 Bye. Welcome to Jealousette News. My name is Rob and today, a couple of special guests as we start to go into the new year, not financial advice live. We've got Ben from another crypto person, Guy from Coin Bureau. Gentlemen, welcome back to the show. Thanks for having us. Absolutely. Thank you, Rob. Yeah, this is a good time. First of all, we're doing pretty good, right? We're in the green. I can't believe it. I think we're teetering on that 1 trillion market cap, maybe 922 billion. So the questions that we have today are very simple. What's your asset allocation right now? Are you buying or you're just waiting on the sidelines? And then what indicators are you looking at to determine this allocation to crypto? Also, what should everyone mentally prepare for in 2023? Are we going to be sideways for a while? Is it going to be a massive dips? Are we going to see all-time highs? Personally, I don't think that's even remotely possible. And then second to last, there's some things that are out of of control. We're going to talk about the CPI data, some macro, some news updates, and the thoughts on Avalanche partnering up with Amazon and Nexo just about an hour ago being rated by Bulgarian police. And then lastly, will the rise of artificial intelligence effect crypto and are you using it? And then we'll do a little Q&A. So first things first, gentlemen, of course, welcome to the show. Now, if you don't know, Ben's got a great channel. I watch it all the time. I also steal everything from his website into the crypto verse. Great data points. You can find a link in the description. And guys got two channels, one Coin Bureau and then one Coin Bureau clips. So just check those out. Links are in the description. So first things first, gents, asset allocation. I kept getting this question to me and everybody knows where I stand. I'll talk about that later. But are you buying right now or is Cash still king? And you have things in the sidelines. So Ben, we'll start with you and then we'll go to my man Guy for the follow-up. Great question. So yeah, in 2022, of course, I had the very strong conviction that Cash was king. The main things I've bought over the last like six to 12 months for just really boring things, right? Like CDs, right? Like certificates of deposit, trying to earn like just yield in the short term on just your cash if inflation is really high, then you want to be earning yield somewhere just to help minimize the damage. In terms of crypto, you know, I am a very stubborn person when it comes to when it comes to the altcoin market. You know, I still, I have Bitcoin, right? I've bought some Bitcoin here and there over the last, you know, half year or so. I mean, I still think Bitcoin is going to eventually lead the next bull market. But I still remain somewhat stubborn on the altcoin market mainly because I still see the dominance of Bitcoin trending higher. And I mean, you know, this is one of those things where if you look at it, including stable coins, you might argue that it's just been, it's just been sort of like scraping the lows for since May of 2021. But if you exclude stable coins, I mean, it's been in an uptrend since May of 2021, it continues to go higher. And so the reason why I remain somewhat stubborn on the altcoin market is because it is taking on a higher risk than, than you are with Bitcoin, right? So, you know, a lot of these altcoins, as we know, I mean, look, they can give you some solid gains. Today, we saw, we saw Avalanche go up well, like 25% after the announcement, and we're going to talk about that later. But it still doesn't change the fact that they have been macro bleeding against Bitcoin for a long time, right? And that's the thing, like that's the thing we have to contend with is if you, if you buy an altcoin, you are inherently taking on more risk than if you buy Bitcoin. And a lot of altcoins will unfortunately not go to all-time highs. Now, some of them will, right? There are good examples from last cycle. We know Ethereum went to a new all-time high. I don't really consider ethanol. I consider it a blue chip like Bitcoin, but you had Cardano going to a new all-time high last cycle and, and some other ones, right? Like B and B went to an all-time high. So some altcoins have gone to new all-time highs. And you know, it's good if you can find those, but there's a lot of relics from prior cycles that don't, right? And you can go back to 2013 cycle, the 2017 cycle, they're just sort of like relics of a past cycle and, and they don't, they won't necessarily go to new all-time highs. So I, for me right now, I still do have a healthy cash position. I'm not as aggressively stacking cash as I was last year because I do recognize that 2023 is likely going to be the year of, of opportunity, you know, to get, you know, to get, to get positions in the market before 2024, 2025 timeframe, right? So my general expectations of this year are, and I actually did a video on this somewhat recently, is if you look at like 2015, you look at 2019 for Bitcoin, they both had upside and downside, right? So in both of those years, we went up, we went down. So in 2015, we went down first, and then for the first half of the year, or, you know, we're at near the bottom for the first half, and then the second half we went up, 2019 was the opposite, right? We went up, we sort of dipped down a little bit, then we went up, and then we faded that rally for the second half of the year. So my general expectations are that the year will be choppy. It'll be probably somewhat sideways for the most part, but it doesn't mean, it doesn't mean you can't deviate to the upside and the downside, right? I mean, we've seen that in 2015 and 2019. So I don't think this year is going to be as bad as 2020, but, you know, I used to think this was going to be a boring year, like just like a really boring year, but I'm not kind of of the opinion that while it might ultimately be remembered as a sideways year with deviations to the upside and the downside, I don't think it's going to be boring. I think, you know, the fascination that we all still have with, you know, with CPI and, you know, FOMC meetings and, you know, what's the Fed doing, and also the potential implications of a recession, I think that's going to keep us on our toes this year, and it's probably not going to really make for a boring year, but probably more of a sideways year with deviations to the upside and the downside. The long story short, the way I'm playing it right now is sort of a continuation of last year, but not as heavy, like not as determined to stack more cash. I have a healthy cash position, sort of keeping it around those same levels that it's at, have some Bitcoin, and then I'm just waiting for, I'm getting old, I'm growing old waiting for it, right? But I'm just waiting, I'm biding my time for the dominance of Bitcoin to go up. And then once it goes up, I think altcoins will make more sense. And I mean, not only in terms of their USD valuations, but probably more so their Bitcoin valuations. Remember in 2019, 2018, 2019, it took about six to 10 months for a lot of altcoins to bottom on their Bitcoin pairs after Bitcoin bottomed on its USD pair. Right. So just to be sure that what I heard you, heard you right was this, you're