care about you know, oil and hormuse in the first week of you know the fighting and the war. And then it was pretty easy to you know, forget about it, it's the wrong word, but to trust that you know the equity pricing was right and that the you know you're not gonna fight that type of momentum. And now I think we could see a case where we're back to okay, oil is actually you know back to to 110 while the VIX is kind of beaten down and you have the 10 and 30 year, I mean the 30 year just hit five percent for the first time since uh I think it was I think it's spring of 2025. So eventually I can see these things weighing on equities, maybe. Um, but I mean, until you know, higher powers start weighing on on equities, then you know they're gonna keep grinding up because as Besson said, what was that Monday? That it's like an imperative to yes, you know, chase China, and like that's the thing. So it's crazy that's every marginal dollars.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

Oh my god. You know, you you uh I don't understand a lot in markets, but I do understand momentum and when things are getting fucking slammed. And you had a couple posts on it, whether it was Friday or maybe Monday, maybe last Thursday. I think it was maybe last late last week when spy so there's something that happened. There was a head, there was a head, I forget it. What the heck? I there's so I forget there was a headline, uh, war headline. Spy goes down to like 703 or something, spx 73. They're just like buying at a level that just didn't even make sense. It was like the most generational slam that I mean, I'm watching these charts, and I'm like, what the fuck is going on? And so I feel like when you see that, you have to be like, okay, you know, war's not over, but you have to sort of mentally like uh ignore it and pay attention to what's in front of you, right? Like what the charts are saying on on equities. I mean, it's like a generational bid. You were tweeting, you had some good tweets about it.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it was I I've I've never seen like a low time frame bounce like that, other than like mass crypto liquidations. Like, we're talking, you know, it felt like massive. Yes, but that's when stuff sells off, you know, 10-15%. And this was, I think it was a some type of war escalation headline. And I I remember watching, I think the Qs went down maybe like maybe like 0.3%, and they bounced half a percent in a minute. And I was like, holy shit, I was oh, you know what it was outrageous.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Uh it was a fake that their uh Iran air defenses were going off, and then yeah, that's what it was. And I like a complete retard. I longed Bitcoin, which is just like what I'm looking around, what I long. Uh stocks are going down a lot, Bitcoin is like flat. I'm on a I'm on stand-up preparing for stream, and I'm like, guys, I gotta trade something. I trade. I'm what should I trade it? Like, I don't know, Bitcoin. I'm the fuck, I've long Bitcoin. Bitcoin, complete piece of shit, and then the spy, Intel, all of these names just like candle to ATH.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

Yeah, it's crazy. And you know what the other day of that was when I fully like because I was still I mean a little hesitant about equities, but it was the Thursday before uh Easter. And remember, Trump had that press conference Wednesday night, you know, it was like 9 p.m. And it was like, oh shit, like you know, his tone, how short it was, the message, it was like damn. And uh Bitcoin sold off, equity sold off. I want to say like one and a half percent and after hours, and then pre-in the morning. And I actually at the time had a bunch of puts. And the market opens Thursday, down for maybe the first 15-20 minutes. And I'm like, I mean, I am just euphoric. I'm like, I'm about to print. It just straight VR versed. And that's when I was like, okay, I'm not, I'm not, and I've I haven't really shorted equities since then because I mean, again, you're just playing like at some point you have to let the market listen, no matter how like I don't know, I guess, real the situation is. Like the the worst time to be bearish is a time like when you constantly see the oil charts, and like you can construct a picture where it makes so much sense to be bearish, you know, but when price consistently routinely moves against you, like that's when it's it's really scary.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

I think you wrote about this in April 19th, where the the hardest part to be a dirty bear is when you have every good reason to be bearish in the market, like you wrote about this, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's what I was saying now. It's just like what when all of it, when it makes so much sense, and there are a lot of times like the bear case makes sense. I mean, um, you know, it's easy to just be like, yeah, I mean, over the long term, like the market goes up, and you know, there's a lot of reasons for that, but a lot of times the bearish case can sound so smart. But again, when you're tracking, you know, when the strait is still essentially closed for you know two months now, and before the war, you remember reading like you know, people speculating about what would happen if it was closed for four weeks, and then you're just staring and you're like, dude, this makes sense, but you have to listen to the market eventually. And you know, that time last Wednesday and then the Thursday before Easter are really, really good examples of just the insane bid and being like, okay, whatever I previously thought, like you should adjust it if you haven't.

