1000x Podcast
December 30, 2025

What's The Trade For 2026?

The Multipolar Trade: Why Gold and Privacy Win in 2026 by 1000x Podcast

Author: Avi and Jonah | Date: January 1, 2026

Quick Insight: This summary explores why the "Up Only" era for legacy alts is over while sovereign-backed commodities and privacy tech are just starting their run. It provides a roadmap for navigating a fractured global economy where following the "Big Boys" is the only strategy that scales.

  • 💡 Why is China’s gold accumulation: the ultimate signal for crypto traders?
  • 💡 Can Bitcoin hit $100k by February: despite months of sideways chop?
  • 💡 Is the NFT floor about to collapse: under the weight of rational pricing?

Top 3 Ideas

🏗️ The Geopolitical Hard Asset Play "Listen to what the big boys do."

  • Sovereign Gold Stacking: BRICS nations now hold more gold than the United States. This migration signals a move toward a multipolar world where neutral hard assets are the primary reserve.
  • The 15-Year Cycle: Gold moves in decade-long waves rather than the four-year crypto rhythm. We are likely in the early stages of a massive structural re-rating.
  • Commodity Technology: Metals have finally adopted the "Up Only" price action once reserved for Bitcoin. This reflects a higher baseline inflation rate that is now endemic to the economy.

🏗️ The Privacy Pivot "2026 is the perfect coalescing point for privacy coins."

  • Criminal Utility: Over $2.7 billion was stolen in 2025 hacks. This creates constant, non-speculative demand for Monero and Zcash as exit ramps for washed capital.
  • Taxation Pressure: New wealth taxes in California and New York are pushing high-net-worth individuals toward obfuscation. Privacy is transitioning from a niche ideology to a financial necessity.

🏗️ The Altcoin Purge "The bell has tolled for the shitcoins."

  • Vaporware Gravity: Previous cycle "bulge bracket" alts like Polkadot face terminal decline. Without new buyers or utility, these tokens are effectively beached whales.
  • NFT Fad Fatigue: Digital collectibles are returning to their status as niche hobbies for enthusiasts. The era of $20,000 JPEGs as a mainstream investment class is likely finished.

Actionable Takeaways

  • 🌐 The Macro Shift: Geopolitical fracturing is replacing the single-hedge-fund-world. Capital is migrating from speculative "paper" assets to hard-capped commodities and privacy-preserving tech.
  • ⚡ The Tactical Edge: Short the "zombie" alts. Create a basket of low-utility, high-FDV tokens from the previous cycle and pair them against long positions in Bitcoin and Monero.
  • 🎯 The Bottom Line: The market is punishing momentum-chasing and rewarding structural alignment. If you aren't positioned for a multipolar, high-inflation environment, you are exit liquidity for the sovereigns.

Podcast Link: Click here to listen

in the new year if new buyers come in which I think they will and the tax selling abates and the you know the the end ofear stuff liquidity comes back people are back on the desks and gold has been ripping and take out NASDAQ if NASDAQ doesn't collapse in on itself I think we see 100k Bitcoin by the end of end of January and I think it happens fast today's episode is brought to you by Kraken Pro you'll hear more about them later in today's episode as always investments in blockchain technology involve risk terms and conditions apply.

Oh man, Jonah, what's going on? AI, we are we are live again. Happy New Year everybody. I hope everyone had a good, you know, this is like the li like what do you call it? Like the liinal week in between Christmas and and New Year's where nothing real actually happens. And that's been very true of the markets. Basically, nothing has happened. Uh, and we're here to tell you today, dear listener, that that is a very good thing that nothing has happened. It's um it's a good week to make some predictions, isn't it? Good week to lay your lay your nuts on the table. Um, it is talk about what we think's going to happen in in 2026.

