December 17, 2025 • 58 mins
A deeper look at why the crypto markets are collapsing right now, how it's similar/dissimilar to previous cycles, and what projects are likely to survive after the dust settles.
Also a look at: Japan's crypto adoption right now is one of the lowest in the world, despite having been the first places to go through regulatory frameworks and mainstream adoption. Is there a long-term strategy in play with the technology?
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:06):
Hello everyone, this is Ryan from Tea Cafe.
Today we'll be talking about thecollapse of crypto.
The ugly, the bad, the good.
I'm not trying to scare anyone,but uh today's date is December
17th, 2025.
(00:28):
And if you've been payingattention to the charts lately,
it's not doing so well, right,in in the crypto space.
So I wanted to kind of talkabout that a bit.
And uh because I've been throughseveral crypto winners already,
uh, might help to like get alittle bit of perspective.
(00:50):
Crypto, despite all of the poormarket uh conditions in the last
few years, is still the mostpopular it's ever been in
history.
Just because prior to a fewyears ago, nobody really knew
about it at all.
And uh but the patterns that yousee, the hype cycle and sort of
(01:14):
the market corrections, right,they remain fairly similar to
each other.
So um I might, I don't want tomake predictions, but I might be
able to maybe help some peopleunderstand what's going on.
Because when I go on socialmedia these days, especially
(01:36):
Twitter, I see a lot of panickedposts, a lot of projects kind of
talking about themselves indesperation.
Some of them doesn't even makeany sense, you know?
It's just like kind of graspingat straws, right?
You could kind of argue thatwe've been in a bear market
since 2022, like for real,right?
(01:58):
If you look at uh the prices,like we're nowhere near we were
in 2021, and that downward slopehas just been continuing on.
Uh so one silver lining.
I'll guess I'll start with oneof the good points, uh, even
(02:18):
though it comes at the end, isthat uh we're kind of uh
reaching a point, it's been longenough since the last uh crypto
peak, right?
About four years relativelyspeaking.
Uh four years was about the sameamount of time it took from one
(02:41):
peak to another in the last fewcycles as well.
Uh so when I joined crypto, thatwas like 2013, 2014.
Uh I mined a little bit ofBitcoin.
I was an Ethereum ICO.
And then um, yeah, and then Igot my wallet from the ICO, and
(03:04):
it just kind of sit there, satthere doing nothing for about
four years.
And then the there was a bighype cycle that came.
Well, not really big, relativelyspeaking, it was big for us.
Uh yeah, so around 2016-2017,the prices start going up.
(03:26):
Ethereum was about$100 and itshot up to$1,400.
And NFTs, Crypto Punks,CryptoKitties, those sorts of
things, those were in the media.
People were talking about it.
It wasn't really like headlinenews like it is today, you know,
but um it'd be just be kind oflike it'll be in the tech uh
(03:51):
portion of TV, of a of a newsshow, for example.
So it was just this thing, kindof interesting thing.
People didn't really have strongopinions about it, other than
the people inside of thecommunity itself, but it just
kind of came and went and thendropped right back to$100.
So$100 to$1,400, right back to$100.
(04:15):
So yeah, so I saw a lot of whathappened, the highs that
happened when prices are goingup, rapidly shooting up.
I got lucky.
Um at the time I was like kindof in a little bit of a
financial trouble, but cryptoreally saved me, and that made
(04:35):
me a believer in the wholething.
Because like, wow, this weirdinternet money thing like
actually helped me out on apersonal level.
So so yeah, so I've stuck withit since then and have been a
believer ever since.
But I also saw what happenedwhen it dropped all the way down
(04:56):
right back to a hundred bucks,and it it can get very ugly.
And we're kind of seeing thatright now.
A lot of the things peopleposting right now uh kind of
reminds me of that.
I've seen like Solana quote bragabout their protection against
DDoS attacks, even though that'sreally not a crypto thing.
(05:18):
Like crypto doesn't have toworry about those sorts of like
flood attacks, because in orderto use it, you have to do a
transaction, right?
And in order to do atransaction, you have to pay for
it.
DDoS only works because it'sfree, is using free computing
power, right?
Basically, from so anyway, uhit's just like ridiculous.
(05:42):
And then uh one other thingpeople are talking about
Bitcoin, quantum computing.
Like Bitcoin is ready forquantum computing, and and it's
just bizarre because uh that'snot anything new.
People have been talking aboutit since 2000, since I got
involved almost 10 years ago.
(06:03):
And it it's uh one, it's notreally a problem because uh
crypto quantum computingcracking the code is still many,
many years away.
I have plenty of time toprepare, but at the same time,
(06:23):
it's like uh why are you like Idon't know, like the the reason
the reason why it all of asudden everyone's talk about
talking about it is kind ofbizarre.
Like there doesn't seem to be alogical explanation why they're
bringing this up.
But I do think it's like kind ofa distraction from the fact that
(06:48):
the prices are sinking and andthey're basically finding
already looking for excuses whythey're gonna fail, you know, to
be kind of blunt about it.
There's a lot of uh the theBitcoin itself will be fine long
(07:11):
term because you cannot reallyerase a blockchain, right?
That's kind of how it'sdesigned.
If one person still believes inBitcoin, then it's by
definition, it's still alive.
All you need is one machine, onenode.
It'll be nice if there was morethan one, but uh you know,
because they need each other tokeep things updated.
(07:32):
But worse comes to worse, itnever really dies.
No, no crypto coin really diesunless you right you shut it off
for good.
But so that's not really theissue.
The issue really is there's allthese like hedge funds and um
really fiat money uh trying toget in on the whole crypto
(07:59):
thing, and they're not reallyusing the tech as it was
originally intended, right?
It's like kind of uh almost likea grift because there's a lot of
projects out there that are thatcall themselves crypto, but is
actually not.
Some of them are running onservers, uh Sulana.
(08:21):
Uh some of them are uh a lot ofthe Bitcoin funds that have been
coming out of uh uh Wall Streetlately has nothing to do with
crypto.
They uh some of them are justlike futures markets where it's
just a bet to see whether it'sgonna go up or down.
(08:43):
Like that they don't even touchthe thing.
A lot of exchanges, right?
They uh hold your wallet onbehalf of you, right?
That's what you're using whenyou use their services for for
better or worse, right?
There's some advantages to that,but but they're not really
holding crypto in a private keywallet like uh it was originally
(09:10):
intended, right?
The weird thing that happened inthe last few years really is
that people probably eitherbecause they didn't know how or
just was too lazy, but putdecide to quote invest in in
crypto by put parking theirmoney on like Coinbase or one of
(09:32):
those exchanges rather thandoing self-custody, right?
So what we're seeing right nowis I do think a lot of the
organizations are kind of seeingtheir writing on the wall and it
and they decide it's time to getout.
At the same time, they'retelling people now's the best
(09:52):
time to get in, you know,Midcoin to$1 trillion, and uh
blah blah blah.
But they're just really tryingto suck retail investors in just
to get a little bit of uhreturns before they finally
liquidate.
Most of these places have lostmoney and firms like
(10:15):
MicroStrategy, who uh yeah, itis really bizarre, just has this
weird convoluted system to tryto get people from Wall Street
or Fiat money into Bitcoinrather than actually sell it in
(10:37):
the Bitcoin itself.
Like you don't need to invest inthese funds.
You can just buy Bitcoindirectly if you really believe
in it.
That's all you have to do, andthere's lots of ways of doing
it, right?
That's called self-custody, justbuy it yourself.
But uh yeah, that's not what gotpopular during these last two
years, and they're the firstones to go because it's not only
(11:02):
about holding crypto in yourwallet, it's not about the hotto
thing.
It's it's like they haveobligations, right?
They have to go through WallStreet regulations, they have
salaries to pay, uh, they haveuh founders to make rich, right?
Like the guy.
And uh these people, uh, they'lltell you anything they want if
(11:26):
you think it'll get them rich,you know.
And and it's just been yeah, Ihonestly have been pretty
disappointed by how theindustry, what the industry
turned into the last few years.
And I'm not gonna be too sorrywhen I see that stuff go.
Even though right now it's alsohurting my wallet because,
(11:48):
right, it's just kind of likebad actors hurt everyone, bad
apples.
This is uh so anyway, um, that'sbasically what's going on right
now.
It gets more complicated, umwhich I'll go into, but uh I
(12:10):
just wanted to kind of givebefore I go more into detail
about what's happening now, uhjust a quick sort of like mini
summary of like what happenedbefore.
So when I got in, I don't haveany reference to um what
happened in crypto prior to2013.
(12:32):
I wasn't in that early, but Ihave an idea.
What really got me into cryptowas Ethereum, and I was in the
RC ICO, and I was sold on theidea of smart contracts because
I thought that the transparencyof having like automated
payments that is both uhdecentralized and transparent,
(12:54):
right?
That could be have a lot ofuses, uh especially in like
cleaning up a lot of the uh Icome from a music background, so
cleaning up the music industry,writing doing deals, keeping
track of copyright, royaltiesrate, and have all that stuff
like funnel into everybody'sbank accounts automatically.
(13:18):
That seemed like a really goodidea.
And so I sold and I got in.
Uh, but getting in was not easyat all.
