Transcription
The bigger question is, you know, if someone gave you a million bucks right now, like what do you buy? Gold, silver, those both look topped. That would have been great a year ago. Stocks feel super topped, but we've been saying that forever and they continue to seemingly go up. I just don't know where I'd feel comfortable putting money outside of literally just...
Today I sit down with crypto veteran Scott Melker. He's the host of the Wolf of All Streets podcast about what's actually next for crypto in 2026.
If we go down more, all coins will suffer. If we go up more, all coins will suffer. And going sideways, all coins have suffered. We talk how to win at crypto investing. Ethereum versus Solana in 2026. Obviously, the correct answer is own own both if you want, but if you had to pick best strategy to actually get rich, when do you sell? When do you take profits? What has to happen in 2026?
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Specifically, I like Solana. I own Solana. I just want to find the next Solana. And how the Federal Reserve is about to print so much money. But if you admit that it's macro driven, I think that this government is going to push every button and pull every lever that they possibly have to win the midterms.
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Let me just start out with a tough question, man. Is crypto dead?
It's over. We're finished. It's never coming back. No, not at all. Uh, I think that we're just in one of those absolutely miserable consolidation sideways periods. And I think that when you add in the fact that so many people believed that this was going to be the moment when we'd be at the peak of the bull run, I think when you combine the sideways price action with the expectation and a few fundamental problems underneath the hood, you get a lot of time-based capitulation and depression, which is where I think we are right now. But I think if you zoom out, it's nothing but really good news.
I would say that uh if we talk about the factors that are making people feel it's dead, it's those things and also really October 10th. I think that we've downplayed or maybe we don't understand just how terrible that was, you know, but when you talk about 19 billion plus dollars in liquidations in a single day, an event 12 times larger than FTX. I mean, if you think about it, there weren't that many people aggressively trading altcoins in the crypto market already by October because there was negative sentiment and we effectively washed them all out at once, right? I think uh Ran Nuner told me it was 1.1 million individual accounts that were liquidated. I mean, that's absurd. How many people could possibly be out there trading altcoins with leverage and truly believing that there is like massive upside? You got to imagine a huge percentage of those people lost all their money that day.
Well, I'm sure some people were shorting altcoins, too.
Sure. Sure. Absolutely.
Scott, they say when you get new information, you should update your opinion. So, looking into 2026, have you updated your opinion or what's your general outlook?
So, I I I believe that as well. It's one of my favorite sayings in the world, which is strong opinions loosely held, right? I think the smartest people in the world are the ones who change their opinion uh when presented with new facts. And you could even go back to some of the biggest Bitcoin bulls are the ones who are the most dismissive initially like Michael Sailor for example, right? Someone who said that it was a joke, it was going nowhere, was presented with new information and updated. So I love that you said that. I really believe that 2026 is going to be a great year. Right. I I look back actually recently I wrote a newsletter on all of my predictions that I had made for 2025 and most of them were actually relatively accurate. we all miss on a lot but everywhere I was wrong was price right so fundamentally I think all the things that we probably all thought would happen did the legislative wins that we got the the tailwinds the institutions like all these things happened price just didn't follow so the optimistic side of me says that we'll be sitting around at some point in 2026 and we'll look back at all this crazy news and all these insane catalysts and go it was really obvious that that was a good time to buy right so I don't really fear a massive cyclical bare market right now. That doesn't mean I don't think prices can't go lower. I certainly do. But I don't really see the case for like a 75 or 80% draw down for multiple years right now, unless literally the global economy just completely goes uh to crap all at once. But I think that 2026 is going to be a relatively good year, honestly.
Do you think Bitcoin dominance rises by the end of 2026?
