2025 The Year Bitcoin And Crypto Finally Grew Up

0:28Hello, everyone. We've got a lot to discuss today. The U.S. stock market has become an absolute casino and there is nothing that you or I can do about it. The gamification of financial assets, that's led to more risk-taking than the cowboys of yesteryear could have ever dreamed up. Zero Head shows that the retail zero-day option trading, that's about two-thirds of all daily option volumes. Two-thirds. Two out of every three. If you create a speculation tool and you hand it to Wall Street, they're going to run wild with it. And that's exactly what's happening here. But to be honest, the fun doesn't stop there.

0:59Reports are that we can party like it's 1999 again. Goldman Sachs non-profitable tech index, that's up 66 % since hitting its low in April. This isn't even that surprising when you realize the fear and greed index, that's now measuring extreme greed in the market as well. See, here's the thing. Once you start to devalue the dollar at an accelerated rate, people have no choice but to pile their economic value into investment assets. But they don't buy Berkshire Hathaway or any other long-term oriented investment. And you can see this in the stock price. You can see it perfectly by the fact that Berkshire Hathaway is now underperforming the S &P 500 by almost 23 percentage points since Buffett announced his retirement.

1:37Risk takers, they want to take risk. They don't want to play it safe. They don't want to hold your boring stock. They are starving for volatility. They want low time preference and high dopamine. And if you can feed the beast, you will watch them pour insane amounts of capital into your financial products. And if Wall Street's good at one thing, they are excellent, world class at creating solutions for their customers. There's an old saying on Wall Street, to feed the ducks when they are quacking. And right now there's a hell of a lot of quacking coming from the retail risk takers. So guess what we are going to get?

2:08We're gonna get more risk taking than you could have ever imagined. Everyone always talks about betting on yourself, going all in, but no one has ever done what Jamie Dimon did when he took over as the Bank One CEO back in 2000. Jamie Dimon recently was interviewed at the Acquired Podcast live event here in New York City. and he explained how he invested$60 million, which was half of his net worth at the time, in the company that he was joining as the CEO. Usually people, they get paid from the job they take, but Jamie, he took pay, but he also invested half his net worth and bet on himself. Take a listen to Jamie's story here.

2:44And so I just thought this was a chance, you know, and, you know, if the family's willing to move, and we got a nice, took us a while, we had lived in a rental for a while, but got a nice brownstone. And, you know, we ended up loving Chicago. Chicago is a wonderful city in a lot of different ways. And, you know, like I said, it is what you make it. You know, and I put half my money in the stock at the time. I tied my, I was going to be the captain of the ship. I was going to go down with the ship. You know, I made it clear to everyone I was here permanently. And it'll be what it is. And so I got to work, like, literally the next day.

3:16Did we do the math right that right before you joined Bank One, you bought$60 million of stock? I did. I mean, I've never heard of someone taking a CEO job and saying, I'm going to invest half my net worth in this company now. Yeah. And I thought it might be overvalued a little bit because people thought it might be sold or something like that. But I didn't care about that. You know, if you work at a company and the new CEO comes in, he's from out of town, and you're going to have a lot of shareholders. And I knew a lot of the shareholders. I was going to know a lot of the shareholders. I wanted them to know I was in 100%.

3:49Lock, stock, and barrel. There was no question. I would never sell that stock. And I'm going to go down with the ship or go up with the ship. And they also, you guys making decisions that I thought were right for long-term health of the company, not for a short-term type of thing. Now, I got to say, it's pretty inspiring to see someone who was already successful, somebody who had$120 million net worth, take half of it and bet it all on themselves. That's the type of conviction that obviously investors love deceive. And to be honest, that's what winners do. And Jamie Dimon, he's been winning for a long time and betting on himself is a big reason why.

4:22Oh boy, here we go. It's been Crypto Week in Washington, D.C., and it looks like the week's gonna end with a big, big bang. Each piece of legislation received the necessary House votes yesterday to move forward in their respective processes. First up, we got the Genius Act. This creates the first federal regulatory framework for stablecoins. It sets some new standards for issuers, and it mandates consumer protections. But the Genius Act is now headed to President Trump's desk to be signed later today. They're gonna have a big party down in D.C. to do it. Next up, we've got the Clarity Act. This creates a reliable framework for digital assets to be categorized as securities or commodities, which one's which.

4:56And it also clarifies whether the CFTC or the SEC's got oversight over the asset. House approved it. Now it's going to the Senate for a vote. And lastly, we have the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act. Great name. This prohibits the Federal Reserve from launching a central bank digital currency. The goal is to preserve financial privacy and also prevent the federal surveillance via digital dollars. CBDC Bill Act, that's also headed to Senate for a vote as well now. Now, here's my general take. We're ending up exactly where most people thought we would. Lots of drama, lots of chaos and craziness, but ultimately the bills are gonna get passed and they're gonna get signed into law.

5:30And it's about time that happens. The crypto industry, which has created$4 trillion of economic value in 15 years, that's been operating with a lack of clarity. It's hard to explain to people how difficult it can be to operate a company or to build technology while you are also being pressured by your government. Every entrepreneur I know, they want the same exact thing. They want to do the right thing. They want to follow the rules. The big question for years has been, what are the rules though? Now we're getting answers to that question. And this clarity is coming at a very interesting time.

6:00Wall Street has been heavily embracing Bitcoin and digital assets. There are ETFs, public companies, real estate funds, and much more. As this clarity settles in, I would not be surprised to see every financial institution start speed running into the crypto industry. We know large banks are salivating over the opportunity to create, hold, and use stablecoins. This is the least risky way for them to participate. But we should also expect financial institutions to start lending, yield farming, tokenizing assets, and engaging in any other activity that drives revenue, assets, and clients. The only caveat is that most large institutions, they have a risk mitigating posture.

