Ep 39 - March 5, 2025 - National Crypto Reserve
Welcome to another episode of the weekly crypto check-in recorded on March 2025. I'm your host, Robert Sorthal, and I'm doing with my cohost, Andrei Sandate. How's it going, Andrei?
Andres Sandate:Hey, Robert. Good. I'm, mobile today. So, hopefully, you can, see and hear me okay, everybody listening and watching. But, man, whether I was, sitting behind a desk or on the run, talk about a crazy week it's been.
Robert Swarthout:Crazy in some sense is a major understatement. I, you know, I I don't know why I'm surprised, but crypto is continuously surprising me these days with how volatile it is or just kind of the news cycle and how quick and kind of, in some sense, off cycle it can be. We can you know, we'll talk about something that happened at 10:30 on a Sunday morning. There's not many, major market news things that happen at 10:30 on Sundays. But, in crypto, that is apparently not off limits.
Robert Swarthout:So, so let's jump in here. Our first topic, just generally volatility. The last week has been pretty pretty intense. You know, if you measure it from just, like, looking at Bitcoin, Bitcoin started the week, Sunday the twenty third, and then finishing March, at 94,000 in both ends. But it was also down and rallied 20% in the middle of that.
Robert Swarthout:It's just crazy, crazy, crazy numbers.
Andres Sandate:Yeah. I mean, I think the big announcement, Sunday that you, referred to, I was in Florida with my family, and we were at I think we were at Disney. Mhmm. And or maybe in between going to another event in Miami on Sunday. And this, announcement comes out across, you know, x or Twitter or True Social that, you know, president Trump announced the formation of a strategic, you know, crypto reserve, which is our second headline.
Andres Sandate:But that, you know, quickly, was led by a follow-up around what was gonna be in the reserve. So that added to Yeah. It was already a pretty volatile week, you know, announcing that on Sunday. Just added to additional, you know, pipe and and and support, and then, you know, Monday, whipsawed back down. Right.
Andres Sandate:So
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. And that's really just following the the broader market and just the topic or, the conversation around tariffs. But, you know, I I kinda zoomed out a little bit and found someone that had done a little bit of research on in our last bull market cycles, kinda what have been some draw downs that Bitcoin has experienced. And, I mean, this is kinda like right on par. If anything, it's on the smaller side of draw downs.
Robert Swarthout:There was a draw down in 2021 of 55%. This was just at 20%. You've had some '20 fives, 37, different numbers. So, you know, crypto is volatile. I think everyone already knows that, but it it just kind of crazy to kinda see how it, shakes out sometimes and how quickly it can happen.
Robert Swarthout:I mean, normally, it's not within a week's time span. You you make a round trip, but this one seems to be there. And, you know, if if you're really asking my opinion, it feels like those that quote, unquote control the market, when air quotes there, they are, trying to bleed people out and get them just to be disinterested. It feels like we're preparing for next leg up. Again, I don't know as much of a projection there is this that's just the way it feels right now.
Robert Swarthout:It it's it's super boring price action, followed by some down and back up, and then it's just you you feel like you're kind of treading water of sorts.
Andres Sandate:Yeah. I mean, I think we talked about this last Friday in our weekly, crypto update that the market the the equity market, the prior six, seven Fridays, the Friday session, you know, it was a risk off day. And so you had a lot of, positions that were exited, and you saw pricing and or, you know, stocks basically have down days on Fridays. Well, this particular Friday, a couple days ago, the market was up, you know, and a lot of it is, like you said, fed by what what is, our, you know, trade policy gonna be tariffs, you know, are we doing tariffs or we not? And that continues today.
Andres Sandate:So I think as we continue to see how, you know, things shake out from a, an economic standpoint with respect to tariffs. The market's got a lot to digest, and crypto is, you know, in some sense, along for the ride. And in other sense, you know, you throw in announcements like, you know, number two, and it just adds, additional, you know, things to the to the stomach that have to be digested.