You know, I say that I say that nothing's happened, but nothing's happened in like the Bitcoin world. Uh, a lot has happened outside of the Bitcoin world, uh, including metals just absolutely ripping to all-time highs. It's like, you know, we've we've discovered metals have discovered the technology that Bitcoin had in 2017 called Up Only and and they're they're they're actively they're actively using it right now. Um, and I've given a shout out to them before, uh, but I'll do it again. 13D Research absolutely just crushed it this cycle. They they made the argument the the the very I think very good argument that um, just postco you were going to experience a higher baseline rate of inflation and it was basically never going to come down after like we we weren't really going to get back to that 2% target. Maybe it'd be two and a half, maybe you'd be three, you might even get up to four, but you were going to sit above uh you we we're not going to be in a zero uh interest rate environment uh for for a while because I think inflation is sort of endemic now to to to our economy just based on what's what's going on.

And geopolitically, the world is fracturing and so obviously uh that that's been a huge driver of this of this metal run. I mean I think you saw in China they were actually stopping you know they they were they were tamping down on exports of of silver uh commodities like palladium, gold, silver uh these things are now uh being battled over on on on a country basis and that doesn't really seem to be going away anytime soon. And I kind of wanted to ask you Jonah the uh the commodities trader like what what do you what do you make of this rally? Do you think do you think that this is a multi-year rally? Like are we going to is 2026 going to be the year of continuation of metal or is [snorts] this just a end of year stupid short squeeze move on?

I don't think 26 is going to be the year of the crazy metals rally. Obby I think that was 2025. I think we're in the eighth inning, maybe the top of the ninth for this medals rally. Um in terms of time I I was bullish metals from you know the basically I started trading uh precious metals professionally in 200 late 22 early 23. I was bullish then and then when I sort of left the professional world and became a pajama trader I didn't really do anything about my metals thesis. um that would have been the time to get in when gold was trading like sub 2,000. Now is not the time to get in. And but I mean like put it this way in the eighth or the ninth inning you can the price can still double. I have no I mean this is a parabolic rally. We've seen crypto full send when it's do when crypto is doing stuff like this. You never really know where it's going to top out. Nobody does by definition.

But like okay so price-wise I have no idea where silver and gold top out. Possibly a lot higher. possibly like not that much higher. I I really don't have an opinion. Timewise, I think the rally is almost over. And the reason why is a couple of things. First of all, um the people who are stockpiling gold right now, like the gold's a huge market. We we'll we'll get to silver in a second. Gold's a huge market. In order to move the needle on gold, you got to be a sovereign, right? Um retail can't But isn't isn't Isn't that Isn't that kind of what's happening? That's that's why we're so bullish, right? And it but like I'm saying it won't continue. It won't continue because like sovereigns like I don't know. I I've traded with dozens of sovereigns in my career and sovereigns don't FOMO like retail does.

Like China when the price goes up they slow down their commodities buying. China's the biggest been the biggest buyer of gold. Why do they do that? because they re they recognize institutionally and you know that they're they're forcing the price higher into their own face and if they stop buying the price will go down so they can accumulate more. At least that's what they do in um hydrocarbons. Maybe in gold maybe the gold department over in China just I think I think hydrocarbons are very different and I'm actually very bearish on oil for a lot of reasons that I wrote down which I want to get into with you. Yeah. Um but I disagree with you and I want to make a dent on it. Uh, I I I don't have I don't want to bet on this one. This is I don't know. Come on. Put your money where you fair enough. But I'm I think that I think that you know our predictions will be interspersed through the episode. We're not going to walk you through all of it.

Actually, maybe I'll bet with you. What's the bet? What's the bet? And the bet is I think that gold, a 50/50 basket of gold and silver will outperform the S&P in 2026. Uh, silver. Silver silver. Yeah, I I don't know. I say I think you're right. I think you're right. Okay, that could happen. It could happen, but I I put it at an 80% chance. I think it's very likely that it happens because I think gold moves. I don't know about silver. So, you're going to give me five to one odds if I bet against you? I'm not I'm not going to give you five to one odds. you kind of that was that that was I think by the way I think that those were actually very fair odds that you got on that trade. I think those are those are very reasonable. Uh Mike Dudes's bitching aside. Uh but you know I we'll get to that. We'll get to that. We'll get we'll get we'll get to that later in the episode.