on the sidelines, you're waiting for things to happen, but you are not deploying any cash. You're sitting there with your Scrooge McDuck, just monstrous mounds of cash waiting to strike. Is that what it is? With regards to the altcoin market, I do have a position in Bitcoin. I have a position in Ethereum too, but it's not a new position. It's just an old position that's a relatively small position compared to Bitcoin. So basically I'm sitting on the sidelines for them with regards to the altcoin market, but with regards to Bitcoin, I feel like I have to have some type of a position there because you never really know what's going to happen. I mean, look at what happened in 2019, right? Like rally up 4X before it then faded for the second half of the year. So Bitcoin is, I think it's a good hedge, right? Like it's a way to have one foot into the crypto market, but not to have both feet in. So then if Bitcoin ends up dropping, which remains a risk, if we get into a recession or something, Bitcoin drops, the altcoin market's probably going to drop a lot harder. And so that's sort of how I hedge my bet there. Gotcha. Okay. So a little bit, but mostly the blue chips, not new positions. Gotcha. Guy, I'm in. Same question for you. So what are we looking at here? Are you sitting on the sidelines as well, or are you dipping in? I am going to be, I'm certainly going to be looking for, I think, opportunities to kind of dip in later in the year. For me, I really want to see an improvement, certainly in the macro side of things above all else, really. And I think the Fed is going to drive that 100% of the way. So I guess you could say that I'll be kind of waiting on what the Fed says, on what the Fed does with regards to inflation, when it decides to pause. And if we're going to see some sort of indication of how long they're going to keep rates at that terminal, at that terminal rate. Right. So yeah. And I mean, I agree with Ben in terms of the sort of year that we're going to have. It's not going to be boring. I think it's going to be slightly dull in terms of price action for sort of long periods of time. And then we'll probably get something sort of similar like we've seen today to the upside and to the downside as well. When we get some bits of good or bad news happening in the market kind of gets a little over excited and everyone thinks, well, a lot of people think that the bull market suddenly come back. And so we'll see pumps and we'll see dumps along the way. I think what's going to be really interesting from a crypto perspective, because Ben's obviously touched on what we can expect from the macro side. And again, it's those Fed meetings, isn't it? It's what Jerome and Co say and do. But I think as well, just kind of keeping track of all the development going on, keeping track of stories like this one that we're going to discuss a bit later about Avalanche, these announcements coming out, these announcements of development and further adoption and further integration with Web2 companies with the wider economy, if you like. And I think that's going to be a really kind of fun thing to keep tabs on, because we're going to be able to see this development happening. We're going to know that the market is maturing, that projects are maturing and getting better. But all the time, that's not, I think, going to be really reflected in prices at all. I think, as I say, we'll see a lot of sideways action for a lot of the year. I kind of feel that I'm kind of looking towards the end of the year, towards maybe Q3, Q4 to see some sort of uptick. I would hope that we've got tangible signs that inflation really is being squashed. Although, of course, the Fed isn't going to suddenly pivot on that. The Fed is going to keep rates high until it is completely confident that it's got inflation under control. And again, I think we'll probably see people getting excited about a possible pivot and then that pivot not materializing, and the market will pump and then dump, et cetera, et cetera. But what I really want to see is a tangible improvement in the macro outlook. So like I was talking about from the Fed, I'd also like to see some good news from the wider world really. I'm really interested to see how this opening up of China plays out. Because I think that's going to be, I think that's going to be a fascinating thing to see. Obviously, the implications for things like supply chains, is global trade going to really get moving again? Or are we going to get a new variant or something like that? I think that's something that we can't discount. And at the same time, things like the war in Ukraine, if we see a resolution to that or if we see a chance of that being resolved. And of course, the WHO, I think the WHO are meeting towards the end of this month, and that will be, I think, interesting to see what's going to be their take on where we are. I'm guessing they're going to say we're still in a pandemic. I don't think they're going to declare that over because of the situation in China. But yeah, things like that. I really want to see an improvement in macro before I start really dipping my toes in the market again. And until then, like Ben, I'm very top heavy, BTC and particularly ETH actually. ETH is my largest single allocation. And I will be looking to add to those, certainly, and certainly not looking to sell them at any point. Gotcha. So just to be sure, you're not adding anything in right now, or you are looking to add in just nothing? Just nothing. No, I'm kind of happy with where I am. I've got a big allocation in stables, and that is just sitting there staying nice and dry. And I'm just kind of watching it, watching it go along with wonder and fascination, as always. See, Guy, Ben, these are great responses from people who delve into it big time. That was a pretty great explanation. So thanks. Mine is a little bit different. I disagree with both of you. And because I'm stubborn and I can't help it. And the thing is, I always look at it, I'm like, I know what you just said, Guy, and what Ben just talked about as far as the macro events, the things that are going on in crypto, I know it and it makes sense. I certainly don't think that we have hit the bottom. I still think we have a little ways to go. If you look from, again, from 2013 to 15, that was an 85% drop. 2017, 2018, it was an 84% drop. The biggest drop we had so far is 77%. I still think we go down to 10K or 12K Bitcoin. Having said all that, how many times have I heard or we have heard that it's a definite thing? It's going to happen. We're going to go through this recession. It's going to be awful. True. So I'm 90 plus percent sure, but there's always this thing in my head that says, Rob, you're not that smart. You're going to have to hedge your bet. So I just do a little bit of dollar cost. Everything like I call it. This is micro DCA. I still get a little Bitcoin every day, Ethereum every couple of days and some alts once a week, but it's not that much. So these are just the things and like the days that we have a green day, it works out okay. So that was the very first question. Rob, they say the pessimists sound smart, but the bulls get rich. Over the long haul, your strategy will probably work out very, very well, even if we go down. And