Jonesy.Trades

crypto trencher class of 2020

[CryptoUK @CryptoUKAssoc]

Under the UK’s new A&D regime, before a qualifying cryptoasset can be admitted to trading, a platform will need to assess the asset against its admission criteria. How much due diligence is required will depend on the risks involved.

In this clip from our recent webinar on A&D and MARC under the UK’s new crypto regime, Chrislyn Pereira of @eunice_ai1 explains some of the factors firms may need to consider, including the people behind an asset, its governance arrangements, technology risks and whether key information can be verified.

Watch the full webinar: https://t.co/vlp9F0rpBc

[Route 2 FI @Route2FI]

Just some random life thoughts here:

In my experience, I find most smart crypto people to be incredibly lazy (sounds bad, but it isn't, let me explain):

In crypto (and tbh in life) my default setting is: “What is the absolute minimum I need to do to get the maximum possible upside?”

-I have zero meetings in my calendar, and I believe that I’ve fully internalised that this is a fat‑tail game. One or two properly timed, properly sized decisions will dwarf a lifetime of mid‑effort grinding. So most of the time I’m not “doing” much in the visible sense. I sit, I think, I scroll Twitter, chat with some people, read TG, I let things play out.

Then when something actually lines up, it could be a narrative, I try to size it and move (pinned tweet for the coins I think move the most this cycle: https://t.co/51z7pRkolh ). IMO that’s way more rational than being constantly busy just to feel productive. Trust me, I've worked hard in corporate, and most of the stuff is just BS.

-Same with information. There’s infinite noise, and my attention is a hard bottleneck, so trying to “keep up with everything” is just irrational. The time to lock in is now, which is why I ignore most DMs, most narratives, most “alpha,” most charts. I let a ridiculous amount of potential stuff die unread. That’s not because I don’t care; it’s because I’d rather miss small wins than be mentally drained when a real outlier shows up.

IMO, I’m “lazy” in the sense that I refuse to waste energy on low‑impact actions, but under the hood the logic is simple: minimise actions, maximise asymmetry.

Oh, and one more thing. Based on something I wrote a while ago, I got a DM asking why I don't use alarms to get up early and seize the day (and why I think this is massively EV+).

Several reasons for that, but one of the most important is that using an alarm will spike your cortisol so heavily and make you age faster in terms of skin health. Plus, I just hate getting shaken out of dreams and waking up feeling tired AF. Waking up naturally must be healthier IMO, even though I don't have any crazy science to back this up. All the important stuff I have to do always gets done, and I guess this way of life works for me. Maybe I am just lazy and stubborn, though.

[Rev Cap @rev_cap]

Weekend finance newsletter says the new “becoming a millionaire” level is actually 4x what it was in 1990

[Vēnø @Veno_41]

MINHxDYNASTY says traders that have a small portfolio need to have a more abundant mindset

“If you have a small portfolio I need you to shut up and look at the amount of money you have and learn to be more abundant”

“If you have 0.1 Solana in your wallet that’s more than 0 Solana, you have to respect the Solana that’s in your wallet”

“When it comes to having an abundant mindset you need to have gratitude, you need to be grateful that you can learn more about crypto”

[Aylo @alpha_pls]

Two camps right now:

4 year cycle loyalists

- $BTC didn't bottom in the exact timeframe is it did in the last 3 cycles, which was 12 months or more to the bottom
- Still below 50W MA so bearish market structure technically still intact
- BTC bear too shallow in drawdown
- A few examples from history show some similar type PA that reversed back below the 200D MA (lacks some similar context though imo)
- Points to weakness in stocks still to come

BTC bottom is in bulls

- 200D MA sliced through and held above
- Big distance above the 20W EMA/20W MA, which was held with yesterday's weekly candle
- Spent a lot of time below the 200W MA
- Strong impulse weekly candle seen at previous cycle bottoms
- Lock out type rally
- Spot volume up 150%
- ETFs buying billions of dollars of BTC again (didn't have this marginal buyer in previous cycles)
- Historically oversold vs SPY & QQQ, and similar aggressive candle seen at the bottom of the previous cycle against the indexes
- Historically significant short squeeze showing how offside positioning was
- Actual catalysts to support the PA rather than it being random - Treasury to continue to intervene in the bond market, SEC landmark crypto framework + rumours of USA to buy large amounts of BTC (last point is less significant, but combines for an additional buy the rumour catalyst)
- Wall of worry very much present, and bull markets climb a wall of worry

As a market cycles believer myself, I still think you will have a strong pullback in Oct to set a final higher low, but I can't look beyond the weight of data points in favour of trend shift, and the cycle bottom being in.