And I think it's important forpeople to know this, because it
if it's too easy to get in onsomething, that might be a sign
(13:38):
that it's not gonna last.
Every time uh I made money incrypto, it's paying my bills
right now.
I'm not I'm not super duperrich, so don't don't ask me for
money, but uh I made enough onmy returns to pay the bills
currently.
Yet to be seen if that cancontinue, but we'll see.
Uh there's the but anyway, um,for me to get into the Ethereum
(14:04):
ICO, it wasn't just like goingto a website signing up and
putting in your cash.
The only way to get in on to getEthereum coins at the time was
to directly pay them Bitcoin.
And the only way you could getBitcoin back in those days is uh
(14:29):
either mine it yourself or youfind some guy on the internet
and then you trade it for apiece of pizza or something.
And uh people make fun of thattransaction, you know, the
Bitcoin for one pizza, oneBitcoin for one pizza, blah blah
blah.
But like if you're looking at itobjectively, it's like, well,
(14:52):
what else were they supposed todo?
Right?
That was the only way.
I'm probably not even the onlyone, right?
There's plenty of people thattraded, uh, you know, bartered
for Bitcoin uh with somethingthat they had.
So it's a very, very differentenvironment than it is now.
Now there's exchanges, you know,it's really, really easy to buy
(15:14):
crypto, even with a credit cardor bank account.
But uh that wasn't really thecase.
So after I got into the EthereumICO, basically I set them maybe
a hundred or two hundred dollarsworth of Bitcoin that I mined,
(15:35):
which took like several months,by the way.
This is why people didn't get inearly, okay?
It's it was a lot of work forsomething like you had to be
kind of like obsessed about itto even think of doing it, you
know.
So yeah, I think it's reallyimportant to keep that in mind
because the opportunities arenot never obvious, and and if
(15:59):
it's uh very popular, it'sprobably you gotta be a little
bit wary.
You can't have it both ways atthe same time, right?
Something popular but alsospecial, right?
You can't be special and normalat the same time, right?
Like well anyway, that's adifferent topic.
But um, so anyway, uh after thatuh nothing really happened for
(16:28):
like a few years.
Uh I until like 2016-17-ish, theprice of Ethereum kind of
wobbled around for a few years,but eventually it's kind of
settled around$100 or so.
But during the hype, uh whichwas actually triggered by
(16:52):
CryptoPunks and CryptoKittiesNFTs, uh, it went up from$100 to
$1,400.
And uh people were like, wow,whoa.
And uh some people made a lot ofmoney, and it kind of got into
the news.
People were talking about NFTsfor a little while, not like
(17:12):
they do today.
It was more like a niche thing.
So they it was on the newsseveral times.
Some places wrote articles aboutit, but it was more like a hey,
science and technology news.
It wasn't like the huge likeblow up we saw in uh 2021.
(17:32):
So that came and went, and itwas cool.
Um, the other thing that wasgoing on was uh ICOs became a
big thing.
So that includes Tezos as well.
Uh around that time, that's whenTezos launched.
But the first ICO really wasEthereum in 2013-14.
(17:53):
Uh, in case you don't know whatan ICO is, initial coin
offering, just think of it asIPO, like again when a company
goes public.
This is ICO when a coin goespublic and it includes the
public um to basically directlyinvest in the project.
(18:15):
At the time, that was uhactually very novel because like
some random person like me couldlike actually do it.
If I was willing to do themining thing and all go through
all the hoops, um it it melt itmade people, regular people like
(18:36):
me, feel like an investor, likea real investor, right?
That that didn't have to gothrough accreditation and all
those sorts of things.
And it was relatively affordableat the time.
Um getting into Ethereum's ICOat the time was probably just a
few hundred dollars at most, andthat got you about 2000 ETH, and
(18:59):
we can do the calculations, uhyeah, it's pretty good return,
right?
But uh but the uh yeah, so thehype during 2016 didn't really
last.
Uh there was issues with NFTsthat really people took a look
(19:21):
at it, even Bjork was likefooling around with it for a
while, her being uh way ahead ofher time.
Um yeah, you know, and peoplechecked it out, but it didn't
really solve the problems thatthey need, so it just kind of
collapsed.
So it went up from hundred tofourteen hundred and back to a
hundred.
(19:41):
And again, it stayed that wayfor about four years.
And uh interestingly enough, uhthey in the crypto cycle of
twenty twenty one they Actually,spent a lot of time that this is
(20:03):
the Ethereum folks, like kind ofrefining, um basically trying to
make the NFT thing that failedin the last uh the last cycle up
to par.
They didn't make a huge changes,but they made it like made the
(20:27):
process of owning one smoothenough to the point where they
felt like it was time to marketit again.
So I have a lot of respect forthe people that were doing that
work during that time becausefor about three or four years
they were just kind of buildingaway in the shadows and just
going at it every day.
And then when it was time for itto take off, it happened.
(20:50):
And the rest is history, right?
Sort of.
I mean, we're still living init, but so uh yeah, so that's
the gist of how it got there,right?
Interesting thing enough, thetwo both cycles were triggered,
not by DeFi or any of the otherthings they were working, they
were both NFTs, and I do believethat even in the next cycle,
(21:17):
it's gonna be NFTs.
Because NFTs uh has to do withart, right?
And then um it's really how tosay it, it's it's really the
ideal market to test thefunctionalities of crypto um
(21:42):
projects because uh crypto is avery, very new technology,
relatively speaking, right?
It's been around for like over10 years, but at the same time,
no one really has been able tolike figure out like what to
really do with it to make it uhuseful.
But it has a lot of applicationsin the arts, and the arts is a
(22:07):
good place to test things outbecause before you start using
these things for like medicaldevices or hey, your uh escrow
on your home, uh those thingsyou can't have failures, right?
Like it's not acceptable.
But with art, things break hereand there is not that big a
(22:29):
deal, right?
It's the it's a lower stakeasset that is ideal for
experimentation.
And that that's the reason why Ithink that um even today, like
it still continues to be one ofthe, if not the biggest quote,
product in the space.
(22:50):
Uh, this is also the reason whyI doubled down on Tezos.
Uh, I'm completely out ofBitcoin, I'm completely out of
ETH.
I sold sold a long time ago, um,just because for reasons I'll
get into.
But uh yeah, I still think we'renot out of the NFT thing yet,
(23:13):
because in order for crypto tobe come to have utility, to
work, to be useful, it it reallyneeds to nail the um model in
the creative spaces first.
Then after it proves itself,they can probably move on to
other things that uh requiremore precision, and the failure
(23:36):
rate has to be zero, right?
For for some things.
So, yeah, so that's what we'rekind of moving towards, and I do
think Tesla's is really like thebest candidate.
They've been doing the most inthat area, at least for now.
So uh we'll see what happensafter this cycle, though.
(23:57):
So it's gonna be very, verybumpy.
So, yeah, so the ugly, right?
The ugly and the bad, they'rekind of related.
Uh, if you're being for real,there's a ton of scams in
crypto.
That's the reputation we have.
There's a ton of phish, peoplejust trying to steal each
(24:19):
other's money.
There's the security.
There's a lot of half-assedprojects where this the security
is really not up to where itshould be.
And so you hear about these bigplaces getting hacked and
drained and at a level that'sprobably not acceptable, right?
Uh and then uh there's of coursethe beam coins, which is not as
(24:42):
ugly, but uh still, right?
It's just basically a casino,right?
And you ask them what what doesa coin do?
Nothing.
Like some places don't even hidehide it anymore.
Well, so you have these coinsthat exist for no other reason
than to be a casino where youhope in you get early enough
(25:05):
before you get wiped, right?
And so all of that stuff isgonna, it's not gonna go away,
but it's gonna be lessemphasized as the markets kind
of uh uh correct itself.
(25:25):
This happened before too.
I remember uh in the ICO era,there was all these coins just
popping up everywhere.
Everyone on their moms wanted tocreate a uh ICO because they
heard a few people got rich fromit.
And just like today, they'remaking dog coins and and ape
(25:47):
coins and whatever that was whatuh Bitcoin silver, Bitcoin Gold,
Ethereum Classic, Ethereum, thiswell, yeah.
So uh, but I mean being real, uhthere was a market correction
right after that cycle happened,and there's a lot of projects
that were like big names at thetime that are just disappeared.
(26:12):
They're not completely dead,they're still around, but if you
look at the charts, like theyhaven't done anything in like
over five years.
So you can probably say, okay,it's probably dead, right?
And uh I just wanted toemphasize how easy it is to be
(26:33):
on the top ten and never heardof ever again, right?
Because the saying uh the higheryou are, the harder you fall,
right?
And a lot of the projects thatkind of overmarketed in
themselves over the last fewyears but didn't deliver on
their promises, it would be adifferent story if if they
(26:54):
marketed something and they werein parallel providing actual
value to the people that boughtin.
But people call it a bubblebecause that didn't happen.
It was just pure marketing.
So a lot of those uh projectsare collapsing now because
they're running out.
Because if you don't have a realproduct, it even if it's not
(27:17):
intentional, your project turnsinto a Ponzi.
It's uh basically the same thinghappens at startups where they
have a ton of uh like where theyraise a lot of money, the
founders have their share.
