War = Volatility. Bitcoin Going Wild. What’s Next? #CryptoTownHall

**Scott Melker** (0:00)
Good morning, everybody, welcome to Crypto Town Hall every other day here on X at 10, 15 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. I missed last week entirely, Dave. Don't know how the show went, didn't listen, totally missed it, so I'm assuming that everything you guys discussed has been blown up 17 times by random tweets in that time anyways.

**Dave Weisberger** (0:21)
Who knows, but I know we didn't have any spider monkeys, so that was good.

**Scott Melker** (0:28)
The spider monkeys were crazy. Literally attacked my computer while I was trying to do Macro Monday. The monkeys are very brazen. But yeah, I mean, maybe I mean, just jump in. Obviously, we have war equals volatility, Bitcoin going wild, what's next? I mean, wild these days is 68 to 71, but it's moving.

**Dave Weisberger** (0:48)
Sorry, I just find it fascinating that people say whatever they do. It's like people are trying to recalibrate their narratives. I mean, we saw a weekend where Bitcoin basically yawned. I mean, down what, three and a half percent when Trump basically threatened worldwide energy Armageddon, and then gold dropped dramatically more, silver even more so. And so Bitcoin being less volatile than them should tell you something. I mean, I think it's a sign of selling exhaustion on the part of Bitcoin, but it is meaningful and it is meaningful to see what has been happening to quote safe havens. I mean, I made the point on Macro Monday, Scott, that people call something a risk asset because it's a risky asset. And people really need to think about the definitions of what is a risk asset, what isn't a risk asset, because financial models are always backward looking, right?
And honestly, the way the world is, is very different. I mean, there are certain assets that are tied to productive capacity. No question about it. That's what we think of risk assets. There are others that are trying to take advantage of or looking or be a hedge against monetary ridiculousness. And I don't even want to say profligacy or others. I literally mean ridiculousness. You know, and gold and Bitcoin are both in the latter camp. But when things are ridiculous, the volatility is the same. And it is what we saw this weekend was was insane in terms of precious metals. And what we saw this weekend in terms of Bitcoin was a yawn. And I didn't have that in my 2026 bingo card.

**Carlo** (2:26)
I don't know about you.

**Scott Melker** (2:28)
Yeah, I agree with that. I think that Bitcoin is, quote unquote, holding up nicely. We discussed this on Macromonday this morning. But the amount of uncertainty I think is just absurd and the amount of wavering and back and forth and every tweet. And I don't know how anybody plans for anything at this point in this environment, but yeah.

**Dave Weisberger** (2:48)
Yeah, but you have to. It's like, you know, in the old days when, you know, the only people who reported on war were CNN and wars were happening live, you still traded markets, right? You know, it's like now everyone's reporting and who the hell knows what's real. And you have you have a president who sends out posts without even spell checking them. I mean, I don't even know how to, you know, how to react to that. Anyway, I saw Jamie's hand go up and then Alex.

**Jamie** (3:13)
Yeah, so I mean, this is just like we were live when this thing happened, like 7 44 p.m. Trump with this 48 hour deadline, 7 45, the market dumps. You know, then, you know, you come in this morning and pre market, you got Trump saying, oh, you know, Iran's been talking with us. We've given them a five day extension. You get then Iran foreign minister says, yeah, we've not been talking to him. So I don't know what, you know, like that's total BS. Well, then Trump doing it again, saying, I don't know why they're not. I don't know why they're saying that we are doing it. So like, it's completely confusing. It seems like the only person that's benefiting is whoever is close enough to Trump to know what he's going to tweet before he tweets it so we can place it short or long. Like, it's crazy.

**Dave Weisberger** (3:59)
I mean, I've seen that allege. My guess is that's actually not happening. I think he just basically tweets as he is stream of consciousness. But that's besides the point. I think that he gave a little talk to reporters on the sidelines, that people, I don't know if everyone saw it. But he basically said that he's not going to tell people who they're talking to, because the people they're talking to don't want to be killed. And I think that there's, and that's actually, that was a serious statement.