SPEAKER_00 8:48

Okay, so you wrote this thing in the in there, and um, so I've I've been doing a lot of short-term trading recently, partly because I'm so like dialed into the stream and I'm just thinking about short-term every day. And you know, something you wrote is like it's impossible I'm misquoting you, but paraphrasing it's impossible to think about positioning more than a week out, and it is seemingly impossible to do that because you flip-flop every which way, every direction. What I'm trying to figure out is like, is that just a skill issue? And the actual problem here is thinking you should be trading every intraday move which way direction, instead of just like picking along bias, sliding the leverage down, or you know, god forbid going spot and letting it play out on a higher time frame. Like, am I just the problem here on that?

SPEAKER_01 9:38

No, no, I mean, I don't think so at all. I mean, that's like I tell you know, friends, family, and everything, like, you know, just don't even don't even look, like, just let it be, you know, buy what you want, whatever per week and you know, or month, whatever, and don't even look at it. I try and tell them not to even look at it. Um, so you kind of have to have the only mindsets in your head, but yeah, um, but like I was saying about you know, explaining my girlfriend about the the market, like we're just kind of in an environment like that, you know, where it's been a month, two months of close to just absolute chaos. But I don't think you know what we've experienced over the past two months can kind of be extrapolated to more medium to long-term feces, and you should still have some of those in your head. Like, um, you know, I've been pretty bearish crypto for um a week, two weeks or so now, two, three weeks. But like, you know, when prices are down a good amount around these levels, like I've still been picking and choosing spots to buy since the first Iran strikes where I'm just like, okay, you know, buy a little here and just forget about it. And so you just kind of have to balance those two, so you've been which is a difficult thing to do.

SPEAKER_00 10:43

You've been tweeting bearish crypto, but you I think you've said in the article that like high time frame structurally, you're the most interested in crypto event in a while, which I don't want to misquote you on that, but I was a little bit surprised to read that. I was surprised to read that. Honestly, I was what like why?

SPEAKER_01 10:59

Uh I think it's partially just because I I started writing again, and that tells me that like there's nothing going on, you know, in the crypto side, and that generally leads to some type of asymmetric outcome in the future. And then also, you know, I mean, prices are down a lot from you know the highs of of eight months ago, so it's natural to start, you know, being more interested um at this time. And then uh I go back and forth on kind of, I mean, because one of the prevailing things you see on CT now is just you know, like the bullishness of institutionalization, you know, and how all and and it's true, but the problem that I struggle with it outside of you know, really like BTC and ETF assets, is it reminds me so much of stable coins and when I used to write about in like 2022 about just being like, holy shit, stable coins are gonna, you know, 25x, 30x, like this is gonna be one of the biggest markets in the world. That's on its way to being true, but the ability to profit from that was so hard outside of outside of private, and that's the unfortunate thing that reminds me about all this, you know. Like I said, the bullishness you'll see is like the institutions are here, and it's true. Like, you know, Schwab is launching, you know, trading and meta announced today.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

Uh what did they announce that they're gonna have um stable coin coin payouts to influence creators?

SPEAKER_01 12:25

But again, like you know, it's meta in its circle. Like, how do you you know what I mean? Like it did nothing for Solana and God forbid anybody's bidding Polygon, but uh it's those type of like announcements that like you know, over the long term, like they're beneficial and they're good, but in the short term to medium term, like they kind of don't really do anything, and you can't profit from it in like the liquid public markets, and so that dichotomy just really sucks.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

This has been the hardest part about the institutional narrative, uh is like everybody else is getting rich and you're not, but all of us are not on the crypto side. What do you? I mean, I'm sitting here and watch this chart. It's it's I mean, bro, it's I don't know if you have it on your computer. Uh yeah, the oil chart is uh unbelievable right now. Brent oil is 113. It's uh it's actually unbelievable. And so is there uh like I I don't know, I don't have you pegged as like oil uh expert oil traders, so I'm not necessarily looking for like supply chain intricacies, but when you see this, what does this do? I think you've been pretty on the money short-term bias. Like, what does this do to how you're thinking about equity markets and crypto? I mean, this is a pretty nasty candle it's putting in right now.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

That's yeah, yeah, it's pretty sick.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

Um, that's a pretty sick candle, dude.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

