ETH competing with Bitcoin as an institutional asset

ETH as Institutional Asset

Introduction of Chiefing Zha and his trading journey

Introduction of Special Guest

Discussion about the guest's early experience with crypto trading

Early Crypto Trading Experience

Trading Mentality and Strategies

Guest's successful trades and market analysis

Big Trades and Market Analysis

Discussion about market's shift and opportunities

Market Opportunities and Paradigm Shift

Insights into characteristics of bull markets

Bull Market Characteristics

Discussion about altcoin trades and investments

Crypto Market and Investment Opportunities

Evaluation of DeFi platforms and crypto tokens

Evaluation of DeFi and Crypto Tokens

Introduction of Perennial Finance for crypto traders

Sponsorship Segment: Perennial Finance

Discussion about the investment potential of ETH

ETH as an Investment

Insights into ETH's market position and potential

ETH's Market Position and Potential

Discussion about ETH's market message and investment strategy

ETH's Market Message and Investment Strategy

Insights into potential adoption of ETH by Wall Street

ETH and Wall Street Adoption

Discussion on value flow between L2s and ETH

The Value of L2s and ETH

Analysis of L2s and the flow of value back to ETH

L2s as Parasitic to Themselves

Theoretical discussion on L2 usage and its impact on ETH

L2 Usage and ETH's Form of Money

Trader's Perspective on L2s and ETF

Analysis of market structure data and positioning

Market Structure and Positioning

Discussion on finding trading opportunities and strategies

Trading Opportunities and Strategies

Investing in Crypto AI

Analysis of BitTensor as an investible asset

BitTensor as an Investible Asset

Discussion on AI coin ecosystem and BitTensor subnets

AI Coin Ecosystem and BitTensor Subnets

Insights into finding alpha within the Discord community

Finding Alpha in Discord

- The speaker believes that Wall Street has anointed Bitcoin and ETH as the digital forms of money they will show their clients.
- He thinks ETH is competing with Bitcoin and will become more obvious in the next 2 to 5 years.
- ETH is becoming an institutional asset and could see significant growth.
- The speaker discusses his trading background and successful trades in DeFi Summer, ETH, and Solana.
- The conversation shifts to the current market conditions and the expectation of bullish news in a bull market.

- The speaker discusses the emotional highs and lows in the crypto market
- They mention the potential impact of a Republican-friendly administration on altcoin trades
- The speaker prefers a passive approach to trading and focuses on ETH as their major choice
- They discuss potential trades related to the election and the ETF decision
- The speaker is bearish on the DeFi rotation and prefers investments in AI projects
- They discuss the concept of investing in movements and the potential value of DeFi assets
- The episode is sponsored by Perennial Finance, a derivatives platform for DeFi trading
- The speaker emphasizes the importance of building conviction in disliked assets for successful trading
- They believe that ETH is undervalued and has potential for long-term growth in the market.

- The speaker believes that ETH is being overlooked by the market and has potential for institutional adoption
- They argue that ETH is becoming an institutional asset and could see a significant rally
- They discuss the illiquidity of ETH and its potential for growth
- They predict that a new administration could lead to increased adoption of ETH by Wall Street
- The speaker recommends holding spot ETH with no leverage and believes it is a strong investment opportunity

- The discussion involves the potential impact of a new administration on blockchain institutions
- The debate centers around the value flow between L2s and ETH, with the belief that L2s are parasitic to themselves and the value will flow back to ETH
- The conversation also touches on market structure data, positioning, and the potential for regulatory paradigm shifts in the altcoin market
- There is also a discussion about WorldCoin and the concept of scanning eyeballs as a means of proving humanity
- The participants express skepticism about the current state of utility coins and market participation, with a focus on market maker activity and potential future shifts in the market.

- The speaker believes that most cryptocurrencies are not investable, but some are suitable for short-term trading positions
- They use intuition and monitor news flow, market structure, and liquidity to identify potential investment opportunities
- They believe in the potential of decentralized AI and see BitTensor as an investible asset due to its organic growth and strong community
- They also see potential for other AI coins to become part of the BitTensor ecosystem
- The speaker has made tactical trades on BitTensor and sees it as a longer-term investment opportunity

- Discussion about BitTensor and its subsidy program for launching projects
- Debate about the potential impact of a bear market on AI and crypto valuations
- Use of Discord for finding alpha in the crypto market
- Emphasis on the need for self-taught traders to put in the work to find success in the crypto industry
- Disclaimer that none of the discussion is financial advice and to do your own research

