Kool Krypto

Kool Krypto’s core message is that crypto’s “fundamentally mispriced tokens” may be entering massive cap-expansion reratings, and the costly error is selling early — “learn to believe a little bit again.” Institutional adoption is reaching a tipping point after products such as on-chain options took far longer to build and mature than expected; options teams may have thought “this year is going to be our year” for five years. He still expects to round-trip some positions.

His highest-conviction bag is Derive (DRV), which he calls “probably the purest expression of regulatory arbitrage”: desks such as Wintermute and Flowdesk cannot face retail options flow directly, so Derive’s RFQ system lets them quote retail orders while giving users access to an instrument they previously lacked. He found it around $50 million FDV, says roughly 99% of his Derive orders now use RFQs, and sees AI agents as an unpriced tailwind — echoing founder Nick’s “this isn’t billions, this is trillions” framing. He says Derive has about 95% market share, while also noting that almost nobody trades HYPE on Derive and there is no HYPE price discovery there.

The episode references a roughly $3.5 million BTC win on a September 70K/80K call spread bought when Bitcoin ranged around 62K–65K and implied volatility sat near its 1st–5th percentile — about $300K of premium for roughly a 20:1 maximum payoff. He also put on 10,000 units of a March 27 ETH 5,000/7,000 call spread at about $30 per unit, risking roughly $330K for up to $20 million. The ETH logic: an all-time-high retest “is not that interesting”; the asymmetry is an ATH break plus FOMO rotation — and if ETH merely hits $4,000, the $5,000 calls could still appreciate roughly 10x.

Near-term, he is risk-off through month-end and bullish on October, with structures targeting HYPE moving from $85 to $100. He expects a possible year-end breather from tax selling, funds locking in gains, midterms and rates. He says there are no hikes possible in October, and considers an October blowoff top that traps the four-year-cycle crowd a particularly thematic outcome — while stressing that these are path-dependent views that should change as price changes.

Kinetiq is his asymmetric HyperEVM bet. Consensus treats HyperEVM as “a total dud,” but he doubts Jeff would accept a defunct HyperEVM under the “house of finance.” He says Elysium could move the bullish Kinetiq case from roughly $1 toward $5; at 10% of Robinhood Chain’s sequencer fees, he estimates a rerating above 10x to about $2.60–$2.70. He and DeFi Dad disclose Kinetiq exposure, and he says it is difficult to be bullish on HYPE without considering Kinetiq.

He publicly reversed on Lighter: after claiming an airdrop of roughly 275–280 units, he sold it all around launch, then rebuilt a position near a $1.40 average basis and rode it toward $5. Fee compression was an overemphasized thesis — moving from 1 basis point to zero saves little — but Lighter’s architecture may suit an options order book better than Hyperliquid’s. He expects Lighter options by year-end or early next year and sees a possible Hyperliquid/Lighter/Derive division of labor.

The Hyperliquid story explains his sizing philosophy: rudimentary market making on the perp spot market cost about $2,000 in fees and generated 20,000–30,000 points, now worth “tens of millions.” At TGE, he overrode his partner’s proposed sale into a $2.5–$5 billion FDV and broke the fund’s 10% position cap as HYPE rose through $4, $8 and $20, arguing for a minimum $20 billion valuation. His guiding principle is “use everything, own what you use.”

On TradFi, he sees strong understanding of stablecoins but continuing blind spots elsewhere. His fund seed traces to a poker-table thesis that the US would promote stablecoins to preserve dollar dominance and create demand for short-dated Treasuries. He says Robinhood’s chain economics were visible on DeFiLlama for two or three weeks before an article preceded a 10% HOOD move, while some metals professionals with multibillion-dollar positions did not know the funding rates on copper, gold and silver.

🔗 Original source & video: Kool Krypto: The Story Behind The Anon DeFi Investor and What He’s Betting On This Cycle