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Insilico Terminal Podcast Episode 21 - Merp
76 Plays1 month ago
In this episode, Merp shares his journey from hospitality work during COVID to trading crypto full-time, navigating early bull-market luck, painful drawdowns, and the realities of maturing markets. We talk about buying dips, overthinking versus ignorance, working at a crypto fund through the FTX collapse, and why human dynamics often break funds. The conversation dives into perp DEXs vs options, airdrop farming, Hyperliquid, Extended, CT culture, founder behavior, and the social side of markets. We close with reflections on freedom, what it really means to “make it,” crypto’s future, and why the most important rule is simple: don’t blow up.
00:00 Intro, Merp joins the podcast, market boredom, current trading sentiment
03:53 Going all-in on crypto, GameStop era, blowing up early portfolios
08:02 Biggest losses, fund experience, FTX fallout and lessons from institutional trading
12:19 Bear market grind, working with AVO, perps vs options and why options lag on-chain
18:55 Badge culture, points farming, Extended vs Hyperliquid and early adoption tradeoffs
30:41 On-chain vs off-chain execution, incentives, trader behavior and ecosystem design
38:43 What it means to “make it”, freedom, contentment, long-term outlook on crypto
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Transcript
Welcome to Insilico Terminal Podcast
00:00:13
Speaker
Welcome to a new episode of the Insilico Terminal podcast.
Introduction to Zero X Merb and Trading Experiences
00:00:18
Speaker
Today I'm in a bit of an unusual setup and situation but it should be the same experience you're used to today with me zero x merb as a guest and um i like to ask the guests to introduce themselves tell us about who they are what they're doing so go ahead and do that for us uh yeah just still just trading stuff not really as much right now as before but
00:00:48
Speaker
ah Just, you know, trying to get some perpdex points out here and not lose my mind on the internet. And ah probably in the same spot that a lot of people are, we're kind of like sitting here and seeing all these people decide and say that it's time to move on to the next thing. Yeah.
00:01:13
Speaker
Probably a lot of people are like looking for some reason or some catalyst to to say, like oh, those people are wrong. But it might suck for a continued period of time.
00:01:25
Speaker
But you know we had our couple of years and now it's like IRL time, kind of it feels like, it seems like.
Entering Crypto During COVID: From Hospitality to Trading
00:01:37
Speaker
So how did you how did you first get into crypto? <unk> like you are funny Through COVID basically. ah i was doing like I went to school for hospitality.
00:01:49
Speaker
so for hotel and restaurant management. And ah when the hotel that I was working at when COVID happened, like everything shut down in the US for a period of time.
00:02:03
Speaker
And so I was like, you know, ah decided that I had to be able to probably make money from like a computer instead of yeah like a physical place to you know, to have some...
00:02:20
Speaker
economic mobility in the new new world post government intervention of business. ah Or that specific intervention, I guess, it's been a thing for while. but And then I just started trading and like I started trading options with equities and and like COVID 2020 in like the summer. It was like the sickest thing ever because It was just like free money anytime that anything dipped, you just bought it and it would go back up. yeah And so that's like how I like, I guess you just say, i guess you call it learning, but I was just like getting feel like I was getting lucky.
00:02:56
Speaker
ah And then was doing crypto stuff at the time, like on the side a little bit, like just mostly buying coins and stuff and like trying to see what was on Twitter.
00:03:07
Speaker
And ah I forget how I even came upon like crypto Twitter or like, you know, like the whole sphere of like, our homies, the first Discord that I ever joined was like by Red, Red's Discord, if you know who that is. And like he doesn't really post anymore, but that's like where it all started and then started trading. And then by the end of the year, I was like had made this money doing these there's options trading. It was like super serious waking up at 5 because on the West Coast, you the
00:03:42
Speaker
yeah The market opens at 6.30. And so by the end of the year doing all this work, I had made like, it was like the same exact amount of money that I had made by just like buying coins and doing literally nothing.
00:03:56
Speaker
So then I was like, oh, what if I like did all this work and then just focus on the coins? Like maybe I can make a bunch of money. And then that was like the end of the year.
00:04:07
Speaker
And then the GameStop shit happened and I like yeah nuked like a quarter of my entire portfolio that week. oh no And then I was like, okay, now I'm going to do it. I'm going to switch to crypto, like fuck these bankers.
00:04:22
Speaker
this And went like all in full time, I guess at that point. And then just like started trading and stuff. And the rest is history as they say.
Trading Strategies: Buying the Dip and Market Complexities
00:04:33
Speaker
Was there a point where your luck started, like, kind of running out, where, like, buying the dip all the time didn't work anymore? not really. I just kind of, like, phased out. Then, you know, like...
00:04:48
Speaker
i mean, now it's, like, you you can't just, like, do that whatever. Things are, like, way more... Things are feel much more difficult now. But ah I don't know. I think there's, like There's like a lot of value in this like
00:05:07
Speaker
nobility of ignorance. like When I first started, you know, you're like
00:05:14
Speaker
it's very hard to get shaken on a thesis if you like have no thesis. if you're yeah you know If you're just like doing it for the fuck of it, you're just like, let's see what happens. And you're just like punting, kind of.
00:05:26
Speaker
it's like you know It's really hard to know in retrospect like what you were doing that was like really good and what was really lucky. and Now, after a couple of years, you i can sometimes like it feels like i'm overthinking things sometimes. so You were just like left curving everything. but Yeah. and then Now it feels like sometimes I get stuck in the middle a lot because I'm trying to go all the way to the right. I'm like, oh oh, but you started, you know, like, you don't know shit about finance. Like, you're not some banker guy, like, or options market maker who came to crypto, like, you know, so
00:06:03
Speaker
ah I wouldn't say that buying the dip stopped working because that's even still today one of the best trades ever. If you could buy the actual dip on 1010, for example, I was able to buy Zcash super cheap and then just sell it at $200 an hour later. thought it was but that nothing compared to the whole was like that was nothing compared to the the whole run but like yeah you know ah Buying the dip is like almost it's like a so a stereotype for a reason, right?
