There is also nothing worse than telling people you do crypto. Just say the word to basically anyone, and their sudden change in demeanor tells you everything you need to know. They move to a defensive posture as if you can scam them without a keyboard. My accountant even calls them digital assets, but we all know we are not serious people doing serious things.
It's not unjustified. Crypto is basically every grifter, scammer, low IQ opportunist on the planet merged into a single PVP greater-fool arena. It's all zero sum, just a distributed money game to take someone else's money.
I think what happened last cycle is the survivors realized that the stock market has turned into just as much a casino, but instead of tokens, we have AI and cash flows. Gambling > investing. Speculation, narrative, momentum, marketing; it is all basically the same as crypto, except with more liquidity and an actual utility/revenues. The NYSE isn't going to scam you like CZ, and unlike token holders, shareholders actually have rights (amirite $VVV lol).
AI is also real enough to change everything. It feels like the global economic system is changing very quickly now. I use AI for everything. It is now my search engine, personal assistant, and truth machine. I Claude more than I Google. And for every AI winner, there will be many losers.
The value of labor is also rapidly changing. I also think AI is deflationary and SAAS is a zero. Just open source everything today, or lose tomorrow. Physical AI is probably the next wave and in the near future robotics will even reprice manual labor again.
And what did crypto do during this wave of incredible innovation? Nothing lol. Crypto has gone through two stages (two cycles each stage), and is now starting it's third stage.
2010 -> 2017 This blockchain technology is interesting. Let's apply it to everything. Only problem is blockchain isn't really good at anything.
2018 -> 2025 There is a lot of money still flowing into crypto, let's scam everyone.
2026 -> 2032 Ai will fundamentally change how value moves digitally. SOV, stables, micropayments, trading network adoption begins.
We are now entering the adoption stage, powered by AI. Crypto from a usability standpoint is (and was always) complete garbage.
- You get hacked, you lose all your money.
- You send money to the wrong address, spoofed or fished, you lose all your money.
- You forgot your password, you lose all your money.
Crypto was always unusable for your average person. It was always difficult to set up and configure wallets, let alone manage security and process transactions.
Crypto was never going to work for humans (that's why there was never any adoption). BUT AI is exceptionally good at using crypto. It is good at setting up wallets, security, transactions, bridging, payments. AI isn't going to be using your Visa credit card to transact. Actually the underlying technology of blockchain as an efficient, distributed financial asset is now relevant again. AI is infinitely better at using crypto than people are.
My new thesis is very bullish on networks, and very bearish on crypto. Bearish on exchanges, bearish rails/L1s, bearish on crypto VCs/funds, bearish on defi, bearish on infrastructure/services, bearish on basically every coin, bearish on market makers, bearish on everything that isn't fair launch. We can probably throw 99% of crypto into the trash can and nothing will change.
So here is my thinking.
Bitcoin might still take another leg down, but it looks much stronger than I expected here, so I've started to average back in. If Saylor can fully integrate a traditional financial market ponzi into it and still can't kill it, nothing can. I think Strategy is a net negative for Bitcoin, but I also think they have entangled their holdings in enough complexity that they will probably survive and squeeze supply at least for the next cycle. I think the odds Bitcoin is $150k(+) in <18 months is higher than the odds it is <$60k. Also it feels like everyone is waiting for $40k right now, so whatever.
Ethereum isn't dead in the same sense that fax machines aren't dead. People still use fax machines (I think). Ethereum committed suicide when it abandoned decentralization long ago. Then the foundation squeezed all the juice out of it. The only guarantee in life at this point is that Ethereum will never break all time high (yes, even in 10 years when the dollar has halved in value, no one is buying your $ETH bags sorry).
Solana leaned into the utility of scamming people. This is good if you are a scammer, but not good if you don't like to be scammed. There is probably more grift in Solana than in the rest of crypto combined (which is an accomplishment). Every Solana token is also a scam. It was a good run, but even Solana has run out of people to scam. The best way to use Solana is don't.
Basically all old L1s/L2s are slowly going to zero. Robinhood/Stripe have their own chains. Wall street isn't buying your coins, they are selling you Canton.
$ADA, $LINK, $AVAX, $DOT, $ATOM are all going to zero. $TIA, $SUI, $SEI, $ZRO, $OP all zero. $XPL, $KTA and $MON are probably zero too (though still efficient enough for a small chance at adoption if Base hasn't already killed them). The winning rail probably hasn't been invented yet, but rest assured it will be centralized and primarily for AI2AI microtransactions.
Fuck $XRP, $BNB, $TRON, $ASTER. Complete perpetual market maker scams. If you hold these, fuck you too. Actually if you hold Ripple you are so low IQ already, it's not even your fault.
Turns out 90 of the top 100 cryptos were all scams too. Half of them brought to you by CZ. At this point, it's easier to just classify every coin as a scam until proven otherwise.
