We all know it.
Ethereum is booming and it's only going to continue to boom.
There are two places that this money is going to be flowing to
when the profits and the gains from Ethereum reach euphoric status.
It’s going to be going to DeFi and to NFTs.
Today, we're joined with one of the best experts around on both of the subjects,
popular YouTuber EllioTrades and a close friend of mine.
We're going to listen to his thoughts on where this money is going
and the future of cryptocurrency.
Let's get it!
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Hey, everybody! I'm here with Ellio.
My man!
I love this guy.
I think a lot of people think we're archrivals.
We're-- we are the frenemies. Frenemies.
Frenemies. That's exactly what we are.
- A lot of people know us-- Yeah. - BitBoy and I go way back. Yeah.
- We go way back. - They know us as kind of the altcoin guys.
We talk a lot of altcoins.
And a lot of channels don't really do that.
They kind of pick and choose, you know, when things are hot,
but we're on the backend doing a lot of the work behind the scenes
to find out which altcoins are popular and people are gonna like and have high potential.
And right now,
I think we're about to see something like pretty incredible with Ethereum
and how that's going to affect other things in this market, and so let me start with this.
What do you think is going to happen over the next 3 to 4 weeks with Ethereum?
Do you buy into the hype that it's going to go, you know, up to $2500, $3000 like some people are saying?
And then we can get into what that means.
Yeah, well, thanks again for having me on.
Again, yeah, like Ben and I met years ago.
And we've just been, you know, kind of, kind of came out with our channels at the same time
and then worked our way up without--
You know, it was a lot harder back when we started
- than it is now and-- - Yeah! Oh, yeah.
And so we both learned a lot of lessons from that.
But yeah, the--
The thing about the big caps like Ethereum is, the narrative-- it's kind of like Bitcoin, right?
Like, if you zoom out type thing, to me, it's got a very similar feel which is
the developers want to be there, the users, the investors want to be there.
Despite cheaper, better, faster other alternatives that have come along,
nobody seems to want to deviate from their MetaMasks, from Ethereum, from Solidity.
And so, it seems like there's-- if that ground is where people want to stake their claim,
and so does it matter to me what happens next month?
Like not so much, right?
It's one of those things where you just keep riding the wave.
And that's why also, you know, you've probably noticed I focus a lot on the smaller caps
because that to me is a little easier to predict on time analysis.
Like, it's pretty hard to predict like when Ethereum's big move will be
- or Bitcoin's big move will be. - Yeah.
You do believe that it could be, you know, right like it looks like Ethereum wants to go right now.
Yeah.
It's been looking like Ethereum wants to go right now since--
since really like last-- early last year.
And so that's great!
And what I do is I just keep trying to maximize my exposure to Ethereum
through trading alts and trading smaller coins and keeping those Ethereum bags as heavy as possible
because it is really incredible what Ethereum is accomplishing
and just seeing the DeFi ecosystem flourish on Ethereum,
seeing what's going on there,
it's pretty hard to deny that DeFi is going.
It's quickly pushing its way up towards $100 billion.
And, you know, you think about it, if DeFi makes it to a couple $100 billion,
I mean, that's all on Ethereum.
The proof-of-stake network has to be worth more than the assets on it.
So when you think about it, it has to keep pushing.
It has to keep going.
The Ethereum market cap, I think it doesn't make sense to stop anywhere soon.
Yeah, I think the really vastly underrated thing that people don't take into consideration,
I talked a little bit about it on a livestream recently,
is that when it comes to Ethereum, people don't take into consideration the Ethereum network.
Like all of the coins that are built-- or the tokens that are built on top of it,
and then even beyond that,
all the tokens that were built on it that have now moved to something else,
proving that their purpose lined up with Ethereum's as well, you know?
So when you look at Cardano and, you know, Tron and EOS, all those projects that moved on,
VeChain that moved on,
the networking effect of Ethereum is just absolutely gigantic and the reach is huge.
And I think that, you know, I firmly believe that we are seeing that big move from Ethereum very soon.
Over the next month, I've said $2500 by Valentine's Day.
I think we're gonna get that.
I think we're seeing the beginnings of the rumbling right now at this moment.
The question is, where is the money going?
And we think it's gonna, you know.
I think you kind of agree with me that there's two directions this is going.
No. 1: It's going to be going into DeFi.
No. 2: It's going to be going into NFTs.