00:06:37
Speaker
who Yeah. So is that like pretty much been your trading strategy for all the years? Just like looking for dips and... No, I mean, if it was, I think it would probably be way more profitable.
00:06:48
Speaker
But I always... There's like all these times, you know, I try to like find random shit to do or like yeah find some random trade after some other guy made like a trillion dollars and you're like, oh, this idea is kind of similar. Like I'll just kind of punt hard into it. And then it's... You just like...
00:07:07
Speaker
the market nowadays moves really fast and it doesn't like to like replicate inefficiencies yeah in like short time periods so you can get really fruct kind of if you're not like in front of things as they're happening yeah the rotations are definitely like way shorter nowadays they like don't exist yeah it's like not a rotation it's like a lifespan
00:07:35
Speaker
I mean, I guess we had, like, Zcash had went on for, like, a while, and then now we have Monero that's, like, also over now, I guess, so... Yeah, I don't know. it went it It, like, absolutely fucking got nukes the other day.
00:07:50
Speaker
i had, like, a shitload of P&L. and you Did you realize it? or No, and then ah GF spent the night, and I woke up and I was like, oh so I should have checked my computer last night.
00:08:08
Speaker
Yeah. Happens to the best of us. What what were like some of your biggest biggest losses? Biggest losses?
00:08:19
Speaker
Or like some of the the lessons that you learned throughout. Something that just like stuck with you.
00:08:26
Speaker
or you like missed out on or something like that. Did you get get fucked by FTX? Not personally, but the place that I was working for. did So then ah then I did like indirectly.
00:08:39
Speaker
but who where Where did you work? i was in New York. i worked at Manifold. Mm-hmm. but what What is manifold? Is that like a hedge fund? or I feel like I've heard of it before. Yeah, basically. There's like ah there's like multiple manifolds in crypto. So then so there's like, you you say manifold and and then there's like three different versions of like, oh, I know what you're talking about. One of those like an NFT thingy and then there's, and then there's like, I think another fund, but the one that I worked for is a fund in Manhattan.
00:09:14
Speaker
It's like, i don't know, you might have seen them on chain like when CL was doing a bunch of hyperliquid stuff like before the
Impact of FTX on Manifold and Social Dynamics in Trading
00:09:23
Speaker
airdrop. and They were like a pretty big airdrop recipient and people like thought that their wallet was CL for like a day or two or something. i And then CL was like, no, this is actually blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:09:41
Speaker
And you you were just working for them as a trader or what did you do? Yeah. I'm just, i was just basically like, I was the only person who was like not a genius that worked there basically.
00:09:55
Speaker
And that that's like... What what was that like? did Did you like, ah did you see the the skill gap between you and the other people that strongly or? Well, I mean, the stuff that they're working on I'm not a coder, right? And like the stuff that they're working on is just like insane.
00:10:10
Speaker
and And it's like really interesting just the way that to see like, how differently yeah people think about things and, you know, like the go-to like way of solving problems.
00:10:26
Speaker
But ah like, you know, the funny thing is that the only problems that that ever came from like, you know, the the font, like in the fund and when FTX happened, like it basically all boiled down to like social problems that, like,
00:10:47
Speaker
they're just like human shit and like the actual fun stuff, the trading and and like the managing people's money and all that stuff is like, then it's kind of like simple if you think about it after like, you know, seeing kind of all the moving parts ah is that something that's common is like people
00:11:17
Speaker
let their egos kind of like change so it's like ah personal conflicts or disagreements or whatever like yeah just like the the human desire to be like the person can disrupt things I think we definitely have this bias where we're always like, if if someone is really sophisticated, they'll have like a fund or whatever. It's like the same that happened with FTX and Alameda. Everyone thought they're super smart. oh i I mean, I guess they are all smart, but they're still like human and and controlled by emotions and then just like became greedy and fucked everything up.
00:11:55
Speaker
Yeah. And that happened a lot in in crypto. And I guess like even in in fucking normal finance in TreadFi, it happens. That's why we have like 2008 or whatever the fuck else is is going on.
00:12:08
Speaker
aha Yeah.
00:12:14
Speaker
So you stopped working there when fd or after FTX happened? or Yeah, after FTX. And then i left New York. And then i went to Asia for a while and like just vacationed around.
00:12:27
Speaker
here You skipped the bear market? yeah kind of I guess. I started working for Evo guys at that time, and then it was just doing that. What is that? I say working, and was like, mean, was just like the first person that they were like, here's a Rathlink, and we want you to the marketing guy, basically, for the exchange.
00:12:54
Speaker
What is it, Evo? Evo? It's what, Ribbon. Oh, Deadwild. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember. Yes, yes. It was like the options thing. ah i mean, it was just mostly a perp decks, but ah they also see they did also have options that people don't really care to trade.
00:13:14
Speaker
on on chain anyways because like the options thing is like anybody who wants to trade options probably just already has a daribit account yeah i guess i mean many people have tried uh doing options on chain but it has never really like worked out that well no i experience kind of isn't that that good i think like for me as a as an option sweetheart i don't really like understand it that well or i've never like yeah done it and it's not that new friendly yeah like the thing is is like because there's so many instruments versus like if you have btc on perps you have btc right yeah so if you have one market maker 20 market makers they just will be market making the same exact fucking product hey but if you have btc options then
00:14:06
Speaker
you probably offering like at like one strike per week so like one expiration for every friday so then you need all the different strikes as well so like right now you need 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97
00:14:28
Speaker
and like 88, 87. So you have to have like someone posting volumes to market make for like, yeah it's like 47 different markets for one month compared to one market forever. you know So it's like much easier to build to build out for perps.