you'll probably sleep better by having allocations and projects that you like than worrying about if they're going to constantly leave without you. This is true, but I will say there is one caveat to that. And we took a look at just dollar cost averaging in one year after the all-time highs in 2014, 2018, and 2022. And they're not the great years to invest into. If I would have just waited for what I call the reset year, which is two years after the all-time high, which would have been 2015, 2019, and now 2023, I think I would have done better, but I'm just too damn stubborn. And that's where we go from. But thanks. No, I mean, waiting at least one year is at least like a good start. Get through the bear market year first, right? Exactly. So this will go to the next one. As we're taking a look at all these things, we're talking about it. How do we determine this? How do we say like, okay, I'm going to start to go heavy or I'm not going to go heavy. I'm just going to keep on the sidelines. So what indicators are you looking at? And these could be TA. I'm not a big TA guy. This could be on-chain analysis. This could be macro events. And this could be sentiment. So Guy, I'm going to start with you. What are you looking at? Because I know, I mean, you're doing the Coin Bureau show, then the Coin Bureau clips, you're doing podcasts. Well, here we are again. So all the information you have, it's got a way on you. So how do you figure this out? Yeah, I mean, I feel the same way as you do, Rob, about TA. That's something I leave to the experts. So as I said earlier, I'm going to be looking at macro. I'm going to be really, really focused on that and specifically around what the Fed is doing. But I think sentiment is going to be a big one as well. So things like the fear and greed index. I mean, we've got, there's Ben's wonderful tool as well that he has into the cryptoverse, his social indicator, which Ben, I think you've talked about that on our news show before, haven't you? It's, this idea of what are people, how are people engaging with crypto? Are they on YouTube? Are they on Twitter? What is crypto Twitter like at any given time? At the moment, on a sort of day-to-day basis, it can be a bit of a graveyard. But that's something to really watch when that space comes alive again. And as content creators, of course, we see that in real time. We see that in our viewing figures, in our subscription figures, all this sort of thing. So I think, yeah, it'll be macro and sentiment as far as, that's what I'm going to be looking out for. Just how are people feeling about it? What is the sense of optimism or pessimism out there, I think? But yeah, a huge focus on macro and what comes out of the Fed, certainly. Gotcha. All right. So Ben, that'll lead me to you. So we're looking at, me and Gata, kind of the same way. I look at the macro event to kind of really go in heavy or for guy just to start to go in. What do we got here for you? What are you looking at as far as those indicators to say, yes, now it's the time? Yeah. So I mean, I guess you could separate into different baskets, right? So like the altcoin market, what I'm looking for specifically is two things really. One, I'm looking for the dominance of Bitcoin to go up. I'd like to see it at least above 50%. I do think that it will get to above that level. I mean, during the early stages of the Dex bull market, it could go as high as 60%, I think. That might sound crazy, but it hit 70% in not that long ago when you think about it. I mean, it was 70%, like the end of 2020, early 2021, and then it just sort of cratered off a cliff. And I know a lot of people think that it's never going to go back up, but that's one of the things that I'm looking for. That's one of the things I'm looking to get into the altcoin market is to say, hey, I'd like to see the dominance go up in a more sustained way. And the counterpoint to that statement would be like, well, it hasn't really gone up that much, and it's been quite a long period of time. But my point is that until it goes up, I still remain skeptical of the altcoin market. And so far, it's actually worked out really well because most altcoins continue to just been in fairly long downtrends against Bitcoin. So that's one of the things I'm looking for with regards to crypto. And the other thing with regards to crypto is, and you actually showed it, I think, a few minutes ago, are some of the different indicators. The social risk that Guy mentioned is actually, it just put in a new low yesterday. So if you go up to tools at the top, you can look at the very top of the page, the very top bar, tools, indicator dashboard, that. So the social risk, it actually dipped below 0.2 yesterday, which is the lowest that's been the spare market so far. And actually, the main reason is because YouTube views are falling off the cliff right now. I don't know if you guys have noticed, but the viewership on YouTube is actually going down quite a bit, which is, and the reason why all that's important is because we know that markets tend to bottom on apathy. They don't bottom when everyone's tuning in asking if the bottom's in, they bottom on apathy when no one really cares anymore. But then the other thing, I guess, outside of crypto, there are, of course, a few other indicators that we've looked at. There's the supply and profit and loss, the pure multiple, those kinds of things. But the main thing, I think, that is sort of the main macro risk is a recession. And it's one of those things where no one ever really wants to call for a hard landing because it's not a very popular thing to call for. And usually people who call for it are not right. We do occasionally get them. We had one in 2000 and we had one in 2008. So they do sometimes occur. Rob, I'm with you. I do think there is a danger to assuming that it has to happen. Nothing has to happen. I mean, if the Fed decided to do a complete 180, then of course, all bets are off. But I think it makes sense to plan for that potential outcome because it does seem somewhat likely. If you look at the inversion of the yield curve, the three month and the 10 year yield, it's more inverted now than I've ever seen it. And the data that I have on my website goes back to the 1980s when we also had period of hindflation. It hasn't been this inverted before. Now, the deepness of its inversion is not necessarily that predictive on actually how bad the recession would be, assuming we get one. But every time, every single time, the three month and the 10 year inverts like this in a sustained way and the two year and the 10 year inverts like this in a sustained way, every single time, going back for like 100 years, we come out of it eventually into a recession. Now, normally, you might say, well, everyone's calling for it, but we're still not in one. Well, the thing that's important to remember is that the two year and the 10 year, oftentimes it can take like 12 months or more for the actual recession to occur after the inversion. In fact, when the inversion occurs, we're basically never in a recession. So it's not telling you that we're in a recession now when it inverts. It's telling you that eventually when it resolves back to the upside, that's when you get the recession. So the two year and