- Wall Street has chosen Bitcoin and ETH as the digital forms of money for their clients
- ETH is competing with Bitcoin and expected to become more prominent in the next 2-5 years
- ETH is becoming an institutional asset and could see significant growth
- Speaker discusses trading background and successful trades in DeFi Summer, ETH, and Solana
- Discussion on market conditions and bullish news in a bull market
- Emphasis on emotional highs and lows in the crypto market
- Potential impact of a Republican-friendly administration on altcoin trades
- Speaker prefers a passive approach to trading and focuses on ETH
- Discussion on potential trades related to the election and ETF decision
- Speaker is bearish on DeFi rotation and prefers investments in AI projects
- Emphasis on investing in movements and potential value of DeFi assets
- Sponsored by Perennial Finance, a derivatives platform for DeFi trading
- Importance of building conviction in disliked assets for successful trading
- Belief that ETH is undervalued and has potential for long-term growth
- Argument that ETH is being overlooked by the market and has potential for institutional adoption
- Prediction of increased adoption of ETH by Wall Street with a new administration
- Recommendation to hold spot ETH with no leverage as a strong investment opportunity
- Discussion on potential impact of a new administration on blockchain institutions
- Debate on value flow between L2s and ETH, with belief that L2s are parasitic and value will flow back to ETH
- Discussion on market structure data, positioning, and potential regulatory paradigm shifts in the altcoin market
- Skepticism about current state of utility coins and market participation
- Emphasis on intuition and monitoring news flow, market structure, and liquidity for investment opportunities
- Belief in potential of decentralized AI and investibility of BitTensor
- Tactical trades made on BitTensor and discussion on its subsidy program for launching projects
- Debate on potential impact of a bear market on AI and crypto valuations
- Use of Discord for finding alpha in the crypto market
- Emphasis on self-taught traders putting in work for success in the crypto industry
- Disclaimer that none of the discussion is financial advice and to do your own research

In this episode, we dive deep into the current state of the crypto market with ChiefingZa, a former top trader on Bybit. The conversation covers the recent market volatility, the potential impact of a Bitcoin ETF, and the bull case for Ethereum. Chiefing shares his insights on the intersection of AI and crypto, particularly focusing on projects like BitTensor. The discussion also touches on the challenges of trading altcoins, the future of L2 solutions, and how to find alpha in the noisy world of crypto Discord channels.

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Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction
1:23 ChiefingZa Trading Origin
6:21 Are we Back?
16:09 Perennial Ad
17:40 Ethereum's Return & Religion
34:15 Ethereum's Return & Religion
39:55 The AI Narrative
50:28 Is AI at the Top?
54:02 Discord's Alpha Use case
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Disclaimer: Nothing said on 1000x is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Avi, Jonah and our guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed

What I think the market is sort of missing on ETH is Wall Street and the powers that be have pretty much anointed 2 crypto assets as the sort of digital forms of money that they are going to show their clients for a long time.

And I do think ETH is actually competing with Bitcoin.

I think they'll become kind of more obvious over the next 2 to 5 years.

And the shift that people are missing is ETH is becoming an institutional asset.

And given how small it is and how underweight I think people are to it, I think it could see an absolute face ripper.

This episode is brought to you by Perennial Finance, the on-chain Defi primitive redesigning derivatives for the Defi native.

You'll hear more about perennial later in the show.

He's here with us to talk about how he became at 1 point the number 1 trader on Bybit and why he's such a gigachad and how we should make money and how to not lose money.

I mean, how did you start off trading crypto?

We need to understand the origin story behind how you became such a gigachad trader.

So I've never been I've never been honestly so flattered as I have been joining this podcast, but no, like probably like many others in the space got into crypto when I was in when I was in uni.

Yeah, originally was actually enamored by the concept of hash functions.

I thought that was kind of like some sort of, you know, pure kind of sci-fi tech.

And I thought Bitcoin kind of was sci-fi money.

And obviously, as many do, once they kind of delve a little deeper, they find the world of, found the world, I guess, of ICOs, shitcoins, Ethereum.

Telegram chats, all the subreddits, the kind of basics.

And so did you start off, were you always interested in actively trading or when you first got into crypto?

I mean, were you more of a buy and hold guy?

Yeah, unfortunately, I think I've always held the mentality that I'm smarter than others, which has, you know, has not made me lose a lot at certain times.

So I think I always had this penchant for trading and trying to outsmart the market, and a lot of times failing to do so.

But yeah, I always had this inclination of, unfortunately, trying to time the market, finding new opportunities, and not necessarily just buy and hold.

So obviously confidence is pretty important if you're going to go put on some big contrarian bet that proves you right and makes you a lot of money.

What are some of the big trades that you've done that have given you that confidence over the course of the last 6 years, 7 years?

Yeah, I'd say there's been a few kind of trades that were sort of backed by doing the research, having high conviction, holding through a lot of volatility and more or less, Jonah, like we talked about, just sitting through a trade and sitting through a trend that you have belief in.