(27:37):
You know, for what it's worth,they could be trying their best
to make it work, but when theproject starts to fail and you
kind of know it, um the thingmost people do is uh they try to
sell off their shares, in thiscase, the uh coins, before
(27:59):
people realize and then justjump shit.
And they're gonna lie, they'regonna tell you whatever you want
to hear uh while they're packingtheir bags.
But I think that's beenhappening.
I see like all kinds ofridiculous things, people saying
it has no bearing in reality,but what they're doing is
they're trying to distract youwhile they head up the exit.
(28:22):
And unfortunately, uh yeah, ifthis is your first cycle, you
probably didn't see it coming.
It's it can be kind of difficultto see.
I was it was the case for metoo.
I I didn't know, right?
Luckily luckily, I stuck toprojects that were actually
(28:42):
working on real things, and thatincluded Ethereum as well.
My portfolio during like 2017 to2019 was uh Ethereum, a little
bit of Bitcoin, a tiny bit, andthen uh Dogecoin.
(29:03):
I had others, but they were justfor fun.
Yeah, those those really are thethree things, pretty much.
Yeah.
So at the time they were workingon things and it made me feel
okay.
But in the last couple years, Ilost that feeling from those
(29:24):
projects because the bankerscame in, they kind of kicked
out, or the speculatorsbasically took over, and the
builders were either um subduedor they left.
And there was a big shift inculture at Ethereum that I was
not comfortable with, and that'swhy I I uh got out.
(29:47):
I I was serious about it.
I was uh a validator for alittle while, and that wasn't
cheap to do that, but the returnsucked, the customer service was
horrible, and um yeah, it justlike didn't make any sense
anymore.
So the reason why Tezos for forme, Tezos was the place where
(30:11):
all those things went, but butagain, um nobody believes it
because everybody used to makefun of Ethereum back in the day
in the same way that peoplemaking fun of Tezos.
Even though objectively it's theprobably the highest quality
(30:34):
project in the space right now.
It's not perfect, but they're atleast trying to solve problems,
real problems.
And there's a few others, like Ilike Gridcoin, uh Decentralized
is still pretty um interestingbecause also because it's
decentralized decentralized.
(30:54):
I do think like a lot of the umprojects that are gonna survive
in the future is is gonna begood governance because uh when
when people start to sell andthat entity is centralized, if
that one party leaves, that'sit.
It's just game over.
And we're gonna see who's beendoing this decentralization
(31:17):
thing for real or those who havebeen faking it.
And that idea of confrontingthat truth is like freaking a
lot of people out, I think,right now.
But um that's just how it goesneeds to happen because the way
the industry was going up untilthis point, like it crypto has a
(31:40):
terrible, terrible uh reputationright now among the general
public.
A lot of it comes from FTX.
And even though that'stechnically not crypto's fault,
the technology did not allowthat.
That was really Wall Street,right?
But the kind of people that endup representing the space,
(32:02):
they're not doing the industryany favor because uh without
people's trust, crypto isnothing.
It's all about trust, and andthey haven't used the technology
in the right way.
Uh I am I don't know.
Most places they don't evencheck ledger records, even
though that's the whole point,right?
(32:25):
So all that stuff needs to go,and it's happening now, and it's
gonna be a little bit scary, butI I a lot of us have been
waiting for this moment for itto finally okay, finally, we can
move on.
So we're gonna see how it turnsout.
So here are uh so I'm gonna gointo the good part finally,
(32:48):
right?
There's but before I do, uh asmentioned earlier, I wanted to
kind of talk about maybe a fewother perspectives that seldom
gets talked about.
And a lot of it has to do withJapan.
Uh and Japanese American, by theway.
(33:08):
Uh it's kind of uh uh I don'tlive in Japan, but I pay
attention to what's going onthere here and there just to
like kind of get uh informed.
But but Japan, uh, if you thinkabout it, now is Satoshi
Nakamoto Japanese.
(33:29):
Uh nobody really knows, and Idon't know if we ever will.
But my hunch is that there is agood chance that he was just
because of like the things thathappened around the crypto
industry uh when it first gotstarted.
(33:50):
So a couple things.
Um the Bitcoin was like inventedaround, I don't want to say the
wrong thing.
Let me check.
I think it's 2010, 2011, aroundthere.
(34:12):
Oh, 2008.
Actually, actually, I guessthat's when it was first
conceived.
Now, you think about it, right?
Uh that happened at the exacttime the uh financial bailouts
were happening, right?
And the whole like uh uh youwatch the big short, right?
(34:38):
The collapse in the economicmarket, banks going out of
business, things like peoplecouldn't have imagined could
happen happen.
And I do think that um thedevelopment of Bitcoin was
really a reaction to observingthat because if you're paying
(35:03):
attention, and obviouslyNakamoto's a smart guy, right?
Um and he knew what was going onand like how that bailout was a
really, really um big problem inin the economy.
And honestly, we're that's we'rewe're kind of hitting that point
of like inflection point.
(35:25):
Because back in 2008, theybailed out the banks, they
punished no one, they kind ofgot away with it.
Did they fix the problemsunderneath?
That's what they say.
They say they did, but did theyreally, right?
And uh there's good reason tothink that this system that
(35:45):
Satoshi created was a result ofbasically him or her or
whatever.
Uh maybe maybe it's a bot.
But maybe a bot created Bitcoin,I don't know.
But um, but the idea is tocreate an alternative currency
(36:08):
system that could not that couldnot repeat the same mistakes of
2008, right?
The most interesting thing aboutcrypto, and a lot not a lot of
people uh talk about this, isthe fact that you cannot go into
debt.
I I people talk about thedifference between digital and
(36:31):
fiat, but there's a lot ofoverlap between digital
currencies and crypto, at leaston the surface.
But one of the biggestdifferentiators is the fact that
you cannot go into debt, youcan't take out loans, at least
not directly, right?
You have a wallet, and thewallet is always positive, you
cannot go negative.
(36:52):
So that's one big part of it.
And I do think like it's prettysafe to say that Satoshi
probably was not a big fan ofquantitative easing and those uh
stimulus and all those sorts ofthings, um like shuffling money
around in a circle hoping likesomething good is gonna happen,
(37:14):
right?
I don't think he was really intothat.
Uh, he wanted to make Bitcoin apeer-to-peer electronic cash
system.
That's in the title.
So um what the so if you take itfrom that point of view, right?
And they decided to launch thisthing into the world that
(37:39):
offered a real alternative.
In the beginning, no one took itseriously.
Well, they even knew about it,right?
This very abstract, like, oh,you can own money on the
computer out of nowhere, right?
Like, like even now, thinkingabout it, it seems kind of
weird.
But imagine back then trying toconvince someone this money
(38:04):
exists on your computer throughthese quote wallet, digital
wallet, right?
It's probably a very hard sell.
So that's why it took a longtime before anyone even
considered using it.
But uh but they kept on doing itand kept uh working on it, and
uh eventually uh became Mt.
(38:29):
Gox, right?
If you don't know what that is,you should probably look look it
up because it was actuallystarted in Japan.
And that's that's really thereason why I do think uh Satoshi
has like ties with with Japan,just because of its early
history, right?
Uh Mt.
Gox was the first exchange inJapan, uh first crypto exchange
(38:53):
in the world, at least the mainthe most major one.
And uh, if you look at thehistory of like even like
Cardano, Ethereum, all theBitcoin people, they always they
talked that was the thing theyknew.
And uh so some people it wasvery, very small by back then,
(39:20):
but some people made a lot ofmoney in Bitcoin by investing
early, very, very early, evenbefore I got in.
Like they made a lot of money inJapan, and um yeah, you can look
it up, it's all there.
So so from that money, CharlesHoshison from uh Cardano got
(39:45):
into a fight with Vitalik.
They had uh disagreements and hewas uh quote let go or I don't
know, he quit or he got fired,or but anyway he was mad, he was
mad and he decided to create thethe ETH killer Cardano coin and
it was so smart that it was lookat his team they're all PhDs
(40:10):
from reputable universities.
How dare you question myintelligence there's a lot of
ridiculous things that happenedback then.
So but uh but anyway that'swhere the money came from um but
the reason why I'm talking aboutJapan is because they've they've
(40:34):
um been sort of a cycle ahead ofeveryone and what I mean by that
is that when I visited there in2016 I went to an electronics
store kind of equivalent of BestBuy or one of those uh competing
stores in the US the equivalentof that over they already had
(40:55):
Bitcoin integrated you gonna gothere buy a TV with Bitcoin?
Sure go ahead we support it andmeanwhile um in the US we're
struggling struggling just toeven get through the regulatory
things like and uh yeah so theywere like way ahead of the curve
(41:19):
when it came to like cryptoadoption and no one talks about
it because of reasons I don'tknow why but this is and
everyone I think I do think it'slike a large uh uh ego thing
they don't didn't want to letpeople know but but anyway uh so
(41:40):
that was there and um they triedit out for a couple years and
nobody used it so they're likeokay well and they they kind of
faded away interesting like alot of the hype behind crypto
kind of sustains itself based onlike an antagonism right like oh
(42:04):
the the banks are holding usback the government is holding
us back screw Elizabeth Warrenyou know her right like the
Bitcoin people do not like heruh so it was kind of but but
it's it it's like but like evenif you have an enemy it's like a
(42:27):
reason to get up in the morningto fight your enemy right in
Japan they took it all the waythey tried it out and it was a
letdown so they just kind ofslowly faded away it's still
there by the way it's just likeno one's talking about it.
