UpOnly: Chats with Crypto Experts

LinksTwitterShow PartnerThis episode is presented by FTX. Trade on an awesome mobile interface fee-free, and still get all the great portfolio tracking features you know and love: https://uponly.tv/ftxShow NotesIntroduction– Path has never had a job– Ledger: “You basically went from being a child, to retired”– Ledge wants to bring Teen Executive back on to teach him a lesson– Path bought Bitcoin on the run up in 2013 around $100– Went to $250 then dropped to $50 in 3 days– Largest red candle ever? 80%?2014 Alt Coins– Feathercoin, BlackCoin– Ledger bought BlackCoin in 2017 lmao– BlackCoin was the best pump cause it ripped like 10x, then WhiteCoin pumped right after– Do not hold something longer than the 1st pumpPath’s Convictions– Had a lot of ETH back in the day but sold early– Then built a large position in the 2019 bear market– Path: “High fees are bullish”– For Ethereum, you’re paying for the security– A lot of volume will shift to layer 2 in the coming yearsZcash– Path was high conviction ZEC early on– It has really been down only since then– Zooko (Zcash creator) mentioned in the white paper– Military very interested in Zk-SNARKs– for 60 IQ newbs, Zk-SNARK = Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of KnowledgeTezos– Path fudded Tezos a bit for NFTs back in May– The founder quote-tweeted him and got pissed– Path: “Tezos as an investment isn’t great really”– Path: “Tezos is definitely the second best chain for NFTs after ETH”– Chat: “How can you say Tezos is the second best NFT chain when Solana exists?”– Path: “Tezos has actual art!” he likes the artNFTs– CryptoKitties took off 2017 peaks– Rare Pepes were even before that– CryptoPunks prob still a great buy– Axie Infinity is paying people more than minimum wage in their countries– Path: “Axie Infinity is only the first one of these metaverse games”– Path: “Save your money and wait for the big collections to come along”– Path: “Eventually all artists will come to NFTs, even if they hate it now”– 1/1s have performed very well– MekaVerse is the biggest NFT drop maybe ever, comes out in 45 minNFD– Path fractionalized the fiesty DOGE picture– Now has a market cap of 8,700 ETH ($31M)    – that’s a very profitable day– PleasrDAO fractionalized the original DOGE picture– Bought for $4M, now worth $250M– Cobie: “Why is dog money a thing at all?”– It shows that memes have real valuePath soothingly talking and Ledger casually charting in the backgroundCobie: “It’s pretty cool how Sam is the richest person under 30 and he just replies to your DMs and tweets”Trading– Cobie: “Do you still trade or are you just a collectooor?”– Path: “I’ve been trading still, mostly NFTs”– Still likes Bitcoin, longer ETH– ETH will go sideways before $4k, then in a month or two you lever up on a dip and watch it rip– Bitcoin probably runs first, then others after– Path: “ETH chart looks good… going to $20k easy”– Path: “This is the supercycle I don’t think these bleed out anymore”Urbit– Been in development since 2002– Your ID is locked to a planet or star– You can buy planets, stars, and galaxies– It’s all about decentralizing everything and not being at the mercy of Microsoft or Apple or anything– Path: “It’s a great idea, it’s a really interesting idea”– Path: “This is the next big thing after NFTs and metaverse and stuff, you guys will be on this in like 5 years”Asset Name TopsBitcoin – $250kEthereum – $80kSolana – $500Cardano – $20Chainlink – $400Zcash – $5000LUNA – isn’t that a stablecoin?AAVE – $1000BNB – $2000FTT – $300TSLA – $0GME – $1000UK Gas Prices – ???Floor Punk – 300-400 ETHXTZ – $50XRP – $3Other Chat Questions– The land produces Axies and Axies themselves are yield generating so its like a double– AVAX is good but you’re getting dumped on by funds– Honoraries are given to be sold– OpenSea will likely do a tokenFINAL ALPHA– Path: “Just be yourself”– Cobie: “What about if you suck?”– Path: “Get better”Notes by KevinMusic by GiovanniPickle

LinksHaseeb TwitterWebShow PartnerThis episode is presented by FTX. Trade on an awesome mobile interface fee-free, and still get all the great portfolio tracking features you know and love: https://uponly.tv/ftxShow NotesCobie & Ledger <> Haseeb QureshiUpOnlyTV NotesHaseeb Intro ⁃ Managing partner at Dragonfly Capital (@dragonfly_cap) ⁃ Formerly a professional poker player then learned to code and became a software engineer at Airbnb before moving into crypto ⁃ Full time crypto in 2017 doing security research, worked at 21/Earn, a stable coin startup and then into the investment sidePoker & Crypto ⁃ Cobie: Why are there so many poker people in crypto? Haseeb: They’re willing to do weird things to make money, predisposition to it. It rewards being a little bit obsessive ⁃ Very few poker players in VC roles much more that are traders ⁃ Poker has also been getting worse as an economy and harder to make a living from itDragonfly Capital & Investing ⁃ Multistage firm, will invest at all stages of a project, doing both equity and token deals ⁃ Ledger: Is one easier than the other when it comes to making decisions? Haseeb: Equity liquidity is decided for you, the rest of the time you’re along for the ride which makes things easier ⁃ Long term investments in tokens and will have lockup’s 2-4 years but tend to hold beyond that even when liquid. Sometimes things run quicker than expected and it makes sense to exit but still holding most things today ⁃ Crypto markets aren’t efficient so even knowing marginally more than the average trader is enough to make money ⁃ When it comes to project performance: Winners keep winning ⁃ If Dragonfly buy tokens that are already live they’ll