Robert Swarthout:Right. And, you know, I guess we can just jump into number two here. So, you know, 10:30 Sunday morning, Trump tweeted that he was, directing, you know, his administration to set up a crypto reserve that was, consisted of XRP, Solana, and 88. That was the first tweet. He put on his truth well, message he put on truth social.
Robert Swarthout:It was void of Bitcoin or Ethereum. So it's like, okay. Is this only gonna be an altcoin thing? It was kinda confusing, exciting, kinda weird. You know, it's like that wasn't the narrative the entire time.
Robert Swarthout:And then I think roughly in thirty minutes to an hour later, he followed up and saying, oh, and I also love Bitcoin and Ethereum a lot, and they will be included as well. Okay. So you have a basket of five. So now you're back to this world where essentially the Bitcoin maximalist, the ones that only want Bitcoin to be in a reserve, think everyone everything else is, like, trash and shouldn't be there. And why would the government ever invest in trash?
Robert Swarthout:Bitcoins, you know, pure in their mind. This is the true definition of maximalism. And it's just it just kind of started that infighting again. I I there's a lot of questions still in the air like, is, is the government truly gonna do this? A, I think that's that's the first big question.
Robert Swarthout:And assuming it does, how are they gonna how are they gonna acquire these? You know, the government does hold a decent amount of Bitcoin, from seizures of, different crimes. Not as much Ethereum or any of these really, in meaningful ways the other ones. So it's like, are they gonna go out in the open market and buy it or just how it's all gonna shake out. So which we will get to in our third topic here, the crypto summit.
Robert Swarthout:I think we start to get some answers here this Friday about this kind of stuff, but it's a, it's a wild wild west out there in crypto land when it comes to, a president tweeting about this stuff on a Sunday morning.
Andres Sandate:Yeah. Yeah. For sure. And I think we brought this up maybe two or three weeks ago. You know, the tweet that I referenced in that show was the idea somebody had, offered up was, you know, this is becoming more and more of a centralized game.
Andres Sandate:And, you know, the folks that have, lobbying and have influence and have the ear of, you know, Eric Trump or president Trump or both, are the ones that are gonna prevail, and the ones that don't are gonna be, you know, somewhat left behind. I mean, I'm kind of, I'm sort of conjecture a little bit. But but I think that second tweet is an example of, right, somebody rushed in and said, wait. You know, you gotta include an announcement here because you're leaving behind all these people that have Right. All this Bitcoin, including right?
Andres Sandate:Don't forget, like, the asset managers that have launched, you know, Bitcoin ETFs. Like, what are we supposed to do there? So it again, it's a little bit of, you know, you're flying the jet, if you will, like, midair and, you know, trying to see, like, did we, you know, check the wheels? I'm, you know, I'm not making light of this because this is, you know, people's livelihoods and there's jobs and there's, you know, a lot of money and a lot of, you know, smart people, like, tied in. But I went back and looked to see, like, who is this bit Bitcoin maximalist?
Andres Sandate:Like, who are these folks? Right? And then Right. You don't have to look very hard out there in, you know, on x to see, like, okay. The Winklevoss twins.
Andres Sandate:Right? They come out and say a lot of these things do not meet the standard, of what, you know, Bitcoin does, which is, you know, from their perspective, Bitcoin is effectively digital gold. It's got utility. That's its utility. It's an inflationary, currency or inflationary security, and and everything else doesn't meet it yet until you can offer up, like, a practical use case.
Andres Sandate:So, again, I think it's for me my takeaway on all this is, you know, I just wanna put, like, something real behind the headline or behind the tweet. I wanna get to the second and third and fourth layer. So what is what is your background? Why do you have that position? What are you promoting?