And Japan has one of the lowestum crypto adoption rates in the
(42:48):
world it's kind of bizarreconsidering I just said Satoshi
is probably from there I don'tknow for sure but probably so
they were the first to launchfirst to adopt and then first to
get bored of it.
So yeah I went I went thererecently last couple months
(43:11):
there there was like a cryptotheme cafe and I won and I'm
like oh cool I don't know justI'm in the area this is in Tokyo
might as well check it out rightand I went with my brother
because we had nothing elsebetter to do but but then it was
gone.
So sad it's so sad.
A couple years ago I went tothey had even had a cafe called
(43:33):
Mona Coin themed bar.
They had a mona coin it lit upbut it was a crypto coin made in
Japan at the time and uh theyhad a bar and all that went in
uh no one was there but you knowhey but cool at least it exists
right so okay so anyway that'swhat's going on now you can skip
(43:57):
ahead to to today there is ainteresting development
happening so in the last coupleweeks and part of it is just
people grasping at straws like Isaid but uh they've been blaming
the drop in pit bitcoin crisprice on Japan increasing their
(44:22):
interest rates uh to borrowmoney let's see I can't see it
but Bank of Japan to takeinterest rates to 30 year high
and why is this uh significantwell uh to just to to just say
(44:47):
uh to make it clear 30 year highmeans 0.5 percent to 0.75
percent okay i'm not talkingabout like 10 or 30 it's so
small and uh when people go toJapan the interesting thing they
(45:08):
they notice is that uh ifthey've been to there multiple
times their inflation rate isreally really slow like even my
dad oh he's been going there fordecades he said oh yeah the
prices are pretty much the samefrom the 80s it's kind of
bizarre so um all this time forthe last couple of decades they
(45:34):
their borrowing rate has beenvery very very low and Americans
and US companies have beentaking advantage of that so when
they need to borrow money youcan go to the bank you can go
ask your friends if we're richenough you could go right
different places but they donotice that the borrowing rate
(45:56):
in Japan is really really lowand some of that has been
flowing into crypto and it's notunthinkable just because that's
where it is like that's where itstarted that's where Bonk's was
and the people that did thatstuff back in the day they
they're still there so uh yeahso I do think there's some truth
(46:20):
to that claim because if uhcheap loans and cheap money is
harder to get it's gonna slowdown the markets a bit right now
I think it's a bit exaggeratedbecause it's not o Japan's not
the only place you can get thatbut uh there's a lot of people
(46:44):
just kind of fixated on it forsome reason which I think is
kind of interesting so uhsomething to keep in mind so but
what they're doing now they'rekind of tightening it up and if
you didn't know uh WarrenBuffett has been accumulating
yen as well because I thinkright now if you look at the yen
(47:05):
price to dollar right it hasn'tit's really not doing that well
right it it's um one right it'slike 150 160 back in its prime
the yen used to be under ahundred in in fact so that was a
long time ago though but I thinkWarren Buffett is a smart guy he
(47:28):
probably sees an opportunity ofthe yen surging back because uh
he sees it as a good deal wellhere's this undervalued thing
and they're raising theirinterest rates and um so they're
preparing um for the yen tobecome more valuable relative to
(47:51):
the dollar so what the the thingokay so this is kind of going
into opinion territory but thething I am speculating knowing
nothing about who Satoshi is orwho they might be but I do think
(48:15):
like Satoshi did not likequantitative easing especially
from the US because um whatAmerica has done basically in
the last decade or two uhleading up to 2008 but but even
(48:36):
from before right it's like howdoes uh how do Americans like
maintain their standard ofliving right um what happens is
when a currency is the worldreserve currency right everyone
uses the dollar that gives thehosting country kind of the
(49:00):
ability to quote exportinflation because if you push
basically when you um print moremoney right and then use that
money to like kind of so so whenyou print money technically it
(49:21):
should be worth less right andbecause it should inflate the uh
currency because there's more ofit right but what they they can
they can kind of get away withit because if they if people are
using the dollars right they canuse that to kind of reprice
things in their favor when itgoes overseas and then back at
(49:44):
home nobody notices we are kindof like pushing that burden on
on overseas uh countries andthat they would do it because
they have to but you couldprobably imagine they're
probably not too happy with thatright but it's like well but
it's the dollar right like ohwhat are we gonna what else are
(50:06):
we gonna do but uh that kind ofsentiment is starting to fade
away China's you more people areusing the yuan for business and
the hyper well I don't want tocall it hyperinflation but the
increased inflation you see nowas a result of that it's very
abstract very invisible but itis there and the rising it just
(50:32):
means that all the moneyprinting we've been doing in the
last decade or so is catching upto us and uh and yeah so with
even with this um uh yen whatthe yen is doing they're trying
to get away from it because thiseveryone's kind of looking at
(50:54):
America and they're like oh it'sa has been country and then um
China doesn't go around startingwars like we do we're just
currently bombing Venezuela aswe speak uh there's a lot of
people who are not happy withthe way things are going with
(51:14):
America and how they'reconducting themselves that if um
they can't maintain their uhreserve status uh they're gonna
leave and then yeah so so I'vebeen saying uh okay where's the
good part right so so therethere's gonna be a big shift in
(51:35):
the world currency right I Idon't see it happening in it any
other way I don't even even withlike we switch out our president
in a few years even with with anew administration the the the
problem is just like way too bigand unless we get like a FDR
(51:58):
style really crazy strategy Idon't know never never say never
but um it's it's uh probablygonna happen so the silver
lining of all of this especiallyif you're in crypto is that
crypto will be part of theglobal financial system in one
(52:25):
worry another one way or anotherand you gotta think about it
even the idea of a global worldis a relatively new thing like
the UN didn't exist until fairlyrecently right we had to have
like several world wars just toget to this point of like major
countries not going to war witheach other but um and and and
(52:51):
really the way that kind of umcountries major countries
interact with each other thesedays is through economy right
and they're preferable to likehave an economic war over a a
real one right if possible so alot of these things are
happening the US dollar willstill be around uh but just like
(53:17):
kind of like the British poundwas around right it'll be around
but it won't be the only thingand I do think like in the
future currencies are going tobe kind of split between the
yuan dollar and uh the euroright euro is actually another
major contender and but cryptoas well so somewhere in there
(53:43):
it's gonna be in there but inorder for it to be any use at
all it has to work right and andat the current like standards of
the industry that is nothappening.
There's lots of places that haveor tested out ethereum Bitcoin
(54:06):
for financial systems Bitcoin'stoo expensive it's too slow
ethereum has issues with itsgovernance um there also gas
fees don't help right the L2swere supposed to fix the speed
problem but it just turned intothis like chaos that no one can
make sense of and and it's justnot no one's using it you know
(54:30):
you've got to be real so um sowhat's what's happening really
is that we're still developingthis stuff but the story's not
over yet and I do think the onesthat are going to survive the
next cycle are the ones that areserious.
The meme coin stuff all thatscam like dog poop coin all
(54:53):
those they're all gonna go awayand what's gonna be left is
really the um projects that havebeen working on it seriously and
like I said Ethereum Dogecoineven the Bitcoin people used to
be that it's just kind ofdisappointing to see what it's
(55:15):
turned into and unfortunatelythey're gonna pay the price for
it maybe if it crashes hardenough uh all the the all the
vultures will leave and then thebuilders will come back again
and make it into something butif you're being real it is like
well I don't know this thing islike 10 years old it's like
(55:37):
clunky.
There are much easier ways tostart a new coin and even the
value of proof of work is sortof questionable because it's
like it's expensive for noreason so that's the sort of
issues people are going toseriously start talking about
(55:58):
once all the fluff money kind ofgoes out.
And then maybe we might getsomething interesting.
And I'm still fairly optimisticfor the crypto space as a whole
I only say fairly but I'mactually really optimistic about
(56:18):
NFTs because it is still thenext iteration of crypto because
we haven't figured it out yetlet's be real we haven't figured
out how to make NFTs work yetlike it has to it has to it has
to respect copyright it has torespect royalties has to do all
that stuff that are used in theindustry every day but the tech
(56:42):
techies just kind of missed outon so for some reason right for
some bizarre reason uh they justsort of missed the whole point
because there were otherpriorities they weren't there to
like build something they werethere to like make quick cash so
once that happens it'll comeback around and the good thing
(57:04):
I'll leave it on a good note thegood thing especially for
Tesla's is that we're kind ofreaching that point in the cycle
um you could say that we've beenin a bear market since 2021 2022
when the prices started goingdown if you look at the chart we
haven't gotten back up yet wehaven't really recovered so
(57:28):
maybe we're approaching thebottom the true bottom and we're
ready for thing for the nextcycle to happen all right and so
yeah I'll just leave it at thatand yeah hang in there man oh
it's uh this is never pleasantand my my accounts are hurting
(57:53):
as well I won't lie it's painfulbut this is how the industry
grows and this is how you matureyou know no pain no gain as they
say so hopefully the pain willsubside soon and then the gains
will come.