Uh yeah, I mean, I you'd probably assume 120 is probably tested at this point. And I mean, it's anybody's guess what it's gonna do to equities because again, they just haven't gave a shit. Um, but I would think it continues to weigh on gold and yields keep going up. And I mean, that is just bad overall for risk assets. Like, there's no sugarcoating, you know, when oil's up, like it's just bad. It it's it's bad in the short term, it's bad in the medium term, it's bad, you know, ramifications down the line a quarter, two quarters from now, three quarters from now. Um, but we'll see with US equity markets. And another thing that I've been writing about is just kind of how a lot of the rest of the world, like for better or worse, has it, you know, like 50 times worse than the US that just kind of has rising gas prices. But there are, you know, some countries and you know, uh airlines that, you know, they're limiting fuel, they're driving into work, you know, maybe two or three days a week instead of five. Like there's very serious things that are happening in the rest of the world, but a lot of times like that stuff doesn't matter for equities until for better or worse, like it hits US markets, and it really hasn't hit here yet.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Um yeah, it feels like uh I think this is in the Chumba article. You guys have some similar takes, but like the market's ability to price in forward-looking stuff right now feels it doesn't exist. It's like it feels like you can only see what's happening like in this exact moment, right? That's like, oh fuck, oil's up. Like there's not a lot of foresight on a lot of this stuff. I don't know. Is it is that does that feel new? I like what is that?

SPEAKER_01 15:13

I do think the market has become that's another thing I I've written about a few times um over the past like month, is just um when I was referencing kind of like those the cross-asset correlations between you know VIX and oil and dollar, like the market has become much more reactionary that like when those go up, you know, risk was going down, and when those were down, risk was going up. Um, so I do think there is more, much more of like a reactionary nature to um to equity markets than there had been in the past compared to just you know the look through. Though you could say that you know, equities are very clearly like looking through everything having to do with the war and oil and just being like AI is everything. Um so from that aspect, you know, there is definitely some look through. Uh, but it hasn't you know spilled over to crypto yet.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

This is a scary candle it's putting in.

SPEAKER_01 16:06

Yeah, I mean, what was uh were you looking at the earnings and stuff by the way? Like I said, I haven't had a time.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

Everything beat, but uh Google is the big winner. Like, let's see. Google, let's see where it's at right now. It's up seven percent on Twitter. So Google fucking ripped up seven percent. It's crazy on a $4.2 trillion dollar stock. It got crushed, even though it beat by a lot. It's on seven percent. Um shout out to Apewood might go in the chat. Um Amazon, yeah, shout out to fucking Apewood. Amazon like put in a nasty one, recovered, and then kind of put a nasty one in again. It's down three percent. And then Microsoft um put in a pretty nasty one as well. It's down like two and a half, so not great, and then the Sprint candle is like fucking gnarly.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

Yeah, so I mean it'll be it'll be interesting to see kind of how the rest of the week.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

Do you have positions on right now? Other than crypto shorts, you just short crypto.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

I'm short crypto, long. Um let's see, I still have a pretty sizable oxy call position, which is um it's an oil and petroleum company. I mentioned that in the article from like three weeks ago where I was just like, Is that up a lot? I was like, uh, yeah. I mean, the calls are up 152%. So over three weeks. Um uh about two, two and a half, yeah. Whoa. Um it was just kind of just looking. I I really should have I should have longed more oil and stuff. I mean, if you look at anything related to it, it was you know, it's it's been straight up for for uh two weeks. Um, but other than that, I started I was buying VIX calls uh pretty much all morning, and then some IWM puts.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

How does trade the VIX? How does that work?

SPEAKER_01 17:57

Uh I wouldn't advise it. How does it work though?

SPEAKER_00 18:01

Like what why do you trade? I mean you and what do you trade it in replace of?

SPEAKER_01 18:06

Um it's just for me, like when it's down you know, like the levels it was at today, like you know, around 17, 18, like that seems like the base, the floor to me. Um, and I just kind of use it like I'm fine with it going to zero. And most of the time, you know, it will go to zero unless VIX is up, you know, 10-15% plus. Um, I would not ever advise trading the VIX. Like, you know, without why does it so why do you do it? Uh that's a good question.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

It's like mental.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

I don't know, feel something to feel something. Yeah, yeah. Um, but then I put on some uh IWM shorts today too, just to hedge a lot of tech and AI stuff, just because it's small cap stuff, it's it's been trending much weaker than uh than other cues. And if the Qs, you know, if equities turn it all, then I think it'll uh it'll turn pretty hard. And it's a lot more sensitive to um overall rate environment. So yeah, I started putting that on uh this morning.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

What's up, Smack's in the chat? What's up, Smack? He said Ask Talkswide doesn't own ZM.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

I actually bookmarked, was it yesterday? Uh I was coming back from somewhere and I saw somebody read through the bull case for for Zoom. So I'll have to look into that. I think a large portion of it is they own like a lot of anthropic and they might get bought out by anthropic. I could have that wrong though.