the 10 year inverted back in July. So 12 months from then would actually be this coming summer. And the reason why that's important is because risk assets, at least like equities, we can't really fully know what crypto is going to do because we haven't really experienced a recession. We can guess, but equities bottom typically during the recession and they bottom sometimes fairly early on into it. So by the time the media is talking about the recession, the bottom's probably, the S&P is probably already moving higher. So I think that's what we have to be on the lookout for. We have to be on the lookout for potentially two consecutive quarters of negative GDP, just like we had last year. The difference this year though is what happens if the unemployment rate goes up. So if the unemployment rate starts to go up in a material way, I think that is the main risk to going into a recession. And that's really, I think, what you're looking for. And the final thing I'll say, everyone's talking about a Fed pivot, right? Like going from QT back to QE. If you look at history, right? This is not, I know people don't like this, right? But if you look at history, pivot is not a bullish thing, right? A lot of times the market goes down after the pivot. And the reason is, yeah, that's a great chart, right? The reason it goes down after the pivot is because it takes the Fed breaking something for them to actually go back to QE. And by the time they break something and they pivot, it's too late, right? Like the market, they're like, I don't care that you pivoted, you already broke the economy and then it goes down. So that's the risk that you run with a hard landing. Again, as you said, Rob, no guarantee that it has to happen. It could be a soft landing. But that's the risk that I think we face. I guess, I mean, this would leave me my next one. Then we'll go to Guy. But it's, so what should everybody prepare for mentally? Because the problem I see is that people, they mentally prepare like, okay, the bull runs right around the corner. It's right around the corner. But should we all be prepared for, you know, hope for the best, expect the worst? Or should we just be like, okay, hope I'm galore and off we go? I mean, I've always been about, I hope for the best, expect the worst. That's how I've lived my whole life. And it's generally served me pretty well. Yeah, Ben, I take your point. And I think there's a lot to look out for with what we see from the Fed and what decisions they make. And as you say, yeah, that switch to QE if it happens. Yeah, that could be the indication that something's already gone seriously wrong. And things that I mean, I'm kind of keeping an eye on things like the housing market and the stock market as well, because we've obviously got that correlation between stocks and crypto. And we've yet to see the stock market take that next leg lower, which I think is what you know, a lot of people seem to be expecting. So I'm kind of preparing myself for that and for quite possibly for a crisis in housing as well. And yeah, I'm looking, I'm eyeing out, I'm eyeing up sort of further lows as a result of that and possibly because of other kind of crypto specific factors, which I think we've touched on before. And again, I think in terms of what people can sort of expect or what people should prepare for, I think, yeah, as I said earlier, that idea of everything kind of moving sideways with these with these occasional pumps that kind of fizzle out fairly quickly. I think as well, it's just people should be ready for everything to kind of take longer than you would expect it to. I think we'll see, you know, we'll have some good news in for various projects. We'll have some hopefully some indications that the macro situation is improving. And it'll be it'll be that sort of sense of excitement decide, oh, maybe we've turned the corner. And perhaps we have, but I still think that will take a while to play out in the markets. It'll take a while for investors to be kind of tempted back to the table, especially for risk assets like crypto. So I think, you know, patience is going to be such a such a key virtue to have over over the next 12 months, at least nothing is going to nothing is going to happen as we would like it. Nothing is going to be is going to be as quick, it's going to be a kind of slow grind a lot of the time. Yeah. And that's so I think we're all in agreement here. We think that there's going to be 2023 is going to be better than 2022, hopefully, but it's going to be choppy and it's going to be tough. And people have to understand that it's not going to be just an automatic bull run, right? I think that's I think we're all we're all in agreement there. Alright, so that would lead me to second last question, which is this, and because we look at these indicators, we can kind of immensely prepare ourselves. But there's just some things that are out of our control. Like, first of all, let's take a look at the CPA data, I think it just came out the macro. And then we're going to talk about this news update with Avalanche and Amazon, which is very super positive. And then nexo being rated, which is super negative. And I will just say before we talk about this, if this Avax or Avalanche and Amazon partnership came out in, I don't know, April 2021, how would the market have responded? It would have exploded up to nobody's business. So the first one here, the things that I control the CPI data, let me see if I can take a look here. This is what we got. Then I'm going to start with you on this one. So CPI data, December 2022, came down a little bit. So where do we go from here? Good news, bad news, looks like it's where we want to be. Yeah, no, I mean, I think we want to see this, we want to see inflation come back down. I mean, this is the goal is for inflation to get back down to the target of 2%, right? I mean, I think that's the single biggest staying that's probably keeping us from being more confident in this like phase of another long period of economic expansion. It's just that this high inflation is making the Fed do things that they wouldn't normally do, right? Like, normally, if the economy were starting to falter or earnings were coming in pretty low for a lot of major companies, if people were, you know, I mean, the labor market remains relatively tight right now. But again, the Fed normally pivots well before now, right? And that's why everyone spent all of last year thinking that they were going to pivot last year, because normally they do, right? They don't do this type of stuff. But yeah, I mean, CPI coming down is a good thing. And the quicker it comes down, I think the probably the better chance of a soft landing where you, and by the way, like a soft landing could be something like where, like what you saw in 2015, right? Like where crypto goes, you know, it goes down, it goes back up, and then it then comes back down, you know, by Q3 to sort of retest the lows or something, and or maybe go slightly lower on some exchanges, maybe not, and then and then go back. That probably would be somewhat akin to a soft landing. So yeah, I mean, seeing inflation come down is good. The other side, though, to it is if you see it come down too quickly, which is kind of like a weird thing, right? But