 Welcome to Digital Asset News, where we take the top stories in cryptocurrency and digital assets and bring them down to bite-sized pieces. Today, we're going to talk about some important levels that I think everybody needs to be aware of as far as like what is going on with Ethereum and why the 25th of June is so important as options are set to expire. We're going to take a look at a couple of different levels and where things should be. On top of that, on positive news, we're going to take a look at Guggenheim CEO Scott Menard as he tweets out that cryptocurrency is the future. This is kind of odd because Scott in the past has given some conflicting information. And then finally, on the good news of the day or the uplifting news, we've got Charles Hoskinson saying that Ethereum will beat Bitcoin in the long run. Crazy. So we'll take a look at all those things, but first, take a look at what's going on into the markets. Today, it is the 18th? Yeah, 18th of June, about 10 a.m. I'll pass with Texas time and markets down again. We're at 1.5 trillion. And again, this is going to play into what we just saw with the options expiration. So it's important that we take a look at these levels just to make sure that we're on the right track and what's going on. Everything is down. Let's just call a spade a spade. We're going to see Bitcoin roughly 366 might fall even lower. We're at 5% just in 24 hours. Ethereum is down. Tether's tether. Nobody cares. Nothing's up in 24 hours. And we might see a little bit more bloodshed. Tether's up. And remember, Theta, they're launching their mainnet 3.0 at the end of June. So I think Tether's going to keep going up until that happens. But that's what's going on. Let's just jump into today's top story. And oh, actually, before we do that, just so you know, I had a great interview with the team leads over there at Silo. And I'll be putting together the video and editing it and putting it over at Dan Clips. This, I think, is a huge sleeper. And to me, this is kind of like one of those projects that is a it's a super app, really, it's digital wallet, plus a totally encrypted messenger app that you can actually download right now and use. I have it on my phone. I have been using it. It works great. So I'll release that hopefully by tonight or tomorrow have to have the team look at it. And it'll be over there on digital asset news clips, where we do all the advancement things and all the things that are up and coming. Anyhow, this, my friends, is what's going on 25th of June. We've got to this is next Friday. So this is a pretty important level to take a look at. So 24th of June carries significant importance as it may assist Ethereum in reaching its all time high range, potentially, but in the past, it's on the exact opposite. So according to SKU, 646,300 ETH options will undergo expiration on the 25th of June, which is worth over $1.5 billion in open interest. And some people may say, well, who cares? You know, because it's only $1.5 billion and Ethereum is like way beyond that. But just like we saw with iron finance, when you just see a bunch of of sales going on, even whales, people who have a lot of those, those that cryptocurrency, and in this case, you know, options, once you start seeing things just go sideways or go down, people start selling to make everybody starts to sell. So it is a domino effect. And sometimes it is what it is. Sometimes it's just an it's an overvalued asset, or sometimes it's just panic selling, whatever you want to call it. It could not be good news potentially for Ethereum as things start to slide off. So this is what we're going to have to look at. Expiration is our expiry is 33% larger than the one that took place on 26th of March. And here's how the market unfolded after that first quarterly expiration. And what I'm going to do, let me blow this up so you can see what I see. So here, we're looking at 2021. We're talking about March 26. So there's a little bit of a just kind of like went down, down, down. And then that essentially is what happened as far as like, it just kind of took up a little bit of a dip. Five days prior to the expiry, Ethereum's value had dropped 15% in the charts, in the charts, the chart. However, between 26th of March and 15th of April, its price surged by 60%. So down, down, down as all the expiration wins came about, and then boom, just started to take off and then off we go. So be aware of what's going on here because a lot of people will just they'll they'll look in and go, okay, well, we just lost 15%, 20%, whatever else it is. And they start to panic sell and everybody starts to sell. But if you take a look at the history, not like it's going to definitely happen again. Remember, this is investment opinion, not investment advice. You can see what happened in the past. So we had a bit of a drop and then just kind of took off again. Now, unfortunately, if you take a look at the same chart, where are we again, we're still went down. So this is a good idea to lock in your profits. Nobody ever went broke, taken profits, but it's just important for these levels so that you're aware of by next Friday. And then to finish this up, according to data from Bybit or Bibbit, how do you say it? Bybit, there is a huge amount of call