Here. We. Go. 🚀

Buckle up for the craziest cycle yet.

Hi Everyone,

After what felt like an endless campaign season, the US Presidential Election is finally over. I know emotions are extremely high on both sides now: my friends on the Right are ecstatic while my friends on the Left are devastated. 

My aim here, as always, is to be as objective/non-partisan as possible and simply speak to the reality of how the Election & coming changes are likely to effect Crypto.

Crypto should be a non-partisan issue. It is about individual rights, protecting against financial repression, and giving back power to the powerless. It is about more than just money, at its core it is about human rights. It is truly tragic to me that everything in our current world has become so politicized, including Crypto.

Our two party system in the US is meant to divide us, and it is extremely effective at doing so. I went back and forth about what to write here, or whether to write anything at all, as virtually everything that most people read for the next several weeks will be viewed through a political lens.

However, my aim with this newsletter is to help people wake up to what is really going on in the world, the causes of financial repression, the incredible opportunities in Web3, and how to use that information to help protect themselves and the people they love.

So, that is what I will attempt to do here today. Especially if you are upset about the election, I implore you to set your personal feelings aside for the next few minutes and look clearly at how the chessboard has changed.

And holy s*#! has it just changed.

We are living through a literal revolution in the US. This was not a “Republican” win, it was a Populist win — with massive implications (far more than Trump’s 2016 win). Trump didn’t just win the electoral college either, he won the popular vote. It was a massive political realignment of the parties as well. You had establishment Neocon Republicans like Dick Cheney and George W. Bush backing Harris, while numerous Democrats and Independents realigned with Trump. Trump pulled significant votes from historically Democrat demographics like the hispanic, black, and Arab communities too. His support has only grown in the past decade, despite constant attacks in the media, indictments, convictions, and ass*ssination attempts (not to mention his own often inflammatory rhetoric).

If you were surprised by the election outcome or are still sitting there thinking “this doesn’t make sense”, I encourage you to look objectively and without judgement at the economic, social, and political factors driving his rise, and how these big cycles have played themselves out historically. This trend is not an anomaly.

If you’re looking for a great starting point to understand these big cycles, I would recommend: The Changing World Order by Ray Dalio, The Fourth Turning by William Strauss & Neil Howe, and Neil Howe’s followup book The Fourth Turning is Here.

On a personal note:

1. If you have not already, please read The Fourth Turning. They almost perfectly predicted our current social divisions, the root causes, and the cyclical patterns behind them almost 30 years ago. It will probably do more to help your understanding of what is likely coming next than any other single book.

2. I’m stating the obvious here, but please realize the legacy/mainstream media in the US is complete propaganda designed to manipulate you — no exceptions. They are for-profit businesses serving their owners, advertisers, & political interests. They are not just “getting it wrong” all the time — they are lying. The only time they ever tell you anything resembling the “truth” is if it’s in their interest to do so. Everyone I know that was surprised by the election outcome got their news from mainstream sources, talk shows, or censored Social Media (FB/IG/etc) vs. those looking at the raw data on platforms without broad censorship like X (Twitter) or even the betting odds on Polymarket called the election (including the details around individual swing states) almost perfectly.

Ok - With that out of the way, let’s get to the newly updated chessboard & some major crypto updates!

Crypto Updates

If you tuned out of crypto the past year, let me summarize what’s currently happening: 

• The global liquidity cycle (i.e. money printing cycle) is on the upswing, this is arguably the biggest driver of crypto’s big parabolic cycles every 4 years

  • I.E. The Fed Cutting Rates, China stimulating, other central banks easing, etc.

  • *This is also why it was extremely likely we would have our next crypto run, regardless of who won the US presidential election.

  • To remind everyone: There is no way out of the world’s massive Government debt problem other than to keep printing & debasing fiat currencies. The more they print, the less your dollar is worth. This is the single most important thing for individual investors to understand in the coming decade. 

• Institutions, Governments, VCs, Founders, and savvy individual investors have been heavily positioning themselves for the next leg up in crypto markets during the past year

• AI x Crypto is going to be a massive narrative, with new developments almost daily for the past year

• The Populist Takeover has come to crypto as well, with memecoins dominating mindshare and performance over the last year (more on this later) 

• The US election cycle is now over and the candidate that won is the guy whose family just launched their own DeFi project.

Just let that last sentence sink in for a second. 

While I wouldn’t touch Trump’s latest cash-grab with a 10 foot pole, the directional shift in regulations and the government’s stance on crypto is about to undergo a tectonic shift. The President Elect of the United States has publicly said he would make America the “Crypto Capital of the World”, and I’ll say it again… His family has literally launched their own DeFi project. This would have been unfathomable and absurd to even say out loud a few years ago. 

The dominoes are all lined up for an insane series of events. 

Here are the most obvious things that will likely happen next:

• Gary Gensler, the current Head of the SEC, will either step down before inauguration day or will get fired shortly there after. (There are no words for how gratifying it will be to watch this corrupt bully of a bureaucrat take the walk of shame. 👏) 

• Someone extremely pro crypto, like the Chief Legal Officer at Robinhood or the SEC’s “Crypto Mom” Hester Pierce for example, will likely be appointed to head the SEC. 