SPEAKER_00 19:24

I I think I uh I think that that's true actually.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

Tell me, uh but that's actually that's on my agenda to look into.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

That's a DNAP ass stock. He loves that stock. Um, right, he brings it up to me all the time. Uh what crypto are you short? Are you still heavily short crypto? I know you were long Zcash for a while. I think you closed it. It looks interesting. Yeah, it doesn't look good.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

Man, Rhino is just killing me. Like, Zcash is one of the things I'm most excited about, and every like three days he just tweets, yeah. I'm sure it's that could get it. By the way, I am too, but it just looks terrible. Yeah, it doesn't uh it doesn't look great. But I mean the thesis on that is more uh obviously privacy. Um, you know, the quantum stuff is is kind of like a little bit of a meme in the sense of like if BTC is affected by quantum, like I don't think anything's gonna you know, just like survive. Uh, but there is a little bit of that narrative, and then it is becoming somewhat of an L1, and I like it obviously for the privacy aspect, and then also it's like the last non-tainted kind of like real L1, you know, and by tainted, I just mean you know, Dats, Sailor, Tom Lee, you know, the Salana Dats, all of that. Um, so that's kind of the main thesis there. Uh, but I'm just I'm just short uh um BTC, youth, and soul right now. Um, those are from uh probably I don't know about five, six.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Tell me about the soul $80 level.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

I mean, it's just been a meme for forever, as long, you know. Um it used to be the soul, I think it was the 120 level. Yeah, sounds right. And then that finally gave, yeah. Um what happens at the end of the day. Uh when the FTX lock soul was auctioned, I think a lot of it was bought around there. When Seoul was back at um, I want to say this was when Seoul was maybe like 150, 200 around there. Um, I'd have to double check on this, but I'm almost certain that a lot of it was offered and bought around 80. Um so there's a pretty a pretty strong, strong wall there. Uh but yeah, soul, I mean, Seoul was kind of what I made my hand back in like 2020 when or 2022 when you're not saying it was 65, just like the main level 65. 65. Okay, okay. Um well that would make sense, but either way, I mean you can just see on the chart that this 80 level is is defended pretty damn hard. Um but yeah, I'm I'm pretty worried about uh I just don't really see the bull case for soul on the the short to medium to long term, and I was you know back four years ago. One of the most like bullish salon of people you could find because I thought it was just mispriced in a chain that was actually usable. But now um I don't know. I I think it's struggling a little bit for a narrative. And like I wrote, I think it was the 19th. I think Soul will kind of become what ETHBTC was life cycle, where once it's it's up, you're it's probably time to get out of some positions.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

That's brutal. The new ETH BTC, yeah, soul BTC.

SPEAKER_01 22:29

Yeah, yeah. I mean, the if you look at ETHBTC and Soul BTC charts, they're I mean they're pretty much kind of spitting images too. And soul is heading into the part where everybody tried longing it for you know three years and it just didn't work out.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

At some point, you have to just stop, right?

SPEAKER_01 22:45

You would think so, but that hasn't stopped uh the how is your like okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:50

You tweet a lot about topic I love that is um wow, brand oil, bro. 11350. Holy fucking shit. Dang, that's up 10 today.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

Wow, yeah, it's about to make new highs, right? At least I'm looking on hyper liquid on the hyper liquid.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

I mean top wick is 117. This would be the highest close on a daily dog. Oh what even happened? Am I missing news? I mean, I have my computer open. Um I don't even think I've missed news. Oh early reports indicate air defense near the US embassy in the green zone in Baghdad are working to intercept a number of drones flying over the area. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

I guess what's I mean, it was it was it was up pretty much uh all day. Like I said, I mean it was it's just kind of I don't know, it was a thing, it was one of those things that that people kind of just forgot about while on the street is it's pretty much essentially closed for you know like a month now, and then Trump's talking about all day today. Like, you know, we'll have the blockade as long as like necessary. And there was a port report, I think it was last night, that he was like prepping aids for extended blockade time. So um, you know, in hindsight, probably should have got really long oil this morning.