negotiate with the DAO or OTC ⁃ Ledger: Do you give any weighting to revenue back to token holders tokenomics? e.g. Uni vs Sushi? Haseeb: Markets are forward looking, lack of revenue to holders right now is less important than them being the market leader and future developmentsBiggest Misses? ⁃ Uniswap. Hayden wanted Dragonfly in the round but it didn’t seem sustainable and completely missed it ⁃ Has seed round memos for Solana @ .04 but they didn’t act on it (~4000x) as well as for TerraMaking It & Diversification ⁃ Haseeb: Multicoin Capital became a titan from leading the Solana round ⁃ Cobie: Great example of only needing one big win to make it. People come in with too low of time horizons and have losses leverage trading trying to play catch-up. ⁃ It’s like making 10 high conviction thesis driven investments and watching them carefully to see if what you expected to happen, happens. Am I right, am I wrong, and why? ⁃ Haseeb: Diversification is powerful. If returns are power of law distributed the optimal strategy is to be maximally diversified ⁃ Ledger: I used to mock the idea of keeping moon bags but I’ve seen enough that’s just kept going up so much more than anticipated ⁃ But, you also can’t put your fate into something that continues to underperformMulti-chain Future & L1 vs ETH vs L2 ⁃ Line of sand is between EVM chains and non-EVM chains ⁃ The EVM is the lingua franca , all of the tooling has been built with one ecosystem in mind. Equivalent to JavaScript, it wasn’t the best language but it became the thing you had to write in ⁃ Thesis has been broadly that the L1s end up winning over L2s due to L2 constraints e.g. security model ⁃ L1s have more flexibility ⁃ Cobie: What about Bitcoin? Haseeb: Bitcoin is digital gold, it’s been around long enough and held up – so it’s strength now is in not changing. Ledger: Feel like it will underperform in emerging bull markets but hold up better in bear marketsWhat’s Next? ⁃ Synthetic assets still feel under-explored and under-appreciated ⁃ Grandmother is old-school and was buying gold instead of relying on the Rupee. The reason people aren’t buying other assets is due to a lack of access ⁃ Crypto is about global permission-less access and it’s not about being able to offer it in the US but elsewhere ⁃ DeFi has evolved less and not grown that much since DeFi Summer ended. There aren’t enough people that are technical enough to build it out ⁃ Vast majority of people in the world are living month to month and not concerned about interest ratesFinal Alpha⁃ In crypto it’s really easy to overthink things and the obvious thing is usually rightNotes by LukeMusic by GiovanniPickle

LinksRob TwitterWebShow PartnerThis episode is presented by FTX. Trade on an awesome mobile interface fee-free, and still get all the great portfolio tracking features you know and love: https://uponly.tv/ftxShow NotesIntroduction– Founder of Compound Labs– Investor at Robot Ventures with Tarun Chitra (@tarunchitra)– Reads solidity, doesn’t write it– Interested in chess and the opera outside of crypto and investing– Chess ELO is 15/20Compound Bug– Exploitable by past borrowers to claim unearned rewards– Took hours for anyone to discover the root cause– There’s no risk to COMP positions and only affects distribution, worst case is that tokens reserved for future user incentives is now somewhat depleted– Please return COMP to the protocol if you received more rewards than expected (especially if you’re doxxed) Send 90% back!Compound Governance/ DAO– Kinda created the standard for ETH governance models– Rob would design it differently if he were to do it again today– Rob think she has medium power outside of on-chain governance (i.e. actual community sway)– He has been on the losing side of a few votes already lol– Has some sway in other DeFi communities as well– Like + a few reputation points for being Compound founder lolCompound Treasury– http://compound.finance/treasury– Being offered clearly and directly as a security & compliant with US law– Huge appetite to get offline insurance for the productCompound L1 & The State of ETH– Compound launching its own L1 chain that is still in development– Act as a series of bridges to other blockchains with a simple application at the centre that looks and feels like Compound– Can import assets from all L1s to use as collateral to borrow on other L1s– Currently on test-net but has been in development for almost a year, all open source– Ridiculed when the whitepaper was launched as there was no demand to get off ETH but now it’s become a pain point– Current ETH fees are not usable for typical users– Robert is most excited about ETH2.0 as it may negate the need for L2 if successful. In the short term L2s and EVM forks are amazing but are only short term solutionsRobot Ventures– Investing in a lot of different projects, the current website is very out of date– Most of the investments are in DeFi and across different chains– Value in interacting with tonnes of founders and learning from them what works and doesn’t can also lead to some value flowing back into compound– Being an investor can help with the signal to noise ratio– Usually not arguing on valuations, as low friction as it gets– Advises to start with an equity based business and not worry about having a token too soonRobot Ventures Investing Decisions– In general, if one of them (Rob or Tarun) says no, they don’t do it– Cobie: “What’s the exit plan?”– Rob: “In general, we’re ultra respective of teams and lockups. If something is up like 4-10x, we’ll sell like a quarter so we can invest in other companies”– It’s a fund, they have their own money, also outside investorsBitcoin Maxis– Rob: “Typically when I think of a Bitcoin maxi i think of like Pomp, or like Dan Held”– Rob: “Like this is Bitcoin and this is how it works!”