00:14:52
Speaker
And it's like, you could just go to anybody, you know, you're like, oh, we're just, where we have BTC perps. Can you hedge that? Like, and a lot of, most people would just be like, yes, but not everybody can do that for options. You know, it's like way more sophisticated.
00:15:09
Speaker
So you're like in the camp of people saying that the perps are going to win all over options. Well, I don't know. At least they're more retail friendly.
Post-FTX Job Changes and Crypto Cultural Perceptions
00:15:17
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know if I really have like a full opinion on that, but yeah I mean, it's been like,
00:15:27
Speaker
it it feels dumb to say that like retail wants to trade options in crypto. Yeah. In crypto. I mean, i don't know. yeah In TradFi, like obviously they love that shit.
00:15:38
Speaker
They don't have perps in TradFi. so Or like the big TradFi, you know, apps don't have perps. So like, yeah if they had perps, would they still trade options?
00:15:52
Speaker
I don't know. It's hard to know. but also... I guess it's just the easiest way to to access leverage if you don't have perps, pretty much. Yeah. And that's what we want as a retail participant.
00:16:04
Speaker
I think so. Well, i actually, I don't know if it is the easiest way because I do have just like the cash margin or whatever. But I don't really know how that works. I don't do that shit.
00:16:17
Speaker
I feel like options so seem like ah an easier lottery ticket or whatever if you have like a high IV move. Yeah. or I also don't really know how how it works, but it's just like you have a huge opportunity for high returns that you don't really have if you're just like buying stocks. Yeah. My idea for why people don't really care about options for crypto is because like there's already so much volatility like baked into the asset.
00:16:42
Speaker
Yeah. Then it's like they go and like buy They buy a call and then they see BDC retrace by like 2% and all of a sudden their call is down by like 48% and they're like, what the fuck is this scam?
00:16:57
Speaker
Like with perps, all you have to do is be like, oh, 20X times 1000, I'm down 20K. You know, like that's yeah easy to know. It's easy to like reason, but with perp or with options, you have to like, you would have to do like, if it's a bunch of math and all this bullshit. yeah You know, so it just adds complexity to so to something that's already super volatile and already, like, even though it's As insiders, you know we see all the tickers, all the crazy tickers, and we know that 90% of them are just nonsense and you can just erase them from your mind. But if you don't know exactly what's going on, then it's like super complex because there's all these hidden like symbols that are all just bullshit, but you don't know that they're bullshit, so you have to like first like find this all out.
00:17:47
Speaker
So you know like the guys on Robinhood who are like, oh, what's hype? I'm going buy some hype on my Robinhood account. like Those guys, don't really care to know like what changes the price of the options on their TradFi stuff.
00:18:02
Speaker
They just know that the options like operate like they do with leverage, like you said. ah And then they know that coins operate with leverage. So it's like, so in their mind, it's probably like, why would I need to buy options for these coins? They're already like basically options.
00:18:19
Speaker
So I think that the perps to crypto, like, you know,
00:18:27
Speaker
like the way to like visualize your leverage and the way that like the user sees how their P&L goes up and down, it's like way more transparent or it's not like options are not like some secret, but it's like just way easier to understand. Yeah, for sure. And you know, when people want to be like risking money and stuff, they will navigate away from complexity if they have the option.
00:18:58
Speaker
So now you see you're pretty much let like a perpetrator or you're still like working on any projects or with any projects on anything? Yeah, i mean, I had like the gas badge, the gas.zip badge for a bit, but I wasn't working with him. Tom is just a homie and I was annoying him to give me a badge because I thought that it looked cool.
00:19:21
Speaker
And then fucking Jeremy Jingta was like, yo, do you want a polymarket badge? like and then I bet I can get you like, he like knows the guys or something. And he was like, I bet I can get you like 5k. Because I was like, it was a day after I was like ranting about how gay, faking gay Kalshi is.
00:19:40
Speaker
and you So he slid in the DMs or whatever, and he was like, oh, I can probably get you 5K. And I was like, oh, Tom, could you like take the badge off? I think you have to like take it off for him to give me the new one. And then I texted Jeremy the next day. was like, oh, like whatever. I'm good to go, whatever. s Bro just never messaged me back.
00:20:02
Speaker
So ah well he was like, working on it. And then it was like, then there was just like no badge. And then there became like sentiment that badges are fake and gay. And then, so I just never pursued it again. i was like, okay, that's fine.
00:20:16
Speaker
And then it's kind of crazy how it's flipped. Like feel like in the beginning was kind of like a thing that people wanted, but then I guess when too many people then get to everyone. Yeah. If if not enough people have it, then it's cool.
00:20:30
Speaker
Once a certain amount of people have it, then it's no longer cool. Yeah.
00:20:37
Speaker
Except for a terminal badge, of course. Many such cases. Obviously. Biggest badge that exists. Obviously. Yeah, I like the idea of no badge, but if somebody paid me enough money to put a badge, would put a
Current Market Opportunities and Platform Experiences
00:20:52
Speaker
badge probably. Maybe now it know it's like the the opposite, where it's like status signaling if you like don't have a badge. Yeah. Like a bigger account because you're like just turning everyone down. Yeah, that's, I think, what people perceive probably. But I don't know. It's like either way, it doesn't really matter.
00:21:08
Speaker
It's just if free money is free money. Yeah.