options at 2200 with higher strikes. It means that Ether's price needs to be above 2200 when the expiration takes takes place for these 97,000 call options to come into play. Otherwise, they'll be completely worthless. And it's so and also similarly, if the strike price at 2100, at press time, Ethereum is consolidating near 2400. So the upper hand is on the bullish side, but a lot can change in a week. So we're looking at $2200. And just as we saw over here, trade the chain, we are looking at a price today at 2242. Now look, in seven days, a lot can change, a lot can change. But if you're taking a look at what could potentially happen, once we start to dip down below that, just be aware that we could see some downside volatility, but it is normal. And this is one of the reasons why. So let me know what you think in the comment section. Let's move on to our next piece, which is scum and hard chief investment officer for Guggenheim been around a long, long time. He's been in the traditional market and he's been a convert to crypto and digital assets. And it's kind of weird because he's been one of those guys who has randomly just put out tweets. And some people say that he's kind of like manipulating a little bit with his tweets, which maybe, but he does. He's been a supporter of crypto for a while, but just not too long ago, during that weekend, when we're supposed to have this huge dip, he put out a tweet and said something like, Hey, be careful, massive volatility coming in. And for all you investors, just make sure that you're aware of what's going on, which is pretty sweet and nice for a guy who runs a company that has like, it manages over $270 billion. That's nice. Some people said, nah, we think he's just manipulating, but maybe he's a nice guy. Maybe I'm just naive. Who knows? Anyhow, this is what he said. Scott Menard, CIO of Guggenheim said that while crypto is a volatile asset, it's the paradigm of the future. And he's right. When you're looking at these different YouTubers out there and you read different reports and all these different things, you have to understand there is two sides of the story for everything as far as like crypto, even traditional markets and equities and things like that. There are traders who are really just, they're just obsessed with a short-term type of trade again, whether that be on the hour, on the day, on the week, swing trades, whatever else it is. And then it's the other side of people like me who are just investors. And we just are in for the long haul. I'm not a big, I don't really care too much about the short-term volatility because I see where things are going. And when Scott is talking about this, he really is putting on his investor hat and going, this is the asset of the future. So when he says things like, hey, expect volatility, he's right. He was 100% right. And there was huge volatility in those last two weeks ago. So take it for what it is. He says crypto will tend to be volatile, but as a paradigm of the future, he noted that the, and this was interesting. He also noted that the potential for an attack on our payments infrastructure is one of the largest external threats to the financial system as a whole. And he states, the possibility of an attack on the global payment system is one of the biggest exogenous risks to the stability of the financial system. I never thought about that, but now it makes a lot of sense. Everything that is so centralized in the banks, we see a lot of things that are going on with ransomware and different hackers from across the world. And they're really getting into these, these corporations and these entities and they're demanding all this money because they're shutting things down. Why couldn't they do that with Swift? Why couldn't they do that with the infrastructures as far as like the payment system like Scott is talking about? A great way to get around that probably decentralization. So I mean, if you're going to talk about these things, I think we should talk about everything. And I'm going to put that in a little feather in my cap to try to remember those things as I'm debating people on the benefits of crypto and digital assets because as far as, as it pertains to decentralization, makes a lot of sense. And then lastly, he says, why am I so sanguine, optimistic about inflation? There's three words, demographics, debt and technology, our shrinking workforce, slowing birth rate, rising debt loads and adoption of tech that improves economic productivity are all deflationary. Debate that in the comment section. I'm not for sure. He also said that Guggenheim has seen no evidence that inflation is contributing to increase in prices and that the bond bull market is over. So look, I'll agree with Scott on the very first parts, which is crypto is the future. It makes a lot of sense to me and that we should use it as far as like to protect the payment system that we have right now because it is ripe for an attack. And I think that's a nation's they could really just do a lot of damage with just cyber warfare. Totally agree. As far as like the inflation things, I see a lot of things around me that are going up in price. The dollar's still strong and we had Nick Mancini on from TTC yesterday and he pretty much laid out a pretty