Summary

Bitcoin’s halving remains structurally bullish, but neither host treats it as an automatic short-term launch signal. Jonah compares issuance falling by half to global oil supply dropping overnight from 103 million to 51.5 million barrels per day—he would be “maxing out my VaR”—and says Bitcoin goes up “10x after every halving.” Avi counters that this is “the most telegraphed event in the entire world,” and that a 50% drop in ETF inflows could offset the halving’s roughly $7 million–$10 million reduction in estimated daily miner selling.
Avi sees Bitcoin’s repeated rejection near $70,000–$72,000 as activated supply and thinks a pullback toward $52,000 is plausible. Since 2021, each new high—roughly $60,000, $69,000 and then $74,000—has exceeded the prior record by only 5%–6% before selling off. His market-structure explanation: retail historically bought breakouts, whereas institutional and slower capital make “all-time highs…a very good thing to sell.”
Avi reads the oil market as betting that Iran will not close the Strait of Hormuz, despite likely Israeli retaliation. Roughly 30%–35% of world oil traverses the chokepoint, and disrupting it could produce $4500 oil and force Western military intervention. Iran’s leaders have “plans…measured in centuries,” so preserving the regime should outweigh a response that threatens global energy flows.
Escalation is bearish for crypto risk in the near term but could strengthen Bitcoin’s monetary use case over six or seven months. Bitcoin initially sells off with the S&P and no longer tracks surging gold, while ETH, SOL, LINK and speculative Web3 assets need a risk-on market. More sanctions and financial-system weaponization, however, increase demand for “stateless internet money” and alternative payment rails.
The immediate halving trade may be attention rather than reduced issuance. Avi expects Bitcoin-native NFTs and tokens to benefit tactically, describing the setup as “you get in it, two weeks later you’re out”; Jonah doubts Bitcoin can support a durable application ecosystem because it is optimized for Bitcoin rather than L1-style user experiences. Both distinguish that short attention trade from a fundamental ecosystem thesis.
Their barbell remains Bitcoin plus selected memecoins, with governance tokens stranded in the middle. Jonah advises scaling out when a meme reaches roughly a $100 million valuation because the trader turning $10 into $30 million “probably” will not be you. Avi calls memes “attention tokens,” argues WIF and BODEN were outperforming many alts in the sell-off, and warns that “this is gambling…not investing.”
Ondo wins their three-project review, while Ethena carries the most dangerous scale-dependent risk. They value Ondo’s tokenized Treasury access—“Tether but with yield”—but Jonah rejects ONDO as a governance token unless securities law eventually permits cash-flow distributions. Avi says the token’s value depends on whether it can distribute Ondo’s profits; Jonah adds that in that regime DeFi tokens would be “literally limit-up.” Ethena’s USDe combines staked-ETH collateral, short perpetuals, exchange exposure and human risk management; if funding turns negative as stETH depegs, “the bigger it is, the worse the problem becomes.”

Deep dive

1. Bitcoin’s all-time high has become a selling zone

Avi’s tape read starts with the failure to clear $70,000–$72,000 after a roughly 2x advance. He sees extended sideways action at resistance as “activation of supply.” Jonah adds that long-term holders, including the U.S. government, started sending profitable coins toward exchanges rather than wait indefinitely for another breakout.
Avi’s historical comparison is deliberately bearish. Bitcoin reached about $60,000 in March–April 2021, $69,000 that November and roughly $74,000 this cycle, while he characterizes each fresh record as adding only 5%–6% before a sharp reversal. With institutional capital rather than reflexive retail buyers, “all-time highs tend to be a very good thing to sell.”
Jonah considers a move toward $52,000. ETF flows have stopped, ETH has “nuked,” and the geopolitical backdrop removes his willingness to bid current levels even though he would be more constructive without it.
Jonah keeps the consolidation analogy alive: Bitcoin previously spent much of half a year around $29,000–$30,000 before rocketing. He thinks the Iran–Israel shock may have prevented a break above $70,000 and possibly a move toward $80,000, but concedes that Bitcoin “objectively nukes first” with other risk assets during acute uncertainty.

2. Oil says Hormuz closure is still an unlikely tail risk

The mechanism matters more than the headline. Avi says bombing Iran itself does little to global earnings because the country is already heavily sanctioned. The economically devastating response would be closing the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow route carrying roughly 30%–35% of world oil from the Arabian Gulf into open water.
Avi says attacking even one cargo vessel could send oil toward $4500 and invite kinetic war with major Western powers. Iran’s leadership, in his memorable framing, makes “plans…measured in centuries”; it will not casually risk regime change or a Saddam Hussein-style end merely to answer an Israeli strike.
Jonah asks whether Israel and Iran could trade attacks on nuclear and military sites without touching energy infrastructure. Avi says security experts expect Israel to target Fordow, roughly 100 meters underground, potentially setting Iran’s nuclear capability back 10 years, and sees only two stable outcomes: “It either fizzles or it explodes.”
The physical balances reinforce restraint. Iran pumps about 3.1 million barrels per day, consumes 1.8 million domestically and exports the remaining 1.3 million chiefly to China and India despite sanctions. Israel also consumes hydrocarbons: its preferred outcome is effectively that Iran keeps pumping oil but stops building nuclear capability.