Okay well thanks a lot forlistening and see you in the
next one take care
Hello everyone, this is Ryan from Tea Cafe.
Today we'll be talking about thecollapse of crypto.
The ugly, the bad, the good.
I'm not trying to scare anyone,but uh today's date is December
17th, 2025.
(00:28):
And if you've been payingattention to the charts lately,
it's not doing so well, right,in in the crypto space.
So I wanted to kind of talkabout that a bit.
And uh because I've been throughseveral crypto winners already,
uh, might help to like get alittle bit of perspective.
(00:50):
Crypto, despite all of the poormarket uh conditions in the last
few years, is still the mostpopular it's ever been in
history.
Just because prior to a fewyears ago, nobody really knew
about it at all.
And uh but the patterns that yousee, the hype cycle and sort of
(01:14):
the market corrections, right,they remain fairly similar to
each other.
So um I might, I don't want tomake predictions, but I might be
able to maybe help some peopleunderstand what's going on.
Because when I go on socialmedia these days, especially
(01:36):
Twitter, I see a lot of panickedposts, a lot of projects kind of
talking about themselves indesperation.
Some of them doesn't even makeany sense, you know?
It's just like kind of graspingat straws, right?
You could kind of argue thatwe've been in a bear market
since 2022, like for real,right?
(01:58):
If you look at uh the prices,like we're nowhere near we were
in 2021, and that downward slopehas just been continuing on.
Uh so one silver lining.
I'll guess I'll start with oneof the good points, uh, even
(02:18):
though it comes at the end, isthat uh we're kind of uh
reaching a point, it's been longenough since the last uh crypto
peak, right?
About four years relativelyspeaking.
Uh four years was about the sameamount of time it took from one
(02:41):
peak to another in the last fewcycles as well.
Uh so when I joined crypto, thatwas like 2013, 2014.
Uh I mined a little bit ofBitcoin.
I was an Ethereum ICO.
And then um, yeah, and then Igot my wallet from the ICO, and
(03:04):
it just kind of sit there, satthere doing nothing for about
four years.
And then the there was a bighype cycle that came.
Well, not really big, relativelyspeaking, it was big for us.
Uh yeah, so around 2016-2017,the prices start going up.
(03:26):
Ethereum was about$100 and itshot up to$1,400.
And NFTs, Crypto Punks,CryptoKitties, those sorts of
things, those were in the media.
People were talking about it.
It wasn't really like headlinenews like it is today, you know,
but um it'd be just be kind oflike it'll be in the tech uh
(03:51):
portion of TV, of a of a newsshow, for example.
So it was just this thing, kindof interesting thing.
People didn't really have strongopinions about it, other than
the people inside of thecommunity itself, but it just
kind of came and went and thendropped right back to$100.
So$100 to$1,400, right back to$100.
(04:15):
So yeah, so I saw a lot of whathappened, the highs that
happened when prices are goingup, rapidly shooting up.
I got lucky.
Um at the time I was like kindof in a little bit of a
financial trouble, but cryptoreally saved me, and that made
(04:35):
me a believer in the wholething.
Because like, wow, this weirdinternet money thing like
actually helped me out on apersonal level.
So so yeah, so I've stuck withit since then and have been a
believer ever since.
But I also saw what happenedwhen it dropped all the way down
(04:56):
right back to a hundred bucks,and it it can get very ugly.
And we're kind of seeing thatright now.
A lot of the things peopleposting right now uh kind of
reminds me of that.
I've seen like Solana quote bragabout their protection against
DDoS attacks, even though that'sreally not a crypto thing.
(05:18):
Like crypto doesn't have toworry about those sorts of like
flood attacks, because in orderto use it, you have to do a
transaction, right?
And in order to do atransaction, you have to pay for
it.
DDoS only works because it'sfree, is using free computing
power, right?
Basically, from so anyway, uhit's just like ridiculous.
(05:42):
And then uh one other thingpeople are talking about
Bitcoin, quantum computing.
Like Bitcoin is ready forquantum computing, and and it's
just bizarre because uh that'snot anything new.
People have been talking aboutit since 2000, since I got
involved almost 10 years ago.
(06:03):
And it it's uh one, it's notreally a problem because uh
crypto quantum computingcracking the code is still many,
many years away.
I have plenty of time toprepare, but at the same time,
(06:23):
it's like uh why are you like Idon't know, like the the reason
the reason why it all of asudden everyone's talk about
talking about it is kind ofbizarre.
Like there doesn't seem to be alogical explanation why they're
bringing this up.
But I do think it's like kind ofa distraction from the fact that
(06:48):
the prices are sinking and andthey're basically finding
already looking for excuses whythey're gonna fail, you know, to
be kind of blunt about it.
There's a lot of uh the theBitcoin itself will be fine long
(07:11):
term because you cannot reallyerase a blockchain, right?
That's kind of how it'sdesigned.
If one person still believes inBitcoin, then it's by
definition, it's still alive.
All you need is one machine, onenode.
It'll be nice if there was morethan one, but uh you know,
because they need each other tokeep things updated.
(07:32):
But worse comes to worse, itnever really dies.
No, no crypto coin really diesunless you right you shut it off
for good.
But so that's not really theissue.
The issue really is there's allthese like hedge funds and um
really fiat money uh trying toget in on the whole crypto
(07:59):
thing, and they're not reallyusing the tech as it was
originally intended, right?
It's like kind of uh almost likea grift because there's a lot of
projects out there that are thatcall themselves crypto, but is
actually not.
Some of them are running onservers, uh Sulana.
(08:21):
Uh some of them are uh a lot ofthe Bitcoin funds that have been
coming out of uh uh Wall Streetlately has nothing to do with
crypto.
They uh some of them are justlike futures markets where it's
just a bet to see whether it'sgonna go up or down.
(08:43):
Like that they don't even touchthe thing.
A lot of exchanges, right?
They uh hold your wallet onbehalf of you, right?
That's what you're using whenyou use their services for for
better or worse, right?
There's some advantages to that,but but they're not really
holding crypto in a private keywallet like uh it was originally
(09:10):
intended, right?
The weird thing that happened inthe last few years really is
that people probably eitherbecause they didn't know how or
just was too lazy, but putdecide to quote invest in in
crypto by put parking theirmoney on like Coinbase or one of
(09:32):
those exchanges rather thandoing self-custody, right?
So what we're seeing right nowis I do think a lot of the
organizations are kind of seeingtheir writing on the wall and it
and they decide it's time to getout.
At the same time, they'retelling people now's the best
(09:52):
time to get in, you know,Midcoin to$1 trillion, and uh
blah blah blah.
But they're just really tryingto suck retail investors in just
to get a little bit of uhreturns before they finally
liquidate.
Most of these places have lostmoney and firms like
(10:15):
MicroStrategy, who uh yeah, itis really bizarre, just has this
weird convoluted system to tryto get people from Wall Street
or Fiat money into Bitcoinrather than actually sell it in
(10:37):
the Bitcoin itself.
Like you don't need to invest inthese funds.
You can just buy Bitcoindirectly if you really believe
in it.
That's all you have to do, andthere's lots of ways of doing
it, right?
That's called self-custody, justbuy it yourself.
But uh yeah, that's not what gotpopular during these last two
years, and they're the firstones to go because it's not only
(11:02):
about holding crypto in yourwallet, it's not about the hotto
thing.
It's it's like they haveobligations, right?
They have to go through WallStreet regulations, they have
salaries to pay, uh, they haveuh founders to make rich, right?
Like the guy.
And uh these people, uh, they'lltell you anything they want if
(11:26):
you think it'll get them rich,you know.
And and it's just been yeah, Ihonestly have been pretty
disappointed by how theindustry, what the industry
turned into the last few years.
And I'm not gonna be too sorrywhen I see that stuff go.
Even though right now it's alsohurting my wallet because,
(11:48):
right, it's just kind of likebad actors hurt everyone, bad
apples.
This is uh so anyway, um, that'sbasically what's going on right
now.
It gets more complicated, umwhich I'll go into, but uh I
(12:10):
just wanted to kind of givebefore I go more into detail
about what's happening now, uhjust a quick sort of like mini
summary of like what happenedbefore.
So when I got in, I don't haveany reference to um what
happened in crypto prior to2013.
(12:32):
I wasn't in that early, but Ihave an idea.
What really got me into cryptowas Ethereum, and I was in the
RC ICO, and I was sold on theidea of smart contracts because
I thought that the transparencyof having like automated
payments that is both uhdecentralized and transparent,
(12:54):
right?
That could be have a lot ofuses, uh especially in like
cleaning up a lot of the uh Icome from a music background, so
cleaning up the music industry,writing doing deals, keeping
track of copyright, royaltiesrate, and have all that stuff
like funnel into everybody'sbank accounts automatically.
(13:18):
That seemed like a really goodidea.
And so I sold and I got in.
Uh, but getting in was not easyat all.
And I think it's important forpeople to know this, because it
if it's too easy to get in onsomething, that might be a sign
(13:38):
that it's not gonna last.
Every time uh I made money incrypto, it's paying my bills
right now.
