Summary

For investors younger than the baby-boomer generation, Jonah’s proposed floor is 5–10% crypto exposure. His case combines Bitcoin as a “proven debasement hedge” against likely G10 policy choices with otherwise hard-to-access exposure to distributed computing; Avi agreed that Bitcoin could serve as a portfolio hedge and that the asset class looked undervalued, while stressing that this remained a market call rather than automatic diversification.
At Bitcoin around $42,000, Avi saw limited leverage, picking-up ETP inflows and only modest froth—“like a poorly made cappuccino.” Bitcoin could range between $38,000 and $42,000, fall to $35,000 or run to $48,000, but if it stabilized after a 10% correction, he expected alts to run hard enough that “you 3x in two weeks.”
Their preferred rotations were AI-linked tokens, activity built on Bitcoin and NFTs on Solana and Ethereum. Crypto offers retail investors rare pure-play AI exposure through projects such as Akash Network and Livepeer, while Bitcoin applications and Solana NFTs could benefit from fresh speculative flows; Avi called this potentially “the freest money you’re going to see in a long time,” provided leverage does not force liquidation.
Jonah was buying “the most hated coin in crypto,” Ethereum, expecting its narrative to turn within six weeks and ETH to reach $3,000 “before you blink.” An ETH ETF—especially one permitting staking—could redirect attention from BTC and SOL. Jonah noted that SOL had already risen roughly 8x from its lows and was considering trimming, while Avi said its volatility was materially greater than ETH’s near $2,000.
The ETF was a catalyst, not a guaranteed durable use case, and first-day flows were the critical signal. Avi assigned 40% odds to an early top, 40% to a two-week-to-one-month post-approval rally and 20% to a top on approval day. Jonah gave the early-top and post-approval-rally scenarios roughly equal weight, also allowing for a top on the day; he expected any eventual crash to be less violent and more rounded than in 2021, while Avi expected a rapid parabolic frenzy followed by collapse without a major use case.
Position sizing mattered more than public declarations of conviction. Avi’s TradFi lesson was to “trade around my position”: peel off 10–15% after a large rally, retain the core, and buy back lower rather than treating every decision as all-in or flat. Both warned that a working parent with debt and 150–200% effective crypto exposure is taking a radically different risk from a wealthy investor who can lose 20% without changing daily life.
A sustained move above $100,000 would create economic and political spillovers beyond selling more Lamborghinis. They expected crypto-made wealth to fund moonshots, lobbying and tokenized real-world assets, empowering a community of “misfits, true believers, crazies” to pressure existing financial institutions into adopting crypto rails.

Deep dive

1. At $42,000, Bitcoin favored rotations over fresh leverage

Jonah’s controversial tweet was aimed at nocoiners, not crypto Twitter: people who dismissed the industry after 2021 might again feel foolish unless they began putting a “decent chunk,” roughly 5–10%, into the asset class. The mismatch mattered because his existing audience interpreted that allocation as timid.
Avi’s own benchmark was radically different: since discovering crypto, he had rarely kept less than 50% of his net worth on crypto rails, including USDC. Yet he remembered feeling “horrendous” with only 10% exposure before going full-time—and then watching positions go to zero.
At BTC around $42,000, Avi saw ETP inflows picking up, CME futures still buying and crypto-native leverage remaining negligible. Alts were performing without looking manic, leaving only “a little bit of froth” and making a stable Bitcoin market fertile ground for rotations.

2. AI, Bitcoin applications and NFTs carried the cleanest speculative beta

Avi’s near-term playbook covered three areas: AI, projects building on Bitcoin, and NFTs across Solana and Ethereum. He said Bitcoin needed to fall—potentially toward $38,000 and then $35,000—for alts to run hardest once BTC stabilized, while overleveraged traders risked liquidation.
His AI thesis did not require precise valuation because nobody knew how to value the category—not even an OpenAI worth roughly $80–90 billion. Tokens offered retail investors pure-play exposure unavailable through private startup funds, while projects such as Akash Network and Livepeer at least had products that “could in theory deliver value one day.”
Jonah’s hesitation was conviction: his “old TradFi brain” understood BTC and ETH, and Anatoly had helped him understand Solana, but he could not believe strongly enough in many smaller tokens to size them seriously. Avi’s answer was blunt: “You don’t need to believe in them—you just need to know that people are going to gamble on them.”
NFTs supplied the behavioral signal. Pudgy Penguins had risen roughly 10x, while Ethereum’s NFT market cap was about 20 times Solana’s despite ETH itself being about 8.5 times Solana’s fully diluted value. Avi expected new buyers to favor Solana collections such as Mad Lads; Jonah’s exit signal was eight consecutive 20% days and dreams of a private island.

3. Hated ETH offered cleaner asymmetry than already-ripped SOL

Jonah had begun buying “the most hated coin in crypto.” With ETH maximalists absent and attention concentrated on Bitcoin and Solana, he expected the post-Bitcoin-ETF conversation to pivot toward an ETH ETF; if staking were permitted, investors would receive crypto upside plus yield in one product.
Jonah’s stated timing was aggressive but hedged: the narrative could turn within six weeks, sending ETH from around $2,000 to $3,000 “before you blink.” He planned to accumulate over two weeks to a month unless price action forced the move sooner.
Avi argued that ETH carried less short-term risk than SOL in the $60s. Solana had risen roughly 8x from its lows on a narrative-driven rally, and although Jonah believed in its promise, he was considering trimming because activity had not yet justified every part of the move and its realized volatility was far higher.
Avi’s broader discipline was inherited from TradFi: “trade around my position.” Selling 10–15% after a rally preserves most upside while creating capital to repurchase on weakness; investors need not choose between being all-in, flat or short merely to maintain a coherent thesis.