SPEAKER_00 24:06

But it uh I mean the the way this is trading probably like what I what I wanted to ask you next, which like I love this topic of everything trades like crypto now. And you talk about it a lot. I talk about it a lot. It's one of my favorite topics. I don't know if it's good or bad for the world, probably bad, but it's fun, it's very fun. It's fun to trade because it is fun, it's familiar to trade. How is that like have you evolved your trading strategy around that? Like, are you just plowing into the the new thing when it's getting the crypto style flows?

SPEAKER_01 24:34

Um I would say it depends, but generally, yeah. I mean, like I was talking about with the market just becoming it seems like it's becoming more reactionary and momentum-based, and that's very, you know, crypto native type type markets. Um, but yeah, I mean, and then the other thing is like you start throwing in LLM research and everybody's spitting out, you know, spitting out the same kind of general thesis to the same people, you know, the same, you know, stocks and sectors, and it's like that compounds pretty massively too. Um, so you kind of have those those dueling factors. And then obviously, you know, options and uh that that broad market structure plays plays a role in the momentum-based um environment too. But yeah, I mean, I think everything just, you know, like I said, you know, we've seen it in gold, we've seen in Korean stocks, we see it, you know, silver, you see it literally everywhere. I mean, you see it in the queues, like in that, you know, a half a percent bounce in the queues in a one minute, like uh life lenses is just, I mean, it's pretty nutty. Um, so yeah, I mean, it's just I don't necessarily think it's going anywhere, and markets just are converging to trade more like that. And that's a function of you know, access more people online, you know, uh everybody being able to do it from their phone, like you know, it takes five seconds and three clicks.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

So I also think that hallucination AI yield concept doesn't get enough credit for how impactful that would be. Maybe I'm wrong, but uh I think that way when like suggesting like when RFK makes an announcement of peptides and everyone puts the headline and says, What do I buy? They say buy hims. Like I think that that mattered, you know.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

Agreed, I agree, yeah. Yeah, plus I mean it's just the pace of information, too, you know. I mean, you see it, it doesn't even have to be just markets, you see it in you know, every asset class and politics and everything, like the pace of you know, sports, everything. Like, it's just that's just the way that the world operates now.

SPEAKER_00 26:20

I also think uh on the topic of everything trades like crypto, you sort of like the way uh hyper attention flows from thing to thing to thing to thing to thing. You sort of have like you are given an opportunity to be trading the best thing, and I you kind of want to just be in the best thing at all times, and there's only like a couple best things at any given point. Now it sort of gets narrative violation when you look at like how like if you look at like the you know monthly NVIDIA chart or something, then I'm like, okay, am I retarded? Like, have I shouldn't just just be buying? I go but back and forth on this. It's like okay, I could just be in the best thing at all times, but it's a lot of work to be in the best thing, right? Or you could have just been buying Google for the last year, every single red candle, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, done nothing else, not really worked very hard, and then you're up significantly. Like, I go back and forth on how to think about this.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

Yeah, I mean, it's difficult. Um, but that's why, you know, I mean, it's kind of funny, like in this environment where you know stocks are up and cryptos down, and you kind of see like the sarcasm a little bit from CT of being like, oh, like thanks for pointing that out, like we didn't already know. And it's just it just highlights it's not like it's you know trying to dunk or anything, but it's just like you should own some stocks and have some like just basic index equities because you just have, like you said, just pull up the monthly charts of this stuff, and like it's literally fundamentally designed to go up over time. And it like, you know, there's no reason to be like on the sidelines there. So, you know, you should have the approach, you know, if you want to trade, like that's fine, but you should also have some core assets because another thing CT does is just kind of I don't know, really like emphasize and uh you know, highlight like you know, the bottom ticks, and it always has to be like the bottom tick. And like I said, like I'm I'm I'm fine, you know, ever since the initial iron strikes, like I, you know, days here and there, like I buy some BTC, I buy some Zec, buy some hype, like yeah, is it like are the spot buys down since then? Like, yeah, that's fine, but I'm you know, I'm good with that. Like I think that the levels that we reached are are pretty good, and I'm not sure that you know if they'll be hit again, if they do, then that's okay. And if they don't, then you know I'm fine, you know, just sleep better at night.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

How do you short ults? I've never made money short selling anything ever.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

