Bitcoin DROPS to $63K as the AI Trade Starts to Crack - Fed Next

**Scott Melker** (0:01)
Right, as we were getting excited about a Bitcoin breakout, price has dropped all the way back to $63,000. Many wondering why, likely because the AI trade is starting to crack and the market is holding its breath to hear the words of one stock puppet, Evan Warsh. But there's more interesting conversations to be had around what's happening in crypto. More we want to have interesting conversations, sometimes we let Tillman and Andrew talk, but more often we try to have a really smart guest. Today we've got Sid Powell from Maple Finance to join us. Let's go.
Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the lovely Lakeside Retreats, where I'm working summers now. This is in the Hamptons, I think. I'm going to go ahead and bring on our amazing panel right now. We got Andrew Tillman and Sid. Good morning, gentlemen. How are we?

**Andrew Tillman** (1:12)
That is not the Hamptons. Not even close.

**Sid Powell** (1:17)
It's like a Japanese palace.

**Andrew Tillman** (1:19)
Yeah, it's more like Bangkok or something. I don't know what's going on there.

**Scott Melker** (1:24)
My college roommate used to think it was very funny to ask people the capital of Thailand.

**Andrew Tillman** (1:30)
Of course, that's why I said it. I led you right into it. Led you right into it, buddy.

**SPEAKER_4** (1:35)
Bangkok.

**Andrew Tillman** (1:36)
Okay.

**Scott Melker** (1:38)
Hi, Sid.

**SPEAKER_4** (1:38)
Welcome to Tuesdays.

**Sid Powell** (1:41)
Hey, guys. Glad to be here.

**Scott Melker** (1:43)
Nice to have you. So I guess we can start with the market, but then I want to dig into more interesting things around what's happening with DeFi, Robinhood Chain and others. But we'd be remiss not to talk about these huge price moves that we've now gotten obsessed with from like 64 to 63
After the US closed, while Korea's Cosby plunges 10 percent. I don't want to break it. I was actually coming up with a joke for... I was just thinking about jokes for the Daily Wolf, and I'm going to show, I'll tell you guys a preview. I'm just going to show a squid game for the Korean stock market, because that's what it seems like over there.
So like, listen, there seems to be a lot of confusion in markets right now. And I'm actually kind of encouraged that Bitcoin is trading sideways amidst all this confusion, to be honest. One of those times when it feels like the bad news is no longer affecting the market. I kind of like that. Anyone can jump in.

**Andrew Tillman** (2:37)
Yeah, there is, you know, we look at the last cycle. The last cycle was just death and destruction, you know, very different than an exchange closing down quietly.
You had exchange personalities being perp walked, you know, into jails in different countries of the world, right? So very, very different place that we're in right now. You know, the reality is in the same way that Bitcoin isn't moving based on, you know, meaningful headlines, there's not a whole lot of volume in crypto right now, at least from a trading standpoint. That's the reason why.

**Scott Melker** (3:17)
The four of us doing it know there's actually nobody trading right now.

**Andrew Tillman** (3:19)
Yeah, right. So that's the reason why. That's the reason why you're not seeing big moves, right?
There's not a whole lot of people around trading at, you know, 2X, 3X, 10X, 100X leverage anymore. BitMEX is about to no longer exist.

**Scott Melker** (3:36)
And I think they were doing like, I think I read 600K volume a day right now or something as they're writing bitMEX, BitMark, Storage, Movement Labs. We're getting shutdowns now on a daily basis. But to your point, which I love, is that they're orderly wind downs. And like, well, I guess storage and movement are Chapter 11 bankruptcies, which does reek of last cycle. But these are not the like monumental collapses that we saw last time that threaten the very soul of the market. Just normal, like washed out, kind of the middle is getting rinsed and drained. I mean, like you're building in this space. I mean, what are you seeing kind of on that side?

**Tillman** (4:19)
Go ahead, Sid.

**Sid Powell** (4:20)
Sorry, was that for me?

**Scott Melker** (4:21)
Yeah, I was first heard by Tillman, thought his name was Sid.

**Sid Powell** (4:26)
I think, you know, I've also been reading the headlines, like retail trading volume is down. I think, you know, you can see in the DeFi space that a lot of DeFi coins are not really catching a bid at the moment. But what has been interesting has been the desire for yield has been pretty strong. So I think when people are not getting, when they're not trying to get exposure to market beta and own the assets that might appreciate, they start thinking about how they can put their dollars to work. And so we've seen a lot of interest in earn programs from some of these neobanks, retail trading apps and platforms. And you can see this in the growth of the Robinhood earn program and some of these other things.