Still Time To Be Bullish?
Speakers
Jonah Van Bourg
— Head of Trading, Cumberland / ex-Vitol
Avi Felman
— Principal, GoldenTree Asset Management
Summary
Avi Felman and Jonah Van Bourg debate whether crypto's bull market still has room. Jonah argues the cycle is maturing into a slower, multi-year choppy grind, while Avi rejects cycle-top calls and favors Bitcoin plus DAT-driven altcoin narratives. They also discuss specific patience trades, onchain gambling, collectibles tokenization, AI's temporary cooldown, and how to express these themes in portfolios.
- Crypto is maturing into a slower, choppier bull market rather than a classic blow-off top.
- Avi rejects cycle-top calls for Bitcoin and favors DAT beneficiaries including Ethereum, Solana, and BNB.
- Jonah prefers crypto benchmarks with light leverage and limited active altcoin trading.
- Specific long ideas include Solana, Galaxy Digital, BNB, HYPE, Syrup, ENA, Worldcoin, Pump.fun, XRP, Tron, Robinhood, Shuffle/Rollbit, AI assets, Collector Crypt, and Aerodrome.
- The hosts see onchain gambling and collectibles tokenization as growing themes.
- AI hype has cooled but may be a temporary trough and dip-buying opportunity.
- The portfolio approach emphasizes patience, tracking fundamentals, and rotating into Bitcoin after 25-40% gains.
Ideas
Solana DAT cash should buy SOL
Avi was overweight Solana because new digital asset treasuries are raising cash and at least 80% of it is earmarked to buy fresh SOL on market, with roughly 20% held in reserve for locked SOL. This structure differs from prior DATs and should support SOL; he entered around $195, saw chop, is only up about 15%, still holds some but reduced most of the overweight.
Galaxy AI data center undervalued
He remains bullish on Galaxy Digital because its AI data center is not being priced in effectively by the market, should sign contracts and add value, and Oracle's strong move validates the AI data-center theme. The stock has ranged but he still believes the asset can work, especially if AI gets hot again; Galaxy could double from current levels.
ENA flywheel should keep growing
He thinks the adapter for ENA will continue to kick off a flywheel and grow massively, so he plans to get long. The thesis is brief and tied to Ethena's flywheel mechanics.
Hyperliquid buybacks support patient long
Hyperliquid is another patience trade: even though everyone knew about buybacks, HYPE traded sideways long enough for buyers to enter and capture a 20-25% move before it started working. Avi still holds a small HYPE long as part of his book.
Syrup is patience long-term bag
Syrup is a long-term bag he has discussed for a while and still owns a little of. The trade needs patience, but he expects it to prove itself.
BNB should trade above one thousand
BNB is a slow burn that should trade over $1,000. The US government and CFTC may open Binance to US investors, Binance still cares about the token and the exchange remains strong; even a move from 5% to 30% odds of US access implies BNB should be 10-20% higher. He has this position on in the book.
Pump.fun is onchain Vegas with buybacks
Pump.fun is a real business, effectively Vegas/onchain slot machines at global scale. It generates $1.3-2.5M per day in revenue and uses most of it for buybacks, roughly $500-600M per year, a large share of float. The founder is smart, the product has network effects in memecoin creation/streaming culture, and gambling demand keeps growing, so it can hold the lead and be worth more.
XRP benefits from Ripple buybacks IPO
Ripple equity has consistently bought back stock at rising prices, including a current buyback above the secondary market price, and insiders are being ridiculously bullish. He thinks Ripple is probably planning to go public soon, which should be good for XRP and everything Ripple-related.
Tron is monopoly for onchain crime
Tron has the smoothest chart in crypto and is effectively a stablecoin/crime chain with a monopoly on no-KYC transfers for sketchy actors. As onchain GDP and crime grow, and as new stablecoin chains like Plasma and Tempo try to steal its market, Justin Sun will likely pump Tron to keep it relevant. He would long Tron once those competing chains go live.
Worldcoin good buy after supply clears
Worldcoin was a great pre-sale buy and has been sideways since. He thinks it is probably a good buy soon and plans to scale in for a 25-35% trade once initial supply has worked through, similar to the classic post-supply trade in Pump.fun.
Favor crypto benchmarks with light leverage
He is stupidly bullish overall price action, so he wants to be heavily invested in crypto benchmarks with light leverage rather than actively trading many altcoins. His book is mostly Bitcoin, some Ethereum and Solana on leverage, and he is minimizing active trading because he does not feel he can reliably pick range-bound altcoin winners.
Bitcoin is not cycle top
He does not believe the cycle-top calls. Bitcoin at around $115,000 is not fair value given regulatory and institutional developments, and statistics like realized value and MVRV Z-score around 2 suggest no massive selloff is coming because average holders' prices are close and post-election buyers have already sold or turned over. The chart resembles 2021 but the underlying statistics are radically different, so he expects Bitcoin to continue higher.
Ethereum benefits from DAT narrative
Ethereum is one of the assets with the best narrative for the next one to two months because of digital asset treasuries. He wants exposure to DAT beneficiaries that can outperform while Bitcoin rises or ranges.
Robinhood is a gambling culture bet
Robinhood is still an amazing bet on growing gambling culture, and its teased social feed could become a powerful Wall Street Bets-like feature. He thinks it has room to run and could be good for 30-40% from current levels if crypto goes on a bull run.
Shuffle and Rollbit are favored casinos
The old-school onchain casino idea is clearly working, with Shuffle and Rollbit continuing to do well. He likes both names and may trade them, even though he does not own them now and thinks overlap with memecoin gamblers is smaller than some expect.
AI cooling is temporary buying opportunity
AI hype cooled after ChatGPT-5 was not a big leap, but the narrative is not dead; the market is adjusting to more linear rather than parabolic AI expectations. He sees this as a temporary trough or bear trap in the AI bull run and wants to dip buy overlooked AI assets both onchain and in TradFi.
Collector Crypt tokenizes Pokemon card market
Collector Crypt/Cards is a marketplace for Pokemon cards that verifies and digitizes physical cards, standardizes pricing and improves liquidity versus eBay. It has 10xed in two weeks, is still reasonably valued, and can expand into other card markets like baseball and Marvel.
Aerodrome benefits from onchain prediction markets
Prediction markets are popping off and he expects them to end up onchain on AMMs. He is long Aerodrome as a play on new market creation, not just new memecoins, because Aerodrome can benefit from prediction markets and other new onchain markets.
Up Next
This 1000x Podcast video, published September 10, 2025, features Avi Felman, Jonah Van Bourg discussing SOL, GLXY, ENA, HYPE, SYRUP, BNB, PUMP, XRP, TRX, WLD, BTC, ETH, HOOD, SHFL, RLB, AI-SECTOR, CARDS, AERODROME. 18 trade ideas extracted by AI with direction and confidence scoring.
Speakers: Avi Felman, Jonah Van Bourg · Tickers: SOL, GLXY, ENA, HYPE, SYRUP, BNB, PUMP, XRP, TRX, WLD, BTC, ETH, HOOD, SHFL, RLB, AI-SECTOR, CARDS, AERODROME