Well, you really have to wait until uh until the market environment like we've had for the past few months. Like you and you have to you can't really uh it's not really positions you can kind of leave on overnight, like it gets pretty uh pretty dangerous. You have to really think things are stretched or the narrative is run out, um, or you have to be pretty confident in BTC, like at least not going up. Um but like I said, it it kind of has to be this type of environment. But I wouldn't, I mean, shorting in general is just that's another thing. Like I tell my friends that you know are a little more active, like trading stock stuff. I'm just like, don't don't ever try and short because you will just you'll most likely get ran over.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

It's also crazy, like the bears they do coming kind of bringing full circle, like being bearish in a long enough time frame, you just lose it. I mean, bro, chumba just wrote an article saying the Q's are gonna 3x. Like, you lose it, bro. You lose it.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

I know, I know, I know. Chumba and uh player daddy had an article on that. Yeah, and I was like, damn. I was like, these are like these are these are sharp guys, too. Like, you know, it would be funny if we ended up, you know, if the week, like if we sold off, you know, Thursday and Friday, and then maybe next week too.

SPEAKER_00 29:52

You finally get the dead the 10% red day, circuit breaker day, like finally.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

Yeah, yeah. But I don't know. I mean, I don't know, it's har it's hard to argue against it, like, especially when I don't know, when it's laid out like that, like it's it's difficult. And the way they've traded recently, like it's nuts. Um, but the more like speculative side, like I you know, you see all the PNLs and you see uh what's the uh the Reddit, the serendipity, like people like that, like that, you know, these are sharp people, but I'm also asking myself, like I try and be cognizant, like, are these people also, you know, and myself too, like when I, you know, trade momentum stuff like that and in and out, like are we just selling real estate in like 06-07, you know, where everybody's a fucking genius? Like, and then you know what what happens on the backside there. So I try and be cognizant of that too, not to you know be overall bearish or anything, but you just kind of have to have to balance that.

SPEAKER_00 30:48

The serenity account is tough because it's just uh I I mean there's it's a possible I don't know. I have a lot of takes, it's just like uh I don't know. Ansome could have called any hundred mil meme coin in 2024 and been a genius, right? Like it's tough. Uh when you're just chilling these like micro caps and you have all this motion, it's tough. Uh how that plays out. So I I I guess we'll see. Uh who who do you think are should be the best followers right now for crossover of both?

SPEAKER_01 31:22

Oh, that's a good question. Let me go to uh let me see. Uh you know, Rhino obviously. Um Contra. Contra's really good followers. Yeah, yeah. Um, I think he I think he, you know, I mean his name, like I think he does have really good ideas when that is kind of, you know, whether right or wrong. Like, I think sometimes we focus too much on on right or wrong instead of you know the thesis and kind of what their risk reward is. Um, which that's also a reason I've been short here, is just especially crypto, is like we we rally pretty hard to to like essentially pretty easy range highs across the board. And I was just like, look, if I'm wrong here and we flip, say, you know, like 80k on BTC, like the amount of opportunities that are gonna be available are gonna be like it'll be fine, you know. But I don't want to get caught pants down if you know we do trend back towards God forbid the lows or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

Um, this is one of the things I'll say like last tick took about crypto is like, um, I'm getting a lot of shit of like, why are you bearish crypto? Or like, why aren't you talking about crypto? And I'm like, man, um I'm down to miss the move to like a hundred dollars soul or like 80k BTC. Like, I'm down to miss 76 to 80k on Bitcoin and and miss that 15 bottom snipe and play on the way up because it's like, man, I just want I want to trade shit that moves, I want to trade momentum. I want to trade stuff that's going up. And so I you know, I I I fundamentally just disagree with the take of like when things are the most boring, that's when you should lock in the hardest. It's like, okay, there's some merit to it, right? If you if you generally believe crypto is gonna matter and gonna do well, you should not stop paying attention. But you also shouldn't lock yourself in the asylum chair and lose your mind trying to like bottom tick every five, like to for like a five percent swing when you could just flip bullish when it's time to flip flip bullish. And so I'm you know, we've just been talking about stocks, we're talking about oil, talking about other stuff that's moving, that's making all-time highs, and like I guarantee you, with how much we're covering this stuff every day, when it's time for crypto, it'll be time for crypto, it'll be right there. Like, if I miss, like if I have to miss an asteroid on ETH before a full-blown alt meme season, I'm down to miss asteroid on ETH. It's like if you miss Pepe, did you miss meme coins? It's like, no, bro. You had GOAT, Genon, yeah, like Zerebro, A16Z, ASCC, every single token after that, right? And so it's like, I don't think that you have to be the hero to snipe the bottom wick to actually make money on the trade.