00:21:14
Speaker
But so you're just like trading for yourself now or like not trading much at all, I guess? Right now, much. The market doesn't achieve any and many opportunities. No. I have a lot of extended points.
00:21:26
Speaker
here But that's pretty much it. They have like... It seems like they have good...
00:21:34
Speaker
Have you been farming that early? was initially, but it was like, bro, I was so early that anytime I put an order in the fucking order book, it was like I was the order book.
00:21:50
Speaker
Yeah. And so I was like doing like one BTC market orders and price and like just watching the candles like what and I was like, okay, i don't this like feels like a scam because it was like so illiquid. But yeah, I just I even tweeted about this.
00:22:09
Speaker
Whatever recently it was like too early and but my like pre preconceived like a
00:22:19
Speaker
I guess you could even call it like hype maximalism. Are you a hype maximalist? Well, like there is no second best. Let's be clear. Let's be clear. ah ah You know, I think that when I tried it and it was like, oh, this is not as instantly as good as my hyperliquid experience.
00:22:42
Speaker
I was just like, this is trash. That's what I did with Leiter too. and Yeah. I used it like 10 minutes before they had scheduled downtime for the first time ever used it. Oh yeah. That's yeah. And it was like early, like very early.
00:22:56
Speaker
So there was just like very few market makers. And I was like, also, I was like, what is this scam? and so I just never used it again. Yeah.
00:23:07
Speaker
And I did the same thing for extended until then somebody's like, yo, Merp, are you using extended? Like, I'm pretty bullish. and I was like, what the fuck? Really? And I looked at and at my points and i was like, oh my God, I could have so many.
00:23:22
Speaker
it It was like, it was like you were earlier than 100% users. Like, fuck. You know? But... whatever. Yeah, that's kind of a trade off. If you're that early, you like get all of the points. You have to sludge through It's so much work, really. If it's not automated, actually, that's a good whatever segue for this podcast, given that that's the type of products that you guys are selling. But I mean, in Siligo Terminal for Hybrid Liquid was fucking sick.
00:23:48
Speaker
Like I was. Thank you. Because I'm purely like a click trader guy, like I said. And i was like going ham. In the last week of the hyperliquid airdrop farming, like I was almost top 25 for volume on the entire- really? In the entire platform, like just because of in silico terminal.
00:24:14
Speaker
ah like Do you trade like a lot of ah shorter timeframes? Well, at that time, I was just like so going insane. But like just basically wash farming the most volume possible to try to try to do so like be and be not unprofitable.
00:24:30
Speaker
who How did that work out without the airdrop? i think
Adapting to Market Changes: Flexibility in Trading Strategies
00:24:36
Speaker
Well, I was actually making money until the last week. or like There was like just one trade that like fucked. It was like the turkey graph, the turkey chart. you know Yeah.
00:24:46
Speaker
Yeah. Like fell asleep on the couch or something. yeah you dead You're liquidated when you wake up. That happened to me also. Has it happened? Yeah, when we were in Japan okayy last year.
00:24:59
Speaker
and fell asleep on the couch. That that was, yeah, I got liquidated. That was a good i think I think I had a bit of a similar experience when i like on October 10th.
00:25:11
Speaker
it's um i I like looked at the chart and I like bought a little bit when it already started dipping quite a lot. yeah But then had to like leave to go somewhere. And I was just like, yeah, ah fuck it. like Either get liquidated or it's going up. If the position gets liquidated and it wasn't the bottom, it wasn't meant to be. And then you came back and that's what happened. You're like, fuck, I didn't actually feel like that.
00:25:33
Speaker
And I looked at it and i was like, yo, what? What happened? Like, yeah, things went down like 60% or whatever. I looked at my computer at the peak bottom.
00:25:45
Speaker
I've got really like just randomly like I wasn't like time trying to time it or anything. I just looked and yeah and ah it was like I looked at the chart on TradingView at the exact moment that BTC was like breaking and I was like my jaw just like started to drop and I was like what the fuck and then I saw BTC like And then it stopped. and then it just like stopped you know As soon as it stopped nuking, I just like went to the Zcash page and started like market buying.
00:26:15
Speaker
yeah And I got like so super lucky. And I could have held that for like of huge juice, the huge juicer. But I was like, oh, it's the classic mean reversion high leverage trade. Like you have to take profits, you know, before it fucking reverts back to your entry. It makes you suicidal. So I take i so i took profit and then became suicidal instead because of that.
00:26:40
Speaker
I mean, it's kind of crazy that prices just went back like within five percent range or whatever pretty much right after where they were before zcash or for the whole market or like just for like the whole market like for a lot of coins yeah for some coins yeah for a lot of coins they were just like dead they had like there was like a switch that had been turned off and it was like the the chart was just like you booked it in was like no one will ever buy this coin again Yeah. And you you could like see these events happen and think that you could be shorting all these coins and you probably can and you probably would look at the chart six months later andd be like, damn, why didn't I do that? But then if you did that now, like, I don't know if that would be a good trade.
00:27:26
Speaker
Isn't that like kind of what the whole auto-deleveraging drama is kind of about? Yeah. Yeah. because That's basically what happens if you're in those short positions. The ADLs.
00:27:38
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know exactly. There's probably way too many different scenarios to like talk about it generally. I just, do I just like defer to like much smarter people when, whenever things are actually like about math.
00:27:55
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So are you like bullish on Unextended beyond having a lot of points? Or is it just like the bull case? do you think it'll do better than Leiter? That was like quite hype for a while. Okay, see, the thing about Leiter is like it doesn't matter how good the product is if your founder is like...
