WEBVTT - Talking With Mike Alfred 0:00:00.000 --> 0:00:02.000 All right, welcome back. You are listening to another episode 0:00:02.000 --> 0:00:04.360 of The Mark Moss Show where we talk about bitcoin. 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:07.880 We talk about the decentralized revolution the world is going through, 0:00:08.080 --> 0:00:09.760 and we look at it through the lens and the 0:00:09.760 --> 0:00:13.880 convergence of politics, finance, and technology to try to understand 0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:17.640 what the heck is going on in this crazy, crazy world. Um, 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:19.480 you know, I try to bring to you some education 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:22.280 so you can understand really what's going on behind the scenes, 0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:23.880 because of course you were never taught it and you're 0:00:23.920 --> 0:00:25.680 being misled all the time. Try to bring to you 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:27.760 the latest breaking news, and of course I try to 0:00:27.800 --> 0:00:30.640 bring some interesting guests on so you can hear from 0:00:30.720 --> 0:00:32.720 some other people. But me talking all the time. And 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:35.559 I am joined in the studio right now with one 0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:38.479 of my good friends, Mike Alfred. Mike, thanks so much 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:40.519 for joining me today. Yeah. Thanks Mark. It was good 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:43.880 to meet you in Miami. Yeah. Yeah, we just got 0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:45.520 to meet each other recently. We've been kind of following 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:48.599 each other on Twitter for a while and we got 0:00:48.600 --> 0:00:51.000 to hang out there in uh in Miami, go to 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:53.000 go to go to some some of the parties together. 0:00:54.240 --> 0:00:56.280 That was That was a fun way to get going. 0:00:56.680 --> 0:00:59.400 I enjoyed that. Um. I think we met at the 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:01.760 unchained cab little party and then the Gemini party or whatever. 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:05.040 But you know what's cool about that is um social media. 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:07.959 You know. UM, I have a daughter who's just graduated 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:11.399 high school and all her friends parents are like, UM, 0:01:11.440 --> 0:01:13.280 so eager to send their kids off to college. And 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:15.800 I'm just not a big believer in that. And there's 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:17.759 certainly things you need to college degree for, but unless 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:19.759 you need that, I'm just not a big believer in it. 0:01:20.160 --> 0:01:22.520 And I'm I would ask them, like, you know, okay, 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:24.080 what's you know, what do you see as big benefit? 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:26.200 And most of them would always go back to not 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:29.399 the education, um, the experiences. They lean on that, but 0:01:29.400 --> 0:01:31.720 then they lean on the connections. They're gonna get the connections. 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:34.040 And I'm like, dude, have you heard of Twitter? Because like, 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:37.280 I've like met everybody in the world on Twitter, Like 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:39.600 Mike and I we were like friends on Twitter before 0:01:39.640 --> 0:01:42.240 we were like friends in real life. You know, pretty amazing. 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:44.440 I'm sure you use it the same way. I thought 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:47.360 it was overvalued for most of the time I use it. 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:50.360 It wasn't until last summer when I left Nideck that 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:52.400 for the first time I tried to actually engage with 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:55.640 the platform every day, And now I see how valuable 0:01:55.680 --> 0:01:59.280 it is because I've met maybe hundreds of people through 0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:01.800 Twitter just over the last twelve months. It's opened up 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:04.279 a whole bunch of doors. It's allowed me to invest 0:02:04.320 --> 0:02:07.360 in a couple of new bitcoin companies. I joined a 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:11.280 couple of boards all from Twitter, and that surprised me 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:13.280 because I used to think it was kind of a 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:14.880 foo fou thing that people did. It was sort of 0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:17.119 a waste of time for CEOs to be engaging with 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:19.840 social media. But I've seen the light now, Mark, and 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:21.520 you came right up to me at a at a 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:23.799 party and you you knew who I was. I knew 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:26.160 who you were. And it's all because of Twitter. So yeah, 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:29.240 do you think do you think it's changed? So like, um, obviously, 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:31.560 like you have network effects, right, So the bigger than 0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:34.560 network gets, the more valuable it gets. And so maybe 0:02:34.600 --> 0:02:37.160 it was kind of more foofy as you in your words, 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:39.560 or not not as usable. But now today since everybody's 0:02:39.600 --> 0:02:41.600 on there using it more, it's it's become more viable. 