If you follow Jonah, you know that Jonah loves getting into Twitter fights. He just loves rage baiting people. And I have to come in and play good cop and moderate and tell everyone to log off for the week. No, let me just finish my thoughts for a second on this question. Okay, go ahead. Go ahead. I I don't think I I think the sovereign buyers of gold will recognize that if they slow down um other than other than them, there's not a lot of buying. So, or you know, comparatively little buying. Retail can't move the needle in an asset as big as gold. It's 10 times bigger than Bitcoin.

So, I do think it'll they'll probably slow down and wait for it to pull back so they can buy more. Um, the thing about gold is that we've talked about it on previous episodes. The the I think gold is catching up to where it should be as an inflation hedge. It used to be a riskoff trade and then in Ukraine it became a sort of an inflation hedge. Very different, very different instrument than it used to be. So I I kind of think this gold rally is like it doing what it should have done during COVID. It's doing it postcoid. Silver silver is a much smaller asset with a lower market cap. So, I think retail could I like but not anyone's but not that much smaller actually. And I I don't want to dispel there's a there's a viral tweet that went around that said that the ratio of the silver market cap to the gold market cap throughout history has been somewhere between 10 to 15 and now it's like 60. And this thing got like like 10 15 million views. It was going super viral on Twitter and it's just completely incorrect. uh the ratio today is 1 to 10 like silver is a tenth the size of gold market cap so even historically it's kind of like it it was behind before this rally it was maybe you know obviously silver doubled and gold stayed approximately the same it was it was the 20th so you can make an argument before that silver might outperform my bet now is that gold outperforms uh gold miners continued to to outperform and and I I want to I want to read something to you uh from from a research report that I was I was looking at as of October 23rd, bricks when combined with members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization now hold more gold than the United States. And that has not happened ever before.

Uh and that is happening very specifically, very specifically because the world is moving into a multipolar geopolitically fractured version of itself. There is no longer one hedgeimonyy. And this is sort of an old tired point, but the thing that you have to remember as a crypto trader is that let's let's say you're used to four-year cycles. Gold doesn't do fouryear cycles. Gold does 15ear cycles. These these mega trends tend to have a certain amount of inertia to them and they tend to last. And really the gold rally has only lasted for five six years at this point really postco. And so there's still a lot of lag here in my personal opinion. And even if you're right that it's the eighth inning, the eighth and ninth innings are always the craziest part. That's when you get the crazy blowoff tops. And so to me, the argument for allocating to gold is is is stronger than ever to to be to be completely honest. when you have inflation, when you have this multipolar fracturing fracturing of the world, when you have sovereigns continuing to buy even as you know as as recently as uh October, they're they're buying uh and there doesn't seem to be a tremendous amount of abatement. Now, this has nothing to do with oil uh because I think a very very bearish on bearish on oil.

The other thing that you have to remember is that for the first time ever, not for the first time ever, this because this happened in the 80s, for the first time in a long time, uh, your average retail investor is allocating to gold in a larger capacity because they're seeing it go up. And that makes that gold and silver, I think, could be very reflexive assets. These two things uh were these three points for gold combined with the fact that Bitcoin has gone nowhere in the last call it you know in in in the last 6 months makes me very bullish on Bitcoin and we we'll get we'll get to that point but I I do want to make the case for for metals uh palladium also ripping uh copper and copper miners I mean basically geopolitical assets my one of my biggest bags right now is something called REMX, which is a rare earth uh minerals, uh critical minerals. Um so I'm generally pretty bullish on just commodities in general, and I have a decent amount of my portfolio now reallocated after I sold those silver miners, which I try not to think about.