– Ledger: “Deflationary ETH will create some fireworks dynamics in the future”Cryptopunks– Hayden (inventor of Uniswap) said Unisocks are the best NFT– Rob and Kain bullied Hayden into buying a white-haired cryptopunk– They all made it their twitter pfps and everyone thought it was collusion– Rob: “Everyone views NFTs differently – people will freak out about $100 on a dinner then spend so much money on these NFTs”– Rob minted 26 cryptopunks on the initial release– Gave away 15 punks for Christmas to compound labs guys last year LOLInteresting Investing Areas– 1. Utility NFTs– NFTs that are memberships, tickets, XYZ– Also NFT finance– How to do complex deviates on unique things– 2. Crypto UX– The user experience right now is just so bad– No one can use this stuff– Wallets, products that extract away crypto, experimental plays hereWorking for a Protocol– Nowadays you can work for a protocol!– Compound labs is always hiring– 0x4C (LUKE) is looking for a job, maybe he can work at Compound!Not Exciting Areas– Generic DeFi– Buzzword heavy products that are not distinguishedFINAL ALPHA– Crypto is more welcoming than you think it is – get involved!– There are more options sellers than options sellers – most people are naturally short gamma. Buy gamma and hedge it!Notes by KevinMusic by GiovanniPickle

LinksHasu TwitterWebShow PartnerThis episode is presented by FTX. Trade on an awesome mobile interface fee-free, and still get all the great portfolio tracking features you know and love: https://uponly.tv/ftxShow NotesHasu Twitter Day– Everyone has become a Hasu on twitter today– pplpleasr became Hasupleasr lolHasu’s Day to Day– Basically thinks about stuff and writes it down– Has been getting back into the dating scene– Uses his actual photo, not Hasu anime pfp– It’s been 18 years since Ledger has been datingBackground– Joined crypto January 2018 at the absolute top– Played pro poker for a decade– So many people who used to play poker are now in crypto– Gambling addicts?– Not very competitive anymore because bad players lose interest, good players keep getting better– Fully dove into crypto in peak bear marketStarting Crypto– Everyone always feels behind when they start– Doesn’t take very long to actually catch up– Hasu worked on himself to keep learning for 2 years– Bear market best time to learn – only people who really care are studying then– Su Zhu and Hasu started talking and writing together every day– Now they run Uncommon Core Podcast togetherBear Market– Developed 2 strong beliefs: Bitcoin & DeFi– Had a thesis written out like 1.5 years before DeFi summer but still didn’t recognize DeFi summer as DeFi for awhileNew Guys– Cobie: “What would you recommend new guys do in this market?”– If Hasu had derisked every time his gut said to he’d be worse off– Ledger: “Santiago says time in the market, not timing the market”– Cobie: “For 95% of people, just holding and forgetting is the best strategy”Leverage– Hasu’s 2 pieces of advice for the 100 IQers – pay attention to fees and taxes & don’t use leverage– Cobie: “Everyone who comes on this show that made it said don’t use leverage”– Hasu: “If you use leverage, trade on a platform with sub accounts and one that has partial liquidations”Interesting Problems in Crypto– The security of public blockchains– MEV and protecting people from leaking money to miners if they don’t intend toMEV (Miner Extractable Value)– Common example of MEV is a sandwich attack: miner sees order with 5% slippage, sneaks in trade before to frontrun, cause max slippage then sell right at the end– Locked in guaranteed profit for miner and loss for trader*Hasu connection rug followed by OOOOOR meme breakdown by Cobie and Ledge*MEV pt. 2– Ledger: “Does MEV really exist for other chains?”– Hasu (in short): “Yes but it takes on a different form”– If there is value to being behind or before orders in a block, people will always spend up to that amount to extract it– Actually isn’t always bad – resembles mining to a certain extent and makes the market efficientMoar MEV– Flashbots/ Eden kinda like the infrastructure– Flashbots is like a soft fork of ETH with a new transaction time where transactions go into a private pool– These transactions are private until they land on chain– Then it doesn’t matter until what your slippage is set it– Punk floor got swept with MiningDAO, executed all at once without allowing anyone to frontrunGuest Question– I’m not going to pretend to be able to take notes on this answerMOOOOOAR MEV– Eden is faster than flashbots since they forked– Flashbots required much more technical knowledge to be able to submit a transaction to them– Eden is much easier to use– Chainlink is in the position to extract a lot of value– Lending markets could do a better job– Wallets are in the best position to protect users from MEV– Could run local simulations to see if it would create MEV, and if it would, you could bundle the transaction with the MEV and give the V back to the userBitcoin Security– Udi said it’s 100 years away, false moral panic– It’s so cheap to reorg ETC that it takes like 2 weeks to get finality– If Bitcoin security drops too low, you need to increase the amount of wait time for finality– It’s agreed that there is some amount of security fee we should pay to miners– But how much that is is still up for debate– Lightning network liquidity is toughGame Theory of the Future of Bitcoin– Looking at the long-term is important– Always struck Hasu as very obvious that Bitcoin would run into problems– Miners making