0:02:42.000 --> 0:02:44.959 I think it depends on your interest graph. So before Bitcoin, 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:48.440 you know, Twitter was less interesting. I think the bitcoin 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:51.840 community is one of the most rapid communities on the Internet, 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:53.880 and Twitter is sort of like one of the primary 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:57.000 places where people involved in bitcoin come together and share 0:02:57.040 --> 0:03:00.080 information and build relationships. And so I think for me, 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:02.200 a lot of it was just becoming kind of a 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:05.280 full time bitcoiner in a sense, like really embracing that 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:07.720 as part of my identity is something I wanted to 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:10.400 talk about and think about every single day. Um, and 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:12.600 when I when that switch flipped, Twitter all of a 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:15.400 sudden made more sonse right, and the community here has 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:18.440 been incredible. I mean, look, I I sometimes get in 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:20.760 battles with with people. I mean that just seems to 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:23.360 be part of the space. It's funny how many friends 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:25.920 I have that are like enemies of each other. But 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:28.200 that's just sort of the fun part of of of 0:03:28.280 --> 0:03:31.720 using Twitter. Yeah. Well, I think it's important to battle, 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:33.560 uh you know, not not in a bad way, but 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:36.720 in a good way, because good ideas are one through discussion, right, 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:38.280 and so we need to kind of I call it 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:40.640 like verbally sparring, right, if we need to spar back 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:43.040 and forth and in a in a good way. And um, 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:44.600 we learned from that a lot of times, I'll see 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:47.040 somebody's post and I'm like, oh, wow, that's that's that's 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:49.160 that's so good, that's that's that that's right. I hadn't 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:51.200 thought of that. And then I'll just read the comments 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:53.480 of people sparring back and forth, the baiting if you will, right, 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:55.440 and I'm like, oh, I didn't think about that. I 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:57.960 didn't think about that. So you know, it's important to 0:03:57.960 --> 0:03:59.640 be able to have that discussion, and it's worked good 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:05.560 for that. I I didn't start using Twitter until um 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:10.480 I was in I was in Hawaii. It was January 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:13.000 and um I was on the north shore of Oahu. 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:15.080 Were there for a month and I woke up in 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:17.039 the morning and my phone was like making this like 0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:20.400 weird alarm and uh, I think it was seven in 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:22.680 the morning and something like pretty early, And I grabbed 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:24.480 my phone and I looked at it and it says 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:30.159 imminent threat inbound missile alert. This is not a test. 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:33.080 I'm like what. And then like I look at my 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:34.760 wife and like she's got the same alert on her 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:37.839 phone and we're like like and this was right at 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:39.680 the height of like the whole North Korea thing with 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:42.120 Trump and the Korea is going to fire this missile 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:44.799 and here we are and it's like alert inbound missile, 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:47.520 imminent threat, not a not a you know, not a 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:50.240 not test and uh and then that was it. And 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:51.880 then there was like no news about it. You could 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:53.920 turn on the TV, jump on the internet. There was nothing. 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:57.280 And people were freaking out. All the neighbors were jumping 0:04:57.279 --> 0:04:58.760 in their cars and taking off all the where you're 0:04:58.760 --> 0:05:00.880 gonna go hide in the island, right. Um, And my 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:03.200 business partner at the time, um, he was on Twitter. 