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There are a lot of things I try not to think about when it comes to 2025. Avi, um, yeah, I don't have enough conviction to bet against you. I think you could be right. I I just don't know. Like I don't my my my priors in gold have I'm not a very good gold trader. I missed the I missed the shift in dynamics, a huge paradigm shift in gold from this is a riskoff asset that people buy when they're scared like in 2008 to this is an asset that people that like retail buys on momentum. This is an asset that people buy as an inflation hedge. It was just never like that. Um, I also don't necessarily agree that inflation's out of control right now. I think for the first time it's not out of control. Just to clarify, I never said out of control. I just said it's higher baseline than it was post GFC.

Yeah. I mean, okay, post GFC inflation was maybe 2% on target. Maybe now we're at 2.7 2.8 something. So basically recently with inflation more in control than it's been this at any point this decade. Um I don't know if you're buying gold for that reason. I think you're buying gold because it's rallying. You're buying gold because you think that there's a you know the world is becoming uh multi-olar and silver you buy because there's still a lot of a lot of retail. Silver feels like a Wall Street Bets, Reddit um mafia driving it up. It's It looks squeezy to me. I I basically would be looking to buy these assets on a pullback. And I think that the sovereigns who are buying gold do check the price a little bit more than like the retail dgens who buy um you know, whatever uh dollar sign Pepe, right? Like sovereigns are a little bit smarter about buying on the highs than retail. So, I'm a little I'm just I I wouldn't put my eggs in agree.

Now, I actually I I I agree with this guy. Uh new new type trader. Gold can sniff out wars. China being more aggressive with Taiwan. Gold is also sniffing more rate cuts coming. I actually think he's right at all points, but I would frame it in a slightly different way. It's not gold that's sniffing it out. It's China knowing that they're going to be aggressive and stockpiling gold. It's like they're they are telling us what their plan is by accumulating all this gold. Bricks is telling us what the plan is by accumulating all this gold. Uh and I think that it's this is this is the year or the next the next three years at least all Trump is in charge is it's called listening to the big boys. That's what I call it. Listen to what they do. Uh and what they're doing. Look at in Nvidia's buying Nvidia's buying Intel. Trump bought Intel. China's buying gold uh and and uh and commodities, you know. Listen listen listen to the big boys.

Yeah. I mean, I'm trying and by the way, to answer the question, we became a commodities podcast when commodities started being a lot more fun to trade. [laughter] Um yeah, I guess I you know this data is this data is public like the PBOC the People's Bank of China um publishes their gold holdings and it's not like it's not like they're going bananas. They they went banan like I got bullish in 2022 when they were going crazy buying a lot of gold. I'm trying to pull up the chart here. This one has data up to May of 2025. So, let me I saw some other charts. Let me just present my screen here. Obby. Yes. Okay. Um well, I can't I can't read it because I'm not Chinese, but yes. Yeah. Basically, the website uh Shanghai Metal Market. This is this is PBOC gold reserves.

Um as you can see, I when I was when I started to get really bullish was when they were doing this. Um this is when I was an institutional trader. Um the the rate of increase was pretty like stark relative to this previous period where they just weren't doing anything. It's like okay Ukraine war has happened. We've made a decision in our executive communist committee that the United States can no longer be trusted with our money. So we're going to start diversifying. Oh [ __ ] This is crazy. Then it kind of leveled off again. Gold didn't do much in 2024, which is still last year for another couple days. And then this year it's increasing gradually, but the trajectory isn't like that. You know, I think maybe there's just less liquidity right now or something. Um anyway, I'll stop sharing my screen here. I think the point I'm trying to make is that um I [sighs] they don't they don't seem like they're panic buying the way that say Europe panic bought LNG when the Ukraine war broke out. Um or China panic bought oil during some of the you know stock commodities at all costs shortage type moments. So I'm not I don't know with the with the big caveat that I'm not the world's best gold trader. I think it it just would feel strange to buy this on momentum here. I think there are better assets like I think I think you can but you can buy it on a pullback. I mean like for example as as like pallad I I think that like I said they've they've adopted this beautiful technology now of of go up. Um so you know I'm pretty I'm I'm pretty bullish on the on the idea of them continuing to go up just because of everything that we've already discussed.