Andres Sandate:What are you what's your agenda? And then try to make sense of it, right, for myself. Like, that's just how I kinda think about it.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. And I think you're right there. I mean, it's in some ways, it's just kinda fascinating to stand back and watch, like, you know, the Bitcoin crowd is so defensive of this reserve, partially because I feel like this is like their last hill to stand and die on, and fight for because their likelihood to have utility outside of any sort of, like, digital gold narrative is just basically zero. So, like, they're really defensive of this topic. Where are these some of these other altcoins, yes, they would likely love to be in the reserve, but at the end of the day, they they're after a much bigger prize in my opinion.
Robert Swarthout:Trying to get utility in real, you know, real usage of it. That will drive the price of these more so than a reserve, inclusion. So Right. It's, it's pretty Yeah.
Andres Sandate:I mean, it's news that, it it's it's definitely news that, is gonna continue to create headlines. Right? So we don't have answers. Therefore, our listeners don't have, right, a whole lot, you know, new from us. But, I mean, our role here is to try to to take the headlines, offer a little bit of perspective.
Andres Sandate:Again, we don't own Bitcoin, but I think that the idea is it was a tweet. It got a lot of traction. The market reacted. We're gonna see what is next. Right?
Andres Sandate:We'll get some more answers, hopefully, like you said, leading into our third headline. Friday, you know, a couple days from today, the seventh, is gonna be this big crypto summit in DC. Right? So you had David Sachs announced as the crypto czar for president Trump's transition slash White House. Mhmm.
Andres Sandate:And instead of having a task force go out there and sort of do their research, get get in get information, get insights, and come back to the president and or the working group with answers, instead, they did what?
Robert Swarthout:They, they're probably gonna catch up because the president kind of either but they already knew what they're gonna do or he basically told them what they're gonna do this last Sunday. One of the two.
Andres Sandate:Yeah. So so do you have any insight on this summit? Like, where is it being held? Who got who got a ticket? Like, how are they gonna go about, like, using eight or ten hours, you know, in DC besides the photo op at the end?
Andres Sandate:Like, how are they gonna actually get to work, and what what do you expect that comes out of this summit?
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. I what I I will get to that. One quick thing I wanna say about this whole, crypto reserve, piece. The new at least the new cycle around it. So that was Sunday morning at 10:30.
Robert Swarthout:What I found really interesting is on Twitter, you started seeing rumblings that something was gonna happen with regards to Bitcoin and Ethereum, people thought, because around 07:30 Saturday evening, so call it, fifteen hours prior, a a crypto trader took $4,000,000 of capital and went 50 x long leverage on those two, and basically turned 4,000,000 into 10 and a half million, after after the new cycle and closed it out. So there there was some insider trading here. In crypto, that is technically not illegal right now. But it's just this stuff being on the blockchain and, a lot of this data being a little bit more, out in the open than it might be in private market or something in traditional markets, was, sad to see but also entertaining. I like, you know, I guess, good on this person for taking advantage of something that's technically not illegal.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah.
Andres Sandate:So they went out, bought bought, basically made a a a derivative or options trade saying Yes. I'm I'm thinking Ethereum and x y z like Bitcoin are ultimately going to be included?
Robert Swarthout:It wasn't necessarily even a bet about being the reserve. It was just they went 50 x long leverage on Bitcoin and Ethereum, for a total of $4,000,000. So basically a $200,000,000 position. And, they they they knew the right time to put that on, and they knew the right time to take it off. And those are the two most important pieces.
Andres Sandate:Well, it'd be fascinating sixty minutes story or whoever could do that piece on who's that individual, who's behind them, where they get the news, you know, where they tipped off. But, yeah, we would be Yeah. We'd be we'd be in conspiracy land, real quick, and we've got headlines to cover. So
Robert Swarthout:Yes. More to come on
Andres Sandate:the crypto reserve. A lot of unanswered questions.
Robert Swarthout:Yep. So we're jumping back to the summit here, before we get way off track. So the crypto summit, as you mentioned, is happening Friday. It's happening in DC. It's a rather small group, is my understanding.