Zcash and Monero will both be worth more dollars per coin in the future. Both are also not lame to hold and are the only coins in all of crypto that have equal if not higher aura than Bitcoin. Do whatever you want with that information. I also have a dystopia thesis (humanity and AI will not mix well), where $ZEC/ $XMR do exceptionally well over the next few decades (assuming quantum resistance is solved).
Bittensor and Hyperliquid are probably still the most interesting networks in crypto. Both suffer from limited decentralization. Hyperliquid validators are centralized. Bittensor has zero governance. Both work and have utility.
I only hold Bittensor, not Hyperliquid. Bittensor will do another cycle. The narrative (incentivizing open source AI) is probably the strongest narrative in anything right now (even traditional markets). Bittensor at this point is also more of a network than a crypto. Same with Hyperliquid. Both tokens are now secondary to the utility they provide, which is a good thing.
I don't think POW will ever die. Stuff like Litecoin and Kaspa both benefit from historical distribution cycles and organic community backing. Scarcity is also impossible to artificially replicate.
Memes are forever lottery tickets. You know who buys lottery tickets? Poor people. Infinite supply, 99.99999% will go to zero. Stick with $DOGE, $SHIB, $PEPE, $TRUMP, $SPX, or anything with a strong, organic community. Always take profit. Even better, don't buy them.
If you buy $ANSEM you will lose all your money. If you buy $PUMP you will lose all your money. If you buy $M you will lose all your money. If you listen to anyone who told you to buy these to buy anything else, you will lose all your money. Actually fuck $PUMP. This might have been the worst thing to ever be created. I hope the lawsuits send them to hell. Block anyone who promotes or is associated with this crime.
There are a lot of interesting but unaligned tokens these days. $AAVE, $NEAR, $AERO, $UNI, $ARB, $LIT. These tokens have utility/fees but suffer from garbage tokenomics and flawed economic design (simple greed).
Polymarket/Kalshi proved one of the few actually utilities of blockchain. Prediction networks (open market deployment and fair resolution) are inevitable.
New themes.
1. Stable microtransactions
2. Prediction/resolution networks
3. Non-retarded Hyperliquid competitors (no not $LIT or $ASTER lol).
4. New/fair incentive networks (like Bittensor).
5. Fair stables (like OUSD).
The problem with crypto since the beginning was dilution (infinite tokens). And now it is significantly less interesting than everything else; AI, robotics/drones, quantum, space.
Bitcoin will win SOV, there will be a few stablecoin rail winners, maybe a few microtransaction/x402 winners. There will be a few incentive networks. Prediction/perp networks too. Privacy will always be interesting (long $ZEC/ $XMR). POW and POUW will always exist, and retain value. But this is like 20, maybe 30 tokens max. Everything else is a zero. Search for scarcity or recursive revenue loops.
Crypto is still investable, but if you are not concentrated into quality you are completely fucked. New cycle starting soon. Good luck.
The buyback is 100% programatic and non-discretionary. Every hour, the protocol collects all fee revenue and places 100 buy-side limit orders for $LIT from the current price down to -10%.
No human decides when, how much, or at what price. This runs 24/7 on a fixed loop.
Circle 🤝 @Lighter_xyz
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its frustrating to me to see so many threads bashing lighter, when the reality is they handled yesterdays event in prod smoothly
a whale fat fingering on the orderbook means whales are organically using it - i did the exact same thing two years ago on hl, and this guy even turned off the ui flag that my blood paid for. events like these create opportunities for everyone else
llp handled arc exactly like it was supposed to - the whale got liquidated, llp took a free call option on arc, then when the strategy zerod it adl'd the position. all live in prod no halts
net result: attacker 0d, llp safe, users/mms +7mm
these are good growing signs of an exchange, and handling them is an important test of an exchanges competency
trading is finding the difference between the true value of something and the perception (mkt price)
some things that are truly good are already consensus, like hyperliquid, and you can buy them and make money because they will keep winning
the best opportunities lie in finding good things that the general market doesnt realize yet
having worked or talked with almost every perp dex that exists, at ~400m circ w/ 50% staked lighter is the highest quality to value ratio token in the market rn, and you can see the perception-based discount as people think lighter will go the same way as dydx, vertex, polynomial, etc
the flows as that perception changes for the positive is what i am focused on
the truth is lighter is a live player in the perp space and is iterating quickly in the three areas that matter most:
-liquidity (fee + funding discount)
-rwas (cross margin + fast w/ new listings)
-spot collat (usdt/eth/llp margin)
i would also argue given the growth of the perp category, legitimate exchanges should trade at a premium to their pure fee based relative value, as there is a lot more pie to grow
@badenglishtea Very true, also maybe not as mind-blowing as Opus, but still super interesting, is the rapid explosion on video generation front. Seedance 2.0 is insane, and it's still feels like it's only the beginning of the video possibilities.
https://t.co/4oQDn3HnoS
We are excited to be the first DEX to offer Korean equity perps!
These markets are live at 10X leverage: $HYUNDAI, $SAMSUNG, $SKHYNIX and the $KRCOMP (Korean Composite) index.