6:35And so I wouldn't expect them to punt on altcoins or mimic the DGENs online. From my personal perspective, 2025 is the year that Bitcoin and crypto grew up, became an adult in the room. The government began to embrace it. And the banks across Wall Street realized they needed to play in the industry in a major way. There's still a ton of work to do, but this is what mass adoption feels like. We are about to enter an era of distribution. These financial organizations are going to take Bitcoin and crypto assets. They're going to package them up in a million different ways. They're going to shove them into every customer portfolio that they possibly can.

7:07And yesterday's legislative wins created the environment for all of this to happen moving forward. The race has now started. Let's see which financial firms are going to be the biggest winners going forward. Scotty Scheffler is the number one golfer in the world. He's got 16 PGA Tour wins, including three master championships, two masters and one PGA championship. But to be honest, maybe the greatest contribution that Scotty's had to the public conversation is not winning golf tournaments or having people online betting on who's going to be the winner in any one tournament. Instead, Scotty was recently asked, what does it mean?

7:41What does it feel like to be a winner? What does it feel like to go out there every single week and compete, even though you've won so much? And Scotty was brutally honest here. At one point, he even said that he'd rather be a great father than a great golfer. And immediately, I think people can all resonate with what he's saying here. So take a listen to Scotty's answer to the question. It feels like you work your whole life to celebrate winning a tournament for like a few minutes. It only lasts a few minutes, that kind of euphoric feeling. and like to win the Byron Nelson Championship at home, I literally worked my entire life to become good at golf, to have an opportunity to win that tournament.

8:17And you win it, you celebrate, get to hug my family, my sisters there. It's such an amazing moment. And then it's like, okay, now what are we going to eat for dinner? You know, life goes on. This – is it great to be able to win tournaments and to accomplish the things I have in the game of golf yet? I mean, it brings tears to my eyes just to think about because it's literally worked my entire life to become good at this sport and to have that kind of sense of accomplishment I think is a pretty cool feeling. You know, to get to live out your dreams is very special. But at the end of the day, it's like I'm not out here to inspire the next generation of golfers.

8:53I'm not here to inspire somebody else to be the best player in the world because what's the point? You know, this is not a fulfilling life. It's fulfilling from a sense of accomplishment, but it's not fulfilling from a sense of the deepest places of your heart. There's a lot of people that make it to what they thought was going to fulfill them in life, and then you get there, and all of a sudden you get to number one in the world, and then they're like, what's the point? I really do believe that because what is the point? Why do I want to win this tournament so bad? That's something that I wrestle with on a daily basis.

9:25It's like showing up at the Masters every year, it's like, why do I want to win this golf tournament so badly? Why do I want to win the Open Championship so badly? I don't know. Because if I win, it's going to be awesome for about two minutes. And then we're going to get to the next week and it's going to be like, hey, you won two majors this year. How important is it for you to win the FedEx Cup playoffs? And it's just like, we're back here again. So we really do. We work so hard for such little moments. And I'm kind of a sicko. I love putting in the work. I love being able to practice. I love getting out to live out my dreams.

10:00But at I don't know if I'm making any sense or not, but am I not? It's just one of those deals. I love the challenge. I love being able to play this game for a living. It's one of the greatest joys of my life, but does it fill the deepest wants and desires of my heart? Absolutely not. I mean, I love playing golf. I love being able to compete. I love living out my dreams. I love being a father. I love being able to take care of my son. I love being able to provide for my family out here playing golf. And, you know, every day when I wake up early to go put in the work, you know, my wife thanks me for going out and working so hard.

10:40And when I get home, I try and thank her every day for taking care of our son. It's just, you know, that's why I talk about families being my priority because it really is, you know, I'm blessed to be able to come out here and play golf. But if my golf ever started affecting my home life or it ever affected the relationship I have with my wife or with my son, that's going to be the last day that I play out here for a living. This is not the be-all, end-all. This is not the most important thing in my life. And that's why I wrestle with why is this so important to me because I would much rather be a great father than I would be a great golfer.

11:10To be honest, it's pretty cool to see somebody who is a world-class performer, somebody who's dominating their industry, somebody who's obviously hyper-competitive, has worked their butt off for years and years and years to become the number one in their sport, to sit there and talk about what's it all for. Sometimes I'm actually let down or disappointed after a win. I'd rather be with my family sometimes than actually be a golfer. Everyone who is successful, regardless of what their industry is or what their skill and expertise is, everyone goes through these periods. And to hear someone on his stage with his success talk about it, that's more of the conversation that we need, both in America and online.

11:47So kudos to Scotty Scheffler. And you know what? I think that he's gonna have a lot more fans. he's going to be a better golfer and probably a better father because not only is he thinking about these things, but he's willing to talk about it publicly. And as we all know, when you talk about things publicly, all of a sudden you act like a magnet and all these other ideas where people start showing up. But a lot of people are reaching out to Scotty and telling him, I hear you, man. And you know what? Here's my ideas, which is only going to make Scotty better. And so we should thank him for being so honest on such a public stage.

12:16That's it for today's show. I hope you guys are enjoying it. I'm having a blast putting this together. Make sure you're following us on X. And please, please, please subscribe to the YouTube channel. We're doing our best to grow that over there as well. And I'll see you guys on Monday, live from the desk of Anthony Pompliano.