Bitcoin BREAKOUT Could Be Just the Start - AI May Reallocate $50 TRILLION | Bill Barhydt

**Scott Melker** (0:00)
What if Bitcoin's biggest future use case isn't as an investment, but as the collateral layer for an entirely new financial system? Today, I'm talking with Bill Barhydt from Abra about Bitcoin's latest move.

**Bill Barhydt** (0:11)
You might get to like 85, and then you got to unwind the leverage again, and then maybe low 70s, and then maybe a methodical march to 100 or 110

**Scott Melker** (0:21)
Why thinks liquidity is turning?

**Bill Barhydt** (0:22)
Money's being put into the system, short-term rates are moving up, long-term rates are moving down, which is usually what you want to see for risk on assets.

**Scott Melker** (0:30)
And how ABRA is building yield-bearing assets that can become pristine collateral across crypto.

**Bill Barhydt** (0:34)
We've released USDAF, which is our yield-bearing stablecoin token. We're now testing BTCAF, which is the Bitcoin version of that. That gives us, for the first time in crypto's history, a cross-chain collateralized system where I can use all of that collateral for anything.

**Scott Melker** (0:53)
We also get into perpetual markets, tokenization, AI-managed portfolios, and why Bitcoin may ultimately sit underneath an AI-driven financial system. If Bill's right, the next phase of crypto looks very different from the last one. Let's go.
We've been sitting in the 60,000s here for seemingly ever, it's been purgatory, I think, and we finally get this massive move to the upside and sentiment seems to be shifting. And, you know, here we are, it's coming out of August, and things are looking a little bit better. So what's your take on this?

**Bill Barhydt** (1:44)
Yeah, look, so I think that it helps to understand, this is President Trump driven. And I don't, by President Trump driven, I don't mean the president said Bitcoin yesterday, so the price went up. I don't think that's what's happening. I think that the president has a belief that the United States needs to reestablish supremacy. Now, I don't think that's going to work, but there are tactics along the way that I think are good for risk on assets, in particular Bitcoin. And that's what we're seeing right now. And I'm happy to get into why I think that is, but the president's basically playing a big game of risk. And another move in that game yesterday came with, not yesterday, but over the last few days, with Besant basically saying, look, I'm going to flatten the yield curve, and I'm going to do it by basically raising short-term rates effectively by buying more bonds out of the long-term market using short-term debt at the expense of the dollar. And my favorite proxy for liquidity, it's very simple proxy, is the DXY. And the DXY is down 2%, I believe in the last couple of weeks. And that's a pretty good proxy for something's moving.
And I think the markets now believe that this administration is not going to stand by and allow rates to go to Valhalla.
Whether or not they can accomplish that with 40 trillion in debt is another story, but the market believes in the short-term that rates moving sharply higher out on the on the yield curve has been somewhat muted. I don't necessarily know if that's true, but I think that's the stated goal. And it's part of this bigger geopolitical game of risk that I believe Trump is playing, which all relates to Venezuela, Iran, interest rates, weaker dollar, oil.
It's to stave off the rise of the Chinese empire, which I don't know that he can do. But he's certainly going to give it the old college try, as they say, or as my grandfather would have said. So that's where I think we're at. And Bitcoin wins either way as a result.

**Scott Melker** (4:10)
Yeah. So I agree with you. I think the very specific catalyst, which happened on Wednesday, yesterday was the announcement from the Treasury. And then I think we just poured gas all over the fire with the incredible amount of open interest and leverage that was in the market, which sent it flying. And then Trump comes over the top on TV and says, strategic Bitcoin reserve, clarity, innovation, all the big catch and hyperliquid, of all things.

**Bill Barhydt** (4:38)
That was the surprise of the day, the fact that the president would mention a perpdex, which he probably has no idea really what it is, obviously.
But Selig said, hey, this is a big deal for the United States and we're missing the boat. Yeah, we should get into that. But-

**Scott Melker** (4:56)
Is there a prediction market on Donald Trump saying the word hyperliquid?

**Bill Barhydt** (5:01)
Right. In other words, he had a microphone here, and Barron saying, dad, I just put 100 on hyperliquid at 10.04. Can you say it by 10.03, please?