I think it will probably continue to rise in the interim in the first part of 2026, but I have some hope that that will abate by the the back half. So, honestly, like it's very difficult to make predictions, especially when they're tied to time. Uh, and even when we make rational predictions, they're obviously proven wildly wrong. But I think that there's a few things going against us in the short term. So one, obviously altcoin sentiment is in in the dumps. Maybe that's a bottom signal, but I think it's there for good reasons that we just discussed. The case for all coins right now is really hard in the short term because in previous cycles, we all know what would happen. You would see Bitcoin make a move to the upside and then when it would go sideways, that liquidity would move to greener pastures, which was altcoins, which would do well in those sideways phases. And then the liquidity would rush back into Bitcoin when it made a move, right? But we all know that if Bitcoin rises, all coins tend to rise but less. So, you know, you lose value in Bitcoin, but maybe you tread water or go up in in dollars. When Bitcoin dumps, we know that all coins dump more. So, it's the worst case scenario, right? Bitcoin dominance rises while Bitcoin price is going down. That's the absolute worst scenario. We went up massively on Bitcoin multiple times, consolidated, and never got the altcoin season that should have followed. So now when you're sitting here, I don't know when this will come out, in the 80s, 90s. We're going to be sitting probably somewhere between 75 and 100 when this comes out, right? And so if that happens, if we go down more, all coins will suffer. If we go up more, all coins will suffer. And going sideways, all coins have suffered. So, we're not in a phase where you would expect Bitcoin to chill and all coins to do well. So, the point being, Bitcoin has to get to some certain point that it's not at yet for all coins to do well, which means they'll probably do worse in the short term before that happens. So, it's a pretty tough scenario, I think, for all coins. That said, back half of 2026, midterm season, stimulus checks, liquidity, all the exciting things, those are the moments when we tend to see some altcoin strength. And I think that by then we'll have some new exciting narratives and people maybe will have some money again uh which they don't after October 10th and we could see some liquidity uh rushing back in.
Really we need Bitcoin to surpass all-time highs is what you're saying for altcoin season.
Right. But even last time we surpassed all-time highs went all the way to 126 and we didn't get altcoin season. So, it's hard to have faith that the old models will work, but that's the most likely scenario where they could possibly do well, even though it's never looked brighter for altcoins from a fundamental perspective for the first time in crypto's history, which is crazy.
Yeah, maybe it's the Clarity Act that'll do it. I I I often joke lately on my shows that we somehow had more upside when Gary Gendler would present us with bad news than we do when Chess Chairman Paul Atkins presents us with good news. It's like we got everything we wanted and we got it so fast that the market never even reacted or went up, right? And it was almost like it was easier when we were the little nent industry in the corner to have all these moves because crypton natives really deeply believed. I don't even think the crypto natives deeply believe at this exact moment. So this really is a is a tough situation, but like you said, I mean, we're going to get the Clarity Act, I believe. Right. And I think it may be more difficult than we expected because of a few reasons, but I do think we'll get it. That could definitely be a catalyst if we get very clear uh definitions as to what is a security and what's a commodity and how we're allowed to trade and what we're allowed to trade, especially in the United States. But it's one of those things now it's been on the docket for so long it may just be priced in when it happens. You know, like people just expect it's going to happen. So it's kind of a buy the rumor, sell the news situation. Honestly, I don't know what comes next. I don't think anyone does, but we never do and there's always a catalyst. And so, I think that that's what happens next is something shows up that's very exciting and the market does well.
And to take it down to just the math for Bitcoin in its base form, there are around 450 Bitcoin mined into existence every day. In 2024, it was clearly clearly the ETFs buying institutions buying through the ETFs. In 2025, it was that combined with digital asset treasuries, which have dried up their buying, but they drove the price higher in 2025. 2026, who could be the who could be the buyer? What what catalyst you put the most credit in that will reverse us and give us upside?