Robert Swarthout:Sounds like a dozen or so invites, have gone out or going out. Seems like kinda late for an invite to go out, but I know as of yesterday morning, like, essentially or maybe it was Monday evening, none of them had gone out. So it's kind of a bit of a last minutes, I guess, invite list. So that's going out. And then after they have their summit, whatever that means, I think it's the number of hours, only because it's a full day.
Robert Swarthout:There's apparently a, a gathering across the street is the way I've heard it described, which is with a much bigger group being allowed to come. But it's a, you know, part of what we are hoping comes out of the sum is details around this reserve. Kinda what is what is is it gonna be market cap weighted? Is it gonna be equal weighted? Like, how are they gonna decide what the ratios are?
Robert Swarthout:So you have that. And just generally, like, how are they gonna acquire these? There wasn't, Howard Lutnick, made a comment that I found pretty fascinating. And it my first gut reaction, I'll share you in a second, but his point was Bitcoin is unique. The other crypto tokens will be treated differently, positively, but differently.
Robert Swarthout:Okay. You can take that all sorts of different ways. My official my my first gut reaction was, okay. Bitcoin being handled differently means and how how could that be? Well, they currently the government currently holds, some Bitcoin as part of the stuff they've seized.
Robert Swarthout:So maybe that's the differently part, and that means the other ones they have to go and buy or, you know, I don't know. We hopefully, we find get some news on the the seventh and, don't have to wait till the following week, to get any sort of, I guess,
Andres Sandate:I'm just yeah. I guess, you know, for me, like, one of the big questions is, like, two weeks ago, we were talking about this task force and summit. If you go back to, you know, even a week ago almost, but, like, certainly leading up to the election in November, and this is not me harping on, you know, the administration or Trump. This is just me as an optimist looking for, you know, momentum around legislation, momentum around stablecoin bill, momentum around, like, a framework. And, yes, there's been a lot of things that have happened, in terms of cases, and we'll talk about that later in in the conversation around the SEC and and a lot of stuff that's been dropped as far as lawsuits.
Andres Sandate:But what I was really optimistic is that, you know, going into the end of the first quarter again, things take time. We'll see. But I was optimistic that these, I guess, these summits and this task force is gonna be, like, out there really meeting with legislators and trying to present, you know, legislation and, you know, help us get regulation. Now I feel like the whole community, the whole industry is fighting over winners and losers and who's gonna get, you know, to feed at the trough, if you will. And Right.
Andres Sandate:I just it's it's gonna create a lot of infighting in an industry that is still trying to grasp with and digest, honestly, like, the latest hack that happened, you know, two weeks ago.
Robert Swarthout:Ten days ago.
Andres Sandate:People got in that hole, but it's like, why how quickly the ball, you know, moved and our attention shifted. But
Robert Swarthout:Yeah.
Andres Sandate:It it is the nature of our industry, and it is the nature of crypto today. So, yeah, I would be shocked if they came out and said something at the presser that, yeah, we spent three hours talking about stable coins. Nobody wants to hear that at this point. Yeah. No.
Andres Sandate:You know? Like, that's, yeah, that's yesterday, and that's boring, and that's lawmaking. Everybody wants to hear about, like, this reserve and what's what's gonna happen, who's in, who's out, how do you get in, how does it work. You know? And it's, it I don't know.
Andres Sandate:There's a part of me that's a little bit frustrated and disappointed in that.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. And I listen. I'm totally with you. And the part that I would say makes me nervous about this reserve, but it puts me on edge a little bit is
Andres Sandate:say say
Robert Swarthout:it goes forward with these five assets they talk about. Okay. There's probably some other US based reserve, assets that probably should be included, but, like, what is the threshold to be included? Okay. We'll get that defined.
