The Frontier

David says Jensen Huang resigned as NVIDIA CEO after two reported affairs and was pushed out by the board; the hosts question whether the affairs explain the decision. NVIDIA fell sharply as investors faced the company’s importance to AI spending and U.S. markets.

David questions why media coverage treated Huang’s affairs as grounds for removal without asking whether the punishment fit the conduct. He speculates that hostility toward AI and closed-source tech power may shape coverage, while saying he does not fully believe the broader conspiracy theories.

David offers a more conventional explanation for NVIDIA’s turmoil: the company may have sold more chips to China than was publicly understood, possibly through intermediaries in Singapore and Malaysia. He says that would raise questions under the CHIPS Act, unlike the reported affairs.

Bitcoin fell below its 50-week moving average and traded near $72,000, while sentiment reached extreme fear levels. The hosts note that the fear reading was worse than at any point during the early 2023 bull market.

Ben Cowen’s midterm-year view points to a possible Bitcoin test of the 200-week average in Q4; Michael Nadeau expects a possible dip and rebound, but says a fall below $58,000 would break his model. Alex Thorn says a month below the 50-week average would undermine the early-bull thesis.

Bitcoin was on course for its first two consecutive red yearly candles, though the year was not finished. The hosts note that Bitcoin also broke its 50-week average during the early bull period in 2019 and during the COVID shock in 2020, without breaking the 200-week average.

One host says Bitcoin returned only 3% annually over the prior five years, allowing Treasury bills to outperform it. David argues that this may signal Bitcoin is reaching fair value and losing the steep network-growth curve that powered past four-year cycles.

Ethereum was down about 10% on the week and trading near $2,000, below both its 50-week and 200-week moving averages. The hosts contrast its weak chart with Bitcoin’s, and note that ETH had returned to roughly its price from five years earlier despite reaching an all-time high in between.

Zcash sharply repriced after a long flat period and traded well above both its 50-week and 200-week averages. The hosts discuss a possible pullback toward the 50-week average, but one says buying near $750 would be painful.

The hosts say recurring weekly Bitcoin purchases performed better than trying to time the cycle during the recent downturn. One cautions that the strategy’s success still depends on Bitcoin outperforming in 2027 and 2028.

Vitalik Buterin says he has decided ETH should be understood as money and a store of value, rather than primarily as a fee-burning asset. He argues that optimizing for fee collection would make Ethereum behave like a corporation, with activist governance and pressure to chase revenue.

David argues Vitalik’s support for ETH as a store of value came late, after years of community debate and declining market confidence. The hosts say the position fits Ethereum’s roadmap, but disagree about whether it can still rally the ecosystem around ETH.

A former Ethereum Foundation employee is suing after being dismissed days after telling the organization she had cancer. The dispute includes a required mandate with a tongue-in-cheek “seppuku” clause; after employees objected, the Foundation replaced the clause’s written text with an image containing the same language.

Hasu argues the Ethereum Foundation’s mandate achieved necessary downsizing, removed employees who opposed its direction, and encouraged ecosystem groups such as ETH Labs to grow independently. The hosts agree the outcome may help ecosystem diversity, but say the process damaged Foundation morale and trust in leadership.

Phylax lets applications define circuit breakers that Titan Builder enforces during block construction; a transaction that breaks an app’s rule is included but reverts. A vault could, for example, prevent a single transaction from paying out more than half its assets.

Phylax’s app-level protections create a tradeoff: applications gain a way to block exploit transactions, while block builders gain a role in enforcing app rules. The hosts say Ethereum’s proposed Fossil upgrade could still force a transaction into a block, after which the app’s rule could make it fail.

Phylax has worked with Linea and is expanding to Ethereum mainnet, where Titan Builder produces about half of blocks, as well as projects including Derive and Lighter. One host supports the security tradeoff, arguing that major DeFi exploits do more harm to adoption than this limited compromise to censorship resistance.

CFTC-registered exchanges with the required SEC filing can offer U.S.-regulated perpetual futures on individual stocks. Coinbase, Kraken, and Kalshi are among the eligible firms; traditional exchanges and market makers are challenging the expansion in court.

IRS Letter 6174 is a voluntary compliance notice telling crypto traders the agency has information about their activity and urging them to review their filings. The hosts say the letter is not an audit and does not require a response, while warning that AI could help the IRS identify reporting errors.

Cool Crypto says top-perps performance comes mainly from avoiding blowups: he rarely uses more than 1x leverage across his portfolio. Crypto dislocations create enough opportunity that staying solvent matters more than catching one huge trade.

Cool Crypto says Hyperliquid perps profits have come from repeated hedges around local tops while holding spot, rather than one oversized short. He watches large holders mainly when he already has exposure, since a whale's visible position may hedge risk elsewhere or farm funding.

Cool Crypto says early Bitcoin mining led him into DeFi, where trading, borrowing, and lending felt like a major step beyond crypto as a store-of-value asset. He later started a fund, misjudged how soon revenue-focused tokens would matter, and chose the Kool-Aid Man profile picture as a joke that stuck.

Cool Crypto expects continued demand for tokens with real revenue, but says regulatory pressure could temporarily favor store-of-value assets such as Bitcoin. He sees Ethereum as outside the simple divide between assets that are money and tokens that make money, because its settlement-layer value depends on broad adoption.

Cool Crypto says Bitcoin's recognition, predictable supply schedule, and ossified code give it stronger store-of-value credentials than Zcash. Zcash's privacy and quantum-resistance narratives attract interest, but its active development also creates more uncertainty and potential security risk, as the Orchard controversy showed.

Cool Crypto sees Zcash as a crowded, sentiment-driven trade whose upside depends on buyers beyond crypto insiders, including wealthy people seeking private money. He agrees that even small allocations could matter, but says the market may already have priced in more of that demand than investors expect.

Cool Crypto favors options for expressing a high-conviction Zcash view because they avoid perp liquidation risk through steep drawdowns while preserving leveraged upside. He says spot suits investors willing to hold through volatility, and selling calls can suit holders who think Zcash is temporarily overvalued.

Cool Crypto looks for mispriced revenue, buybacks, and durability rather than comparing token multiples at face value. Hyperliquid's USDC treasury yield looks more recurring than trading fees, while technical analysis works best when traders watch widely followed levels and fundamental research finds what the market has missed.

Cool Crypto sees Lighter as the stronger three-to-six-month trade and Hyperliquid as the more dependable multi-year hold. Lighter is pursuing US access and regulatory clarity more aggressively, while Hyperliquid is more globally oriented; limited untapped US demand could weaken Lighter's case.

Cool Crypto says liquidity is a stronger exchange moat than interface quality or technical features: he still trades mainly on Hyperliquid because larger orders get better fills. Lighter's major-market fills are improving, but Hyperliquid's altcoin liquidity still trails Binance by a wide margin.

Cool Crypto says Hyperliquid's buybacks and burns mean token price can rise even if market capitalization stays flat, so price upside is not capped by exchange-company comparisons alone. He still considers much of the easy asymmetry gone and does not expect a straightforward 10x from here.