less fundamentally weakens Bitcoins security and will need to be solved to get and keep a bitcoin standard– Bitcoin on exchanges might be the play in the future (per Gavin’s article) even though it goes against the HODL meme– Ledger: “If Hasu wants to debate Udi CMS holdings will likely pay 6 figures for you to do it”– Hasu: “I think Bitcoin is going to get hardcore greenwashed over the next 5 years”Alternative L1s– Hasu mostly out on them– Feels like they release incentive programs, create coins and pull in money– Environmental critique of Bitcoin is more legit than it is against Ethereum– Tezos had a potential value add there, but now Ledger is not impressed– Hasu sees Avalanche potentially falling over a bit like BSCYoung People in Crypto– Crypto is full of very young people– They should use their time to do things that they won’t be able to do laterRegulations & Stablecoins– Feeling some afterglow after recent events– Thinks its one of the biggest events in crypto in 2021– Crypto having a real impact in politics is very positive– Hasu: “It seems like Gensler does not have a lot of power”– Hasu: “I hate ripple but I’m hoping they win their case because it will be very important for crypto… it is such an obvious security”Final Alpha– Hasu: “There are a lot of important skills out there but the most important is learning how to learn. There are a lot of really good mental models for how to learn well. Check out “The Art of Learning”. You learn it once then everything else will come easier to you”Notes by KevinMusic by GiovanniPickle

LinksJoseph Delong TwitterWebShow PartnerThis episode is presented by FTX. Trade on an awesome mobile interface fee-free, and still get all the great portfolio tracking features you know and love: https://uponly.tv/ftxShow NotesNotes by KevinMusic by GiovanniPickle

LinksDan TwitterJason TwitterJim TwitterShow PartnerThis episode is presented by FTX. Trade on an awesome mobile interface fee-free, and still get all the great portfolio tracking features you know and love: https://uponly.tv/ftxShow NotesCobie & Ledger <> Dan Matuszewski (CMS Holdings) <> Jason from Telegram <> Jim TalbotUpOnly notes“How do we feel here?”– Ledger: “We have 1/2 of the true up only bull maximalists on here, if we get Kaleo on then we’d have the powerhouse”– Dan: “There’s so much money pushing in here… you hear about like a 3, 4, 5 billion dollar equity raise in this space every week”– Dan: “Like even if people sold… where’s that money gonna go? Like you can only buy so many houses and boats right”– Jason: “We could go up or we could also go down”– Jim: “I’m a mechanical trader – I watch the tape and the order book and trade off imbalances and things there”Derivatives– Ledge: “Dan where do we sit with financing stuff right now?”– Dan: “It’s rich. Financing is high right now, not great not a super bullish thing, september expiry coming up too we’ll have to make it through these next few months”– Cobie: “You got a lot of people waiting to just wait and buy the ATH breakout on ETH”– Dan: “I am of the opinion there’s a lot of margin in the system right now”HOT BALL OF MONEY EFFECT– Cobie: “AVAX blew up, and then Fantom had an announcement, and AVAX stuff dropped like 85% and Fantom tripled”– Dan: “Everyone got it this time, it was like the most pure hot ball of money effect”Bullish Unlocks?– Dan: “A lot of times it pays to know what’s going on in the OTC markets”– Dan: “We bought a lot of Solana before the unlock, and it was so hard to get your hands on demand was super prevalent. So it was easy to say the unlock would be bullish”– Cobie: “Have you been playing in these new ecosystems?”– Dan: “Yeah we play in them as much as we can we have a high risk tolerance”NFTs– Jason: “I’m pretty new to these I’m like Sam” [Trabucco]– Jason: “I got pitched this super convincing narrative of pixel dicks and hit up Cobie and was like yo what do you think? and he was like… nah mate”– Cobie: “You hit me up and were like “Dick drawing is historical and monumental, dick drawing is part of human history we’ve been doing it since the caveman times, it’s memetic”” LOLLL– Jim: “I get the sense there are gonna be some great buys over the next few weeks”– There are gonna be huge applications for these in the metaverseLedger’s Marriage– Cobie: “You ever show your wi-“– Ledger: “No.” hahaha– Ledger: “One time I showed her my meebit… she was not impressed” lmaoDog Money– Everyone’s fractionalizing their dog NFTs, there’s so much dog money– Pleasrdao fractionalized the original Doge picture and raised $50M @ $250M val– Dan: “You can’t see this stuff and get bearish”– Jason: “Thoughts on people slowing this down?”– Dan: “Really don’t think it’ll happen, no one wants to be the guy to come in and end this era of free money everywhere”Crypto Getting Weirder– Dan: “It’s gonna get weirder and weirder, and when you flush the whole world with all this money it’s gonna find its way into really weird corners. New money is just gonna keep pushing in”– Cobie: “I don’t wanna live the next 6 months cause I came from a crypto class where once shit gets weird you wanna pull out – i gotta go into a coma”– Someone asked Dan about NFTs– Dan: “A couple junior guys on the desk [shoutout the other CMS guys] are really into it and I’m pumped for them cause they’re crushing it, but I just don’t have enough time I’m getting older”Art– Jim: “I’m really bullish on NFTs cause I think the art world is gonna join and it might become less pure crypto market”– Cobie: “What’s the Mona Lisa of NFTs then?”– Jason: “Why is the Mona Lisa the pico top of all traditional art?”