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:05.120 I wasn't, and so he jumped on Twitter. And then 0:05:05.200 --> 0:05:07.520 all the information was on Twitter, right, and like I 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:09.880 couldn't find any information, and so I was like, okay, 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:13.040 I started on Twitter. And that's great how the information goes. 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:17.080 But let's uh, let's jump past that. That's some fun stuff. 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:19.240 But um, some of the things that's been going on 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:22.000 in the bitcoin and cryptocurrency space the last couple of weeks, 0:05:22.279 --> 0:05:24.719 it's been fun to see happening on Twitter. Well, fun 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:26.279 depend on what side of the ball you're on. But 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:31.680 we're starting to see crazy liquidity crisis happening and almost 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:35.680 like this domino effect, uh, maybe starting with Tera Luna 0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:41.479 and now going through into other platforms, um Celsius, Voyager. 0:05:41.920 --> 0:05:44.960 I don't know, maybe Genesis Block Fi next, so and 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:47.360 we don't know how far this gets. Let's talk about 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:48.600 that for a little bit. I know you've been like 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:51.480 pretty vocal and outspoken on that, Like what's your take 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:52.880 on that on the big picture, and then we can 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:55.800 kind of dive into that. At a very high level, 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:57.800 I think we're at the tail end of like a 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:02.280 ten to twelve year kind of fed fueled bowl market 0:06:02.360 --> 0:06:05.360 where interest rates have been held at a very low 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:08.400 level for too long. There's been too much money creation, 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:10.640 there's been too much risk taking, everybody's way out on 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:13.960 the risk spectrum. Um. And so even before you get 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:15.440 to crypto, I mean, you just look at what happened 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:18.240 to Tiger Global, uh this year. You look at the 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:22.320 decline and some of these large cap technology stocks, including 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:25.600 some like Facebook and Netflix that were viewed as kind 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:28.640 of teflon up until about the last kind of call 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:32.040 it nine to twelve months, um. And so I just 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:34.799 think we're seeing what happens at the end of every 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:39.360 liquidity cycle, where there's this cascade of folks that get 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:43.280 liquidated because they convinced themselves, um that the world was 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:45.359 going to continue on in the same trajectory that it 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:47.880 had been on for the last ten or fifteen years. 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:51.720 And that's the problem with an unstable monetary policy. I mean, 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:55.440 I do fault the Fed and politicians. I mean there 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:58.720 they didn't see inflation coming, and then they don't understand 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:02.440 that all of the activities that they've engaged in, including 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:07.240 zero interest rate policy, quantitative easing, stimulus, etcetera. You can 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:10.440 give out checked you know, six hundred bucks or bucks 0:07:10.480 --> 0:07:12.240 to people and then you can lie to them and 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:15.040 say that won't cause inflation. But the reality is they've 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:17.800 basically hauled out the middle class and and and the 0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:22.040 poor in this country um through this policy, um. And 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:24.239 so that that's filters over into crypto. You know, people 0:07:24.240 --> 0:07:27.480 can't get a yield because interest rates or zero, they 0:07:27.480 --> 0:07:29.360 can't put their money in a savings account, and so 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:33.200 they become deluded into thinking that it's okay to deposit 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:36.720 money into a platform like Celsius, which is essentially an 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:41.880 unregulated shadow bank offering unsustainable yields in an environment where 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:44.880 yields are basically zero. And so the first red flag 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:47.120 for something like Celsius is just that if you see 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:50.960 yields of sevent when your bank is offering