We'll talk about DeFi a little bit at the end,
but I know you're kind of like the NFT specialist
so, you know, you and me both have had, you know, a lot of experience working with NFTs and building NFTs,
you know, and I've, you know, I've asked you a lot of questions about them before
because I know you're even more so than I am.
So give us a little rundown of, you know, what's happening with NFTs,
you know, are we going to get a second run on those the same way we're, you know,
we'll talk about a minute we think we'll get on DeFi.
Yeah, yeah, thanks for that.
I think that the NFT thing is in many ways a new and kind of different market.
DeFi absolutely and to a large degree,
DeFi will pick up the slack whenever there is a boring period in the market.
We saw that, right? We saw that DeFi now adds action and movement to a boring Bitcoin market.
And that's a beautiful thing that I think really changes the concept of bear markets going forward.
But moving over to NFTs, you know, this is a brand new uncharted ocean of value.
And this is something I've been passionate about for years now as you know.
We've been talking about our projects
and obviously I've been telling you about my games that I've been building for years now.
And it's really--
it's really exciting because you're just starting to see the speculative frenzy start to move into NFTs
and a lot of people have trouble with it
because it's--
it's-- you don't just buy XYZ token, and ride the whole NFT space.
Maybe they'll figure out a way to do some kind of basket like that,
but the reality is is that it's much more individualized.
It's much more personality and
driven by your interest and driven by hobbies and real use cases and real communities
and so I think what you'll see is a lot of niche communities form.
You'll see a lot of really interesting use cases form,
and that we're just really-- there's no wrong answers with NFTs.
It's all a big experimental situation where people are going to have a lot of right answers.
I personally have been having some extremely extremely exciting conversations
with different audiences and different types of people who want to get into NFTs,
and so I'm super excited about that,
to bridge mainstream culture, bridge mainstream use cases with NFTs
because I think they go together a little better than crypto
because, you know, a lot of people like I say they're not financially literate.
A lot of people don't do investing.
A lot of people don't buy stocks even if stocks always go up for the last 100 years.
They still don't buy them.
So I think NFTs, they're a little bit more palatable.
"Oh, it's like a Pokemon card."
"Oh, it's like a basketball card."
It's like a Beanie Baby or something.
If there's something that there's a more relatable--
a less financial sort of techie aspect that I think can really draw people in.
Yeah, I think that's a-- that's amazing.
And I do want to point out to the viewers of the channel here
that last week we just made fun of people who say "niche" instead of "niche".
And we now know who it is.
It is EllioTrades.
"Niche" for "niche".
And that's what we'll-- and look,
I know like we don't want to like really make this whole entire interview about, you know, your project,
but I do want to bring it up.
You do have a project that you are building in the NFT world, SuperFarm.
Ivan talked about it last week.
You know, I've had conversations with you about it, you know, off-air, you know, you know.
We talk, if people didn't know that.
And, you know, I'm really excited to see what's going on and, you know, the excitement around it.
How have you felt about the reaction that people have had to, you know, you building a project?
Yeah, it's been pretty humbling.
You know.
I spent so long planning it, spent so long kind of withholding the information,
and maybe that led to a really good response of, you know, not just kind of hacking it out there,
but really, you know, rounding out the rough edges of it first,
making sure that it's I believe something that's going to add value to the toolkit
that is, you know, both DeFi and NFTs,
as well as being really useful to our own projects and our own games
and so I've been really excited by it.
To me, every time I've sort of made it a layer deeper into the game,
the expectations go up and the stress kind of goes up a little bit,
- so I'll be-- I'll be honest, I-- - For sure.
I definitely am excited, but I'm-- I work, you know, I'm working harder and pushing harder every day
to live up to what is now a pretty pretty high mountain of expectations for the project.
- Yeah! - But thankfully I've actually--
you know, before announcing it, we built the thing, right?
So it's not like a--
you know, we got our first-- our first audit back and it was passed with flying colors,
and that was really nice and encouraging and so
things like that make me feel a lot better
and a lot of support from the broader community and sort of more behind-the-scenes folks
and so I'm really really excited about what comes next
and just pushing hard, but, yeah, it's definitely--
It's definitely great and also, you know, motivating
and as I told you this morning, you know, pretty much haven't slept much in the last few weeks.
Yeah. And that's-- well,
the main thing people want to know about this is if it's called SuperFarm,
like does it have a really nice John Deere tractor with it?
That's what-- that's what the people wanted.
So let's shift gears here for just a moment
and let's talk about the other place where we believe that money is going to flow,
which is DeFi.