Camp bull.

[Aporia @0xaporia]

Sidelinooors didn’t buy the bottom because it seemed too risky, then didn’t buy the trend because it seemed too risky to be the top. Sidelinooors didn’t buy the breakout because it could be a fakeout, too risky. Then didn’t buy the retest because it could be a breakdown, too risky.

Sidelinooors treat risk as a bug to be fixed rather than the price of admission. Sidelinoors keep adding complexity trying to get the return without the pain, and they end up shifting the risk somewhere they can't see it until it blows up.

Sidelinooors don’t understand that trading is the monetization of risk. The practice of systematically acquiring exposure to risk that the market compensates, while identifying and shedding the risk it does not. Profit lives entirely in how honestly and rigorously you draw that line.

Sidelined?

[Ansem 🐂🀄️ @blknoiz06]

yep

[BowTiedBull.eth - Read Pinned or NGMI @BowTiedBull]

At $1M and under the answer is obvious. Grind crazy hours take more risk. You have no chance at making it to paid off home + $3-5M liquid without biz/high income

Game becomes psychological around $2M because if you F-it up and lose 50%, you're back to square one.

[Frank @frankdegods]

this old plumber actually had some good advice

[Route 2 FI @Route2FI]

What do you think is the best place/venue to achieve financial freedom online these days?

I remember back in 2018-2020, dropshipping, Shopify stores, and ebooks were hot, we had (and still have) crypto from 2020, and now AI stocks.

But like, if you were young today with unlimited time on your hands, what rabbit hole would you dive into if you wanted to make it?

[Brian Armstrong @brian_armstrong]

Something that got missed in the noise last week: Coinbase got approved to offer true global crypto perps in the US. This took many years of work, and we're the first to offer this global liquidity to US users.

Backstory: For many years crypto trading has been moving offshore because the US didn't have clear rules, and perpetual futures were a superior product that traders wanted but it wasn't allowed in the US.

If we're being honest, probably ~half of all perpetual futures volume was Americans using offshore products via VPN with loose KYC controls (an open secret in the industry). Penalties for this were rarely, if ever, enforced, which as you can imagine, was frustrating for us as an American company following the rules. Others set up offshore entities and found ways around it.

After dozens of personal visits to DC, and many more from our policy team, I'm really proud we finally got approval to give US users access to true, global perpetual futures. This is important because we'll now see pooled global liquidity in perpetual futures, with the US and international markets being connected instead of fragmented.

Coinbase is strongest in the US, and the US is the largest market for trading, so there is now a chance to build a global network effect around liquidity. And US traders can now use these products in a compliant way with a US company, which hopefully provides greater customer protection.

Major credit to Chair Selig and Atkins on recognizing the importance of this for US capital markets. And we will keep working to update the system in a compliant way, and to be the best place you can trade.

[funcry @funcry]

if roundtripping hurts you, remember there are people putting their savings into stocks for 30 years, roundtripping their net worth a gazillion times, calling it long-term investing, then paying taxes when they finally withdraw at retirement and potentially sell the bottom to withdraw their savings since they simply don't know trading.

but you can’t sit through a meme going from 10M to 7M to 3M before it potentially does 100x.

[BOSS @thebeautyofsaas]

nothing will kill your soul faster than spending 100% of your waking hours making the numbers on the screen go up

no hobbies. no taste. no personality. looking for every opportunity to cheap out on the people who love you, just for that number to go up

miserable existence

[Tom Dunleavy @dunleavy89]

I actually think most people in crypto are in trouble if they try and switch careers.

99% of crypto trading is basically either technical analysis or insider knowledge to profit in any short term time frame. There are no fundamentals.

Unless you're Jane Street you have zero technical or short-term edge in equities markets.

[Route 2 FI @Route2FI]

I’m insanely optimistic about the next couple of years. Whether crypto is “over” or not doesn’t really matter; there will always be new games to play.

Personally, I believe what we’ve seen so far is just the starting point, and that major innovations at the intersection of AI and crypto are still ahead of us.

[CZ 🔶 BNB @cz_binance]

Bitcoin won't be "dead" for too long.

Don't panic, in large friendly letters.