I'm not I'm not super duperrich, so don't don't ask me for
money, but uh I made enough onmy returns to pay the bills
currently.
Yet to be seen if that cancontinue, but we'll see.
Uh there's the but anyway, um,for me to get into the Ethereum
(14:04):
ICO, it wasn't just like goingto a website signing up and
putting in your cash.
The only way to get in on to getEthereum coins at the time was
to directly pay them Bitcoin.
And the only way you could getBitcoin back in those days is uh
(14:29):
either mine it yourself or youfind some guy on the internet
and then you trade it for apiece of pizza or something.
And uh people make fun of thattransaction, you know, the
Bitcoin for one pizza, oneBitcoin for one pizza, blah blah
blah.
But like if you're looking at itobjectively, it's like, well,
(14:52):
what else were they supposed todo?
Right?
That was the only way.
I'm probably not even the onlyone, right?
There's plenty of people thattraded, uh, you know, bartered
for Bitcoin uh with somethingthat they had.
So it's a very, very differentenvironment than it is now.
Now there's exchanges, you know,it's really, really easy to buy
(15:14):
crypto, even with a credit cardor bank account.
But uh that wasn't really thecase.
So after I got into the EthereumICO, basically I set them maybe
a hundred or two hundred dollarsworth of Bitcoin that I mined,
(15:35):
which took like several months,by the way.
This is why people didn't get inearly, okay?
It's it was a lot of work forsomething like you had to be
kind of like obsessed about itto even think of doing it, you
know.
So yeah, I think it's reallyimportant to keep that in mind
because the opportunities arenot never obvious, and and if
(15:59):
it's uh very popular, it'sprobably you gotta be a little
bit wary.
You can't have it both ways atthe same time, right?
Something popular but alsospecial, right?
You can't be special and normalat the same time, right?
Like well anyway, that's adifferent topic.
But um, so anyway, uh after thatuh nothing really happened for
(16:28):
like a few years.
Uh I until like 2016-17-ish, theprice of Ethereum kind of
wobbled around for a few years,but eventually it's kind of
settled around$100 or so.
But during the hype, uh whichwas actually triggered by
(16:52):
CryptoPunks and CryptoKittiesNFTs, uh, it went up from$100 to
$1,400.
And uh people were like, wow,whoa.
And uh some people made a lot ofmoney, and it kind of got into
the news.
People were talking about NFTsfor a little while, not like
(17:12):
they do today.
It was more like a niche thing.
So they it was on the newsseveral times.
Some places wrote articles aboutit, but it was more like a hey,
science and technology news.
It wasn't like the huge likeblow up we saw in uh 2021.
(17:32):
So that came and went, and itwas cool.
Um, the other thing that wasgoing on was uh ICOs became a
big thing.
So that includes Tezos as well.
Uh around that time, that's whenTezos launched.
But the first ICO really wasEthereum in 2013-14.
(17:53):
Uh, in case you don't know whatan ICO is, initial coin
offering, just think of it asIPO, like again when a company
goes public.
This is ICO when a coin goespublic and it includes the
public um to basically directlyinvest in the project.
(18:15):
At the time, that was uhactually very novel because like
some random person like me couldlike actually do it.
If I was willing to do themining thing and all go through
all the hoops, um it it melt itmade people, regular people like
(18:36):
me, feel like an investor, likea real investor, right?
That that didn't have to gothrough accreditation and all
those sorts of things.
And it was relatively affordableat the time.
Um getting into Ethereum's ICOat the time was probably just a
few hundred dollars at most, andthat got you about 2000 ETH, and
(18:59):
we can do the calculations, uhyeah, it's pretty good return,
right?
But uh but the uh yeah, so thehype during 2016 didn't really
last.
Uh there was issues with NFTsthat really people took a look
(19:21):
at it, even Bjork was likefooling around with it for a
while, her being uh way ahead ofher time.
Um yeah, you know, and peoplechecked it out, but it didn't
really solve the problems thatthey need, so it just kind of
collapsed.
So it went up from hundred tofourteen hundred and back to a
hundred.
(19:41):
And again, it stayed that wayfor about four years.
And uh interestingly enough, uhthey in the crypto cycle of
twenty twenty one they Actually,spent a lot of time that this is
(20:03):
the Ethereum folks, like kind ofrefining, um basically trying to
make the NFT thing that failedin the last uh the last cycle up
to par.
They didn't make a huge changes,but they made it like made the
(20:27):
process of owning one smoothenough to the point where they
felt like it was time to marketit again.
So I have a lot of respect forthe people that were doing that
work during that time becausefor about three or four years
they were just kind of buildingaway in the shadows and just
going at it every day.
And then when it was time for itto take off, it happened.
(20:50):
And the rest is history, right?
Sort of.
I mean, we're still living init, but so uh yeah, so that's
the gist of how it got there,right?
Interesting thing enough, thetwo both cycles were triggered,
not by DeFi or any of the otherthings they were working, they
were both NFTs, and I do believethat even in the next cycle,
(21:17):
it's gonna be NFTs.
Because NFTs uh has to do withart, right?
And then um it's really how tosay it, it's it's really the
ideal market to test thefunctionalities of crypto um
(21:42):
projects because uh crypto is avery, very new technology,
relatively speaking, right?
It's been around for like over10 years, but at the same time,
no one really has been able tolike figure out like what to
really do with it to make it uhuseful.
But it has a lot of applicationsin the arts, and the arts is a
(22:07):
good place to test things outbecause before you start using
these things for like medicaldevices or hey, your uh escrow
on your home, uh those thingsyou can't have failures, right?
Like it's not acceptable.
But with art, things break hereand there is not that big a
(22:29):
deal, right?
It's the it's a lower stakeasset that is ideal for
experimentation.
And that that's the reason why Ithink that um even today, like
it still continues to be one ofthe, if not the biggest quote,
product in the space.
(22:50):
Uh, this is also the reason whyI doubled down on Tezos.
Uh, I'm completely out ofBitcoin, I'm completely out of
ETH.
I sold sold a long time ago, um,just because for reasons I'll
get into.
But uh yeah, I still think we'renot out of the NFT thing yet,
(23:13):
because in order for crypto tobe come to have utility, to
work, to be useful, it it reallyneeds to nail the um model in
the creative spaces first.
Then after it proves itself,they can probably move on to
other things that uh requiremore precision, and the failure
(23:36):
rate has to be zero, right?
For for some things.
So, yeah, so that's what we'rekind of moving towards, and I do
think Tesla's is really like thebest candidate.
They've been doing the most inthat area, at least for now.
So uh we'll see what happensafter this cycle, though.
(23:57):
So it's gonna be very, verybumpy.
So, yeah, so the ugly, right?
The ugly and the bad, they'rekind of related.
Uh, if you're being for real,there's a ton of scams in
crypto.
That's the reputation we have.
There's a ton of phish, peoplejust trying to steal each
(24:19):
other's money.
There's the security.
There's a lot of half-assedprojects where this the security
is really not up to where itshould be.
And so you hear about these bigplaces getting hacked and
drained and at a level that'sprobably not acceptable, right?
Uh and then uh there's of coursethe beam coins, which is not as
(24:42):
ugly, but uh still, right?
It's just basically a casino,right?
And you ask them what what doesa coin do?
Nothing.
Like some places don't even hidehide it anymore.
Well, so you have these coinsthat exist for no other reason
than to be a casino where youhope in you get early enough
(25:05):
before you get wiped, right?
And so all of that stuff isgonna, it's not gonna go away,
but it's gonna be lessemphasized as the markets kind
of uh uh correct itself.
(25:25):
This happened before too.
I remember uh in the ICO era,there was all these coins just
popping up everywhere.
Everyone on their moms wanted tocreate a uh ICO because they
heard a few people got rich fromit.
And just like today, they'remaking dog coins and and ape
(25:47):
coins and whatever that was whatuh Bitcoin silver, Bitcoin Gold,
Ethereum Classic, Ethereum, thiswell, yeah.
So uh, but I mean being real, uhthere was a market correction
right after that cycle happened,and there's a lot of projects
that were like big names at thetime that are just disappeared.
(26:12):
They're not completely dead,they're still around, but if you
look at the charts, like theyhaven't done anything in like
over five years.
So you can probably say, okay,it's probably dead, right?
And uh I just wanted toemphasize how easy it is to be
(26:33):
on the top ten and never heardof ever again, right?
Because the saying uh the higheryou are, the harder you fall,
right?
And a lot of the projects thatkind of overmarketed in
themselves over the last fewyears but didn't deliver on
their promises, it would be adifferent story if if they
(26:54):
marketed something and they werein parallel providing actual
value to the people that boughtin.
But people call it a bubblebecause that didn't happen.
It was just pure marketing.
So a lot of those uh projectsare collapsing now because
they're running out.
Because if you don't have a realproduct, it even if it's not
(27:17):
intentional, your project turnsinto a Ponzi.
It's uh basically the same thinghappens at startups where they
have a ton of uh like where theyraise a lot of money, the
founders have their share.
(27:37):
You know, for what it's worth,they could be trying their best
to make it work, but when theproject starts to fail and you
kind of know it, um the thingmost people do is uh they try to
sell off their shares, in thiscase, the uh coins, before
(27:59):
people realize and then justjump shit.