Yeah, I mean my feeling is that the primary buyers have been Michael Sailor, a very brief period where digital asset treasury companies were buying but obviously it wasn't enough to absorb the selling of the early whales and then ETFs as you said which I believe is mostly retail right I don't think institutions themselves are buying the ETFs I think they're offering them and making money off them but it's probably people in their retirement accounts and such that are passively investing into the ETFs and we've seen massive outflows from those ATF FS as those people who are not the, you know, deeply convicted Bitcoin holders that we've seen in the past just give up, right? And you need capitulation for the market to go back up. So, I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing. That said, I think it's going to be a lot of these massive unlocks from institutions that weren't yet allowing it to retail or within their own walls that haven't really come online yet. Like it's one thing for Vanguard to say, "Yeah, we're finally going to allow this when they said they never were." It's one thing for JP Morgan to be announcing that their institutional clients will be able to trade and they're going to start taking these things as collateral. Those things are plumbing. It's really important for the future when there's good sentiment again. So, it's like those things are happening at the wrong time. But once again, all all it takes for Bitcoin to go up is for Bitcoin to go up. As nonsensical as that sounds, the best marketing for Bitcoin is higher prices. People don't want to buy when it's low. They want to buy when it's high and there's FOMO and they think it's going to go much higher. And when those things start happening, imagine when they find they can buy it in their JP Morgan account. They can buy it in their Vanguard account. They can buy it on Morgan Stanley and Charles Schwab and places that they never could before. So unfortunately, we got those unlocks in those news stories when sentiment was bad. But the possibilities are now endless and they're sitting there just waiting for sentiment to be good. So, I think we get a massive retail wave again back into crypto. Um, and I think it will be largely facilitated by money that's in people's stock trading accounts for better or for worse and not necessarily through crypton natives who want to self-custody those assets. But like if these platforms are going to start accepting these assets as collateral, it opens just such a massive wave of adoption and more importantly, it stops people from selling. If you can just take a loan against your Bitcoin and Ethereum on JP Morgan alongside your Tesla and Nvidia stock and you have no reason to sell even when you need liquidity, it's going to be very very good for the market when there's any sort of demand.
What crypto investing advice would you give your cousin or your brother and like should they would you recommend they go 50% into crypto, 5% and then how would how would you recommend they do it?
I mean, generally I tell people to just get their feet wet. Um, you know, 5%. Which, by the way, is probably pretty high. I think for your average person who's never touched it before, I think 5% is a very reasonable early allocation. But I want you to buy 5%, but I want you to actually buy the Bitcoin, not buy an ETF. And and I think that you should send a little bit to somebody and test self-custody with a percentage of it and get used to being your own bank and the idea of that because I think we've seen that there's only one path when people find Bitcoin but they actually use it and understand it rather than just passively put it into their portfolio is that you never see them go back. Right? It's a slippery slope in one direction and that's more adoption and more Bitcoin to the point where I say, "Hey, I don't see a reason why you shouldn't have 30 or 40% of your portfolio in Bitcoin personally or in crypto, right?" And I'm not alone in saying that. You know, I've spoken with Rick Edelman who's like the Michael Jordan of uh registered investment advisors and he said 10 to 40%. You know, if you're aggressive, 40% at the low end, he says 10. And this is the guy who's talking, you know, manages more money in uh in registered investment advisor funds than anybody and is speaking to more of them. This is as conservative as you get. I I really don't think it's crazy. Like where would you put your money right now? It's the bigger question is, you know, if someone gave you a million bucks right now, like what do you buy? Gold, silver, those both look. That would have been great a year ago. Stocks feel super topped, but we've been saying that forever and they continue to seemingly go up. I just don't know where I'd feel comfortable putting money outside of literally just Bitcoin with maybe a smathering of some other crypto and a little bit of these other things. But it's very hard, I think, to allocate to a portfolio right now when you feel like everything is irrationally overblown. And so maybe it's a good opportunity because Bitcoin is lagging that and hasn't participated.
Do you believe more in lump sum investing or dollar cost averaging? Like what's the best strategy for Bitcoin in 2026?