if you see it come down too quickly, it might be representative of the economy really getting sick, right? Like where people are just not spending anymore. And and you know, people are low on savings, they're running up their credit. This is not this is not a recipe for a great economy. So you want to see CPI come down. I do think that, you know, we do eventually run the risk of the Fed pushing us into, you know, into into a recession with regards to avalanche. I mean, these these partnerships are great. And, you know, normally when you see two companies have a partnership, sort of the smaller company pumps up a lot. You know, that's something that you'll see on on Wall Street. Actually, quite a bit, right? You'll see the smaller company pump up. On the other hand, though, the larger company usually takes a hit in the short term when they I've seen this too. So I don't know what Google is going to do today. But but one one thing I've also, you know, you have to think about with regards to these partnerships is that it shows that while the cryptoverse is has been in this crypto winter for a while, right? And it's likely likely going to drag on for a little bit. It does show that some pretty big players are are betting on the cryptoverse to ultimately survive and and to, you know, to go into another phase of expansion. So and I know a lot of people are, you know, are kind of down about my view on the coins and the market. But I will say that I am very bullish on crypto, especially once we, you know, once we get out of these macro headwinds, as you as you talk about over the next like six or 12 months, I think crypto is going to come out of it stronger than ever. I think we're going to have another bull run. I also think that crypto is going to bottom as a whole before the S&P 500. I used to not think that actually. But the last year has taught me that crypto actually is actually a lot more efficient, I think, and going to where it needs to go. So I do think that the crypto market will likely go up in a sustained way probably before you see you see some of these other companies go back up. And one of the reasons is because earnings, like the earnings reports and stuff for a lot of these companies that are going to hurt them in 2023 crypto doesn't have that, right? Crypto is not dependent on earnings, right? Like it has nothing to do with that stuff. So it doesn't mean that crypto can't take, you know, various hits throughout the year. I do think there are going to be some red months. But I do think that crypto will eventually come out of this year stronger than it ever has before. And one of the reasons is because the one thing that the one main thing that people have said about crypto for the last 10 years is that it won't survive a recession, right? It's never experienced hard times and therefore it won't survive a recession. I would disagree, I'd say it will survive. And after it survives this recession, assuming we get one, right, the fund's gone. I mean, like it can survive. And it just makes the case for the asset class that much stronger. So I mean, this will lead me to ask Guy the same thing. But Guy, see, you've been around longer than both of us because I think Ben, you got in and what year was it for crypto? Was it 20? I started following it in 2011, but I didn't put money into it a couple of years later. Okay. And then Guy, didn't you go in like super early too? Because I got in 2017. I know you were before me. Early-ish, yeah. I discovered it in kind of late 2013 and then sort of went in very, very tentatively sort of early 2014. So as the dust was kind of settling from Mt. Gox, that was when I took my first baby steps into buying Bitcoin. Yeah. So in answer to your question, Rob, these things that we can't control and going back to to Avalanche and Amazon, I mean, yeah, a while ago, this would have been rocket fuel for, well, probably for the whole, for the whole market really. And I think Amazon is one of those companies that just keeps getting talked about in terms of, you know, in terms of kind of wishful thinking or in terms of when is Amazon going to go into crypto? You know, wouldn't that be wouldn't that be one of the one of the great factors that really drive a massive rally if they're Amazon committed to crypto? And, you know, here they are via AWS. And I think there's a good quote in that article somewhere. I can't quote it verbatim, but I think the guy from AWS says something along the lines of, you know, crypto is inevitable. We know that it's the future. And we're getting in now. I think that's sort of the, yeah, there we are. Web 3 and blockchain is inevitable. And I mean, for me, this is, you know, this is exactly the sort of thing that I want to see in a bear market. This is exactly the sort of partnership, the sort of development that we should be looking out for and that should have be, you know, be going on at times like this. And I mean, this one in particular hasn't really flown under the radar, you know, I think that the crypto, the crypto community has kind of picked up on it pretty well. And obviously that's been reflected in Avalanche's price. But there are going to be, you know, there are going to be tons of announcements, and maybe not of this kind of magnitude, but just so many of this kind, so much of this kind of thing happening over the next 12 months. And again, that's what makes me excited. That's what kind of exhilarates me about the coming year. It's going to be, you know, what are these projects going to do? Who are they going to partner with? What are these big companies that are going to take their first steps into crypto? Because it just doesn't seem that that kind of bearish sentiment or that idea that old crypto is dead in the water, that's not the message that I'm getting from, you know, so many of these big companies, they know. And you know, to go back to that quote, it's inevitable. And I think the guys at the top of those companies know it, and they're positioning themselves accordingly. And in terms of what, you know, going back once again to the Fed and what Ben was saying about, you know, about rates coming down and all this sort of stuff, I think what will be quite interesting to see, I think, is if inflation does come down, you know, if we keep seeing falls, because that was quite a big fall in the CPI today, wasn't it? It came in 6.5, which was expectations. That was down from 7.2. Am I right in that? That's somewhere from the previous one. It's quite a big drop, isn't it? And I mean, that is a very encouraging sign. I would say, of course, that, you know, Jerome has been pretty adamant that they are, you know, that they're staying the course. I mean, again, I think that's the phrase that he's used, or he uses pretty much every press conference he does now. You know, the Fed is going to stay the course on inflation and interest rates. But what I'll be really interested to see, especially if we get more falls in the CPI, especially if we get more evidence that inflation is going down, I'm very interested to see what the kind of more dovish voices on the FOMC have to say. Because I know that there is a kind of, from going through, from going through these minutes every time they come out, I know that there is a kind of core