00:28:18
Speaker
fucking ignorant like yeah that's it he's just ignorant to the way that like his attitude is perceived and the extended team is like the opposite you can tell yeah i can see that now after like a long time at first it was like you know a bunch of russian guys like i'm american like of course i have Is there like anemone there? No, but there's probably like preconceived bias, you know? Like I've like predisposed to be like slightly less trustworthy of like Eastern European strangers probably, you know, like genetic and just genetically and then also socially like conditioned through like media and you know, all the movies that I've seen like growing up and all that kind of shit.
00:29:09
Speaker
ah Like growing up, there's like an entire fucking weeks that you'll go learning about like how bad the communism from Russia, you know, like in the US. It's like there there's entire like segments of your school year that are devoted to talking about the Red Scare.
00:29:29
Speaker
and That's what they call it. And so I don't know. I think there must be some kind of of sub subconscious bias. But anyways, I apologize to the to them.
00:29:41
Speaker
for not following up because they asked me to be ah an advisor and I was like, oh yeah, sure. That sounds chill. Like I don't have, i was like, I basically asked like, oh I don't have to tweet. Right. Like, and they're like, nah, it's fine. I was like, okay, I'll do it. And then I just like ghosted them like a fag, like a faggot. But yeah, I do definitely. But it was like, I,
00:30:05
Speaker
so brett The Russian thing is not the whole thing. It was like, I didn't want to go through the whole thing again, you know? Yeah, I get It's a lot of fucking clicking. It's a lot of stress and it's a lot of dollars at risk too. We talk about it like it's free money, but it's... And Jmo, I don't know if you follow him on Twitter.
00:30:27
Speaker
I'm not sure, but I know if he's a colanderer. Yeah, cunty cakes. But he was talking about this. He's like, oh, you fucking retards talking about Jump getting free money, like as if depositing into LLP 12 months ago was free money. yeah None of you have ever risked more than like a soggy bagel. Fuck you, you fucking retard. Like, i was
Industry Dynamics and Building Successful Platforms
00:30:48
Speaker
like, you know, he's probably correct. And...
00:30:52
Speaker
That's like you know how we think about everything in crypto. is' like it's It's always easier in hindsight. Nine months later, oh fuck, you're so retarded for not taking that opportunity. you know but like is But anyways, like I'm just like coping right now. But ah yeah, the extended team is like the opposite because the you know the just the way that they're doing things. and like the truth The thing is that they tweet on Twitter, they just like talk about information.
00:31:21
Speaker
yeah The team does not let like their personal opinions kind of like speak through their tweets. like you You just see a tweet and you're like, oh, that guy works for extended, so he's like shilling his bags, of course. But it's not like, oh, Hyperliquid does it this way, but we're better. It's like Vlad has too much hubris and like doesn't realize that the market will just like humble you for that. And also...
00:31:47
Speaker
I don't know about TradFi, it probably doesn't work that way in TradFi, right? People probably love that shit in TradFi. But in crypto, we become conditioned to like assume that you're a scammer if you talk like that.
00:31:59
Speaker
I tried to, bro, the guy even DMed me on Telegram about a tweet that I made. And i was like, oh, you know, like if you do want. Yeah, if you do want feedback, like, because I was in like a group chat where it was like, oh, super early. Like we're going to be farming this. Like ah you can also farm this too. And then I was like, used it and like,
00:32:22
Speaker
said to the team, I was like, what the fuck? The liquidity is whatever. don't know. like It could be better. And then was like, oh, it's just the downtime. And I just like didn't believe them that I'd never used it again. And people like told me that it was just the downtime. And I should have just like tried it again 30 minutes later and like it would have been fine.
00:32:41
Speaker
But ah like he DMed me once on Telegram because he had my Telegram from that like group like way long ago. And then he was like, oh, blah, blah, blah. What do you mean by this tweet? And I was like, oh, mostly just shitposting. But if you want like actual... Because the tweet was like, if if Jeff isn't buying it, how will lighter token go up after TGE? That's pretty good tweet.
00:33:04
Speaker
it's a pretty good treat He was like, do you have questions about like Lighter's revenue model? I was like, bro, it's a shithouse. This kind of like speaks to like the problems that I have with your tweets though. like You're so unaware that you think this is like a serious tweet. like what Who gives a fuck what some guy says about Jeff? like if He's gonna buy your token, bro. Just make your token go up. like But I was like, DM'd him all this like advice basically or opinion on like how founders can present themselves on Twitter and how people on CT like myself will perceive them and their product because of how they speak to other people.
00:33:42
Speaker
Like he was basically just would not agree with me at all. And like let basically it was just like arguing with me the whole time. And it was like, bro, what do you mean? How are you going to be like, oh, you're like, obviously know what goes on on CT and like have a some kind of like understanding of the social scene here. Let me ask you for advice. And then you give advice, and then they're like, what the fuck are you talking about? Are you retarded? And you're like, bro, come on. And then to come on Twitter like a couple months later and respond to one of my tweets,
00:34:16
Speaker
And then to respond to somebody in the comments to say that they that he doesn't know who I am, it's like, bro, like who do you think you are? just build the exchange and delete your Twitter account.
00:34:29
Speaker
like It would be better for everybody. Fuck. so i think ah I think Jeff has had a pretty good example in there, just like posting once in a while like useful shit or whatever. he tweets like once a month and it's like six paragraphs long and it's like everybody reads it because it's important and it's like yeah useful information. It's not some guy comparing himself to like the greatest quantitative finance fucking hedge fund guy of all time.
