Picking Winners Post Trump Trade | 1000x

Summary

• The $TRUMP launch was a liquidity vacuum, not a fresh-capital top. Dropped unannounced at ~9pm ET Friday, it forced everyone to dump whatever sat in their Phantom wallets to ape in — “you just take whatever capital you can on chain” — sending the coin to $70bn before Melania’s launch knocked it back to $40bn and alts fell 30-80% in 72 hours. Jonah’s key distinction: this was a technical sell-off, not a fundamental one — capital exiting for exogenous reasons, thesis intact.
• The trade both hosts converge on: buy the AI coins that got drained. Avi calls it “a huge buying opportunity for AI coins — not meme coins,” because memes will simply be outcompeted by Trump while AI agents are “real product, real narrative, real building.” Virtuals revenue is down 99% from the highs and people have stopped talking about AI — “that’s when you should probably be allocating.” Jonah says he bought Virtuals below these levels and AI16Z above them and still expects AI Mania sometime this year: “we’ve seen nothing close to what Mania looks like.”
• Portfolio construction: the barbell got rewritten. Avi: “forget ETH, forget meme coins” — the old BTC-memecoin barbell is now a BTC–AI coin barbell. Jonah’s version: $80 Bitcoin, $10 Solana, $10 AI coins — lopsided now, but if AI coins 10x in mania mode the barbell evens out, and “if it’s all going to zero you’d certainly rather be in Bitcoin.”
• Solana is legitimized — with a new tail risk attached. Avi: “the casino is called Solana and Trump just created a massive game at the casino,” so holders “can feel damn good about your bags for the next four years.” Avi’s caveat: this is SBF-style anointment — if Trump ever launches anything not on Solana, “Solana is going to dump so hard you can’t even imagine.” And remember: “Trump is not a pro-crypto president, he’s a pro-Trump president” — Avi puts a 30% chance he disavows the coin if the flack gets bad.
• A tradeable mania barometer: rewind to when $TRUMP traded $60-70bn and note which accounts were shilling it at the highs — “those are the Mania accounts.” When those same accounts start telling you AI coins will 10x after they’ve already 10x’d, “that’s when you get out.” None of those accounts are even talking about AI right now — which is exactly the point.
• The bull case for $TRUMP itself is geopolitical, not memetic. Jonah won’t touch it “with a 10-foot pole” (his rule: if you’re early, ape; if not, extreme caution), but sketches the scenario that makes it huge: Trump directs 80% of proceeds to the Treasury or a strategic Bitcoin reserve, and foreign governments buy the coin to curry favor — the same smoke-filled-backroom mechanics he watched in WTI oil markets. Avi stays bullish more simply: lots of people still aren’t in it.
• Was this crypto’s iPhone moment — and the iPhone is a casino? Avi: “I would kill myself if this was the iPhone moment… but in some ways you’re not wrong.” $TRUMP is “the ultimate lottery ticket” and “the peak wealth generation event of a lifetime” — the most money made in the shortest time, never to be repeated, because only Jesus Christ or Michael Jackson out-fame Trump. Meanwhile it’s possible affiliated wallets already sold hundreds of millions “and we just don’t know.”
• Housekeeping with a lesson: the hosts walk back their Bankless numbers — insiders sold ~$50k of the AIC token, not $500k — but Avi’s broader warning stands: the crypto VC game is won by getting in at $5m because founders want your megaphone, and exiting at the pumped $100m launch. “One of the worst mistakes you can make in this industry is assume that people with large accounts are on your side.”