– Cobie: “idk…name 5 art pieces”– Jason: “…Mona Lisa”Other Chains and NFTs– Ledger: “Dan what’s the role of on-chain activity in NFTs, like Solana and stuff”– Dan: “The main thesis is that Solana has won spill over because ETH has been successful. But in a practical way the marginal losses of ETH are gonna price out large amounts of people. A lot of people wanna do this and they can do it on Solana (and other L2s)”– Dan: “If you’re a buyer that net demand of block space is going to increase then you wanna be long both (ETH and SOL/ L2s)”Normies into Crypto– Dan: “My real world experience has been that bringing new guys on with MetaMask [is tough] because of fees, cancelled transactions and others”– Ledger: “You cannot have a $5,000 bankroll and transact on Ethereum”– Cobie: “Do you think L2s should have a token?”– Dan: “If you have one that doesn’t have a token, someone will just fork it add a token and beat you”– Cobie: “Gotcha so you need one defensively”Options– Ledger: “Last week we talked to Sam Tabasco and he said options are not very relevant for crypto”– Dan: “We do trade options, we have a dedicated head that just trades vol, but I agree its not important. But it does make money and makes sense as a business” s/o Ryan probably drinking a stroller beer rn– Ledge: “Do you keep that person because it will become more important?”– Dan: “Its optionality on optionality. Eventually there will be an ETF and that will live on options”– FTX just bought LedgerX, only place US retail can trade optionsCobie: “How long do you reckon until Pfizer and FTX partner to increase vaccine adoptions in the crypto community” lol*Dan has to jet* good bye sirFOR THE RECORD dan was chatting internally and made 2-5 trades over the course of this podcast, SBF vibesPrice Predictions– Cobie: “If we break ATH here – $20k ETH, $150k-$200k BTC end of October”– *Someone in chat said Cobie hates Solana*– Cobie: “Solana is the only project episode we’ve had and like my 3rd largest position. Nice try mate”Biggest Crypto Regret– Ledger: “this podcast I talk to people every week who made it”– Jason: “no regrets I see nothing but opportunity”– Jim: “I’m a low time frame guy so I always sell early”– Cobie: “2014 I lost a chunk of money and BTC Drak (?) said you haven’t earned your stripes til you’ve lost 100 Bitcoin”FINAL ALPHA– Jim: “If you don’t know when to buy or what price, average in. Then if you get a lower low, the trends broken”– Jason: “Trust yourself, if you don’t trust yourself then just fucking trust yourself. The only mistake is not knowing how to handle yourself”Ledger outro with Dutch accentNotes by KevinMusic by GiovanniPickle

LinksSam TwitterWebShow PartnerThis episode is presented by FTX. Trade on an awesome mobile interface fee-free, and still get all the great portfolio tracking features you know and love: https://uponly.tv/ftxShow NotesSam Trabs Intro– Sam Trabs is now co-CEO of Alameda Research    – promoted from “trader” lol– Last time Trabs was on Bitcoin had just dropped to 30k– Thought it was “predictable” and then buying the bottom was also an easy trade– Right now there’s a “temporary round number effect” – people will sell at resistance for big round numbers– Seeing it now with 50k– “NOT LONG TERM RESISTANCE” – Trabs– Trabs: “We’ve done quite well at getting long at the bottom and not selling it at all”New Highs?– Trabs: “If there continues to be good news I could see it continuing to go up”– Rally to 65k was very liquidation based – very likely to get undone– Same the other way [on the way down to 30k]Positioning In Uncertainty– The 10 strongest trades make up all the real P&L– Doesn’t really waste brain power on focusing on smaller, lower conviction trades– Most days don’t put on big tradesNew Ecosystem Plays– Very quantitative– Less thesis driven investing, more soaking up APYs with new DeFi playsAnalysis for Wrong Trades– Cobie: “How do you do postmortems when things go wrong?”WiFi cutting out, robot overloadLedger: “I think Sam has an alpha overload filter that makes the WiFi cut out if he drops too much knowledge”Poor Employee Performance– If someone has a few bad days, talk to them about their thought process– Cobie: “Imagine you’re at Alameda, you’ve had a few bad days and a meeting just pops up 9am meeting with the Sams” lol absolute NIGHTMARE fuelNFT Trading– Trabs: “I feel remarkably ill equipped to be handling this NFT craze”– You can use data to learn about trades… you can’t really with NFTs– Trabs: “There are elements that remind me of DOGE in January”– Trabs: “Its fairly plausible that its correct to buy most of these things – there is just so much upside”– The rocks really got in Sams head– Cobie: “Alameda is coping just like me”– Trabs: “It is +EV to participate in these because the upside is so high”– Ledger: “Have you seen the scissors? (in relation to rock, paper scissors NFTs) they are only like 3 ETH, a bargain”– Cobie: “A bargain relative to rocks? because compared to anything else in life its absolutely ridiculous” lolOptions– Trabs: “People really overstate the importance of options in crypto”– In tradfi, options can influence prices– In crypto, really doesn’t happenAlameda– 2019 was a difficult time– It has since gotten very easy to hire– Now team is about 30 guys– Sam can now focus on game theory trading and shitposting on Twitterco-CEOs– Cobie: “If you and the other co-CEO took a standardized IQ test, who would win?”– Trabs: “I took a MENSA test once… it was very easy. She’s better at trivia than I am though”– For operations, you want to pick one thesis to go with and stick with it– Trabs: “If someone feels very strongly about something, we tend to just let them do it”– Trabs: “If we were ever at a true stalemate we’d honestly probably flip a coin”Alameda Jobs– Trabs: “We are always hiring”– Cobie: “What about internships?”