4. ETF inflows would decide whether the top arrived early or late

Jonah expected institutional access to produce a rapid casino-style frenzy, but without tens or hundreds of millions of users, he saw no fundamental buying engine to support a new plateau. He expected a crash eventually, but thought it would be less violent and more rounded than the 2021 collapse because the run-up and participants were less violent.
Avi disagreed about the shape. He expected the ETF gateway to bring in substantial capital and send prices parabolic quickly; absent a major use case, the music would stop and the market would collapse back down, similar to spring 2021.
On timing, Avi assigned 40% odds to momentum dying before approval, 40% to a rally lasting two weeks to a month afterward, and 20% to a top on approval day. Jonah described the early-top and post-approval-rally cases as roughly 50/50 and also allowed for a top on the day.
The decisive observable was first-day ETF demand. Strong opening inflows could validate expectations for the following week and trigger the “crazy rally”; lackluster demand resembling the ETH futures ETF would, in Avi’s view, make the market fall apart. Avi planned to chip away at exposure over the next one to two weeks if prices became disorderly, while Jonah said investors should take some profit on the news. They expected traders to watch screens intensely from January 5–10, ahead of the possible January 11 approval.

5. Financial access improved, but durable value still required users

Jonah argued that an ETF would open institutional capital flows by restoring the ability to borrow and enabling portfolio margining, making Bitcoin cheaper for institutions to buy. Avi agreed it would get cheaper and focused on MicroStrategy’s premium to BTC: while that premium remained high, Michael Saylor could sell expensive converts and buy Bitcoin; convergence would weaken that recurring bid.
Jonah’s structural bull case was that the infrastructure finally worked. Unlike earlier cycles of $300 gas fees to buy an NFT, blockspace was available, Solana had addressed its kinks, Bitcoin was established and decentralized computing and trust had become a “robust, well-built product.”
Even so, Jonah conditioned his above-$100,000 three-year Bitcoin target on more than an ETF: “An ETF is not a use case.” One application—decentralized AI compute, Helium, Hivemapper or something comparable—needed to attract tens or hundreds of millions of people, ideally without their realizing crypto powered it.
Their BTC-beta examples retained substantial execution risk. Jonah liked STX ahead of its Q1 Nakamoto upgrade and sBTC launch, which he thought could support hundreds of millions of dollars in minting. RUNE had run from roughly $1 to $7 after reaching $11 when BTC briefly crossed $40,000 in 2022; Avi conceded limited knowledge but noted that functional products with “scammy” reputations often develop cult-like holders and violent catch-up rallies.

6. Five to ten percent was a floor, not a universal prescription

Avi rejected the easy “uncorrelated asset” pitch. His reason to own crypto was simpler: across a five-to-ten-year horizon, he considered the whole asset class genuinely undervalued. Jonah supplied the portfolio-construction case—Bitcoin could hedge G10 debasement while tokens provide accessible exposure to emerging technology that venture capital does not offer most people.
Jonah therefore proposed a 5–10% minimum for everyone younger than the baby-boomer generation, while exempting retirees focused on spending and transferring wealth. He regarded debasement as increasingly likely because major economies had mortgaged years of future growth through heavy spending, potentially leaving Bitcoin stronger than equities under that outcome.
Avi’s sizing framework resembled a “net-worth meme.” Someone already wealthy might allocate 20% because losing it would not alter daily life; someone with almost nothing might treat a concentrated bet as a life-changing lottery ticket; the awkward middle might earn $80,000–$100,000 and allocate 1%.
Time horizon resolved much of the tension: if capital could remain invested for five years without affecting living standards, Avi would “max out that allocation based on what you think you can live on.” Both distinguished investing from overtrading; Jonah recalled friends who made fortunes in the 2017 ICO boom, kept trading and “bled out.”

7. Crypto wealth could force its promised economy into existence

A Bitcoin move to $100,000 would create hundreds of billions of dollars of wealth and spending power, redirecting flows into Miami property, supercars and luxury consumption. Avi expected deeper effects too: jealousy, altered social power, voting behavior and local politics as formerly modest crypto holders became dramatically richer; Jonah prompted the discussion by asking about secondary and tertiary effects.
Avi saw a constructive spillover in funding “wild ideas”—longevity research, angel investments and technology moonshots. Greater wealth would also give crypto holders the lobbying power and customer leverage to demand tokenized assets from private banks, making real-world assets more likely because “crypto people” would force them into existence.
Jonah closed with the personal cost of learning. He turned down an opening offer of 100 million XRP in 2013—worth about $320 million four years later—and bought Bitcoin around $700 before selling at $400. Those misses, alongside Solana becoming his best personal trade in 2021, made him a better trader and connected him to “a community of traders that cares.”

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