twenty BIPs 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:52.600 like you might want to ask yourself how much risk 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:54.760 is I am I taking? And then when you see 0:07:54.760 --> 0:08:00.240 a CEO that engages um and essentially weakly uh, you know, 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:03.960 conversations with the community where he repeatedly lies about the 0:08:04.040 --> 0:08:08.480 risk that we're taking, fails to disclose risks, irresponsible risk 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:11.760 that lead to loss of client capital, and then consistently 0:08:11.760 --> 0:08:15.000 makes sort of irresponsible decisions across the business. You know, 0:08:15.040 --> 0:08:18.480 you shouldn't be surprised. My current view on this mark 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:23.400 is that Celsius is probably one of the worst actors 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:26.880 in this entire ecosystem. It's completely it was completely predictable 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:29.760 in my opinion, that it eventually was going to have problems. 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:32.800 I also knew that Block five had had made bad, 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:34.920 poor decisions as well. The difference seems to be that 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:39.600 the investor community completely lost respect uh and trust in 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:44.280 Alex Mashinsky and the Celsius team. Somehow, some way, the 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:46.360 the sort of inexperienced team at Block five managed to 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:49.480 hold onto some credibility in the market, and therefore they're 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:53.120 able to kind of get bailouts at this point. Yeah, yeah, 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:55.120 that's a good breakdown. I want to I want to 0:08:55.160 --> 0:08:56.680 break that down a little bit more and dig into 0:08:56.720 --> 0:08:59.040 some of this, including like the short squeeze that's like 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:01.439 maybe they're trying to warm up, and the credit extension 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:04.600 that's been thrown to block Fly. What that consolidation means. Um. 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:06.160 I got a quote from Lenin that I want to 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:07.839 read to you as well that I think helps some 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:11.480 up kind of where we're at um and maybe talk 0:09:11.520 --> 0:09:13.680 about you know who swimming naked and kind of like 0:09:13.679 --> 0:09:17.160 a warm Buffett type type of quote. So anyway, listen 0:09:17.160 --> 0:09:19.840 to the Mark Mo Show. We're talking about the decentralized 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:23.480 revolution the world's going through. We're talking about bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:25.040 Of course, I'm in the studio with Mike Alfred. You 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:28.199 can find them on Twitter at Mike Alfred and uh, 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:30.280 we got a lot more to cover when we get back, 0:09:30.480 --> 0:09:32.640 so don't go away, all right, Welcome back. You are 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:34.640 listening to the Mark Mo Show. We're talking about the 0:09:34.720 --> 0:09:38.920 decentralized Revolution. We're talking about bitcoin, we're talking about what's 0:09:38.920 --> 0:09:41.559 happening in the cryptocurrency space, and I'm in the studio 0:09:41.600 --> 0:09:43.280 with Mike Alfred. You can find on on Twitter. At 0:09:43.320 --> 0:09:47.440 Mike Alfred and uh, you're explaining Mike, how Um, you know, 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:50.320 this is basically kind of the the the end effects 0:09:50.400 --> 0:09:52.559 of this long term bowl market, the long's bowl market 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:55.120 we've been in history and what happens, and um, it 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:56.600 made me think of this Lenin quote that I wanted 0:09:56.600 --> 0:10:00.840 to pull up real quick. Um, Vladimir Lenin from Russia, 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:06.560 not someone that we should model after, but he said, quote, Um, 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:09.520 the the best way to destroy the capitalist system was 0:10:09.559 --> 0:10:12.600 to debouch the currency by a continuing process of inflation. 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:16.640 Governments confiscates secretly and unobserved an important wealth of their 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:20.640 citizens by this method not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily, 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:23.719 so through inflation and deflation. And then and then at 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:26.200 the end, he says, as the inflation proceeds and the 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:29.080 real value of the currency fluctuates wildly from month to month, 0:10:29.600 --> 0:10:33.839 the ultimate foundation of capitalism becomes so utterly disordered as 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:38.040 to be almost meaningless, and the process of wealth getting 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:43.520 degenerates into a gamble and a lottery. And so I 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:45.800 think that's kind of where we're at. Where it's like, um, 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:48.400 you know, at the end of this long term death cycle, 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:52.160 through all this inflation. That's happened. Um, there's no yield 0:10:52.240 --> 0:10:54.720 left anymore. Right, the interest rates are down at zero. 