I would dollar cost average. Right. And so like the the science on it is kind of interesting because I think that lump sum investing if you have a long enough timeline tends to be better because you're just getting your money into the market and time in the market beats timing the market, right? As we all know, I'm a dollar cost averager, right? And so I think most people like yeah, if I if you got a massive inheritance and you're sitting on it and Bitcoin's trading in the 80s and you think it's going to the multiple hundreds, I think you can pretty confidently smash by here even if it goes down a bit. Um, but if you're a normal person who's getting a paycheck and you can put 10% of that in, you just keep dollar cost averaging and you keep buying. I actually use an algorithm like I do it algorithmically with these guys, Arch Public. I don't know if you ever heard of them, but I literally very very publicly I just run a portfolio with them and it dollar cost averages better, right? So like if there's a period that I want to buy it, it finds the best time to buy in that period that I've prescribed. So maybe I'm getting a 2, three, 4% like benefit over just passively doing it on a random day. So I think that that's kind of been the happy medium for me. So that, you know, if uh if there's that daily candle that wicks way down like 5% while I'm sleeping and is right back where uh where it started when I wake up, I get a 5% like dip on the dollar cost average, right? So I don't really deeply believe in algorithms for trading and trying to make money. But if you're just trying to accumulate, I do think that it can do it better. So that like I can say my putting my money where my mouth is. I dollar cost average, but I feel like I do it better than just passively buying.
Ethereum versus Solana in 2026. Obviously the correct answer is own own both if you want, but if you had to pick the best performer, who do you think it's going to be?
I think I would go with Ethereum. Although honestly, I think it's like a total tossup. So I've been in Ethereum bull for a long time. I was way too early saying to buy the dip on Ethereum, but it played out exceptionally well for me because I was buying it all the way to the except to the very very lows and uh then Tom Lee luckily came in and rescued me. Um I think that Tom Lee has established himself as a major voice. I think it's sad that we have to talk about like who the cheerleader is for an asset to go up, but I'm not sure Salana has really found a Tom Lee right now. And I think Salana will gain major adoption. I own it. Like as you said, those are the I own Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Salana as the bulk of my portfolio. So, it's kind of like asking out which child you love the most, right? No parent can really give that answer. Um,
even though you said Ethereum.
Yeah. But I if I had to, I would say Ethereum because I think it has the tailwinds of Tom Lee. It has the Black Rockcks of the world that's actually tokenizing assets there. I think if we believe, you know, Paul Atkins and the DTCC and all these people who say we're going to be tokenizing everything and running it on crypto rails, I think Ethereum is going to touch all of that. Whether it's Ethereum that's the main driver, I think Ethereum will will touch it all. It'll all at least be interoperable with Ethereum. I just think because that's where the money is and that's the longest uh running chain for smart contracts. I just really believe that it will acrue some of that value. So, I just think it's a safer bet maybe. Also, I think Salana still has like the Trump memecoin, general memecoin nonsense hangover where like as much as it's gaining institutional adoption, this is nothing against Salana. They built something great. Um, I just think it has a little bit like less of a serious uh reputation than Ethereum at the moment. And if it's going to be institutional adoption that pushes, I think I'd just rather own Ethereum. It's a tough one though.
I like Solana. I own Solana. I just want to find the next Solana. What's going to be that next Solana in 2026?