Deep dive

1. The Bankless walk-back — and the real lesson about crypto VC

• The hosts open by correcting last week’s segment: Bankless published an open letter after Jonah and Avi said insiders dumped $500k of the AIC token on day one. Avi owns the error — “they didn’t risk the reputation for 500k, they risked it for 50” — though Jonah notes that even taking Bankless’s version as ground truth, “their side of the story doesn’t look any better”: $50k sold, blamed on Bankless Ventures operating without their knowledge.
• Avi’s broader warning is the keeper: “the crypto VC game is won by people that get into projects early and sell them when they’re overpriced.” You get in at a $5m valuation because the project wants your megaphone; it lists at $100m because you pumped it — “your edge is not the fact that it’s actually worth anything.” That’s why he keeps his investments in things he’s willing to hold, and why “one of the worst mistakes you can make in this industry is assume that people with large accounts or large followings are on your side.”
• Jonah’s companion heuristic from his commodities career — the “Landglide test”: before taking a job, look up your would-be boss’s property records. The guy with a big title in a $1.1m Chicago row house “hasn’t made it” and will treat comp as zero-sum; the one with $30m in real estate will try to grow the pie. Avi adds a crypto corollary: the relative seriousness with which people take posting is a good indication of how wealthy they are — he takes “a little bit of pride in the irregular schedule of this podcast.”

2. $TRUMP anatomy: a liquidity drain that torched everything else

• Both hosts slept through the launch — Avi went to bed in the Swiss Alps at 2am, while Jonah woke around 9am to an analyst text reading “once Trump stops draining liquidity we might get a bounce,” and spent three confused minutes on Twitter before grasping that Trump had launched a meme coin at 4am Swiss time.
• The mechanics matter: with no time to wire money in, “anybody with any shitcoin in their hot wallet sold it immediately to ape Trump.” Jonah frames it as correct execution — “when there’s an amazing trade on the board you lift the offer, you pay the vig.” That rush sent $TRUMP to $70bn, torched the whole alt space, and then Melania’s launch — the party-pooper, in Jonah’s marriage-advice framing — knocked it to $40bn.
• On whether Trump dumped: the official wallet hasn’t sold, which “technically makes him less of a scammer than most.” But Avi flags the sketchier read — very early wallets held and made “hundreds and hundreds of millions,” possibly affiliates: “it’s very possible that he did and we just don’t know.” And Trump “is famous for not having a paper trail.”
• Jonah’s disappointment is about what didn’t happen: markets expected day-one executive orders, a regulatory pathway, maybe a strategic Bitcoin reserve in the first 100 days — “instead what we get is an unannounced pre-inauguration scam coin launch.” Even the supposed insiders on the crypto council got no heads-up. His softening frame: somewhere between “a total scam, which would be a disgrace,” and a form of political donation — “what’s the difference between donating a million to the inaugural fund and yoloing five grand on Trump coin?”

3. Solana anointed — but read the fine print on the anointment

• Avi’s line of the episode: “he freaking legitimized Solana right there… the casino is called Solana and Trump just created a massive game at the casino called Trump, Melania and Barron.” Solana holders “can feel damn good about your bags for the next four years.”
• Avi’s pushback — worth keeping: this is the same logic as “SBF supporting Solana means it goes up in a straight line.” The support is real but so is the new risk: “if he ever decides to do anything not on Solana, Solana is going to dump so hard you can’t even imagine” — though he concedes another launch is unlikely soon.
• The governing framework: “Trump is not a pro-crypto president, he’s a pro-Trump president.” Avi gives a 30% chance he disavows the coin if flack mounts — “that was my team, I like Bitcoin, I would have put a stop to it if they had just asked me.” Jonah’s version: every Trump decision optimizes for Mount Rushmore, and he’s aware crypto is more dangerous than Trump-branded wine — “SBF is sitting in prison right now.”