Robert Swarthout:But if all these are just really around an executive order, in four years from now, we could have a different president thinking very differently about crypto and also change it all. Like, it needs to be codified in law if we're really gonna do this. So it it it so it's harder for it to be at the whim of a political wind, in my opinion. So Yeah. We have a lot of work to do
Andres Sandate:Well, think about it this way, Nick. If if yes. I think about it this way. This is get my head around it. If if I'm the oil and gas industry, right, and presidents come and go, you know, four years, eight years, whatever, come back into office now with president Trump coming back in for a second term.
Andres Sandate:If you stake your company and the future of your business and the the decades long capital requirements and outlays in that business, like, you don't just go, you know, put a million dollars in the ground in an offshore rig and then, you know, you you you know, you go do it again somewhere multi decade long kind of investments that involve governments and then involve geopolitical issues and and, honestly, are much bigger than a four year, eight year term. And so I think crypto has to start thinking like that. I think crypto has to start thinking about, like to your point, Robert, like, okay. So what if we were part of this? Are we gonna better our whole company and our whole future, around being included?
Andres Sandate:Or are we gonna therefore pack up if we're not included? I just think this is gonna tell us as an industry and people that follow this space or invest in this space, it's gonna tell us a lot over the next, you know, three to six, nine, twelve months, however long it takes to say, is this another idea and there's not a lot of execution? Or if if you are not included, does that mean, you know, you're not anointed and therefore, you know, pack up your bags and, you know, go overseas? I don't know. But a lot a lot a lot of questions.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. And, you know, I guess to that point, we're getting a few answers right now that are creating more questions than they're answering.
Andres Sandate:Sure. For certainty. Yeah. Yeah.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. It's it's it's not fun.
Andres Sandate:Well, we'll we'll report next week on what we learned from the summit because, obviously, there's gonna be something that comes out of it.
Robert Swarthout:So Yeah. One would hope. So our next topic here is the rescinding or the the, upcoming rescension of the, broker dealer rule, which is a big was a big deal for crypto. Yeah. So this is being, sponsored and supported by Ted Cruz and representative Mike Carey.
Robert Swarthout:But, basically, eleven hour attack on crypto, that happened at the end of the Biden administration. Trying to make it hard for, basically, this crypto to exist because the reporting rules around, that didn't really match the technology, and people that were wallet software, providers were also thinking they were gonna have to report to to the treasury, which seemed kinda crazy. So, this is in in some ways, just more of the cleanup that's happening. We're gonna talk about the SEC next. They're cleaning up their side.
Robert Swarthout:There's there's this, you know, the tide is going out from all this, I guess, again, in the war that happened over the last four years against this industry.
Andres Sandate:So And, you know, the thing about this headline is it's like look at us. It's it's our fourth headline. Right? And yet, if we'd looked at this headline three months ago, you know, it would have been the top headline had it happened alone without everything else going on. So, I think, you know, I guess the takeaway and the punchline for me on this is, you know, don't, you know, don't forget to read, you know, page two of the news.
Andres Sandate:Don't forget to read page three because a lot of this stuff has huge ramifications Right. As the as an industry, you know, gets its footing, and, you know, becomes more and more like a part of our daily financial lives. So Yeah. Yeah. You know, big deal.
Robert Swarthout:The the part that I liked about this one, just the way how it came about was not necessarily the topic, but this was a topic that doubled crypto. And and it was a tweet by David Sacks, the cryptos are saying this is this bill is coming and this is why it's important and the White House supports it. Like, totally the way that you would wanna see this news come up. You don't see it leaking out, and some person say, no. I think this is coming.
Robert Swarthout:Like, this was, in some ways, handled far better than Trump's Sunday morning tweet, about a reserve because that that tweet obviously wasn't thought out because it was missing some of the assets, the initial one at least. So anyways,
Andres Sandate:I don't think we have to talk about it. You're absolutely point point well taken. I mean, there's a little bit of signaling here and it's probably a little bit of, there's a little bit of a pipeline, a lead in, and some work some groundwork that was laid. I mean, obviously, you know, crypto's experience, the meme coins between president Trump and first lady Melania Trump, that was, you know, whipsaw, then you get the whipsaw tweet. Right?