SPEAKER_01 34:00

Not at all. No, and I fully agree. Like, that's and that honestly, what you just described, and like what I was saying about being up at range highs, and like if we flip that, then like you know, it's party on, like, that's more so leading bearishness than anything else. And it's more so just about protecting, you know, like the spot that I have and you know the overall mental state. And I will say, like, when stuff is really boring, like, yeah, you shouldn't necessarily be trading it. But I will say, like, if you want to scratch out some time to actually have like, you know, like legit kind of fundamental research and dig into some stuff, like that is when it is the most valuable, but it's not, you know, oh, I should just buy some shit here just because things are slow. Like, that's not that's not exactly, and especially in crypto, like when it's such a momentum and volatility-based asset, like that's not how you're gonna win over time. Because what happened is when it's you know, when it's quiet like this, and you know, things are choppy and endless, and then it goes down 10%, and then you sell, and then you know, you're you're screwed.

SPEAKER_00 34:53

So yeah, I 100% agree. And um, dude, it's been sick. I I'm a huge fan, man. We read your articles, like I read your tweets. Um you're always on the stream doc every day. Give me like a sort of like a closure wrap of uh I I mean, look, uh to predict where we're gonna go from here is tough, but but more so, like, how should you think about playing the market here, especially if you have a lot of cash? How should you be thinking about the market? What do you think matters? What do you think people should be paying like more attention to, less attention to? Like, what is your general like mindset, frame for like what you think matters over the coming weeks? What's important, what's not?

SPEAKER_01 35:28

Um, that's a great question. Well, I mean, obviously, oil, like we talked about, is number one. I mean, that's kind of you know the core focus of of all it all assets right now. Um, outside of what you should be buying. I mean, I don't really have much spot exposure outside of BTC, hype, and Zec. Um, my confidence in everything else is kind of waning. And I think that's fine. We're also at the point in time, like when the market does turn, like, there's no point in trying to force on kind of what tokens you think will do well. Just wait for the market to show you and then follow that. Like, I promise you, you will have enough time. I promise you the leaders will almost certainly stay the leaders. Like, there's no reason to force some token now and think like, oh, you know, this will this will be the one that leads out of, you know, whenever the downturn is over. Like, do not do that. Just wait, you know, watch the market, listen to what it's telling you. Like we were talking about with the equities bounce. Um, and then as far as equities go, I mean, like I said, can't ever hurt to, you know, own the indexes like you would, you know, sleep better at night. Um, and then, you know, if you want to trade, like there are plenty of momentum assets, but again, like realize like we were talking about, you know, uh meme coins and then you know, these kind of more esoteric AI stocks, like it be cognizant that it could be, you know, I don't think it's gonna be tomorrow. It might not be, you know, a month from now, it might not be six months or a year from now, but eventually that music is gonna stop. And just be cognizant that you know the shit isn't gonna go up forever. Um, there's gonna be plenty of winner, winners, plenty of losers. And you know, just follow what the market is telling you.

SPEAKER_00 37:01

It's beautiful. Talks, keep right, bro. Keep writing, please. We need it. It's like there's something last year.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

I gotta beat, I gotta beat the bear allegations. Hold on, look. It's right here in the office. Look.

SPEAKER_00 37:17

Just stares at you all day.

SPEAKER_01 37:19

It's right next to my St. Nikola Jokic candle, so I'm beating the bear allegations. It's temporary, I promise. I promise. Um, dude, go write another article for us, man. Please. Yeah, I'll have one out uh hopefully Friday, but definitely by this weekend.

SPEAKER_00 37:35

It depends, dude. Tokes for the code, man. I appreciate the time. Thanks for coming on. It's always a pleasure. Hopefully, you could do a part two, maybe at uh oil all-time lows.

SPEAKER_01 37:43

Yeah, sounds good, man. Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 37:45

Have a good one. Much love. Peace.

SPEAKER_01 37:47

Later.

SPEAKER_00 37:48

I love that guy, man. Uh he's one of the best follows. He really is. He uh he's just like on the money with what's what to trade, like what's hot. He's very Mando, like you could just be my favorite thing Mando ever told me is uh hey retard, you know you can just only buy the best coins and that's it. You know you just have to buy the best coins and you don't have to do anything else.