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:57.960 They've pushed everybody out on this crazy risk risk of 0:10:58.080 --> 0:10:59.640 to try to get any kind of yield they hand 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:03.959 they can, but ultimately they've turned it into a generation gamble. 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:07.240 And so now everybody has to gamble. And I think 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:09.920 to your point, they think everything just goes up in perpetuity, 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:12.840 and it doesn't and they and they find out, unfortunately, 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:15.000 they find out the hard way. Yeah. And if you 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:18.360 were raised in the nineteen fifties or sixties, right, um, 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:21.679 you were told, hey, save money by government bonds, put 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:24.240 in the bank, right, or earn more than you spend. 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:27.040 And that whole model was flipped on his head because 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:29.480 the FED change the rules. The rule for the last 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:32.280 twelve years was big bar and steal as much capital 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:34.280 as you can get, take as much risk as possible, 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:37.040 use as much leverage as possible. It doesn't matter because 0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:39.400 if you mess up, we will bail you out. So 0:11:39.440 --> 0:11:43.600 that FED put incentivized increasingly risky behavior, and only some 0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:46.200 people understood the rules of the game. Right, So when 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:49.760 people were overlevered going into the COVID situation, in the 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:52.240 spring of guess what the government did. They basically bailed 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:55.000 those people out with p PP loans. So these companies 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:57.760 got five million, ten million, twenty million dollar p PP 0:11:57.920 --> 0:12:00.640 loans that were forgiven. And yes, some of the employees 0:12:00.679 --> 0:12:02.760 got to keep their fifteen dollar an our job for 0:12:02.800 --> 0:12:04.720 an extra six months, but the owners of those firms 0:12:04.720 --> 0:12:07.840 should have been wiped out by that irresponsible leverage that 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:10.360 was on those firms. So look, I think when the 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:14.240 Fed manipulates the market like this, nobody knows which prices 0:12:14.280 --> 0:12:16.680 to trust, nobody knows which rules of the game to follow, 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:20.920 And so people got sucked into things like Celsius, where, yeah, 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:23.319 if you can't get a reasonable return in your bank, 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:26.080 you might you might be convinced that, even though it 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:30.440 makes no sense, something like Celsius might work. Yeah, what 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:35.400 about um, what about the Wall Street raiders whatever we 0:12:35.440 --> 0:12:37.440 want to call them, right, I mean, they've been they've been, 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:38.959 They've been at this game for a long time. George 0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:41.640 Soros became infamously rich, making a billion dollars a day 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:43.920 by breaking the peg of the Bank of England. And 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:46.040 so it seems like Wall Street traders or raiders, they're 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:48.040 gonna want to always want to go after these you know, 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:49.480 they smell a little blood in the water. They want 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:53.840 to attack, and so, um, I don't want to dig 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:56.240 into this, but it looks like that's there's some big 0:12:56.240 --> 0:12:59.240 Wall Street fund, Blue Street or Boost Blue guys going 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:01.480 after the bo g A right now, which is pretty interesting, 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:03.560 but they want to be a George Soros. But back 0:13:03.600 --> 0:13:06.080 to the crypto space, it's almost like they spot these 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:10.480 things like Tera Luna or Celsius, see how they're over leveraged, 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:12.720 understand their over leverage, and they can start to see 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:15.560 where their liquidation levels are, and they just start hunting 0:13:15.600 --> 0:13:18.599 those liquidation levels. Um. I think that's what happened with 0:13:18.679 --> 0:13:21.400 Terry Luna. It looks like that was what's happening with Celsius, 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:23.720 and they keep trying to lower their liquidation levels, but 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:25.439 of course everybody knows where they're at, so it's like 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:27.760 the raiders want to keep pushing that down. Do you 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:29.520 do you see something like that happening? You think that's 0:13:29.559 --> 0:13:33.280 what happened. Yeah, I mean, look, that's the essence of capitalism, right. 