of dovish voices there in, you know, in that meeting every month or whenever it is. And I'll be interested to see whether they are, whether they kind of grow in strength, grow in confidence, whether they're able to kind of influence the thinking of the others. Because I know that Jerome is very hawkish. I think, you know, the majority of them, I think, are pretty hawkish. You know, they follow Jerome's lead. And again, as we've discussed before, he's determined that he's not going to be the guy who, you know, kind of lets inflation slip through his fingers if you like. So I think it would be very interesting to see how other people, especially the dovish ones in the FOMC react to future CPI prints. Yeah. And I got to agree with you, because I friend the lady's name, the San Francisco chair, she was pretty dovish. And then all of a sudden she became very hawkish. And I think if Jerome can have that kind of sway and swagger between all the different members, you're going to see just like we talked about here. So I think moving forward, as far as the macro events, that is, that is going to affect everything. And before we jump off this topic, I just want to talk about the story that just broke about an hour or two ago, which was this one, Giveberry's thoughts here. Nexo. Bulgaria launches a probe of crypto. Leonard Nexo raids the sites. So apparently, Nexo set in December, it would phase out its US products and services, which is a pretty good idea, especially if you're doing money laundering, allegedly, allegedly. Bill Gehring prosecutors have launched an investigation to illegal activities. Leonard Nexo, they said on Thursday, rating more than 15 sites in the capital, Sophia. And they are investigating the setting up of an organized crime group, tax crimes, money laundering, banking activity without a license, and computer fraud. So Guy, these, I mean, we've had two conflicting stories, one Avalanche and AWS. And now we've got Nexo over here. So how do we deal with these types of stories? This is just how it is, or you just say, well, you know, hope for the best, expect the worst. I mean, we have to kind of hope for the best. But I mean, we've been hoping for the best with Nexo for a long time now. And obviously, when it all kicked off with Celsius, and then BlockFi, and I think the prevailing sentiment was, well, it's only a matter of time before Nexo goes under. And they seem to have held firm since then. And yeah, so it's very troubling to see this sort of news. I don't know if you have you been listening, or have you been following the the one coin story at all, the Dr. Ruzia? No, what's going on with that? Okay, I mean, that's, I mean, this is this goes back a long, long way. And I only mention it because I think actually, sorry, sorry, was this a fraud story? Yeah, so one coin, it one coin is a scam that goes back to sort of 2016. And I mean, it was huge, we're talking, we're talking billions of euros scammed in this, this completely fake cryptocurrency. And the reason I mentioned it, and I think it's mentioned in the article that you that you pulled up there. Because Ruzia Ignatava, who was the who was the kind of mastermind behind one coin, who now in kind of typical crypto villain fashion has disappeared without trace. She was she was Bulgarian and one coin, this is this is one of the crazy things about this whole story. One coin, which has been exposed as a scam of massive proportions. It still has offices open in Sofia, in Bulgaria. I know I absolutely 100%. And it's just extraordinary. And I saw I managed to kind of skim skim through that article that you that you pulled up there earlier, Rob. So shortly before we before we came on air. And I noticed that one coin came up. There was there was some talk of that. Now, that could all be speculation. And that could just be a kind of sort of lazy linking of Oh, well, Nexo is a Bulgarian based company. One coin is a Bulgarian based scam, two and two make four. So that was that was something particularly, you know, but kind of particularly troubling to me. But what I remember from from listening to listening to the podcast, the amazing podcast, the missing crypto queen podcast, which if you haven't listened to I, you must it's incredible. But they were talking about how Bulgaria is is sort of notorious is one of the most, I think easily one of the most corrupt countries in Europe. And I guess, you know, that you just have to kind of ask this question, you know, this Nexo has been Nexo has been based there is, is there you know, is there that connection is there that there seems to be there seems to be speculation about this connection to organized crime. And yeah, I mean, it's it's it's it seems to have taken a long time. And obviously, this is all this is all alleged. But it's certainly it's certainly a bad look that, you know, half of half of Bulgarian, the Bulgarian police force seems to have seems to have descended on their offices. But and I mean, if it is, if it does turn out that there's been wrong doing that, I mean, it's amazing, really, that they've that they've kept the platform going for as long as they have. Because, like I say, I think we all kind of expected that Nexo would would follow Celsius and blockfied to the ocean floor. But they still seem to be kind of bobbing along. Yeah, I thought I thought Genesis would be following all of them in chapter 11. And that still keeps keeps going along and Barry Silberitz has an amazing ability to keep things afloat without going through restructuring. I don't know how that's possible. But here we are. So I mean, anything else we want to say on this one, because I want to get to this this AI one, we're kind of running a little late. Let me just move on, which was so and of course, everybody in the chats, if you can start posting your questions now for for Guy and Ben, that'd be great. I'm going to pull up some questions after this. But AI, it's the hot topic because I think that that's going on. And the question I had is, will this rise of AI will it affect crypto? And are you guys using it anyway? And what I'm talking about here is like, I use personally chat GPT. And what I do is I run things through for my YouTube titles and just say, maybe a better title. And usually they do a bunch better job than I do. However, there's other places like mid journey, where I said, I uploaded this this thumbnail, because I was too lazy to make my own one. I thought I'd get away with it, uploaded it to to mid journey, go rearrange these guys and make me a better thumbnail. And they gave me this. And I was like, well, that's not even close. But I said, okay, how about this, keep the same guys, but get them laser eyes. And they came up with this. So yeah, oh my God. So not too great. I think we're a little bit off in what we're doing. However, we're not that far away. I will tell you that. And me and Ben talked beforehand that there was a there was a deep fake, I guess it would be like a shallow fake was pretty lame of Ben talking. But there's sites out there that you can use like like DID. And you can put the face and you can match it up up to the voice. It still looks robotic. But where are we going to be at in five years? And just to give some people a background, the reason why I brought this