The first, again, for many, was DeFi Summer.

I was very involved in that ecosystem at the time.

So I was in a position where I knew basic things on how to debug failed Metamask transactions, which at the time, time was the essence.

Same thing with interacting with new smart contracts.

So it was uniquely positioned to take advantage of that.

Next big trade was actually ETH and ETHPTC in Q2 of 2021, following the Coinbase IPO.

Yeah, at the time, like, you know, a close friend and I were always kind of, even now I sort of talk about EPC, but we were really saying that the market is not really appreciating the change that's going to come from EIP 1559.

Along with that, you kind of had a very just classic sort of topping structure on BTC going into high profile event with a lot of kind of sailor buying baked in, in the sort of final leg.

And obviously you had DeFi and a piece happening.

So that ETH run was 1 of my larger notional trades.

And more recently, and probably how people found the account was Solana, which, as most people know, I definitely did sell too early, but sized it quite hard in the low 20s.

I think in 2022, or around the merge, obviously, ETH became definitely the most consensus trade.

And you had a lot of people even spinning up funds of thinking, well, how do we just acquire ETH exposure in the most efficient way?

At the same time, the vision that the Ethereum Foundation and all that ecosystem was pitching, you were clearly unbundling the system and this belief system that people bought into.

And there were obviously gonna be a lot of open questions around that.

And Solana obviously offered this competitor or differentiator in a monolithic chain, which I actually did not expect it to gain as much traction as it has.

But to me, obviously saw at the time a very crowded trade and a very sort of hated trade.

And there's really no other sort of smart contract platform that offers any different differentiation, right?

Everything else is either some EDM spin-off, L2, another L1, L3, whatever.

So yeah, Those are kind of the 3 sort of big trades that I've kind of, I guess, hit in my career.

Well, I'm glad we've got you on the podcast today because we've done some builder episodes recently and it's cool to talk to the people writing the code and building the tech and building the future, But markets just got spicy.

It feels like there's a ton of opportunity right now.

And it's good to have a pretty epic savage trader on the podcast to chop it up with, because I think everybody wants to know what to do right now.

We were going into kind of despondent bear mode for a while, things were nuking down into the 50s and Bitcoin went a little bit lower than most of us thought it would.

And then suddenly Donald Trump gets shot in the head and we're so back.

Now there's talk of a kind of like a strategic Bitcoin reserve.

He's a millennial like this is it almost feels like a paradigm shift has happened overnight.

And Biden is just self destructing with every day that goes by And his administration has been pretty bad for crypto.

So Avi chieftain, like what are we looking at here?

Are we supposed to be 10 out of 10 all in?

Or we found out or I found out we're so back.

It's always when it just looks like there's nothing that can save it.

When something comes out of left field, when everybody's, when everybody's bearish, when everybody's de-risked, when everybody goes, well, I guess it's over.

There's always some something that happens.

Well, I think that's like if you want to talk about markets, maybe even like top down, right?

I think what you pointed out always happens, especially in bull markets, right?

Bull markets are characterized by generally positive headlines.

And when things are so bad for so long in a bull market, you kind of know something good should be coming along the way.

And it's funny, I guess in those like, whatever, I don't know how long the drawdown was, right?

But you had people finally coming out and saying, the 2 words, right, bear market.

You had people kind of questioning whether even, you know, it's funny in this market, I feel like, I don't know what has caused this.

But I think so many people lack conviction, like they almost want like their dad or someone to tell them to step up and bid.

So that's why everyone's like, oh, well, GCR said this, GCR said that.

They're kind of are lending their conviction to someone else.

And obviously, there was a lot of rhetoric around whether or not it's still a bull market or a pair market.

But I think the thing that I would sort of emphasize, at least, is we're definitively in a bull market.

And if we do get in a situation again where it's so dire and we haven't had good news, I think you should expect good news sort of around the corner because that is kind of what categorizes a bull market.

I think that's an interesting take that you have because I've never thought about just the general backdrop being bullish and so we should expect bullish news.

I always figured the news is kind of independently distributed and not related to like, oh, it's been bad for a while, but we're in a bull market, so we should be expecting more good news.

But in crypto, you do kind of get these, you know, multi-month or even multi-year time periods of either just utter despair or utter euphoria.

And it is, I guess it's more of a reflexive asset class than some of the other ones that I'm used to in TradFi.

But like, okay, so let's just assume that the odds of a Republican administration that's friendly to crypto just went through the roof and you can see that on Polymarket as well.

Are there you know obviously Chief, Chief Ng, you've major you've made your bread on a few big altcoin trades.

Yeah I haven't really I've kind of been thinking about the market.