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:38.040 Markets systematically hunt down and kill any sort of weakness. 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:41.240 So if you're you have weakness in any form the 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:46.360 full extent of any capital cycle, right if it's allowed 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:48.760 to happen, which again, the FED is sort of this 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:52.480 sort of put a pause on normal cycles in some senses. Right, 0:13:52.480 --> 0:13:56.280 we're supposed to suspend disbelief and believe that bowl markets 0:13:56.280 --> 0:13:58.000 can go on forever with no interruption. But in a 0:13:58.080 --> 0:14:00.920 typical cycle, all of the week as players at some 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:04.040 point get taken out. When times are good, right, you 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:06.679 can get away with all kinds of shenanigans, But as 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:08.440 soon as the tide goes out, you find out who's 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:11.640 swimming naked. And I think that's what happened with Tara Luna, right, 0:14:11.679 --> 0:14:13.760 Like it was a weak system. It was sort of 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:16.480 designed to fail from the beginning, and so it only 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:21.280 took uh one powerful actor who identified the risk in 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:23.080 that system and put a little bit of pressure. You 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:24.840 just lean a little bit on the weakest part of 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:27.440 that system, and the whole thing collapses. Um, and you know, 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:30.400 Japan's in a tough spot. I mean, the yen actually 0:14:30.480 --> 0:14:33.200 used to be a safety trade. If you remember, back 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:35.840 in the last financial crisis, last major one, people bought 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:38.960 the yet and it actually went up, uh you know, 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:41.920 over a five or ten year period recently. Now they've 0:14:41.960 --> 0:14:43.360 got to print a lot of you and just to 0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:45.800 protect their bond market, and their bond market may go 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:48.640 down before our bond market. And obviously we have huge 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:50.840 advantages in terms of being the global reserve currency that 0:14:50.840 --> 0:14:53.320 they don't have. But we'll see what happens there. I 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:56.560 actually hope that that doesn't happen because I think it'll 0:14:56.640 --> 0:15:00.200 end up being bad for everybody. Yeah, well, I I 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:02.120 think it's inevitable. I mean, it's it's only a matter 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:04.480 of time. It's it's uh, I think more um if, 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:07.560 I'm sorry, more when not if? But back to back 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:09.440 to kind of the crypto space a little bit. So 0:15:09.480 --> 0:15:12.000 obviously Terry Luna got taken down. You know, you said 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:14.560 it's a capitalism doing this thing, which which it is, 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:19.160 and um, I agree with that. I'm not super happy 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:22.480 about it because, like you know, some rich Wall Street 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:25.800 guy made an extra couple of bucks and he ruined 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:28.720 the life of a lot of people. But that's that's capitalism. 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:31.360 It's more, it's it's not their fault. Don't hate the player, 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:33.400 hate the game, right, it's the game that enables them 0:15:33.440 --> 0:15:36.000 to play that. Um, it's this fiat money system and 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:38.320 it's the FED behind them that's enabled them to get 0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:39.840 to this point, and so I think we have to 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:43.840 put the blame where the blame is due. Um. But uh, 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:47.040 you know, back to Celsius. You know, they they froze Withdraws, 0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:49.720 which was kind of the death kneel. Right. They were 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:51.880 getting a run on the bank, which is always going 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:54.280 to happen when you're overleveraged. It's kind of like the 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:56.440 free banking era that we had in the late eighteen 0:15:56.480 --> 0:15:58.760 hundreds of the United States. Right, each of these banks 0:15:58.760 --> 0:16:00.920 were over levered. There wasn't enough mone me there. Um 0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:03.120 they had they had to they had to shut down 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:05.680 with Draws. Um. Have you seen did you see this 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:07.800 week they started getting a little short squeeze. They were 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:11.080 trying to organize a rally on the cell token. Yeah. 