• A new framework for digital assets will be proposed, and a potential new wave of ETFs will be unblocked (or at the very least, exchanges won’t have to worry about everything being called a security.)

• It will be easier for projects to get listed on exchanges, and there will be far less risk of legal action.

• There will be an explosion in crypto related activity over the next year.

• Elon will form a new department on government efficiency that will be named… Wait for it… the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). 

• Virtually everything in crypto will explode. Memecoins will likely explode more than anything because they’re simple and easier to pump. (and apps like Moonshot now exist making it easier than ever for newbies to gamble)

• The Government may even create a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. This was one of Trump’s campaign promises (we’ll see if he follows through), and other countries will follow suit if we actually do this.

These are all just off the top of my head too…. 

I’m not even really sure what to say here… There has never, EVER, been a more favorable regulatory environment or series of events towards crypto in the United States — and all this is coinciding with the explosion of AI. 

TLDR: None of us are ready for what’s about to happen. 

Thoughts about the future of Crypto

• The more time I spend in Crypto, the more I see two divergent viewpoints as being extremely valid:

  • 1) Crypto tech continues to expand exponentially. Quality Layer 1s (ETH, SOL, ADA, NEAR, AVAX, etc) continue to expand their use cases and focus on various different niches. AI projects, DePIN, Real World Assets (RWAs) show incredible ambition and adoption in several cases, proving the pie will not only continue growing overall, but will likely continue to do so exponentially. 

    • In short, crypto tech will blow a hole through every industry on the planet that does not readily embrace it, one after another (the same way the internet did, and the comparison to the early internet is still the best parallel IMO).

  • 2) The Bitcoin Maxis have a really valid point. No, the “Bitcoin Only/build everything on Bitcoin” arguments are still ridiculous. However, long term, it seems increasingly likely that Bitcoin will continue to dominate the space, and capture a disproportionate amount of market share. The reasoning here is simply that it has no competition, it is not competing on a technology basis, doesn’t have to justify its value based on any kind of “earnings”, and it is absorbing directly from the global monetary debasement. It’s deceptively simple, but the ceiling here is astronomical, and Bitcoin gets to play a different game than all the other Alts in the space. 

    • The longer time goes on, the more I also feel like the average person who doesn’t want to really stay involved in crypto on a regular basis should probably just dollar cost average buy and hold Bitcoin for 10+ years and not worry about short term price moves. (Like you would with Amazon stock) 

Memecoins

Given how much memecoins (we really need a better name for these) have absolutely dominated in performance and mindshare over the past year, I feel compelled to say a few words here. My position here has evolved pretty dramatically, from the very “fundamental investor” perspective I had for years, looking down on memecoins as nonsense and gambling… to something a lot more nuanced today. (I was a Buffett/Munger disciple growing up, so it took me a long time to let go of seeing things through that lens!)

Here is my current view: 

• In one sense: Memecoins, with their 24/7 global markets, essentially zero restrictions on creation/trading, no real “practical utility value”, and constant bias towards the next new thing constitute the most incredible global casino / gambling insanity / constant bubble machine that humanity has ever seen. 

• In another sense, this behavior actually does represent a changing paradigm around monetizing attention, conviction, & community. I’ve come around a lot on this, and my current view was solidified after seeing Murad’s presentation a few months back where he put metrics to what we’d all witnessed the past few years (if you were at all involved in the crypto space the last few months, it is pretty much all any of us talked about for a month after Token2049).

• Murad applied the closest thing to a fundamentals driven investment thesis around cult behavior to memecoins, and articulated it perfectly. 

  • Note: To be clear, I’m not agreeing with 100% of what he said, as long term the technology & real world use cases will have to drive the real staying power here vs. just the next bubble cycle. 99% of these memecoin communities won’t be around in 5 years. Also, a LOT of late-comer retail investors will end up losing a lot of money on memecoins when the cycle ends and memes get decimated… However, I do think that directionally there is a lot of truth in his presentation around human behavior & what is happening in the current cycle. 

• To briefly summarize: Murad differentiated between the hyper-gambling “cash grab” new launch tokens that 99.9% of go almost directly to zero, from tokens that had endured painful market conditions already, had fanatical holders, and had effectively formed a digital cult around the idea or culture of the meme. These hardcore holders locking up the supply means that if demand increases and the cultists don’t sell, prices go irrationally parabolic -- like we’ve seen with Doge, Shib, Pepe, WIF, SPX, Giga, etc, etc. 

  • Remember the insanity around NFTs back in 2021? Essentially that on steroids. 

• This whole “Populist” memecoin movement in crypto is also a weirdly “logical” response to 1) the Government effectively banning ICOs after 2017, pushing most of gains on real tech projects back to Venture Capitalists and 2) VC launches being almost universally terrible for retail, as they just “go public” so they can sell some overpriced (often garbage) product to the public and move on to the next one… So in that sense, cultish memecoins are also kind of like a big middle finger to the establishment.