But that brings me to Bitcoin. Um, I wrote this post about what a bottom looks like and we're kind of filling it out. What I said at the beginning of December was, okay, basically we have a very short period of time to go up in December, otherwise we're going to get a lot of tax selling and Bitcoin's not going to perform particularly well. And that I think sort of played out. Uh, Bitcoin has gone basically nowhere but down. Mostly sideways, but down over the last month. And I think a lot of that is because people want to get out. But when do you bottom? Uh, you don't bottom when big buys come in. You bottom when sellers decide that the price that they're selling at no longer makes a ton of sense to sell. So my viewpoint on this is that we have sort of reached that point. It seemed I thought maybe we could get a capitulatory event to 74 to 80. We touched 80, but we we haven't really been able to get back there because even in a low liquidity, which it's this has been a low liquidity environment post October 10th and even more low liquidity because it's it's the holidays. In a low liquidity environment with not a ton of buying and tax selling, we haven't been able to hold below 85. And to me what that suggests is that sellers have run out of ammo and that in the new year if new buyers come in which I think they will and the tax selling abates and the you know the the end ofear stuff liquidity comes back people are back on the desks and gold has been ripping and take out NASDAQ if NASDAQ doesn't collapse in on itself I think we see 100k Bitcoin by the end of end of January and I think it happens fast because I think Bitcoin has been neglected for all of these structural reasons and now we've run out of nobody wants to sell at this price right now. Uh where are people going to sell is is always the like how do you fall like how do you think about this in the in the negative sense like how could you be wrong is if Bitcoin breaks lower if it does break past 85 and stays there for a bit then maybe people panic and sell out. But in my opinion that's still like that would be the last bit of selling that would occur. Either way I'm very bullish going into uh you know I'm I'm I'm ready I'm ready to take a stab. I'm actually I lifted I tweeted I lifted a bunch of 100k uh January 30th calls because I think that we can actually squeeze up.

What'd you pay for this per per contract? $2,000 $5,000 some. Yeah. So I didn't I I bought it on IBIT. Um and I bought 55 uh $55 calls and I paid 82 cents per call. So if we get like if we get to if we get back up if we like go up to you know 20% where I think where I think we go if I if I could get to 60 I'm looking at a 5x effectively a little bit a little bit more 56x. Okay. And I think I I think $55 calls correct. Okay. So that's the equivalent of buying $100,000 Bitco Bitcoin calls for 50 dollars. A little bit less. Yeah. But yeah. Okay. I just did the math. Yeah, it's basically like a $1,500 Bitcoin option. It's It's like technically a 97k, but I was 100K sounded better than tweet. So, yeah, you know, sue me. [laughter] Never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Um, no, that that that's what I say. Never never let the truth get in the way of good tweets. [laughter]

Okay, so you're bullish. You're bullish and you're not just bullish like over the course of the year. You're bullish immediate term. You think we get a rip roar in January? I think so, too. Also I also I also think that V has come so low that you're seeing some good deals out there actually. Yeah. Right. So so so people people don't like the idea of trading options. Uh and why don't people like the idea of trading options? Because they don't understand what options really are. Uh options are a way to either if you're not if you're not sophisticated and we can get into what they are for sophisticated market participants. uh there ways to hedge hedge exposure uh or there ways to bet on something happening very quickly like I want to get leverage on this outcome uh and I think my edge is that this price action will happen in a short period of time uh or what you're expressing is you want to buy a crazy crazy tail and you want to get paid for it, right? like you want to you want you have super high conviction that Bitcoin's going to $250,000 and you don't want to outlay a tremendous amount of capital because you think it might take a year to get there and so you don't want to tie up all your capital immediately and so you're using it for capital efficiency. You're saying I want to express this bet and I want to do it in a capital efficient manner and so I'm going to buy a year out $250,000 call option on Bitcoin. Uh option you should really not be selling options ever unless you really know what you're doing. It just you really should never do that. Uh that's how you just end up uh bankrupt and you know in a in a bad spot.