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:13.040 I mean there's a guy named the Real plan C 0:16:13.880 --> 0:16:16.880 who is an influencer on Twitter or a hundred thousand 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:20.440 plus followers, who told everybody it was safe to use 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:23.640 uh Celsius. Up until the last moment. There were other 0:16:23.640 --> 0:16:27.480 influencers like this invest answers guy who literally had Maschinsky 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:30.480 on days before the withdraw all shut down, basically giving 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:33.920 him a platform to continue to spew all kinds of 0:16:34.080 --> 0:16:39.640 potentially definitely misrepresentations but potentially fraudulent misrepresentations about the state 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:43.480 of the platform to customers, and so that's that's bad stuff. 0:16:43.560 --> 0:16:46.680 These same people who um did that are now trying 0:16:46.680 --> 0:16:49.800 to organize a short squeeze on an essentially worthless token, 0:16:50.720 --> 0:16:52.840 which is fine, that's the free market too, But like 0:16:52.880 --> 0:16:55.080 the token has nothing to do with whether or not 0:16:55.800 --> 0:16:57.640 people are gonna get their money back. So I'm really 0:16:57.640 --> 0:17:01.520 more focused on the underlying solve and see and liquidity 0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:05.399 issues experienced by the corporate entity Celsius network, and whether 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:07.359 or not the sort of half a million or so 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:10.720 depositors into that institution ever see any of their money back. 0:17:10.800 --> 0:17:13.919 My current view is unless there is a bailout, unless 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:16.240 there's some sort of acquisition of all of the assets 0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:19.439 and liabilities of Celsius, that it almost certainly will go 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:23.360 into Chapter eleven over the next call it a month 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:25.200 or two, and then it will take at least a 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:28.520 year to start distributing assets to the underlying customers. That's 0:17:28.560 --> 0:17:30.240 what I'm focused on. I think the short squeezes a 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:33.480 total side show. Yeah, I would agree, and uh, you 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:36.320 know that that sounds like the most probable outcome. Right, 0:17:36.359 --> 0:17:38.040 they've already brought on the people to kind of help 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:41.480 that wind down. I think there's a difference of money 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:44.359 they had in custody versus money that was being earning yield, 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:46.440 so then they'll probably get divided up between that a 0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:49.480 little bit better. Um, there's a chance there's a chance 0:17:49.520 --> 0:17:50.919 you might get some of your money back. I wouldn't 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:52.359 hold your breath, but there's a chance it might be 0:17:52.359 --> 0:17:55.080 pennies on the dollar. Um, we'll see how that shakes out. 0:17:55.280 --> 0:17:57.080 I want to talk more about this block fine this 0:17:57.119 --> 0:17:59.160 credit from ft X. I think that's kind of interesting. 0:17:59.280 --> 0:18:00.760 I want to talk about in a minute. I'm in 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:03.800 the studio with Mike Alfred. You can find him at 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:05.760 Mike Alfred on Twitter. You listen to the Mark Mo 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:09.400 Show talking about bitcoin and the decentralized Revolution. Be back 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:11.680 with that and more in a minute, So don't go away, 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:13.879 we'll be right back, all right, Welcome back. You are 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:16.600 listening to the Mark Mo Show talking about bitcoin. We're 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:19.959 talking about cryptocurrencies, we're talking about the decentralized Revolution, and 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:22.600 I am in the studio with Mike Alfred. You can 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:24.760 find them on Twitter. At Mike Alfred and we've been 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:29.160 talking about, you know, the capitalistic system, how the FED 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:31.840 kept things too low too long, and we ended up 0:18:31.840 --> 0:18:34.159 here and some of the damna is being done in 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:38.119 the cryptocurrency space. We were talking about Celsius. Uh, maybe 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:40.320 maybe someone gets some of their pennies back. We'll see 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:42.920 what happens with that. But with Block five, maybe they're 0:18:42.920 --> 0:18:45.080 in the same boat. Of course, the problem with all 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:47.560 these companies is we don't know. When I was at 0:18:47.760 --> 0:18:49.680 the Bitcoin conference in Miami a couple of months ago, 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:52.400