You know what? I really have been just dumbfounded trying to answer that question. You know, I I caught a great move on Sueie. So, that that was tremendous and I I definitely benefited, but I sold it. You know, like it doesn't have the uh hold it forever kind of vibe that I had. I saw a massive move and me like everyone else was like, I don't want to fumble this bag again. and kind of sold it near the top. So, I clearly don't fundamentally believe in it the same way that I did with others as a longerterm investment. I know absolutely nothing about Canton network. I don't own any, but when I saw that the DTCC chose that when they do four quadrillion in volume, I would say maybe I should probably take a better look at it considering that is uh the largest entity that could possibly talk about tokenization on the planet and they specifically chose that. So, I'm going to do a deeper dive into that in the coming time. Blows my mind that it didn't move when that happened like what does it take anymore to move like a smaller name altcoin if the largest institution on the planet adopting it for tokenization doesn't do it. Um, but beyond that, you know, I think that there's a lot of exciting things happening. Apptos and arbitrar I mean there's you know there's real use cases and adoption of a lot of these things. The price just hasn't moved. So maybe, you know, you take 5% of your portfolio and kind of spread it across some of these more hyped uh layer ones, you know, and if something pulls a,000x on that chain, you'll probably miss the thousandx, but at least you'll get the benefit of owning the infrastructure that, you know, it was happening on, much like Salana benefited from sort of the memecoin trend. I don't know. Do you have a like a winner in your mind for next cycle that's going to be the next Salana? Maybe you do and you can give me some alpha cuz I'm I'm pretty
well Canton Network was a good answer. Um, because because of the adoption news they just got I think like just like you said like it's just with money that I'm basically was going to spend on the Power Ball but might as well put it into crypto. It's like I it could go to zero and I'm understanding that going in. If I had to answer the thing is I I'm just like you. would rather invest in the infrastructure like the Solana and the Ethereum because it's not going to be the thousandx but if you know what all those meme coins that went up and went to zero Solana benefited if I had to do that I'd pick a, you know trend I think AI isn't going away so I do have a small position in Bitens or Tao just because all that's being all AI projects are being seated off that maybe it goes to zero maybe if one subnet does well, you know, I can see the whole thing doing well Uh, that's a good question. You know, I'm making a video every day trying to find out.
I think Ben Tensor is a pretty good answer. Once again, I don't own any and I haven't done the deep dive, but a lot of people I deeply respect have done a deep dive, right? So, um, you know, like I could have said privacy or Zcash or something, but I missed it. And maybe I didn't miss it. I mean, but it just feels like that, you know, in crypto, I think we're so jaded and we see everything as like these big bubbles. you know, you have the DeFi summer and NFT summer and metaverse fall or whatever, but they don't really come back. So, I think we're all very gunshy to like try to catch the second wave of a narrative, you know, if you missed the first one.
And my mindset has been for many cycles now, I at the end of the year, I just want to end up with more Bitcoin and more Ethereum. Like, if I'm doing that, that's the win.
So, should we be like harvesting our losses on all these altcoins that we're holding right now and just get it into Ethereum and Bitcoin at the end of the year here? because uh it would definitely help.
I'm trying to harvest my extra organs and buy more.
Yeah, same.
Um
I'm a really I'm a really high conviction buyer.
Yeah. Yeah.
I'm just telling you like I'm trying to get as much money into the market as I can.
Scott, this was my legitimate next question. When do you sell? When do you take profits? What has to happen in 2026 specifically?
So, it depends on which asset. I'm not going to sell Bitcoin. like I I don't think we'll get 75 to 80% bare markets again. And even if we do, I would rather be adding than subtracting from my stack. And if there's one thing I've learned in the past is selling an asset because you're going to buy it back lower rarely works out and rarely happens. You just generally either end up not buying it back or buying it back higher in FOMO, right? I don't care who you are. So [snorts] those assets I'm not selling unless something fundamentally changes right in my mind right now. But I'm still in the mindset of buying more Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Salana. That said, everything else and I will invest I'm sure and inevitably participate in some sort of early stage investments again, although that's been very dry and things. Those things like if I if I see multiple X's on my money, I'm like everyone else, I'm going to be exiting those positions slowly. That's once again though like what what would I take my Bitcoin money and put it into like if I sold Bitcoin at if it goes to 200 that's awesome but that's not even a 2x from the highs we just had so it's not going to like change my life right I had this Bitcoin when we were at 125 so at 200 it's great but nothing crazy what am I going to sell it to buy I really don't know like so I I've really taken on a mindset of just accumulating these things kind of thinking to denominate my life in them more than I do in the dollar value and try to establish positions that I really just don't even have to think about selling. I don't want like it's just you know most people wrote out the great recession and just kept buying and you know stock portfolios didn't sell their IRA or 401k at the top. So I don't really see why I would try to do the same with Bitcoin and Ethereum.