4. The trade: technical sell-off → rotate into AI coins

• Avi’s core call: the drain is “unambiguously, as it stands right now, a very good thing” — dumb money just got rich and “that money recycles itself very well” — and the wreckage is “a huge buying opportunity for AI coins, not meme coins in general,” because memes now get outcompeted by Trump while AI agents are “real product, real narrative, real building.” Virtuals revenue is down 99% from the highs and nobody’s talking about AI — “once people have stopped talking about it, that’s when you should probably be allocating.”
• Jonah agrees and names names: Virtuals and AI16Z “are starting to get tasty,” plus builders like the Eliza framework and “maybe Hyperliquid too.” His load-bearing distinction: a technical sell-off (capital exiting for exogenous reasons) versus a fundamental one (new regulation ruining risk/reward) — this was the former, and it’s “a nail in the coffin for WIF, for GOAT,” the no-utility memes.
• The mania barometer, as told: cross-reference the hours $TRUMP traded near $70bn with the accounts in your feed shilling it higher — “those are the Mania accounts.” When they start telling you your AI coins will 10x after they’ve just 10x’d, “that’s when you get out. We’re not even close.” Avi’s corollary: “it’s always better to shill on the way down than on the way up” — it takes guts to bull-post when “we might look like idiots for the next month.” And the corrected proverb: “wealth is found in bear markets and then made in bull markets.”

5. Can $TRUMP itself keep going? The smoke-filled-backroom scenario

• The hosts split here. Avi is “still bullish on Trump, funny enough” — plenty of people aren’t in it yet, and if Trump’s team isn’t completely inept “they’re going to figure out a way to add value to this meme.” Jonah won’t touch it “with a 10-foot pole”: his meme coin framework is “if you’re early, ape as fast as you can; if you’re not early, tread with extreme caution” — and by Saturday night he was clearly not early.
• But Jonah constructs the bull scenario anyway: Trump announces 80% of proceeds go to the US Treasury or a strategic Bitcoin reserve, and suddenly foreign governments invest in the coin to curry favor — exactly the mechanics he saw in commodities, where WTI cargoes move to adversaries and allies “in exchange for all kinds of favors and smoke-filled backroom pacts.” “If you see hints that’s starting to happen, this thing could get pretty freaking big. I assumed that would happen with Bitcoin — not this.”
• On the precedent spreading: Cuba’s coin appeared to be a hacked account (“how Cuban of them”), Maduro’s Petro went nowhere, but a likely Mark Cuban tweet proposed a Trump-terms meme coin whose sale revenue would fund the national debt. Jonah’s takedown: “what revenue from what sale? He’s gonna have to sell.” Avi: “that’s just called paying your taxes” — before Jonah pitches taxes-as-coin-credit and jokes “Felman 2028.”

6. The iPhone moment is a casino — hold the barbell

• Jonah’s uncomfortable question: crypto was branded web3 in 2021, but meme coins “should just be called Ponzi lottery coins” — so “is this it? Have we reached the iPhone moment for crypto, and the iPhone is just an online casino?” He admits: “I’m kind of embarrassed at the moment.”
• Avi’s answer, hedges intact: “I would kill myself if this was the iPhone moment… but in some ways you’re not wrong,” because “the whole point of crypto is gambling” and $TRUMP is “the ultimate lottery ticket… the peak wealth generation event of a lifetime” — the most money made in the shortest time, unrepeatable because nobody has Trump’s reach. Jonah’s supporting math: Trump is the most famous person in the world by an order of magnitude — “unless Jesus Christ or Michael Jackson comes back to life and launches a meme coin,” it never happens again.
• The positioning that falls out: Avi’s best move is “just buy BTC” and swap the old BTC-memecoin barbell for a BTC–AI coin barbell — “forget ETH, forget meme coins… who’s buying them now?” Jonah’s modification: $80 BTC / $10 SOL / $10 AI coins — if AI coins 10x in mania within 12 months the barbell evens out, and if everything goes to zero “you’d certainly rather be in Bitcoin than tokens that went down 30 to 80% in the last 72 hours.”
• The closing read on policy: no day-one crypto executive orders, but Trump said he was going to free someone likely named Ross Ulbricht, and Jonah expects Trump to reach crypto once the major mandates clear. Avi cites Alexander Good’s tweet: he didn’t mention crypto in the speech “because he just launched a meme coin that went to 70 billion… the dude has not given up on crypto” — and World Liberty Financial is actively buying ETH, Tron, and likely Ethena. “This is what happens when you put your Gen Z NYU kid in charge of crypto policy.”