And they're gonna lie, they'regonna tell you whatever you want
to hear uh while they're packingtheir bags.
But I think that's beenhappening.
I see like all kinds ofridiculous things, people saying
it has no bearing in reality,but what they're doing is
they're trying to distract youwhile they head up the exit.
(28:22):
And unfortunately, uh yeah, ifthis is your first cycle, you
probably didn't see it coming.
It's it can be kind of difficultto see.
I was it was the case for metoo.
I I didn't know, right?
Luckily luckily, I stuck toprojects that were actually
(28:42):
working on real things, and thatincluded Ethereum as well.
My portfolio during like 2017 to2019 was uh Ethereum, a little
bit of Bitcoin, a tiny bit, andthen uh Dogecoin.
(29:03):
I had others, but they were justfor fun.
Yeah, those those really are thethree things, pretty much.
Yeah.
So at the time they were workingon things and it made me feel
okay.
But in the last couple years, Ilost that feeling from those
(29:24):
projects because the bankerscame in, they kind of kicked
out, or the speculatorsbasically took over, and the
builders were either um subduedor they left.
And there was a big shift inculture at Ethereum that I was
not comfortable with, and that'swhy I I uh got out.
(29:47):
I I was serious about it.
I was uh a validator for alittle while, and that wasn't
cheap to do that, but the returnsucked, the customer service was
horrible, and um yeah, it justlike didn't make any sense
anymore.
So the reason why Tezos for forme, Tezos was the place where
(30:11):
all those things went, but butagain, um nobody believes it
because everybody used to makefun of Ethereum back in the day
in the same way that peoplemaking fun of Tezos.
Even though objectively it's theprobably the highest quality
(30:34):
project in the space right now.
It's not perfect, but they're atleast trying to solve problems,
real problems.
And there's a few others, like Ilike Gridcoin, uh Decentralized
is still pretty um interestingbecause also because it's
decentralized decentralized.
(30:54):
I do think like a lot of the umprojects that are gonna survive
in the future is is gonna begood governance because uh when
when people start to sell andthat entity is centralized, if
that one party leaves, that'sit.
It's just game over.
And we're gonna see who's beendoing this decentralization
(31:17):
thing for real or those who havebeen faking it.
And that idea of confrontingthat truth is like freaking a
lot of people out, I think,right now.
But um that's just how it goesneeds to happen because the way
the industry was going up untilthis point, like it crypto has a
(31:40):
terrible, terrible uh reputationright now among the general
public.
A lot of it comes from FTX.
And even though that'stechnically not crypto's fault,
the technology did not allowthat.
That was really Wall Street,right?
But the kind of people that endup representing the space,
(32:02):
they're not doing the industryany favor because uh without
people's trust, crypto isnothing.
It's all about trust, and andthey haven't used the technology
in the right way.
Uh I am I don't know.
Most places they don't evencheck ledger records, even
though that's the whole point,right?
(32:25):
So all that stuff needs to go,and it's happening now, and it's
gonna be a little bit scary, butI I a lot of us have been
waiting for this moment for itto finally okay, finally, we can
move on.
So we're gonna see how it turnsout.
So here are uh so I'm gonna gointo the good part finally,
(32:48):
right?
There's but before I do, uh asmentioned earlier, I wanted to
kind of talk about maybe a fewother perspectives that seldom
gets talked about.
And a lot of it has to do withJapan.
Uh and Japanese American, by theway.
(33:08):
Uh it's kind of uh uh I don'tlive in Japan, but I pay
attention to what's going onthere here and there just to
like kind of get uh informed.
But but Japan, uh, if you thinkabout it, now is Satoshi
Nakamoto Japanese.
(33:29):
Uh nobody really knows, and Idon't know if we ever will.
But my hunch is that there is agood chance that he was just
because of like the things thathappened around the crypto
industry uh when it first gotstarted.
(33:50):
So a couple things.
Um the Bitcoin was like inventedaround, I don't want to say the
wrong thing.
Let me check.
I think it's 2010, 2011, aroundthere.
(34:12):
Oh, 2008.
Actually, actually, I guessthat's when it was first
conceived.
Now, you think about it, right?
Uh that happened at the exacttime the uh financial bailouts
were happening, right?
And the whole like uh uh youwatch the big short, right?
(34:38):
The collapse in the economicmarket, banks going out of
business, things like peoplecouldn't have imagined could
happen happen.
And I do think that um thedevelopment of Bitcoin was
really a reaction to observingthat because if you're paying
(35:03):
attention, and obviouslyNakamoto's a smart guy, right?
Um and he knew what was going onand like how that bailout was a
really, really um big problem inin the economy.
And honestly, we're that's we'rewe're kind of hitting that point
of like inflection point.
(35:25):
Because back in 2008, theybailed out the banks, they
punished no one, they kind ofgot away with it.
Did they fix the problemsunderneath?
That's what they say.
They say they did, but did theyreally, right?
And uh there's good reason tothink that this system that
(35:45):
Satoshi created was a result ofbasically him or her or
whatever.
Uh maybe maybe it's a bot.
But maybe a bot created Bitcoin,I don't know.
But um, but the idea is tocreate an alternative currency
(36:08):
system that could not that couldnot repeat the same mistakes of
2008, right?
The most interesting thing aboutcrypto, and a lot not a lot of
people uh talk about this, isthe fact that you cannot go into
debt.
I I people talk about thedifference between digital and
(36:31):
fiat, but there's a lot ofoverlap between digital
currencies and crypto, at leaston the surface.
But one of the biggestdifferentiators is the fact that
you cannot go into debt, youcan't take out loans, at least
not directly, right?
You have a wallet, and thewallet is always positive, you
cannot go negative.
(36:52):
So that's one big part of it.
And I do think like it's prettysafe to say that Satoshi
probably was not a big fan ofquantitative easing and those uh
stimulus and all those sorts ofthings, um like shuffling money
around in a circle hoping likesomething good is gonna happen,
(37:14):
right?
I don't think he was really intothat.
Uh, he wanted to make Bitcoin apeer-to-peer electronic cash
system.
That's in the title.
So um what the so if you take itfrom that point of view, right?
And they decided to launch thisthing into the world that
(37:39):
offered a real alternative.
In the beginning, no one took itseriously.
Well, they even knew about it,right?
This very abstract, like, oh,you can own money on the
computer out of nowhere, right?
Like, like even now, thinkingabout it, it seems kind of
weird.
But imagine back then trying toconvince someone this money
(38:04):
exists on your computer throughthese quote wallet, digital
wallet, right?
It's probably a very hard sell.
So that's why it took a longtime before anyone even
considered using it.
But uh but they kept on doing itand kept uh working on it, and
uh eventually uh became Mt.
(38:29):
Gox, right?
If you don't know what that is,you should probably look look it
up because it was actuallystarted in Japan.
And that's that's really thereason why I do think uh Satoshi
has like ties with with Japan,just because of its early
history, right?
Uh Mt.
Gox was the first exchange inJapan, uh first crypto exchange
(38:53):
in the world, at least the mainthe most major one.
And uh, if you look at thehistory of like even like
Cardano, Ethereum, all theBitcoin people, they always they
talked that was the thing theyknew.
And uh so some people it wasvery, very small by back then,
(39:20):
but some people made a lot ofmoney in Bitcoin by investing
early, very, very early, evenbefore I got in.
Like they made a lot of money inJapan, and um yeah, you can look
it up, it's all there.
So so from that money, CharlesHoshison from uh Cardano got
(39:45):
into a fight with Vitalik.
They had uh disagreements and hewas uh quote let go or I don't
know, he quit or he got fired,or but anyway he was mad, he was
mad and he decided to create thethe ETH killer Cardano coin and
it was so smart that it was lookat his team they're all PhDs
(40:10):
from reputable universities.
How dare you question myintelligence there's a lot of
ridiculous things that happenedback then.
So but uh but anyway that'swhere the money came from um but
the reason why I'm talking aboutJapan is because they've they've
(40:34):
um been sort of a cycle ahead ofeveryone and what I mean by that
is that when I visited there in2016 I went to an electronics
store kind of equivalent of BestBuy or one of those uh competing
stores in the US the equivalentof that over they already had
(40:55):
Bitcoin integrated you gonna gothere buy a TV with Bitcoin?
Sure go ahead we support it andmeanwhile um in the US we're
struggling struggling just toeven get through the regulatory
things like and uh yeah so theywere like way ahead of the curve
(41:19):
when it came to like cryptoadoption and no one talks about
it because of reasons I don'tknow why but this is and
everyone I think I do think it'slike a large uh uh ego thing
they don't didn't want to letpeople know but but anyway uh so
(41:40):
that was there and um they triedit out for a couple years and
nobody used it so they're likeokay well and they they kind of
faded away interesting like alot of the hype behind crypto
kind of sustains itself based onlike an antagonism right like oh
(42:04):
the the banks are holding usback the government is holding
us back screw Elizabeth Warrenyou know her right like the
Bitcoin people do not like heruh so it was kind of but but
it's it it's like but like evenif you have an enemy it's like a
(42:27):
reason to get up in the morningto fight your enemy right in
Japan they took it all the waythey tried it out and it was a
letdown so they just kind ofslowly faded away it's still
there by the way it's just likeno one's talking about it.