great case as far as like assets and the strength of the dollar. But I just can't get my head around that the Fed can print 30% of the entire circulating supply of the dollar in the last year and we're not going to see inflation. Maybe I'm wrong. Let me know where our opinions differ in the comment section. Let's finish up with our last piece, which is I think like a pretty good article. I like this one. Charles Hoskins. Everybody's favorite person to to rip on besides Mark Cuban lately in his DeFi thing. But there was a good interview between him and Lex Friedman and he just comes out and says, Hey, Ethereum will beat Bitcoin in the long run. And I thought it was it's good to know what I'm glad this the Herald sheets brought it up. So during a five hour interview with AI researcher Lex Friedman, and I'm going to link this in the comments or in the description below, it's five hours. It's a five hour interview. And I've been breaking it up. I'm at over just about an hour or so now I'm trying to get the other four, but it's fascinating. And it's really interesting where they talk about where things started as far as like Hoskinson with, you know, where he got into with Bitcoin and then a little bit in Ethereum, then how Cardano works and how the whole infrastructure is going to work and everything else. But he's very positive about Ethereum. So I think that's good. We need more of those things in this community because as you know, just go over Twitter and you'll have no shortage of people poo pooing all over other projects. So he states this problem with Bitcoin is it slow? Well, let's be honest, it's kind of slow. It's like the mainframe programming of the past. The only reason it's still around is because there was so much invested in keeping it around, I was kind of happy to leave it there. Okay, so that's that's one part that Charles will say, and I can understand what he's saying here, but you know, he does have a good point here. A lot can be done to improve the Bitcoin network in order to make it a system to beat. He said Bitcoin is too slow and it's methodical development process is a huge hindrance to its evolvement. Charles said that Ethereum doesn't have all these shortcomings due to the fact that its developers love evolvement. Ethereum is getting to a point where it has a similar network effect to Bitcoin. Very true. I mean, we see a lot of things being built. I mean, everything is built on Ethereum. What am I saying? And as far as like DeFi, things that are locked up. So yes, the only thing is can they roll out Ethereum 2.0 and really get things going? And let's see how that EIP 1539 works out as far as burning gas fees and tipping the miners. I don't know. Hopefully, it reduces those crazy gas fees. And then to finish up. And so that means if you look at the trajectory of things, if I had to bet on just those two systems, Bitcoin or Ethereum, I would say nine times out of 10, Ethereum is going to win the fight against Bitcoin. It was the only competitor. And it makes sense. Ethereum, it seems like, you know, if we said really well, was Terry Crews the actor. And they asked him, you know, how do you differentiate between Bitcoin and Ethereum? He goes, well, Bitcoin's gold 2.0, really, it's like gold. He goes, but Ethereum is the oil for my machines. He goes, I like to create, I like to build things, I like to get into businesses. So I need that oil to run the machine. And that's what Ethereum does. And I like, it's a pretty good way to look at it. You know, Bitcoin's like a store of value. It's like gold. And then Ethereum kind of lubricates everything and makes all the engines run. And then to finish up, Charles says, but obviously, we're here and a lot of other people are here. So there's different things going on. It's a much more complex game. And look, I don't know if one, if there's one coin to rule them all, if it's just going to be a one game system, I don't think so. Because I mean, we have so many different projects where blockchain and decentralization and smart contracts and DeFi and digital ID and all the good stuff that comes out of this sector can do. I just don't think that one, one project can rule them all and really encompass everything. I think it's going to take a community effort. And that's why I'm hoping that we can drop some of the tribalism and just get on board with each other. We're like brothers and sisters, if you think about it. And if you attack one of us, government, then you got to attack us all. That's just my two cents. All right. So that's it for today. So look, if you made it all the way to the end, thanks. I appreciate it. Consider liking the video. If you liked it, consider subscribing, because a lot of things we talk about are time sensitive on this channel. Over on Dan Clips, we do more of the advancement stuff and more of the up-and-coming projects. We've already taken a look at world mobile token, which thing is going to change everything in Africa. Take a look at Charlie and card starter and Indigo protocol. And we're going to be doing one with Jiro wallet. And we just got done with the wallet silo, or as I call it, the super app. So that'll be up soon. So check it over at Dan Clips. Links in the description. Thanks so much. See you on the next one.