3. Geopolitical stress splits Bitcoin from the rest of crypto

Oil declining alongside risk assets tells Avi that the market does not expect Hormuz disruption. The Russia shock was different: a top-three producer and top-two exporter genuinely lost millions of daily export barrels as black-market shipping took over the market.
Bitcoin’s short-term behavior nevertheless remains that of a risk asset. It has disconnected from gold as gold surges through record highs, and additional Israeli–Iranian escalation would likely pressure BTC alongside the S&P before any monetary thesis gains traction.
Over six or seven months, the conclusion reverses. More sanctions, divided trade blocs and a more heavily “weaponized” financial system create demand for alternative value-transfer rails; Bitcoin is “stateless internet money” that cannot really be hacked.
That argument does not extend equally to the full complex. SOL, LINK, ETH and speculative Web3 technology require risk appetite, so a geopolitical shock can be long-term bullish for BTC while remaining unambiguously hostile to alts.

4. The halving changes supply, but flows decide the timing

Jonah’s oil-trader analogy is the episode’s strongest halving bull case: if daily world production fell from 103 million to 51.5 million barrels next week, he would beg for every available oil future, start “maxing out my VaR” and do everything possible to get long Bitcoin. He says Bitcoin goes up “10x after every halving,” making casual indifference look strange to him.
Avi’s rebuttal is market efficiency. The halving is “the most telegraphed event in the entire world,” known years in advance, so buyers should not suddenly discover it the following day. If miner outflows halve while ETF inflows simultaneously fall 50% or stop, the two flow changes can largely net out.
Jonah refines the supply arithmetic rather than abandoning it. At 3.125 BTC per block, four blocks per hour, 24 hours and roughly $660,000 per BTC, miners create, in his calculation, about $18 million–$20 million daily; if half is sold, the halving removes perhaps $7 million–$10 million of daily pressure. That is small today, but “into perpetuity it adds up.”
Their joint conclusion separates horizon from direction. The issuance cut improves Bitcoin’s long-run scarcity but does not itself imply $80,000 or $100,000 soon. Avi prefers a short attention trade in Bitcoin-native NFTs and tokens; Jonah rejects a durable application thesis but agrees with “you get in it, two weeks later you’re out.”

5. Memecoins capture attention that governance tokens cannot

The barbell trade—Bitcoin at one end, memes at the other—has beaten the sophisticated middle of DeFi, governance, DePIN and Web3 applications. Even during the sell-off, benchmark memes such as WIF and BODEN held up better than many altcoins, while newer low-cap names such as MEW were doing well before dropping 25% that day.
Jonah’s discipline is to take profits whenever a move becomes extraordinary and begin scaling out around a $100 million valuation. Stories of turning $10 into $30 million distort expectations: “The reality is it’s probably not going to be you,” especially where no repeatable informational edge exists.
Avi’s conversion after 20 years in traditional finance rests on a comparison: why own a governance vote in a DAO with no claim on earnings when a cheap token is “literally just an attention token”? Buying an emergent meme resembles discovering the Nike swoosh early, while the crypto casino experience can be more compelling than anything Las Vegas offers or than loosely linked pseudo-equity tokens that resist DCF valuation.
Staying power depends on whether the joke still attracts attention in five or ten years. Cats, dogs and BODEN can retain cultural memory; smaller provocative tokens such as JEW may attract attention below $10 million, though exchange listings are doubtful. Avi’s guardrail remains categorical: “This is gambling…not investing.”

6. Ondo has product-market fit; Ethena has hidden short-gamma risk

Of Ondo, Ethena and Hyperliquid, Ondo is the clear favorite. It tokenizes short-term U.S. Treasury notes for users—an Argentine saver is their example—who cannot easily access dollar yield through a U.S. brokerage. Jonah calls it “Tether but with yield,” with tokenized indices, funds and other assets as the longer runway.
The product-token distinction drives their disagreement. Jonah says, “I don’t believe in the ONDO token. I believe deeply in the ONDO offering,” because governance alone captures no economics; Ondo could instead earn money by shaving basis points from the underlying yield. Avi says ONDO’s value depends on whether securities law eventually permits it to distribute Ondo’s profits. Jonah says DeFi tokens would then go “literally limit-up.”
Hyperliquid earns praise from Avi for slick execution but not differentiation: Jonah says, “It’s just an exchange,” and Avi cannot see why it deserves a separate thesis from dYdX. Ethena is more novel at scale, though Jonah notes that BitMEX traders were already shorting perpetuals against BTC balances in 2019 to synthetically move into cash and collect funding.
Jonah entered his Ethena review bullish and left uncomfortable. USDe depends on staked-ETH collateral, short perpetuals, Binance and OKX exchange exposure, Copper custody and a 24/7 human team with backgrounds including Tower, DRW, Jump and Jane Street. That is not the fully decentralized money the marketing suggests.
The stress case combines correlated failures: stETH previously fell to about $0.92 per ETH, perpetual funding could turn deeply negative, and exchange or legal risk could impede access precisely when collateral is weakening. “If the yield is too high, there’s a catch”; Jonah compares the lazy bull-market return to Anchor before “the music stopped.”
Scale makes the structure worse. Their Luna analogy is that $5 billion might have remained manageable while $20 billion became destabilizing; similarly, $20 billion chasing 20% increases perpetual selling and compresses the basis until the yield disappears. They doubt USDe would create Luna-level systemic damage, but think a sufficiently large version can blow up—and Jonah prefers simply staking ETH through Lido.

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