00:35:02
Speaker
I mean, we we're we're we're like we're like a neutral entity or whatever. We accept all exchanges equally. And then we're also going to integrate the lighter in the future and stuff. But i also, like as my own biased personal opinion, I have a lot of extended points relatively. Yeah. like ah For for my for my my size. And I've also like ah been one of the very like early users, if you could call it that. I played around a little bit. because um I'm friends with one of their advisors. Nice. And I've also like met the team a couple of times. that They're they' good people. They seem to do well.
00:35:42
Speaker
Maybe like this can be a clip if they like do an FTX in a year or whatever. I thought I'd hoped for. But like um yeah, I think and what he said what the Lighter founder said about this ah Renaissance thing and then like making a tweet thread justifying it is like just really unnecessary. That was crazy. i don't know. it' just like, it's hard to explain really, but it just makes you realize that this person is not in touch with reality 100%. Like you're not doing yourself any favors here. Yeah. I don't know. It's just a but good like, that no matter what you're building, how could it be like one, don't know. You can't, it's not a good book.
00:36:28
Speaker
Yeah. it's You should have... you The market's like...
Crypto Market's Future and Individual Aspirations
00:36:32
Speaker
I don't know. It's not the same as other industries, you know? I mean, most of the time, if you build something good, it just like speaks for itself. Yeah. You don't really have to...
00:36:42
Speaker
have to like do stuff like this or be like a clown like like CZ or anything like that and just be always tweet about the random stuff with like 10 different emojis and pretend that you like don't even understand how on chain swaps work or whatever everyone yeah she's like the fucking owner of Binance and the CZ tweets seem crazy but We're all of us here on Twitter, like talking shit about him, but he's like a billionaire. So there must be something. He doesn't need to care about us. they must he be But there must be like some value, you know? Yeah. He must be doing something right. Yeah. Or it's like, he's just like at a size where that's how you operate when you're that you know yeah like, when you have like i guess so millions of fucking followers, you know, whatever you have to like play the part.
00:37:28
Speaker
To some extent, I guess. Appeal to the lowest common denominator. Yeah, like he is running a business after all. And ah whatever the fuck else he's doing with coins or proven or unproven to order books.
00:37:46
Speaker
Yeah. Fucking. I don't know. tent the October 10th was crazy. That's ah three months ago now. Yeah.
00:37:57
Speaker
I mean, also, i don't know if they're like doing that that. I mean, the exchange is obviously doing well and whatever, is despite losing market share in in general. But like all the last couple of things that they have done, like even Aster, yeah but like everyone was so convinced that that he's going to push it and he won't like to just ah leave it behind and drop it off or whatever. It's going to be the next thing just because he's behind it. and then that just kind of like faded off into memory and ahha doesn't really exist anymore.
00:38:26
Speaker
I don't... That was weird. i i' said I feel like he... don't know. Who knows?
00:38:37
Speaker
Who knows? but what what What is your, like, um how has your life changed since since getting into crypto? Like, what has it been like to go from from studying hospitality to being a... have Have you made it? Would you say that you did you made it?
00:38:54
Speaker
i I think so. I just do whatever I want. basically all the I don't know. i think that and I think differently than other people. i don't think you need like $10 million dollars to be like...
00:39:09
Speaker
to That's why I say I guess, because I don't know, I'm pretty poor, but... you ah like You can still make it while you're poor. Yeah. Like relatively, I'm pretty poor to like, you know, a lot of my friends, but it doesn't seem like either of us have any different level of freedom.
00:39:28
Speaker
You know? So I think that there comes, like when I first graduated from college, I was working like you know an insane amount. I had like two jobs. and ah Sometimes at night, I like couldn't. at At my second job, I couldn't remember driving to my first job in the morning sometimes. That's how tired I was. ah well and and like ah The best way to just describe my life now is like I haven't used an alarm clock in like four years. Or three or like three years. you know like yeah The only time I use the timer on my phone is like when I'm cooking.
00:40:06
Speaker
and And I don't know, it's not really all that it's cracked up to be, i don't think, this term, this idea of like having zero responsibilities this concept of making it and being unbeholden to the whole world.
00:40:27
Speaker
is like So making it means like not using an alarm clock, basically? To me, personally. you know To some other people, it's like, I know someone and he's like, bro, I'm not going to be happy until I can buy an island.
00:40:40
Speaker
or oh ah Or no, he said a country. He wants to buy a country. And like he didn't say that he won't be happy until he does that. But like that's it that's that's like his goal that's the implication. Because of the implication. so ah you know like I don't know. i'm I would like to be able to buy $2 million dollar cars and stuff. like That would be that'd be cool.
00:41:07
Speaker
But i don't I no longer like strive for it. I think maybe at one point I did. I'm probably pretty complacent now. ah You've just like reached your level and like… I don't know. It's… it's Escaped the rat race.
00:41:22
Speaker
Escaped the matrix. It feels like it. have every level of comfort that I would ever want. But… But also there's a part of me that knows that it's good to have aspirations, which is why I talk which is why i say, like, I don't know, it feels like you see all these people, some well, you did, not really anymore.
00:41:42
Speaker
A lot of them just quit Twitter. But there was a point in time where everyone was lamenting the state of CT, right? They're they're like on CT and lamenting it and like lamenting the state of Bitcoin and like talking about what being the point of all this stuff. And and it was like, you could tell that so many people had like all this money and they didn't know what to do with it.
00:42:04
Speaker
yeah And that's not even like, oh, a skill issue. I think that's just like being a human. Yeah, I think it's pretty normal, especially if you like don't come from Elif or whatever. Yeah.
00:42:15
Speaker
And so the way that you get to your making it, I think is probably more important than actually making it. Because if you feel like you deserve to have made it, when you make it, quote unquote, then you will be like at peace and you will be able to enjoy it And if not, then you won't. And you'll be like, and then there will have been no point to even have been doing all that the entire time.