Andres Sandate:So, I mean, just buckle up and strap it in, drop it on, whatever you wanna call it because Yeah. You know, we we are I think as an economy in general, we're just in for a period of you just you know, what was true a year ago or what was true for decades may not be true tomorrow. And that's a maximum that we should all certainly invest by and live by for a period of time as far as our our portfolios are concerned.
Robert Swarthout:Yep. Agreed. So moving on, our next topic is just kind of following up on what we talked about last week and the week before, but the SEC continues to drop cases. Drop of a sometimes drop, sometimes rescind, sometimes just decide not to move forward with, because they weren't even truly cases yet. They were just more of a Wells notice.
Robert Swarthout:In this case, they dropped, their their cracking case with prejudice, so they can't bring it back, which seems to be the the the method that is happening here. Most of them are prejudiced, which is more telling than anything else. It's like, okay. We really screwed up here. We're sorry, and we're saying we never can do this again.
Robert Swarthout:Obviously, if you break the law, we're gonna talk to you, but in these cases, they weren't breaking the law. They were also, had a case against, Hex is a crypto, token against the founder of that. They've dropped that case. That was interesting to me because I actually thought there was fraud in that case. Either they decided it wasn't worth the battle or there truly wasn't fraud.
Robert Swarthout:And then the other one that I will mention here is ConsenSys. That's the, the company that sits outside of Ethereum that basically is the big promoter of Ethereum that Joe Lubin, one of the founders of Ethereum, owns and runs. So, you know, big cleanup. Again, the one that everyone is still waiting for is the Ripple, case. And from the things I've seen, it looks like it's not gonna be this week or next week.
Robert Swarthout:It's probably gonna be in April time frame type situation because it sounds like behind the scenes, potentially, Ripple is fighting, to have a lot of the stuff unwound that was in that. So they're pushing harder, and potentially asking the court to make a decision on it, the first person, the SEC. So we'll see. I think that you see obviously, XRP would probably move when that news comes, but more specific, I think the market kinda gets a better reaction when they know that one is out of the way because that was the big one, the one that had gone the furthest and also had a judgment. So
Andres Sandate:Yeah. Well, I I you you're so dialed in on on the XRP Ripple story. I'm I'm a baseball guy, baseball coach, baseball fan, and so I'm I'm gonna equate the Ripple SCC to Pete Rose. Right? He's back in the news, the late Pete Rose.
Andres Sandate:This is the Pete Rose judgment. Right? Like, does he ultimately get into the hall of fame? Does he ultimately, you know, have his lifetime ban rescinded? You You know, there's a lot of people, including president Trump, who announced that, yes, he should.
Andres Sandate:He should be in the hall of fame. As a baseball guy, this is you know, that that's a case you're paying attention to. Right? Because, you know, Cooperstown and being in the hall of fame, they're totally different. They're totally different issues.
Andres Sandate:But in a way, the whole industry is kinda waiting to see what happens with Ripple, what happens with that case. We've talked about it for years. A lot of people paid attention to it. So, yeah, we're I think we're gonna find out this year on both of them.
Robert Swarthout:That would that would be, crazy. I I've followed the Pete Rose thing a little bit, but not nearly as much as you have. So that'll be
Andres Sandate:Well, here's the one thing I'll say about president Trump. You know, if you like him or you don't like him, politics aside, he's gonna bring the issue to the forefront. There's gonna be a decision. Right? They're they're they're we're gonna get a decision on Pete Rose, and we're gonna get a decision on Ripple.
Andres Sandate:People may not like what they hear and answer, but there's gonna be, you know, there's gonna be a decision. So
Robert Swarthout:Yep. Very very much indeed. So next topic, staying with the SEC, is they gave guidance on meme coins. We'll just step back here. The SEC is giving guidance on anything.
Robert Swarthout:We haven't said those words for four years. Crazy? Yeah.