My yeah my general plan is I'm never going to sell my Bitcoin. I mean, maybe if Bitcoin in 3 months was at $300,000, I'd be like, "What the hell is going on?"
Yeah. But with the intent, you would actually have the intention of buying more, though.
Yeah. Exactly.
Want to buy it much lower, right? So, it's not even an exit. It's like you're trying to plan a way to get more Bitcoin even when it goes up, right? And that's what I'm saying. I think I I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I'm assuming that's how you feel.
That's true.
If Bitcoin goes to a million dollars next year, I'll sell a bunch of Bitcoin.
Yeah.
We've seen this. Listen, we've seen this with these whales. Like, there is a price where it's like, I don't need that much of it because I'm so rich, right? So, maybe there's a moment when that happens. But,
but also, this is how I think about it, too. If Bitcoin goes there, or let's even say $300,000 by the end of next year. The altcoins that I own, I think they'll be doing just fine, and I'll take profits on them first because I'm not willing to hold those through the bear.
Exactly right. That's exactly right. So, that's my our mentality is aligned. I think everybody has a very like itchy trigger finger with their uh lower cap positions at this point.
True.
Which also is another reason it's hard to imagine them doing exceptionally well versus Bitcoin because everybody is just so preconditioned to taking profit as fast as possible now with the fear that it could never go up anymore. So,
And Scott, what's this is I need you to help me because every year I have a tradition with my family that on New Year's we all write down secretly and then we'll just so we don't are influenced by each other and then guess the price. Where will Bitcoin be January 1st of the next year? So, this January I'm going to do that with my family. Where will the Bitcoin price be at the end of 2026?
80 to 180 to 210.
I need a specific. We need to pick it. $185,000
and why what drives it?
I think for liquidity the factors we discussed before. So yeah, I mean it I I think it'll go up because I think that the a it's irrationally beat down right now. I think sentiment is in the dumps and it's really hard to imagine it going much lower, but nothing would surprise me. Um, I think that there are a lot of a lot of money on the sidelines that's unlocking as we kind of mentioned before. Um, and I think that the current government, if you believe that it's a macro driven asset and liquidity and all the other narratives, which I hate because I remember just being able to look at a chart and believe in Bitcoin and buy it. Uh, but if you admit that it's macro driven, I think that this government is going to push every button and pull every lever that they possibly have to win the midterms. So listen, uh it might be an easier question if you say what will the price of Bitcoin be on November 1st next year because I wouldn't be surprised if they win the midterms if everything crashes for two months after that once they're already in. So January is harder. I just think that they've been very successful in pushing markets so far and I don't think they want to let them fall uh in the back half of next year. So I you know I just I'm also just like an eternal optimist. Like why would what am I gonna say? It's going to be 35 grand. Like who wants to hear that? I don't believe that. Maybe anything's possible, but nobody wants that. I'm gonna put good thoughts into the universe.
Scott, thank you so much for joining me. Links for all your stuff down below. I want to have you back in two, three months, revisit some of this stuff. Uh final thoughts for the Altcoin Daily Army.
Listen, I think that uh it's a great time here as we come through the holidays and the beginning of the year. Just take a break. You know, even if it goes up 10 grand or down 10 grand, it's not going to change your life. Like, it's a great time. I'm looking forward to a mental reset and a bit of a break. It's kind of felt like pounding your head against the wall right now for no reason, screaming into the void. Nobody's doing much right now. And even positive messaging doesn't really get through when it's legitimate, right? So, I think uh we all just need to take a deep breath for the next, you know, week or two, however long it is, and come back refreshed uh at the top of the year, ready to ready to work and really have an honest conversation about where we're at. So listen, I say things are going to get a lot better. Just ignore the noise right now. Take a deep breath, take a little break, and uh enjoy the lower prices while you have them. Like even if it goes lower, I think, you know, any price below the all-time high is a good price uh for the for the distant future.