00:42:39
Speaker
And so, like, for me, when I first started, I was like working, you know, like working so hard that even though a lot of people looking would say that it's whatever money that I have made is luck. And I acknowledge that and know that it is luck as well, but it feels like I earned it.
00:43:01
Speaker
So I don't know. Everyone asks all these questions. and
00:43:08
Speaker
I don't know. looks like you're... you're No, go on. You just have to feel like you're doing, like the path that you're going on is right. As long as you just like have some idea of something that you want to try and you keep trying it, like then then I think, then I believe that that each human can like find what it means to make it for themselves. Getting getting philosophical here. Yeah, I think that's like so that the the true like making it, you know?
00:43:44
Speaker
What is like your your outlook on the on the future of of crypto and the market? Are you in it for the tech? Are you are you like ideologically aligned? Do think we we can still? Do you think there's a point to this?
00:43:57
Speaker
is there I feel like that's kind of the Is there a point? like I don't know. if If you asked me that ah like five years ago,
00:44:12
Speaker
If is there a point to crypto, then I would say that like the point is that you can be early to the digitalization of money and finance.
00:44:24
Speaker
And five years later, like that's probably still true. If you're talking about like, but that's like pretty utilitarian, purely ideologically.
00:44:39
Speaker
I think you could probably argue that yes. like Because like even five i don't know like this whole time, five, six years that I've been buying coins and stuff, I've thought of coins as like a so ah global social mobility tool. like it' you could ah It has a great ah opportunity for class movement.
00:45:02
Speaker
yeah And I think that's probably still true. like If you're like you know on the extended low of the the barbell of likeing up the economic situation, like and you go from the i don't know the standard state of your environment to be working in crypto, like you'd probably be getting paid more than than doing anything
Market Cycles and Trading Opportunity Dynamics
00:45:28
Speaker
physical like in your hometown or local economy unless your family is like business owners or something like that.
00:45:38
Speaker
ah So I don't know. I think that it probably, that probably also still exists too. And we're definitely suffering from like recency bias of the past year with like all the extract, all the extraction and as well as pumped up fun before that.
00:45:57
Speaker
So, but it's also like a, It's like if we smoked cigarettes for 20 years and then get mad that you get lung cancer or something.
00:46:09
Speaker
You know? Yeah. We need to like carve out the lungs and get a lung transplant and hope that they hope that they have the tech for a lung transplant. And then and then you know maybe crypto can be reborn again and everybody can get sick airdrops and... like Well, no, like that'll probably never be a thing again, just because like yeah the the like the lowest level of like investing in private market is so saturated now that like everybody's operating with so much capital to begin with that your jobs don't make as much sense from their point of view, because they don't need to bootstrap.
00:46:45
Speaker
But that's also you know something that doesn't really realize But Hyperliquid. Yeah, I guess that was kind of like the initial point of airdrops to like bootstrap the network. and like Yeah, it's well, that is the whole point of an airdrop is to be like. It's not just free money. It's like it's's it's like marketing spend, basically. ah hundred you like but So you do believe in like the the fine finance coming on chain, like Hyperliquid becoming the house of all finance or whatever?
00:47:22
Speaker
i okay yeah I guess to be specific, ideologically, yeah I do think actually that yes, crypto does exist as like a force to somewhat democratize access to finance.
00:47:39
Speaker
Even though you can't buy one BTC for $8,000 and see it go 100K anymore.
00:47:46
Speaker
yeah You probably won't 20x your money on on Bitcoin in less than like a decade or something right at this point. But there's still like plenty of other ways, I think. And and you know like there's plenty of other shit to be early to. so like Even in 2022, people were like, oh, airdrops are dead. Yeah. And then fucking people printed...
00:48:15
Speaker
shit loads of money on hyperliquid. So okay you know like what is dead can never dot truly die. i mean, even before, there were like a couple of decent ones, like Arbitrum and then Optimism I think Jito Sol. Yeah, those were like insane for some people. you you know Yeah, like some people made insane amounts of money on all of those.
00:48:41
Speaker
And as long as you're like willing to like have these conversations of like, oh, are things interesting again? Or, you know, like, what are you like asking people where they're putting capital to work? Like, if you're just still willing to like stay long enough and like do that, then, you know, people that haven't made it can probably still make it at one point.
00:49:09
Speaker
what what do you think how deep we are into like bear market territory right now how how long is it going to take until things get get interesting well it could be like a very a long time it's only been like a few months since the alleged theoretical top so it's another year right to wait until yeah you're supposed to start buying or whatever
00:49:37
Speaker
It's kind of crazy. like i didn't i didn't really I don't really subscribe to like the cycle idea that much anymore because I feel like DreadFi flows have like changed things a little bit. i don't know if Bitcoin would just go down 80% from the all-time high. Again, maybe through like geopolitics and macro now or whatever, but I feel like it's more correlated and it's just happening through the cycle. But it's kind of funny that it's still like topped at the same at the same time where it like always sits.
00:50:03
Speaker
Yeah. and the The other thing, too, is, like, BTC going sideways is, like...
00:50:11
Speaker
It's not, like... It hasn't really happened before. isn't really, like, a thing, basically. Yeah. I guess it has happened not in bear markets, but not, like, really when it's, like, near the top.
00:50:23
Speaker
The thing is, is that it's just not, like... it's It's like, oh, BTC can be going up or it could be going down, but it can also be going sideways, but going sideways is not like going up But it's also it's also not like going down.