[Ansem 🐂🀄️ @blknoiz06]

disagree, crypto is just going through a maturation phase

stablecoins, perps, & tokenization as themes will continue to proliferate throughout the global economy, and there will be many successful crypto startups that do well

hyperliquid is just the first of many startups that has done a great job of illustrating how open blockchains & tokenization of a business can be a dominant combination

current issues with sentiment around crypto are due to the largest coins not doing well, BTC went from $0.01 to $100k per coin in less than two decades, it very successfully achieved it's goal of maintaining value against the dollar as USD continuously lost its value, present day problems with the ponzification of bitcoin due to saylor's shenanigans is a temporary thing, i dont think you see btc trend aggressively again until that situation is resolved, also quantum concerns are real, those two things along with exit liquidity from institutions were strong reasons for BTC OGs to derisk into excess liquidity as we've seen examples of with that large galaxy otc sale they facilitated ($9B sale in 2025 for one entity), there are many individuals like that who are up infinite

but bitcoin underperforming for a few years after outperforming every other asset on earth for over a decade does not mean crypto is dead, thats silly

ethereum also is suffering for its own individual reasons, i feel like ive talked about this enough on here but yes its been outcompeted by new entrants & has not done a good job of making eth a great asset to hold, every L1 is struggling on the demand side because historically the story around these tokens was future growth & not real revenues, but now that hyperliquid has demonstrably shown that you can connect a business directly to the L1 token the previous L1s are struggling bc they dont capture enough revenues from the apps that use their infra, eth has it even worse bc it also outsources execution activity to rollups

but this also does not mean there cannot be more successful crypto startups

there is a very clear trend of regulation improving for crypto in general, which will make it much easier for entrepreneurs to build businesses that use crypto, it is also clear that existing tech companies are acknowledging the advantages of using blockchains as we've seen with robinhood, stripe/tempo, & others

AI has taken a lot of the mindshare away from crypto as tech stocks have been much better trades since the bottom in 2022, id say it would be extremely foolish to not be splitting time between stocks & crypto as a trader, before it made sense to be overexposed to crypto if you were willing to take on the risk as it was a new industry that experienced supernormal returns as it became more mainstream

three underdiscussed tailwinds for crypto as AI models become exponentially better over the next few years

1) open source AI will become a lot more competitive with closed source AI
2) it will become more easier for smaller teams to build successful startups using software
3) stablecoins & blockchains are much better rails for AI agents to transact on

combination of these trends means that it's likely that you see more crypto experimentation w/ tokens not less, especially as regulatory environment improves *and* retail speculation becomes a megatrend

[Alex Krüger @krugermacro]

Consensus seems to believe that if Saylor did not sell a lot of BTC last week (e.g. $2B), then bitcoin is doomed.

I don't see it what way.

Saylor has one job, and one tool. To accumulate BTC, by tapping capital markets.

If he were to sell (or have sold) $2B of BTC after buying $2B at $80,985 in the week of May 12–18, for a 20% loss, that would represent a major blunder.

One thing is to sell a little to harvest tax losses. An entirely different thing is to blow up $400 million in 2.5 weeks by buying & selling BTC like a degenerate gambler.

Best case scenario: BTC just goes up a lot, all problems solved.

Bad case scenario: BTC fails to rally, Strategy lowers the dividend on STRC to make it sustainable.

Worst case scenario: Strategy dumped/dumps BTC, shows the world the largest BTC holder, with 4% of the total supply, compounds mistakes, is unreliable, and can't be trusted in doing what it is supposed to be doing: accumulating BTC.

Nightmare scenario: Strategy dumped, but not enough.

[Squiggly Hair Shanks @redhairshanks86]

asset management 101

i used to work in a swiss family office, managing money for rich first and second generation entrepreneurs who made money in their industries but are not well versed in pure finance and investing

managing someone else’s money or your own is actually quite straightforward. the first two questions you ask are:

what is your risk profile?

conservative (1 - 3% annually, but definitely don’t lose my muni)

moderate (3 - 6% annually)

risk on (anything above that)

and the second question is: what is your tirm horizon

if you need the money back in a year, we can only buy liquid stuff for you. if you don’t need it for 20 years, we can do a lot more funky stuff for you including private equity

depending on how these two simply questions are answered, we build you a portfolio of stocks (more aggressive) and bonds (more conservative) + special deals like private equity

in crypto, people don’t think that way

in crypto, the strategy is normally "no look all in". almost everyone i know - including those that made it - has roundtripped their entire networth at some point. you can’t invest riskier than crypto and even within crypto most people don’t use risk management, they either hit a winner or they just lose it all

so many people including me are down 90% on a position and we still didn’t sell, we are just rawdogging it and considering the whole position a loss which is hopefully offset by a much bigger winner, almost like liquid vc investments

this strategy doesn’t work right now. maybe if we get another rampant bull run, it could work for a while, but i think it’s in everyone’s interest to get a bit more formal education in normal finance

cuz in the end of the day, you can’t win over many decades with a risk on strategy. you need to adapt