Like I tend to be a little bit more passive now.

I don't really actively trade with a big portion of the portfolio.

I like to think of it as, you know, you have your sort of major of choice, because obviously the majors have just been so supported this cycle, and then, you know, you have different theme sectors that you might wanna play.

You know, for me, I, again, people know this by now, ETH is definitely my major of choice, and we can kind of get into that.

And then in terms of themes, I'm not really looking right now for a certain theme that is would be bolstered by, let's say, Trump winning, Even though I think that is probably there are a couple of interesting trades to be had there.

I'm personally very fascinated by the kind of crypto AI intersection.

I do think we're ironically very early there.

I don't think there's much that's investable, But there are a few certain things that kind of excite me.

And so I like to think of it as, you know, what other opportunities do I think would outpace me just buying and holding, let's say, an 80-20 basket of ETH and let's say, you know, an AIS.

I think Audi actually tweeted this, but yeah, I think a clear sort of trade if you want to trade the the betting odds on the election would be obviously like soul.

Soul is going to be I think kind of baked into some pointing just because obviously in a new admin, the odds of the ETF going through are quite high, but we'll talk about that.

I actually think 1 of the sweeter trades will be nailing the soul top into the March 2025 unlocks, which will coincide nicely with the ETF decision.

I don't love the DeFi rotation, but I think Hester Pierce came out yesterday and pretty much said there's no real reason why staking shouldn't be included in the ETF offerings.

So, I think something like LIDO or the staking field might get attached to Trump winning, because the only reason for that to be staking is purely political.

And all investors will want that extra yield.

And I don't know exactly how it sort of plays into into Lido other than sort of narrative.

Like obviously from the get-go clients will want to probably stake with Coinbase.

You could see BlackRock and all the sort of institutions build their own offerings.

can see them outsource their staking to Lido.

So you could have like a BlackRock ETH ETF with staking by Lido.

And it's actually not unthinkable because BlackRock, the CIO at this Coinbase event, pretty much said like the future is on chain.

They have this build fund or this money market fund.

Pretty sure it has half a yard if not more there.

So you know, BlackRock, the biggest financial institution in the world has committed to putting assets on chain.

So it's not it's not crazy to think that they, you know, stake some of their ETH or do something with Lido.

And then obviously in that world, I don't think it's priced around here.

You said that, obviously this is kind of a bull argument for DeFi in general, but you said you're not super in favor of the whole idea of a defile rotation.

And Jonah and I have talked about this on the pod for a bit.

It's, it's that I think at some point we have to get allocation of things that are quote unquote useful and people are going to get tired of buying, buying platforms.

And I think you're kind of already seeing that with a lot of the things that are performing like really poorly this year.

It's a lot of the new platforms that are coming out.

I'm kind of curious, is it is your view on DeFi more of a short term bearishness, medium term, long term?

No, I don't I don't want to say short term bullish.

Just I think so many alt like the alt complex is so oversold with DeFi.

And speaking of someone obviously who came into the crypto world really through DeFi, it doesn't really have the same, it doesn't really captivate people or the marketplace really as much as it did before.

So I think there's going to be short-term opportunities, but would I want to hold, let's say, a decently growing DeFi platform or a burgeoning new AI L1 or new AI ecosystem.

Like 1, the valuation cap on the other thing is just going to be so, so much higher.

An idea I've kind of been mulling over, it's actually come from a friend, but I think it's really interesting, right?

So many investors are kind of asking themselves or trying to reason with meme coins, you know, doing well, and obviously all utility coins doing terribly.

I think it ties a bit more into, you know, these crypto tokens, they're not stocks, right?

They're something a little bit different.

And kind of my friend's thesis on this is that, you know, tokens are a way to almost invest into movements, be it political movements, social movements, right?

Like holding Bitcoin and buying Bitcoin is you saying, you know, I believe that money and state should be separated.

And I'm holding this as a badge of honor.

You know, again, it's almost like a religion, right?

And so I do think if you're a crypto investor and you're long-term, you do need to evaluate a project based, like, I don't love the term cult, but it is sort of what it is, right?

You need to evaluate, like, is this a religion?

Do you have all these people working towards a unified goal?

Do you have even a single common enemy that people can rally around?

And DeFi, that's why short-term there's going to be trades.

But would I buy and hold a DeFi asset for 1 or 2 years versus something else?

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It's more about, you know, the risk award and multiples that you're gonna necessarily necessarily get on this thing.

I guess the question is, are these things that are coming out, like these AI projects, these other things that you're looking at, are they not already going to be valued so highly?

Are they not going to come out at really high valuations?

And then are they actually going to fulfill those valuations?

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Chief’s ETH & AI Bull Bet | 1000x