– Trabs: “Hiring interns is our most +EV play we do”    – jk not a real quote but we can dream– Trabs: “First couple months people take away value, then eventually start to add value”– Ledger: “In regards to pay, how do you incentivize people to stick around?”– Mostly copy traditional institutions, based on P&LPotential Future Scenarios– Trabs thinks either new highs or crab– Cobie: “Do you think that Bitcoin dominance can run again?”– Trabs: “I have an unsatisfying answer that both are plausible”– Thinks Bitcoin dominance will remain, but could happen like 5x or more from here– Taxes may cause a liquidity crunch on NFTs by year end, but also maybe notEthereum Dominance– Is EIP-1559 priced in efficiently?– Trabs: “I don’t think the crypto market does anything especially efficiently”– ETH rallied in a very inefficient way once burns startedOvercoming Decision Paralysis– How to make a decision with 10 scenarios that are plausible?– Trabs: “If I believe I have a good framework, I can picture the expected value of each scenario by weighing probability distributions and bet on that”– If we nuke and you incorrectly buy all the way down, how do you unwind?– Trabs: “I believe the term is, ‘slurp the diperino’” TRABS!– Basically will cut the sunk cost and see how to extract value moving forward– Trabs: “We are looking for coin flips that are 53/47 and you lose 47% of the time”When Trabs gets tilted he just goes and buys things, bought a watch once and literally was in a fugue state and doesn’t remember itLeverage– Mostly tries to stay unlevered– Trabs: “We aren’t risking every dollar we have… it’d be kind of a challenge to anyway” lmaooo good flex sir– Tries to keep maximum bullets available for days that are extremeHypothetical Bear Market– DeFi bear market?– Trabs: “A lot of the DeFi tech that has popped up is super exciting and there’s no reason to think it won’t continue to grow as a global force”– Trabs: “We will never see the prices of March 2020 ever again”Trabs Without Crypto– Cobie: “So say it all goes to 0 what do you do with your life”– Trabs: “I like to play interesting games. I think the crypto markets is the most interesting game I’ve ever found”– Cobie: “Alright no money making allowed, what do you do”– Trabs: “Probably play like Magic The Gathering”Q&AChance of Bitcoin to 100k by EOY?– 10%How can we make it?– Identify what you’re good at figuring out what to buy– Bet on the macro-longer term stuffDo you have anon account?– NoCMS thinks he is CMS dog– Cobie thinks I am CMS dog… in classic Trabs fashion I can neither confirm nor deny– but no I’m not CMS dog unfortTrabs: “Dan from CMS should write the crypto history book”FINAL ALPHA– Trabs: “Everyone has some things they’re good at and things they aren’t good at. Find the things that you are good at and absolutely go nuts at them”– Trabs: “Identify your edge and try to blow your edge up. Bet as big as possible there”Gigabrain pod ty TrabsNotes by KevinMusic by GiovanniPickle

LinksKeyboard Monkey TwitterWebsiteShow PartnerThis episode is presented by FTX. Trade on an awesome mobile interface fee-free, and still get all the great portfolio tracking features you know and love: https://uponly.tv/ftxShow NotesThe Very Beginning– KMonkey almost degened all of his money away pre-2020– Was getting yelled at by risk managers at work– Had $250k around the covid dumps in 2020– Now is deep 8 figures– Monkey is now “diversified”, meaning stocks, real estate, private equity, etc.– KM: “I don’t wanna go to 0 again” lol me 2 m8– Mostly traded stocks in 2020Wen NFTs?– Started really getting in in Feb 2021– Started with Hashmasks– KM: “I had a guy writing algorithms for me to find rarities, staying up all night to trade these things”Trading NFTs– Keyboard Monkey often will go all in then panic and dump all bags but it has worked so far lol– Whenever Kmonkey panics new huge buyers come in, like recently he was selling and some Saudi Arabian fund came in and scooped a Fidenza for 1000 ETH– *Cobie spots Fluf in KM’s portfolio*– Ledger: “I’ll buy that”– Monkey: “The ROIs you get on NFTs in such a short amount of time is really ridiculous”– Trading is a blend of flipping and buying long term art that KM really likes– Cobie: “If you mapped some of these on a chart they’d basically go straight up” lol very true    – Very good for momentum trades– Kmonkey: “If you could short NFTs I’d be ruined”How to Pick NFTs– Ledger: “What makes them stand out? What makes them special?”– KM: “If you look at a Fidenza, there are no shitty Fidenzas. Same with Penguins there are no shitty Penguins”– KM: “It’s a narrative spiral mixed with good art mixed with who’s buying them”– ‘dino pals’ selling for 6 figures!– Cobie: “wtf are we doing hahaha”NFT Betas– KM: “You can look at mid tiers… when floor price is rising and the project is gaining traction, picking off mid tiers can be a great play, there’s a little alpha for ya”Trading Style– Cobie: “Is it fair to say you take a small loss that you punt right away, or you get a winner and let it ride to a homerun?”