Andres Sandate:Yeah. This is real. This is not a fake podcast.
Robert Swarthout:And this is not the first thing that I would have thought they would give guidance on. But it this starts to overlap and Trump and Trump, launching his meme coin, the Trump token, Melania token, and this all the other things that have happened the last, two and a half months. Of course. Yeah. Absolutely.
Robert Swarthout:But the SEC came out and basically likened them to be, collectibles, not securities. So the SEC is basically washing their hands of it and saying, okay. Good luck. Is part of their letter that they wrote. They said meme coins also typically have limited or no use or functionality.
Robert Swarthout:So they're basically saying these these are in the crypto terms shit coins, and we we don't have anything to do with it. So it's, I I think everyone agrees with this, but to see the SEC do this was, a little bit, entertaining.
Andres Sandate:Yeah. I mean, look, there there's the there's there's the jaded side of me that could react and and give my opinions, and then there's the, like, the news side of me and, like, the the sort of the objective. Right? Like, people join our show and listen hopefully to get, like, reaction to news headlines. I think what this does do is it is it it does give clarification to to people out there who are investing in Meme Coins thinking that they are gonna get information.
Andres Sandate:They're gonna get financials. They're gonna get all this stuff that a security, you know, is kind of expected to provide or at least disclosures. They ain't getting that shit. Mhmm. They're not they're not gonna get it.
Andres Sandate:The sponsor is not required to provide it. So, like, literally, it's a clarifying point buyer beware. You know, you you you you could, may, and and history repeats itself regarding many of these coins. Like, the bottom could fall out.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. And and likely will is helpful.
Andres Sandate:That is likely helpful because, you know, I'm studying and doing the CFP program right now, and they talk about collectibles. They talk about art. They talk about all these things in the same breath that they talk about stocks and bonds. And so I'm like, are we revising the material here and gonna be talking about meme coins, you know, alongside all this other stuff? That's that's the reality.
Andres Sandate:The other part of me is just like, you know, the jaded side is like, this just gives air cover to all those people who wanted to go after Trump for the meme coins, and now you can't. Like like, you can't because they're not securities. Right? So it just it's it's complex. It's more than just a headline, but I do think it does provide, you know, sort of a black and white issue, a lot more clarity than we got, you know, three months ago, two months ago.
Robert Swarthout:Agreed.
Andres Sandate:So I'm fascinated about this one, though. Eric Trump telegraphing the next move. So tell me more.
Robert Swarthout:Yes. So Eric Trump tweeted on the February. He said buy the dips, and the b for buys was the Bitcoin b. So the the market was quite down that week. Last week, we've talked about this.
Robert Swarthout:It was down 20%. That was near the lows for the week. So he said buy the dips. Somebody, replied to that tweet, on March, so, Monday, saying never fade Eric Trump. And his reply to that was, you're welcome, my friend.
Robert Swarthout:Hopefully, I made someone's life a little bit better. Now my advice, hold long term. So it's like Oh my. Yes. Like, again, we don't have insider trading laws or encrypt of it.
Robert Swarthout:Boy, does this does this smell of, like, he is talking to his dad or he has some kind of end somewhere. Like, it is not a good look for crypto. This is not a good look.
Andres Sandate:Yeah. My reaction to that, Robert, is, you know, what they say about, I think it was Buffett or Munger, you know, that said, you know, when when you see it regarding, you know, certain types of magazines and certain, you know, video, you know it when you see it. Like Yeah. That's that's what this is. I mean, come on.
Andres Sandate:Like, let's not be naive. Again, not breaking the law.
Robert Swarthout:Right.
Andres Sandate:But doesn't doesn't necessarily, you know, mean it's a good look for, the industry and a good look for, you know, legitimizing, I guess, in a sense the industry. But but let's peel back on the headline itself. So Eric Trump, one of the two sons well, he's got multiple sons, but, you know, one of the older two sons. Has he become the crypto, I guess, the crypto community's like this is the this is the whisper this is the the whisper to the president?