00:50:38
Speaker
But it's kind
Lifestyle Changes and Philosophical Musings in Trading
00:50:39
Speaker
of more like going down than its than it is like going up. because while it's going Because while it's not going up, there's other things that are going up. And so like that's been the problem right with the last like five months. And so I think that's also why everybody's getting all existential and you know maybe Doomer-ish.
00:51:00
Speaker
I mean, a lot of people have been for a while. So, I mean, it's not like they were wrong even. a So... I mean, we're kind of missing out on like AI games or like robotics or mesh metals, gold, silver, everything that's happening over there.
00:51:18
Speaker
and we're just sitting here in the range. Yeah. of thing And we're supposed to be the ones that like go up to infinity and not the the silver people or whatever. But... but
00:51:33
Speaker
We just have to play longer games now, I guess. Yeah. Is there anything else ah you find interesting currently other than Perp Dexas? I mean... what could be interesting in the future?
00:51:47
Speaker
I don't know. Things are like pretty normal right now. It seems like there's not much like ideological capital in the space right now. It doesn't seem like.
00:52:01
Speaker
So it's hard to say. what What do you mean by ideological capital? Like people that are like willing to like build new shit. who People are, I don't know, like it's like big things are just getting rehashed right now. Yeah.
00:52:20
Speaker
I guess we can the talk a bit about the Trove thing that we... Oh, yeah. really that I don't know. The or are latest event that shook the city were... Extraction.
00:52:32
Speaker
The latest extraction. Yeah. it just's like they they They also meant DM'd me to like try it out or whatever, but I also never really understood. I don't really understand how stuff like that see could be liquid.
00:52:46
Speaker
Like who who would provide liquidity on things like that and where do you get the pricing from? Yeah. like but Like, how... If someone has a lot of Pokemon cards, you can just, like, abuse it, no? People have, like, actually tried these things before, and they just... Yeah. They always, like, blow up.
00:53:06
Speaker
So... There is... At one of the old places that I worked, like there was one that we invested in. There was like CSGO perps. and like Even in the testnet, it like blew up.
00:53:23
Speaker
where It was like in the demo phase. It was like with very small amounts of money. It fucking exploded. so They just like gave everyone's money back. That's pretty good. That's commendable. Yeah. um um Not everyone does that. Yeah.
00:53:39
Speaker
But the Trove people just like rugged 9 million or something.
00:53:45
Speaker
It's kind of a sad side of affairs, but also like how many CT accounts had like the badge. There was a lot of people with the badge. And then like, Somebody like asked me if I wanted a badge. And like then he was like, oh can I give your telegram to the founder? And I was like, sure, I guess. like I'll chat with you anybody who will is willing to give me money. Like, sure. And then he DMed me and like,
00:54:13
Speaker
He was like, oh, everybody wants to be a trove, man. And I was like, what the fuck does that mean? and So I just didn't respond. And then like the next that like two days later, all that shit happened. And I was like, oh, yeah I guess that's what it means to be a trove, man.
00:54:30
Speaker
Fuck. Okay. It's good that I didn't become a trove man, and I guess. You're kind of just like tainted. If you if you didn't like properly do your DD, then you're just like, hey, I'll take this badge. I think this is kind of cool or whatever. And then you're like, oh shit, delete delete everything fast.
00:54:52
Speaker
i'm in I've never heard of this before. Yeah. I don't know. yeah
00:55:02
Speaker
I think um this is a good point to wrap it up, I guess, unless you have anything else that you would like to discuss. No, that's... anything I guess there's not that much going on in the markets right now.
00:55:14
Speaker
We really talk about it. Do you have any words of wisdom that you can that you can give to the people on maybe on how to make it without... Just don't blow up I think if you just don't blow up, then anything is possible.
00:55:28
Speaker
And being content content with with what you have before you have the ability to buy a country. That's also true, I guess. I don't know. That's a everyone's like personal struggle. yeah Even.
00:55:39
Speaker
It's much easier to talk about these things than to be content about these things. Yeah, that's true. That's very true. Yeah, I think, like, you know, that you can't be, like, you have to remember that the meme, that the rabbit meme is just, like, fraudulent.
00:56:00
Speaker
Where he has the stopwatch. Yeah. And he's like pointing at the stopwatch and it's like, oh, your time is near, young one. Like your time is ending. That's kind of like the biggest, even though it's like, of course, it's like always a little bit true. Like you have to do things or whatever. It's good to have. Mindset of like, have to make it now. It's good to have a sense of urgency.
00:56:19
Speaker
It's good to know that things that you want to accomplish will not just like sit there in the distant future waiting for you to like come get them. That you need to be like striving and like carving a path towards them. But if you let- just doesn't have to be urgent as in like today. If you let this sense of urgency like influence everything that you do then you'll just become anxious so yeah you have to like understand that things take time and that you know it's like the most cliche things but you have to just like do small steps at a time yeah which is why whatever but yeah people just i get which is why working out is good for this kind of stuff because that's the easiest way to see like
00:57:09
Speaker
the impact of small changes yeah for sure you know like right when you start working out you're like oh this is a scam like what what is this and then you like work out a little bit more and you're like oh this is sick and then then you start to realize like how everything you do impacts how your body changes yeah and then then you can realize like think about like trading and stuff and like you know i there's like so many analogies that can be made but like trading for or working out like different type of people and different type of bodies respond to different type of workouts better and different type of humans think differently and can trade different type of portfolios like better or worse than other kinds and
00:57:58
Speaker
Some people are supposed to be scalpers and some people are just supposed to only be longing. And then, you know, you have like the doomers who are always shorting. with Some people's minds just work differently. And as long as you don't blow up, then you can figure out what kind of style, you know, works for you.
00:58:20
Speaker
Find your style and don't blow up. Yeah, just don't blow up. Everything will be okay if you just don't blow up.