– KM: “Absolutely, I kinda take losses like a death by 1,000 cuts but when I find a winning trade I pile in with size”– Without diversification a blow up can obviously be devastatingNFTs Growing Crypto– Ledger: “There are a lot of people who never clicked with crypto but now are all in on NFTs”– Ledger: “We really underestimated NFTs power of collectibles to bring in normies”– KM: “Cyclical booms definitely the next phase of NFTs”– KM: “Can be a big hot potato game until bigger money comes in, which historically it has been”Information Flow– Have 3 screens open: Twitter, Telegram, Discord– KM: “Its all just information coming in and keeping your ear to the ground”– Cobie: “100% that’s a key for crypto”*@RookieXBT just live bought the red dino… great speed sirTurnkey NFT TradesArt Side– Wouldn’t buy a Fidenza– Would go to Art Blocks (~50 ETH)– Then Fuzy Squigles (~20 ETH)– Then for a higher end piece, a RingerPFP side– Bored Apes– Pudgy Penguins– Forgotten Runes– Then the pedo rabits, FLUFs– HashmasksProjects With Roadmaps– Cobie: “I don’t like the roadmaps as much because with Penguins and Punks it’s like you know what you’re in for, with roadmaps you still gotta rely on team execution which has risk”– KM: “I think you nailed it, short term roadmap is bullish but if they fall through on that its hyper bearish”Question From Luke– Luke: “What would you do for someone with less than 10 ETH?”– Kmonkey: “Look for volume and liquidity in PFPs, wait for momentum then flip them into bigger projects”– Minting typically won’t do as well– FIND MOMENTUM TRADES IN PFP    – AKA Penguins, Bored Apes, Degen Apes (SOL)Anything You Keep Forever?– Kmonkey: “I keep saying yes and then someone pays astronomically for it”– Cobie: “DC Investor (@iamDCinvestor) has never sold anything and his portfolio is around like 8 figures or 9 figures”– Cobie: “They have a level of conviction I respect – similar to traders who try to flip every coin vs. investors who find long term value”How To Value– KM: “Typically price follows rarity, sometimes its a personal connection though”– KM: “Looks like all of the punk buyers are guys sitting at their computers wearing hoodies” lolll great insight sirNFTs on Other Chains– Degen Apes on Solana– PARIS HILTON JUST GOT A DEGEN APE– *full disclosure I’m all in degen apes– KM: “The other chains do offer the opportunity to be super early”NFTs For People Who Hate Everything?– Gaming stuff– $AXS for example– RARE and other NFT coinsCOBIE GENIUS IDEA– Cobie: “An NFT project called Noah’s Ark where there’s a male and female of each animal and like 10,000 total”– Ledger: “It’s like FLUFs breeding” lol ledger!FINAL ALPHA– Keyboard Monkey: “Be patient. Once you find the project, ape first and ask questions later”Notes by KevinMusic by GiovanniPickle

LinksOBJ TwitterOBJ InstaProCampsShow PartnerThis episode is presented by FTX (formerly Blockfolio). Trade on an awesome mobile interface fee-free, and still get all the great portfolio tracking features you know and love: https://uponly.tv/ftxShow Notes*Ledger flexed OBJ guest appearance to young neighbor*And OBJ shouted him out! legendintern note – given this is crypto, worth pointing out that OBJ is maybe the best wide receiver in the worldFootball & Intro– OBJ’s in training camp rn (Cleveland Browns)– When OBJ made “the catch”, it changed almost everything in his life– OBJ now playing with his best friend Jarvis Landry– They’re hazing the new Auburn WRJourney into Crypto– OBJ: “The world is evolving and this is where you got to be, this is the space”– Ledge: “You have teammates that talk crypto?”– OBJ: “Yeah it’s locker room talk like people always saying Bitcoin, Ethereum, Doge, all that.”– OBJ: “You gotta get with this world or get left behind”Finances– NFL money’s not gonna last you a lifetime – you gotta be able to invest– Cobie: “How do you find someone u can trust with ur finances?”– OBJ: “It’s family man, you know they got your back”– Pro athletes get paid so fat so early… gotta invest in order to make sure you got $ when you’re old– OBJ: “You gotta inform yourself and be able to continue to catch up and learn”Athletes Paid in Bitcoin– Messi going to PSG getting paid some in Bitcoin– Trevor Lawrence talking about getting paid FULLY in Bitcoin!– Cobie: “Why do you think this is happening?”– OBJ: “Bro you gotta tell me!”– Saquon Barkley putting all his promotional money in Bitcoin– OBJ asking Ledger if he thinks u should just get paid in Bitcoin or invest in Bitcoin after getting paid?– Ledger: “You should get an FTX partnership like Tom Brady”Quick game: what’s Cobie drinking?Cobie: “Classic British Cider from the west country”NFTs– Cobie: “How’re NFTs perceived in the locker room?”– OBJ: “We were all wondering if we missed the wave, has it cooled off, what should we do”– Cobie: “It’s popping off now”– Big crypto hedge funds just bought a ton of NFTs– OBJ (just bought a crypto punk, legend): “Am I late?”– Ledger: (in many more words) “No”– OBJ: (on NFTs) “Feel you 100%, feel like it’s gotta be authentic to me. I gotta care”– Cobie: “What made you wanna get a crypto punk?”– OBJ: “The guys who were ahead of the curve were saying these are gonna be it so I gotta rock with them”FLIPPED SCRIPT OBJ ASKS THE QUESTIONS NOWOBJ: “If I gave you $1 million right now, where would you invest it?”– Ledger: “There’s a lot of upside with the majors (BTC, ETH) – take half of it and put it in there”– “Take the other half and spray it out – seed investments, potential growth projects, NFTs but not just for art”– Cobie: “Alright, I would buy a bunch of Ethereum killers (Solana, Avalanche) and stake it – take 33% and put it in Ethereum and stake it (using Lido) – then NFTs and DeFi, mostly betting on teams”– Brooooo OBJ just made Ledger and Cobie spill their positions and alpha more than any other crypto native guest before– OBJ: “I still got a few questions”OBJ Q&A for Cobie & Ledger– OBJ IS RUNNING THE SHOW LETS GO– OBJ: “How much money have you made with this”– DUDE!– Cobie: “To all the agencies watching, I have finally made it to 1,000 Pounds”– OBJ: “What’s the best trade you ever made?”