But yeah, the but I don't love the argument that you, the retail investor, the average person should never touch an option. I think that that's silly. If you have if you have a thesis that I think Bitcoin is going to rip in the next 15 days and you want to protect your downside an option based on the volatility, right? Uh and what you have to do to calculate whether you're making a good trade is go to Darabit, look at the V of the option that you're that you're buying. Let's say it's 50 V. Divide that by the square root of 365. So that's about 20. And you're looking at a 2.5% move a day. Do you think that Bitcoin's going to do more than a 2.5% move a day? that that's really how you should think about it. But outside of those things, I'm not really, you know, I I don't really believe, you know, I don't think we should be trading options, but I don't think that that should discourage you from trading them in the right scenarios. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it makes total sense. Um I options are fall right now. V right now is 40. That's it. I was just looking it up. [snorts] Um 2% a 2% move a day. Are you kidding me? 39. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Yeah, I think it's going to get crazy in January. January is when people re-engage and reallocate. And I think unless you believe that the only reason why anybody buys Bitcoin is because it's going up or they sell it because it's going down, like I think Bitcoin has other stories now. So, you know, unless you think that the only feature of this market is momentum, um, which I don't, then I think a lot of participants will come back to the desk in January and say, "All right, you know what? like the the DATs have blown up. Bitcoin's underperformed gold and other deflation debase or inflation debasement hedges massively. Look at this. It's it's sort of like festering around 88k almost pre-Trump levels. Like let's let's yolo a little bit. I I I think a lot of I think a lot of people are going to sit down and buy Bitcoin in January. And I think we'll get some big moves. I like your trade, Obby. Um, even if we don't like blast through 100K by January 30th, I I still think January 31st, you can still probably you'll probably hit a two or a three bagger on those options. Um, if you sell them back out uh when Bitcoin starts pumping again, which it probably will. I don't see it selling off in January. Jan, everything rips in January. January should should be a good month for us. Uh, you know, I think I think that we're gonna have you guys are probably going to have a good time as long as you're not too sidelined. You know, I it feel it feels good being bullish when the when price is down instead of being bullish when price is up. This is always, you know, I think uh I I I lost I lost sight of what what you're supposed to do. You get bullish, you get bullish, get bullish when everyone is scared.

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Buy low, sell high. Yeah, we're at I posted the crypto fear and greed index. Um, I will share my screen here. Obby, it's pretty striking. I have a I I read this thing called the Daily Shot. I recommend everybody uh subscribe to it. It's fantastic. Um, let's see. They posted a chart of the crypto fear and greed index over time. Uh, let me share my screen. Check this out. Pretty cool. Um, you can see it evolve throughout the year. It went as high as like 82 in February when Trumpcoin got launched and it went as low as like 10. This is volatile. I don't know. I think it's just a sentiment indicator, but we're still basically at the buy with both hands level. Sad I don't have a price chart overlaid on top of this, but anytime it's down here, it's usually a great buy. So yeah, be fearful when others are greedy and be greedy when others are fearful to quote our boy Warren Buffett. Um, definitely does seem like the time, doesn't it? I'm I'm bullish here, too.