Robert Swarthout:Yes. He and and he is definitely the one that most plugged in on crypto when it comes to the Suns. Okay. Don Junior, whoever wants a while, tweet about it, but it's more so, Eric. Eric is also, I believe, the one that is leading, or the CEO of World Liberty Financial, the their crypto start up that they've done.
Robert Swarthout:Okay. So I don't know. It's for for a family that cares so much about brand, you think that this was probably not the best thing to do that would be, like, positive for your brand. Right. I don't know.
Robert Swarthout:I it they obviously didn't ask me for brand advice.
Andres Sandate:Well, he'll be at the crypto summit. He's obviously tied in with what's going on with Sachs. You gotta think that they have each other, you know, regularly in communication. You know, president Trump does not like surprises. Right.
Andres Sandate:Most leaders don't like surprises. Right? So there's gotta be open lines of communication about what's happening. The yeah. I mean, the interesting thing about it is this industry moves so quickly.
Andres Sandate:If you're gonna have somebody, you know, out there representing the family or representing the brand, like, they've gotta be pretty plugged in to what's going on. Right? They've gotta be responsive to tweets because things move so quick. So maybe he's the right person, you know, for this particular role. So, fascinating stuff.
Robert Swarthout:Yep. So our last topic here, was news actually as of this morning. So there's a new, nonprofit that is being set up called the National Crypto Cryptocurrency Association. They're they literally are calling NCA out of the gate. And it's just all about educating the public on how crypto could be used and all the things around it.
Robert Swarthout:I don't know if it's multiple companies that came together to endow this, but I know that Ripple, at least by themselves, came in and put $50,000,000 of an endowment. And it's quite quite the stand up of a nonprofit to begin with. Ripple's chief legal officer will be acting as the president of this association. And I don't think that this is just a coincidence that it's happening today, and then there's the crypto summit, on Friday. I think that there's definitely some at least some dotted lines between these two.
Andres Sandate:Interesting. You know, the NCA, as you're describing this, I'm thinking is gonna be backed by some of the big players in the industry who you know, the Coinbase's of the world. Right? The BlackRock. They they wanna provide education to further legitimize this and help the public, right, get up to speed on it.
Andres Sandate:Yes.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. You know, but there's so, you know, I didn't check the last hour before we started recording here, but there was not tons of news around it, but some news. And, the dotted line there is Brad Garlinghouse has said that he will be in DC this week. I don't think it's just for this. My guess would be it is it is for that summit, that we will hopefully be getting news from on Friday.
Robert Swarthout:So
Andres Sandate:Yeah.
Robert Swarthout:Awesome. Well
Andres Sandate:Really, really fascinating stuff. Well, I'm gonna say it here first live on our podcast that, I am filing today the NAIA. It's a new association. It's gonna be called the National Alternative Investment Association, and I am looking for my first fifty million dollar sponsor.
Robert Swarthout:That's that's why. You should get out of the game, get get ahead of everyone else wanting to do that.
Andres Sandate:Gotta get ahead of everybody. Everybody wants to be in alts in private markets, and we need an association for it. So let's go. Awesome. Well, man, what a week what a what a week of headlines.
Andres Sandate:I, you know, I can't wait to see what comes out of the summit on Friday. You know, this is gonna be a fun, you know, crypto update every week because, whether we liked it or not, you know, I did I did feel like we droned on last, you know, last year and had to because we couldn't get any development around, you know, what was the Biden administration's posture? We're gonna get any closure? Was the SEC gonna ever do any do anything, do their job? And, man, how much it's changed in, you know, a matter of weeks?
Robert Swarthout:Absolutely. Well, thanks for joining us on this episode of the weekly crypto check-in. To stay updated in future episodes, you can find us in any podcast player by searching Teton Crypto Capital or the weekly crypto check-in. Take care.
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