– Cobie: “I followed this YouTube guy and made like 100x all my money in a month, into a -70%, which taught me how to really understand this space”– Cobie: “When Mt. Gox crashed this guy made an options protocol to see if the coins would come back and that was majorly inefficient”– Ledger: “This organization called Pancakeswap gave me $100 and it turned into like $8000…I had $5000 in and sold at break even. That woulda been $600k”OBJ just turned the whole podcast into a Q&A to learn and get free alpha off Cobie and LedgerFinal Questions– Cobie: “Can we do an NFT collectibles?”– OBJ: “Bro you hit me up after this” lmao lets go– Ledger: “Tell people to take it slow, don’t think this is gonna blow up overnight” not a question but sound advice nonethelessFINAL ALPHA– OBJ: “There are times in life where you wanna give up… don’t ever let anything deter you from your dreams or where you believe you belong in life”Notes by KevinMusic by GiovanniPickle

LinksAvi Felman TwitterWebsiteShow PartnerThis episode is presented by FTX (formerly Blockfolio). Trade on an awesome mobile interface fee-free, and still get all the great portfolio tracking features you know and love: https://uponly.tv/ftxShow Notes*Cobie is coping HARD today, very hungover and may leave at any time to be sickIntro– Co-PM of BlockTower investment fund along with Ari Paul– Anything in crypto they’ll touch it or flip it if it can make money– Providing access to the crypto space for investors– Cobie: “So you provide punks for institutions”– Avi: “No comment.” lmao SER WE KNOW U DOAvi Background– Worked at a bank for 6 months before realizing he needed to get out. Brought up crypto to them, they literally said in a decade..– Started out in 2017, then ran his own fund for a while, then another crypto company (check this again), then on to BlockTower– Ari trades over longer periods with conviction. Avi changes his mind every few minutes. Was hard to find a balance for such different trading approaches– Unlikely to trade meme coins over 5% of portfolio but they do trade them! Need to be willing to be flexible– Currently watching Grayscale, thinks we need premium to go positive again for BTC to go to 6 figures– Reasonable that it will go positive again, no shares created since it was locked down in March so should get pushed to at least parLearning Options– Cobie: “What learning tools or process would you recommend for learning options?”– Avi: Gap between retail and professional options traders. Not really worth it for retail to learn, but get comfortable with the idea of implied and realized volatility. Beyond that in this market there’s not much needed because things are frequently mispriced– A lot of people over-estimate the effects of gamma on the options market– It exists but it takes a lot more money to move this market than most people imagine – you could buy $100M with only a few hundred dollars of slippage over an hour or two– Right now the most edge on large moves is trying to monitor option flows– Book rec: Option Volatility & Pricing by Sheldon NatenbergNFT Boom– Avi: “I’ll preface this as I know very little about NFTs in general”– “This is the one area of crypto that all of my friends that aren’t in crypto are hitting me up about”– Just super easy to understand– CL was right!– “I would assume that 98% of these collectibles go to zero at some point”– Cobie: “NFTs are just like DOGE coin where its a meme and people just ponzi it up”– Super illiquid but that also means they can just skyrocket– Avi: “They’re probably not securities too”Complacency Bounce?– Avi: “I think they bottom has been printed”– This is a completely different set of market participants– There are $100M checks being written for crypto every week now– Avi: “From my perspective $30k will be the bottom”– “The patient buyers waiting to buy $35k will become very impatient if we don’t trade there for 2 weeks”– No one knows where to park their money – Bitcoin and crypto is a great place to park your money– You wanna bet asset prices are going up and you wanna bet on the fastest horseBTC vs. Shitcoins– Ethereum is gaining market share in peoples minds– Once people are in, they start moving down the risk curveCOIN vs MSTR– People are still trying to bet directly on BTC– They (huge institutions) aren’t really trying to bet on other cryptos– MSTR == BTC, so people use MSTR as equities crypto exposure– People might start to park in COIN on a longer timeline– Even based trading is the last horizon of alpha in the crypto industry– Pick 15-20 DeFi assets, read their medium posts and just play their events– Wow it really is that easyNew Retail– Retail this time got onboarded through like TikTok straight to BSC– If stuff comes back, do you think they choose value? or same as last time?– Avi wants to make sure we know – he is the most bullest bull– We are going to 144kDeFi– Avi: “I think it’ll outperform a little bit”– The large caps likely won’t return huge huge multiples– DeFi actually has cashflows… which is a detriment LOL– You can actually value these things, prevents mega moon pumps– There are other shitcoins which will 15-20x, DeFi just likely won’t– DeFi will be a huge industry that will morph a ton in ways that we probably don’t understand yet– But if you want to trade euphoria, you want to trade this market… its other assets– In the next 3-4 months, we’re going to see a huge battle between a multi-chain universe and a single chain universe– THIS BATTLE SOUNDS INSANE ITS SOLANA COSMOS POLKADOT ALL THESE CHAINS VS ETH AS MASTER CHAIN LFG– Lido is something that could get stupid euphoriaFINAL ALPHA– From Ted Lasso – “Have the memory of a goldfish” lmao lfg– If something goes wrong, don’t dwell on your mistakesNotes by KevinMusic by GiovanniPickle