up, I had I talked to the CEO of meld. And we were talking about smart contracts and things that were being done. And I said, how, you know, how difficult is it? No, sorry, it was the the lead developer for an NFT project called ladies. And for a smart contract. And I said, you know, it's easier these days, I just run through chat GPT, I have some specific prompts for smart contracts, it spits it out. Because I was I, he says, I have four developers, I sent it to my lead developer to check it over. He said, that's perfect. And he goes, where'd you get this code? He goes, I put it through chat GPT. And the guy joke, he goes, well, there goes my job, haha. But I think there's something else out there. And that could be from job losses, which maybe that's where the unemployment's going to come from. Or it could be high frequency training bots, which are already smart enough and crushing us. So where do we go from here? So guy, I'm gonna start with you and we'll finish off with Ben. Yeah, are we all are we basically all on borrowed time? You know, are we all are we all sort of cruising towards obsolescence? I think one of the for me, one of the things that really struck me about, you know, about chat GPT in particular is that is that it seems to have really triggered, maybe not panic, but certainly a lot of concern at Google. And obviously, Microsoft have integrated it with Bing, haven't they? And all of a sudden, for the first time in 20 years or however long it's been, people are seriously discussing the fact that they that Google could have a genuine competitor, which absolutely blows my mind. I mean, if ever, if ever, a company seem to have seem to have something sewn up, it was Google. And I mean, it's still early days, isn't it? But for me, that's been one of the most instructive things, you know, people are actively now saying, and that if that would represent, I think a real paradigm shift. So, yeah, it's, it's, it's fascinating to see what effect will it have on crypto? Yeah, I mean, I wonder whether, you know, our day traders, our day traders going to become obsolete if, if, if AI just keeps evolving at the rate it is, and just keeps doing it better. And as you say, Rob, you know, that high frequency traders don't stand a chance anymore. And I think what perhaps one, in some way, another way in which it could affect crypto is, I think it's perhaps just stealing, stealing the narrative a little bit. I could argue that it's already stolen the narrative. Here we are. I mean, we're crypto guys. And here we are, we're talking about AI. AI is top of mind for so many people. It's the trending topic everywhere. And obviously with crypto in the kind of situation that it's in at the moment, perhaps, perhaps that's the real threat. AI is just going to be what everyone gets excited about and where everyone kind of kind of moves to. Yeah, I can see that. And it's, it's stealing the narrative, like you said, but the, but the question is, you know, for how long that's the big thing. Ben, what do you got for this one as far as AI? Not now our expertise, but it's just, it's an interesting thing, especially that, that shallow fake that I, I showed of you. Yeah, I mean, there's probably going to be some great investment opportunities, I imagine, in, in, you know, especially later this year, early next year, I think, honestly, generational opportunities for a lot of this stuff that especially, you know, companies that are going to be integrating artificial intelligence. We, I mean, we, I think you can see the bull case, the bull cases, I think very clear for the next 10 years on AI and how it will probably completely change our world. How will it affect crypto? I mean, I imagine it will affect it to some degree. I mean, you probably will, as you said, I mean, as there's already, as you already pointed out, like you probably will have some developers from some more of these like fringe projects are going to jump ship, right? Because I mean, again, a lot of all coins just stayed into oblivion in the cryptoverse and the blue chip survive. So I do think there is some validity to that, but that's not really even that the similar from what we've seen in other cycles, right? And maybe the next round of crypto bull market involves AI in some way. You know, I don't know exactly what that would look like, but I think there's some validity there. So I do think it could certainly affect some of the fringe crypto projects, for sure, like some of the altcoins that are not very strong for the mentally or, you know, whatever it might be, it might help encourage those to just simply die. I don't really think it's going to have any negative effects on Bitcoin or probably not Ethereum either is my guess. In fact, it might actually just make them, I mean, as we just had more towards a increasingly to a digital world, it might actually just make those even stronger. But yeah, I mean, that's kind of where I stand. I mean, I think the future is certainly digital, you know, metaverse, AI, all this sort of stuff is going to be 10, 10 years from now. I 10, 20 years from now, I think we're going to we're just going to find ourselves in a completely in a completely different world than we are in. Yeah, I gotta agree. And I will just I'll leave all this. I agree with you guys on what we just said. The thing that that is is for me is we saw so many scams in 2021. And those were like the lamest scams of all time. Imagine having a deep fake with your voice and be able to spoof your email, which has happened to me in the past, you know, only people are going to get ripped off left and right. It's going to be apocalyptic, but I could be wrong. And that's it. So look, we're going to go over three questions, and then we're going to get out of here. So gentlemen, I want to say thanks again for stopping by. There's just one this one comment from Future 40 said, he just added my first real concern about AI last night while watching a video of Mark Cuban on a Zoom call. And I couldn't tell if the video was fake verification of a thing is going to be a big deal. Who knows, man? I don't know, but it scares the hell out of me. This one, this is probably been for me and guy, I don't think Ben's going to get with this one. But if he had to choose between Avax, Adam and Dot for a long term investment, which one would you choose? Guy, what do you got? Are you having these actually? I have I'm just holding Adam at the moment. I have held both all three before. I sold out of Avax and Dot a while ago, but I'm certainly I'm looking to go back in at some point. But Adam, I love I love Cosmos. I think it's such such an exciting project. I think the tech is amazing. The team is amazing. So that would edge it. You know, that would be my layer zero play if you like ahead of Dot. But I mean, I must say all three all three are great projects. And obviously, today's news with Avalanche has kind of, you know, certainly, certainly changed the game a little bit. I got to agree in there. I have I have Avalanche and Adam. I don't I have very little dot. I sold most of it. But Adam again, I had I talked with crypto seats. Oh, he's a big Adam proponent. And that layer zero and the things that are being built on it. I mean, it just doesn't when when something goes