You know, the DeFi run over the summer was really interesting
and, you know, you and I were right in the thick of it.
I mean, we, you know, we're talking to a lot of projects and, you know, helping people make a lot of gains
and then there were also projects on the backside of things that we're not doing, you know,
things on the up and up that got uncovered over time.
Do you think we're gonna see kind of the same thing with DeFi we saw over the summer?
Do you think we're gonna see like a ton of tiny little finance coins come in and try to scam everybody?
Or do you think this is going to be a different kind of more mature run for DeFi?
Yes, so all of the above, right?
I think you're--
I think what you'll see is you know when a chart--
When a coin first launches,
- you get this huge hype cycle, right? - Absolutely.
And then it crashes.
- And I see and then there's the boring phase. - Yup.
And most people say, "This project's done. I turn my back."
And that's exactly when the big brains invest and accumulate.
And I think that's kind of what's happening with DeFi.
That's my thesis, right?
Is that DeFi is "boring".
DeFi is "not pumping".
DeFi is "dead".
And that's exactly what the really intelligent and really big investors want you to think
and what you want to keep your eyes on is the teams that never stopped,
the teams that are pushing, pushing, updating, going, never stopping, bringing something different,
something useful, even if it seems maybe a little bit insignificant,
but as long as they're trying to add something novel and different, and so,
you know, there's been a few of those projects that for sure stood out.
And, you know, I keep seeing new concepts coming into DeFi and I think it's ha--
It's really easy to go, "Oh, this all looks and feels the same."
"It's all just a bunch of projects chasing the same goals."
But if you really dig in and you find what's unique and what's different,
I think that that's the challenge.
And I think there's going to be a lot of winners.
Yeah, I think so.
And, you know, I was just--
I've been looking at one of these projects that, you know, I was invested on-- or invested in early on,
still invested in,
had kind of almost forgotten about there for a few weeks that you've talked about before,
which is AllianceBlock.
And it has that exact chart you're talking about.
It launched.
It dipped way down.
People kind of forgot about it.
They kept building.
And now it is right back up where it was.
And it looks like it's gonna go, you know, way higher, so.
- Is that one you're still bullish on? - It's way higher than it was.
- It's way higher than it was. - Yeah. Yeah.
It was like its initial hype cycle was like 16¢ and now it's like almost at $1.
- And so it's-- - It's gone insane.
So, are you still bullish on that one?
Yeah, well, you know, I've been, you know, when I--
when I get into this stuff, because I'm a builder,
and I know that really what it comes down to with this stuff
is it's a lot about the people behind the products that make this stuff work
and you need to see that kind of-- you need to see the drive,
and I met with the AllianceBlock team and, you know, they checked the boxes for me,
and that's why I decided to start covering them right at the peak of their boringness.
I think we started-- we jumped in at about 4¢.
And that was when they really were boring and--
and then, you know, that was--
that ended up being a good decision
because then they started really unrolling their-- what they've been sort of saving up,
and I think they still have a few big bullets left to fire.
And then, after that, we'll see what happens,
but, you know, it's a big task, right?
- Unlocking traditional finance and bringing into DeFi. - Absolutely.
Those bridges, bridges all over crypto are very valuable
and once you see and sort of identify them,
you know, like I love REN bridging BTC and Ethereum.
I like the Polkadot bridges
and I like-- I see AllianceBlock as a bridge as well,
so if they can accomplish it and they can pull it off, I think they've got some room to grow still.
Well, I've really been seeing a lot of correlation between, you know,
what crypto is supposed to be and what it's supposed to be about in DeFi.
And there's certainly a lot of bad players in the game.
We all know that.
But it just makes sense that the No. 1 industry to come out of cryptocurrency is the finance industry.
Like, it makes total sense.
It lines up.
It's so obvious, you know, sometimes,
but it's right there under your nose.
Well, Ellio, I know you've been sipping the tea,
and I love that about you.
You love sipping the tea,
and I like sipping the Ellio tea.
I like watching your videos.
I like everything you got.
You guys make sure go subscribe to EllioTrades channel,
formerly known as FUD TV.
It's all FOMO at this point.
Okay, everybody, FOMO in to Ellio's channel.
So, you guys, make sure you guys subscribe to his channel.
We'll have the link down below.
Ellio, thank you so much for joining us today.
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
Hopefully, I'll be back soon.
Yeah, absolutely. Definitely be back soon.
Alright, guys. That's all we got.
Drop some comments down below.
Make sure to smash the like button.
Be blessed.
BitBoy out.