And Japan has one of the lowestum crypto adoption rates in the
(42:48):
world it's kind of bizarreconsidering I just said Satoshi
is probably from there I don'tknow for sure but probably so
they were the first to launchfirst to adopt and then first to
get bored of it.
So yeah I went I went thererecently last couple months
(43:11):
there there was like a cryptotheme cafe and I won and I'm
like oh cool I don't know justI'm in the area this is in Tokyo
might as well check it out rightand I went with my brother
because we had nothing elsebetter to do but but then it was
gone.
So sad it's so sad.
A couple years ago I went tothey had even had a cafe called
(43:33):
Mona Coin themed bar.
They had a mona coin it lit upbut it was a crypto coin made in
Japan at the time and uh theyhad a bar and all that went in
uh no one was there but you knowhey but cool at least it exists
right so okay so anyway that'swhat's going on now you can skip
(43:57):
ahead to to today there is ainteresting development
happening so in the last coupleweeks and part of it is just
people grasping at straws like Isaid but uh they've been blaming
the drop in pit bitcoin crisprice on Japan increasing their
(44:22):
interest rates uh to borrowmoney let's see I can't see it
but Bank of Japan to takeinterest rates to 30 year high
and why is this uh significantwell uh to just to to just say
(44:47):
uh to make it clear 30 year highmeans 0.5 percent to 0.75
percent okay i'm not talkingabout like 10 or 30 it's so
small and uh when people go toJapan the interesting thing they
(45:08):
they notice is that uh ifthey've been to there multiple
times their inflation rate isreally really slow like even my
dad oh he's been going there fordecades he said oh yeah the
prices are pretty much the samefrom the 80s it's kind of
bizarre so um all this time forthe last couple of decades they
(45:34):
their borrowing rate has beenvery very very low and Americans
and US companies have beentaking advantage of that so when
they need to borrow money youcan go to the bank you can go
ask your friends if we're richenough you could go right
different places but they donotice that the borrowing rate
(45:56):
in Japan is really really lowand some of that has been
flowing into crypto and it's notunthinkable just because that's
where it is like that's where itstarted that's where Bonk's was
and the people that did thatstuff back in the day they
they're still there so uh yeahso I do think there's some truth
(46:20):
to that claim because if uhcheap loans and cheap money is
harder to get it's gonna slowdown the markets a bit right now
I think it's a bit exaggeratedbecause it's not o Japan's not
the only place you can get thatbut uh there's a lot of people
(46:44):
just kind of fixated on it forsome reason which I think is
kind of interesting so uhsomething to keep in mind so but
what they're doing now they'rekind of tightening it up and if
you didn't know uh WarrenBuffett has been accumulating
yen as well because I thinkright now if you look at the yen
(47:05):
price to dollar right it hasn'tit's really not doing that well
right it it's um one right it'slike 150 160 back in its prime
the yen used to be under ahundred in in fact so that was a
long time ago though but I thinkWarren Buffett is a smart guy he
(47:28):
probably sees an opportunity ofthe yen surging back because uh
he sees it as a good deal wellhere's this undervalued thing
and they're raising theirinterest rates and um so they're
preparing um for the yen tobecome more valuable relative to
(47:51):
the dollar so what the the thingokay so this is kind of going
into opinion territory but thething I am speculating knowing
nothing about who Satoshi is orwho they might be but I do think
(48:15):
like Satoshi did not likequantitative easing especially
from the US because um whatAmerica has done basically in
the last decade or two uhleading up to 2008 but but even
(48:36):
from before right it's like howdoes uh how do Americans like
maintain their standard ofliving right um what happens is
when a currency is the worldreserve currency right everyone
uses the dollar that gives thehosting country kind of the
(49:00):
ability to quote exportinflation because if you push
basically when you um print moremoney right and then use that
money to like kind of so so whenyou print money technically it
(49:21):
should be worth less right andbecause it should inflate the uh
currency because there's more ofit right but what they they can
they can kind of get away withit because if they if people are
using the dollars right they canuse that to kind of reprice
things in their favor when itgoes overseas and then back at
(49:44):
home nobody notices we are kindof like pushing that burden on
on overseas uh countries andthat they would do it because
they have to but you couldprobably imagine they're
probably not too happy with thatright but it's like well but
it's the dollar right like ohwhat are we gonna what else are
(50:06):
we gonna do but uh that kind ofsentiment is starting to fade
away China's you more people areusing the yuan for business and
the hyper well I don't want tocall it hyperinflation but the
increased inflation you see nowas a result of that it's very
abstract very invisible but itis there and the rising it just
(50:32):
means that all the moneyprinting we've been doing in the
last decade or so is catching upto us and uh and yeah so with
even with this um uh yen whatthe yen is doing they're trying
to get away from it because thiseveryone's kind of looking at
(50:54):
America and they're like oh it'sa has been country and then um
China doesn't go around startingwars like we do we're just
currently bombing Venezuela aswe speak uh there's a lot of
people who are not happy withthe way things are going with
(51:14):
America and how they'reconducting themselves that if um
they can't maintain their uhreserve status uh they're gonna
leave and then yeah so so I'vebeen saying uh okay where's the
good part right so so therethere's gonna be a big shift in
(51:35):
the world currency right I Idon't see it happening in it any
other way I don't even even withlike we switch out our president
in a few years even with with anew administration the the the
problem is just like way too bigand unless we get like a FDR
(51:58):
style really crazy strategy Idon't know never never say never
but um it's it's uh probablygonna happen so the silver
lining of all of this especiallyif you're in crypto is that
crypto will be part of theglobal financial system in one
(52:25):
worry another one way or anotherand you gotta think about it
even the idea of a global worldis a relatively new thing like
the UN didn't exist until fairlyrecently right we had to have
like several world wars just toget to this point of like major
countries not going to war witheach other but um and and and
(52:51):
really the way that kind of umcountries major countries
interact with each other thesedays is through economy right
and they're preferable to likehave an economic war over a a
real one right if possible so alot of these things are
happening the US dollar willstill be around uh but just like
(53:17):
kind of like the British poundwas around right it'll be around
but it won't be the only thingand I do think like in the
future currencies are going tobe kind of split between the
yuan dollar and uh the euroright euro is actually another
major contender and but cryptoas well so somewhere in there
(53:43):
it's gonna be in there but inorder for it to be any use at
all it has to work right and andat the current like standards of
the industry that is nothappening.
There's lots of places that haveor tested out ethereum Bitcoin
(54:06):
for financial systems Bitcoin'stoo expensive it's too slow
ethereum has issues with itsgovernance um there also gas
fees don't help right the L2swere supposed to fix the speed
problem but it just turned intothis like chaos that no one can
make sense of and and it's justnot no one's using it you know
(54:30):
you've got to be real so um sowhat's what's happening really
is that we're still developingthis stuff but the story's not
over yet and I do think the onesthat are going to survive the
next cycle are the ones that areserious.
The meme coin stuff all thatscam like dog poop coin all
(54:53):
those they're all gonna go awayand what's gonna be left is
really the um projects that havebeen working on it seriously and
like I said Ethereum Dogecoineven the Bitcoin people used to
be that it's just kind ofdisappointing to see what it's
(55:15):
turned into and unfortunatelythey're gonna pay the price for
it maybe if it crashes hardenough uh all the the all the
vultures will leave and then thebuilders will come back again
and make it into something butif you're being real it is like
well I don't know this thing islike 10 years old it's like
(55:37):
clunky.
There are much easier ways tostart a new coin and even the
value of proof of work is sortof questionable because it's
like it's expensive for noreason so that's the sort of
issues people are going toseriously start talking about
(55:58):
once all the fluff money kind ofgoes out.
And then maybe we might getsomething interesting.
And I'm still fairly optimisticfor the crypto space as a whole
I only say fairly but I'mactually really optimistic about
(56:18):
NFTs because it is still thenext iteration of crypto because
we haven't figured it out yetlet's be real we haven't figured
out how to make NFTs work yetlike it has to it has to it has
to respect copyright it has torespect royalties has to do all
that stuff that are used in theindustry every day but the tech
(56:42):
techies just kind of missed outon so for some reason right for
some bizarre reason uh they justsort of missed the whole point
because there were otherpriorities they weren't there to
like build something they werethere to like make quick cash so
once that happens it'll comeback around and the good thing
(57:04):
I'll leave it on a good note thegood thing especially for
Tesla's is that we're kind ofreaching that point in the cycle
um you could say that we've beenin a bear market since 2021 2022
when the prices started goingdown if you look at the chart we
haven't gotten back up yet wehaven't really recovered so
(57:28):
maybe we're approaching thebottom the true bottom and we're
ready for thing for the nextcycle to happen all right and so
yeah I'll just leave it at thatand yeah hang in there man oh
it's uh this is never pleasantand my my accounts are hurting
(57:53):
as well I won't lie it's painfulbut this is how the industry
grows and this is how you matureyou know no pain no gain as they
say so hopefully the pain willsubside soon and then the gains
will come.
Okay well thanks a lot forlistening and see you in the
next one take care
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The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.