off and the chain, it doesn't affect all the rest of the projects that are on it. So like with any other ones, if the main chain goes down, you're screwed. But with this one, it just keeps going. And prime example, Luna was built on Adam. Don't say anything bad about because I mean, it was Luna. But after that thing collapsed, nothing happened with Adam and all the different products that were built on it. So that's that one. Ben, this is for you. Ben, you wanted to refit the logarithm aggression ban into the year. Will you do so? Yeah, I'm going to refit it. I haven't done it yet, I guess, because I've just been somewhat lazy. But the last one, the last one was was fit to just data through like, I believe, like April of 2019. So I was kind of waiting, like I know I said, I do it any year, I was kind of just waiting to give this a couple more months just to have a little bit more data. It's only going to shift it down, I think by a few thousand dollars, right? Like it's not going to have a huge effect. And by the way, my answer on the last question would probably just be ask me again in six months, because I'd like to see which projects actually can survive these tighter monetary conditions. Personally, I wouldn't want to spend too much time risking my own money on it. But in six months, let's say by the summer, then perhaps we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. And some of these altcoins will find their macro bottoms, or at least their local bottoms against Bitcoin or something, and maybe turn things around. So maybe in six months, I'll have an answer on that. No, I did not expect that. Thank you very much. And then this one, this one, this will be the last one, if something comes up, what would the best crypto legislation look like? This is a tough one. The next EU parliament election is 2024, about when next bull run should get started, so good opportunity and influence. Guy, I want to start with you, because I don't know anything about parliament and EU and any of that stuff that goes on with over the pond. So what do you think? What would the best legislation look like? It's a good question. Gosh, yeah. I think, I mean, the best legislation, and I think we've kind of covered this when we've talked about kind of regulations in the past, is the best legislation that acknowledges that we're dealing with an emerging technology here, and that allows that technology the room to grow, allows the people developing it room to operate without fear that suddenly they're going to make some transgression, or rather they weren't even aware of, and someone's going to be knocking on their door five minutes later. So I think it has to be legislation that allows for that, that allows for it to grow, and this idea of investor protection is really, really important, but I think it just gets used as a kind of lazy shorthand by regulators so often. It's like, oh no, we've got to protect investors, so everything's a security, and we don't really understand what this project is trying to do. We don't like the standard tokenizing this, that or the other, so we're going to shut it down. We're going to make it illegal or whatever. So I think legislation that acknowledges that this is a growing technology, and that there needs to be, I guess it needs to be flexible as well. It needs to be able to change with the times, and that is a big ask because it's already a big ask to get these guys to understand it. It's not easy to understand a lot of it. So I hope we see some flexibility, and I hope we see as well, this is legislation, if you do it right, then this can attract investment, this can attract great minds. Don't let the brain drain go to the places that are allowing it, because if you do that, then developers will just up sticks. I mean, there's already digital nomad, it doesn't work from wherever. All you'll do is just lose some of your best minds. Guy, you missed your calling. You should have been a politician. That was great. Ben, last one. Same thing for you. What does good legislation look like for you on your end? I think we just need some clarity. The biggest thing is we don't have clarity, and it's going to keep the big money out. I've said this before. The crypto versus a lake, and we need an inlet to the ocean where all the big fish are. We just simply can't have that until there's more regulation. If you're a huge company, are you going to want to put all your money in these cryptocurrencies when the SEC or whoever could come after them with very strict regulations next week? We just need clarity on what they are. I don't think Bitcoin is a security. I hope Ethereum is not a security either. I really don't think it needs to be, but even if a lot of the altcoins are securities, the idea that that means they can't be successful, I think is not true. I mean, look at all the equities. They're all security using that. They still go on massive bull runs. I think we all think about this term security. It's like the worst thing in the world. I don't think Bitcoin is a security, so I don't think we need to worry about that. But with regards to the altcoin market, I think we just need to know, is this a security or is it not? If it's not, great. Just tell us, and then people can operate under that assumption. The idea that they just don't say anything is keeping a lot of the money out of the market. Again, you look at the .com bubble, it peaked at $3 trillion, and then it collapsed 85%. Crypto also peaked at $3 trillion. Look at tech today. Look at where tech is today 20 years later. We just need regulation. We simply need some level of clarity on the regulation so that the larger fish can come in. I mean, look at what happened with FTX, Celsius, BlockFi, Voyager, all these things. Even what we talked about today with Nexo, you need a level of trust there for the larger fish to come in. When the larger fish come in, they can support a much larger bull market that I think could easily eclipse the last peak at $3 trillion. It's going to take that clarity, whether it's a security or not. Again, I don't think Bitcoin is, and I don't think Ethereum should be, but if the altcoin market, if it's a security, we just simply move on and we'll be better off for it. Yeah, and I got to agree. I've been hard on this as well. It's all coming out of this. Just tell me what it all is. I personally think just like when I was a medic in the army, we just triaged. It's very simple. Security goes over the SEC, currency goes the OCC, commodities go the CFTC, and just make a fourth division and just put that for digital assets. Because if you want to talk about a security or a utility, I think Ethereum can fit that definition of both. But unfortunately, I still have to use the utility of it to buy for all the different crazy stuff that I buy. That's the utility part called gas. Anyhow, that's my little spiel, but that's it. Ladies and gentlemen, thanks again, or thanks for stopping by and watching. Jens, Ben and Guy, of course, you can find Ben over at the Cryptiverse, Guy at Coin Bureau and Coin Bureau Clips, which I do love the live streams, and you can find those links in the description. So that's it for today, everybody. Thanks so much for stopping by, and we'll see you on the next one. See you guys. Adios.