There are a couple other things that I think are making me more constructive, I guess, is is is the right word on uh yeah, more more constructive on the market. Number one, we're getting runners again on chain. I don't know if you saw White Whale. I did. [ __ ] dude. These Dude, these How have you not seen White Whale? These memes are hilarious. I've been I've been kind of tuned out for the last week. Other than just like showing up on Christmas to rage bait some people in the Crypto Punks community. I've been kind of like I'm taking the end of year off mentally. I've been pretty zoned out. Oh, dude. You gota you you got to look up White Whale on Twitter. It's [ __ ] hilarious. Uh or go to the ThousandX terminal. Go sign up for that and ask it about White Whale. That would be that would be a good that that that would be a good use of your time. But look like look up the white whale V2. Dude's freaking hilarious. It's this meme of this uh I mean basically he was like this huge hyperlquid trader, right? And he lost a ton of money on Hyperlink but he also made a ton of money at some point and was James win. No, no, no. This is different. Uh and now he's posting all of these [ __ ] hilarious memes about himself. Uh, basically he has this he has this image of a whale in a what looks like a Jedi Knight costume and he's like also like has swords and is like battling people in Halo and he's honestly pretty pretty [ __ ] hilarious. I'm not going to lie. and he launched this coin, this sort of memecoin, and it ran up from a $100,000 market cap to a $70 million market cap because people in crypto like like the insiders, they do have they do have some money still to throw around. And this is a very like deep cut memecoin. Like I don't think this is trending on TikTok or anything like that. This is like a very CT type thing. Um, and it seems like those people have managed to hold on to some of their money. So, dude, it like it ran up in the last 10 days. Uh, like absurdity 4,000%. I mean, there's not there's not a ton of liquidity, but what it tells you what it tells you is that the the gamblers Jonah [laughter] are still here. And all it's going to take and all it's going to take I think that this is obviously a microcosm. It's not like a ton of money but I think it bel [sighs and gasps] I love gambling. I love betting on random stuff.

I mean okay so am I the kind of person who's going to go and bet on a memecoin in 2026? Probably not. I think the la the last time I took a major stab at once. Don't don't forget Bowden. You can't can't just Bowden. But Bod but like that was that was an era when memecoins ran for at least a few weeks that now they run for hours and then they emulate. This is such a it's basically gone from being like a a strategic fun interesting game like Settlers of Katan or Risk to like Did you Sorry. I'm sorry. Did you say Settlers of Katan? Yeah. You don't like Settlers of Katan. It's settlers of Katan. Okay. Settlers of Katan. Um, who are you? It went from being settlers of Katan to like what's what's a quick hit? Like basically buying buying uh empetamines from a teenager in the bathroom in the men's bathroom at a nightclub kind of like uh 10 minutes up and down. You do that. Is that is that is that a thing? No, but I I was young once too, Abby. And um you know, basically that's that's kind of how the memecoin thing has evolved from like this fun, strategic, interesting, what's going to have legs to like, all right, I'm going to feel great for five minutes and then have a headache for three hours kind of um kind of like up and down cycle. And I just I don't know, it's not as fun. It's not as cool. Uh you know, that's that's sort of how I view the memecoin space.

So, I guess here's a 2026 prediction laced into the episode. The memecoin space uh does not come back in 2026. There's no resurgence of memecoins. I do think that memecoins will will have their moment in the sun. I do think that that lottery will come back, but it's not going to be for years. And I also think that 2026 the altcoin here's another prediction. I think the altcoin bare market continues. And I think that people people who get out of their uh fouryear cycle alt alt season mindset and just buckle up and short these things. The bad ones obviously there will be a few good ones but like the bad the the bad ones the the previous cycle vaporware beached whales um they will make a lot of money. that in fact that is that is my that is my contrarian trade prediction for 2026 is that shorting crypto will work um for a lot of these [snorts] bulge bracket alts everybody everybody doesn't like everybody says shorting is a terrible idea requires a lot of active management I'm willing to bet that this year it won't I'm willing to bet that this year you just flip your chart upside down on trading view pretend it's going up and you sell purpose of positive funding on um high FTV lowflat tokens. There will be no squeezes. Every insider, every VC wants to get out. These tokens are [ __ ] worthless and have no uptake. I don't know.

So, here's here's here's a trade. Let's you know what? We should we should we should mark this today. Uh create a basket and let's call it a basket of just stupid chitcoins. Okay. uh you're you're going to short you're going to short Polka dot, you're going to short whiff, you're going to short Pepe, you're going to short all these things after Bitcoin has a little

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