  • It’s also a lot like the Gamestop (GME) situation during COVID, but this time no centralized entity can stop it. 

I still think most people buying memes will end up getting rekt for a billion different reasons (they don’t understand the game they’re playing, they’re late to the trend, buy the top, don’t sell before things crash, FOMO in or out, buy a scam or rug, end up being a bagholder at the end, etc, etc). However, since I know many people are going to gamble on memes to some degree anyway… I will at least say, if you’re going to gamble, please be intelligent about it. 

• DO NOT gamble with your whole portfolio. Only allocate a smaller percentage of your portfolio that you can afford to lose. (I.E. Please don’t f*ck up your life by gambling everything on memes instead of just holding quality assets like BTC)

• Have a real thesis of why you’re buying any one project & a decent understanding of human behavior in markets

• Understand where we are in the crypto cycle (i.e. getting caught up in the hype and buying the top of the bubble in 2025 is not somewhere you want to be)

• Opt for organic cults — not new Pumpfun launches, cash grabs, or this week’s new shiny object (unless you REALLY know what you’re doing).

• Be VERY careful with the crazy price targets from influencers (including Murad, or “memecoin Jesus” himself). Other people have to believe in some crazy future number or new people won’t keep buying. Please don’t be the sucker that thinks memes will just go up forever!

• Have a real plan to exit your position. Realize that anything meme-related is likely just a short term trade for this coming cycle vs. a long term holding like Bitcoin. (You do NOT want to still be holding your memecoin bags when the next real bear market hits, as most will go down 99% and never recover)

And finally… TAKE PROFITS on these kinds of risky bets as you go. Protect the downside, cash out at least your initial investment, and remember that when the cycle turns and things truly head downward… the vast majority of these memecoins’ prices will not just implode, they will be like a rocket ship downward, because traders will also be shorting them, compounding the pressure. Study past cycles & charts from 2021 for examples of this… You can take advantage of the normal 30-50% dips during bull markets, but you don’t want to catch the real falling knife when the party stops! 

So, while the continued evolution of Memecoins does almost certainly represent a fascinating “new paradigm” where communities can essentially monetize their popularity/status in a sense, and create their own casino tables vs. playing at some VC’s rigged table… There is also no even remotely sensible world where the average memecoin is going to justify some giant bubbly valuation when everyone sobers up during the next real bear market 📉. (Oh, and whenever you hear mainstream sources trying to justify outlandish memecoin valuations by publicly calling them a “new paradigm”, the same way they did with NFTs in 2021... Sell and run for the hills!) 

How long will this Crypto cycle last? 

No idea. However, the important thing to remember is that the bull market will not last forever (and I will be truly surprised if it lasts past 2025). All this will likely continue to follow the global money printing cycle, which since 2008 has been on roughly a ~4 year clip (same as Bitcoin’s halving cycle & the Election cycle). If this follows the “typical” cycle, we’d peak around Q4 2025. Though in 2021, while we had the true price peaks for most coins on schedule in Q4, based on multiple metrics (and even the vibes at the time) you could easily argue that sentiment/euphoria actually peaked during the first run much earlier in 2021. DOGE also peaked in May and didn’t get near the all time high again. So, while I’d be surprised if we had a short cycle with this many positive factors happening, we also do not know how the market will react to some of Trump’s proposed economic policies (ie Tariffs), and Q4 is not a guarantee! 

So, remember that in the next year when things feel unstoppable and everyone and their brother is getting back into crypto, things feel like they’ll go up forever, and everyone starts talking about the “supercycle” extending into 2026 again… Unless something truly massive & unprecedented is happening to actually justify that, it would probably be a very good time to position much more defensively then, getting out of speculative bets or things that won’t survive the next bear market, taking profits to fund your life, centering back around BTC (or some cash during the typical “down year” of the 4 year cycle), etc. 

A few good resources for keeping up with where we are in these cycles are MoneyZG, Ben Cowen, and there are often great guests on Real Vision (Mike Howell is particularly great on monetary cycles). 

You can also watch for the classic onchain “Bitcoin is topping out” signals on Glassnode, ITC (Ben Cowen) or Bitcoin Magazine (formerly lookintobitcoin.com). 

Closing

So, keep learning, have fun, be wise, don’t over leverage yourself (and memecoins ARE leverage!), take profits, and make sure you are always focused on the bigger picture and the bigger trend here. 

Crypto at its core is about financial freedom, independence from government oppression and financial debasement, being able to have a digital identity that can’t be taken away from you, and about separating money from the state. 

The projects and communities truly dedicated to that are the ones that will not only survive, but have a chance to truly transform the world long term vs just pumping up the latest bubble or moving TradFi onto the blockchain. 

Best of luck to everyone & LFG 🤘

Graham

PSA: Nothing here is financial advice, please don’t blindly trust random people on the internet. Be smart, protect yourself, and make your own decisions or get a financial advisor!