Ideas
Long crypto; rally has legs.
Yan is long the crypto market and has not taken profits, believing the rally has legs after the market was caught offsides by expected QE through the long end of the bond curve, which triggered a short squeeze. Leverage has not built up too much, and although he doubts new all-time highs without material new QE, the smaller alt market can coalesce around a handful of assets, making it a stock-picker's market.
Hold Lighter; could rise further.
Yan holds Lighter in his six-token portfolio and says it could still go up quite a bit, but he does not provide a detailed fundamental thesis in the transcript.
Long Hyperliquid on durable buybacks.
Yan holds HYPE and is bullish on a longer time horizon. Hyperliquid's multiple is supported by the USDC bid and stable buybacks, an expanding TAM as it becomes an everything exchange, dominance in non-crypto trading, and potential fee increases; he doubts $200 in four months but views it as a comfortable longer-term hold.
Allocate venture capital toward AI.
Delphi is allocating more venture attention and capital to AI because AI is attracting talent, attention, and capital away from crypto. Yan notes the most recent venture fund has five investments and only one is in crypto, and Delphi has done only one crypto venture deal in the last year.
Long tokenized Turkish lira carry.
Delphi invested in Tory Finance, which brings a dollar-hedged Turkish lira carry trade on-chain with about 10.5% organic yield and no incentives. The trade is normally available only to private-wealth/UHNW investors through top-tier counterparties, and the counterparty is a bank backed by the Turkish central bank that has been resilient; the yield is durable, exogenous to crypto, and has large capacity.
Pump has cash flow and staying power.
Santi highlights Pump as a protocol that has generated cash flow for years and has staying power, continuing to crank cash even through a brutal market.
Long Arbitrum as Ethereum L2 levered.
Santi has long been an Arbitrum investor. His L2 thesis was a levered bet on Ethereum capturing more fees, and he now highlights Robinhood chain fees as a potential driver, asking whether Arbitrum could be a $10B token if Robinhood volume and take rate flow through.
Hold Zcash in six-token portfolio.
Yan includes Zcash in his six-token liquid portfolio, treating it as one of his obvious holdings. He does not give an independent fundamental catalyst in the transcript beyond portfolio inclusion and later discussion of reflexive asset dynamics.
Long Venice on private-inference revenue.
Yan holds Venice as a revenue story not highly dependent on crypto activity. He likes the private-inference TAM and thinks periodic events will remind users why private inference matters. Although the raise highlighted equity/token value-accrual concerns, management plans to continue directing value to the token, and margins should improve as Venice brings on its own hardware and scales, making the token the long-term value-capture mechanism.
Favor productive revenue-generating crypto assets.
Yan prefers productive, revenue-generating crypto assets over reflexive or speculative ones. He likes revenue stories that are not highly dependent on crypto activity because they should be more resilient and have stronger TAMs, and he focuses on durable earnings and value accrual.
Long overlooked Grass on data revenue.
Yan likes Grass because it has built a real, overlooked business: about $70M expected topline revenue, about $40M operating profit, an ~8M-node residential IP network, and frontier labs as customers. The token trades around $330M FTV, has no competing equity value-accrual mechanism, investor unlocks are largely done in October, and the upcoming live context recall subscription product could drive repricing as awareness returns.
Ethereum downside skew, limited 10x.
Santi says Ethereum at a roughly $300B valuation is not a clean 10x and the asymmetry is skewed to the downside. He is skeptical of crypto return profiles where downside repricing is more probable than upside.
Avoid crypto gaming as category.
Yan is cautious on crypto gaming as a category. Games have difficult life cycles and often do not remain businesses long enough, making long-term NPV hard. Delphi's large AAA swing, Gunzilla, did not work out due to management and spend issues; smaller games may succeed, but the broad category will remain tough.
Long Aerodrome catch-up migration trade.
Yan sees Aerodrome as a catch-up trade. The delayed migration to Ethereum/ARC is slated for late September and may include Robinhood, which could rapidly increase TVL, volume, and fees. The protocol is making emissions dynamic to trading volume/revenue, removing the emissions offset for new revenue lines expected to add ~40% more revenue, and directing value to tokenholders/buybacks. Positioning is low and the event offers clear confirmation or invalidation.
Bitcoin to high 90s, then cautious.
Yan thinks Bitcoin probably goes to the high 90s, but after that he does not want to be too long unless there is new information about a more accommodative Fed or a good inflation print that allows rate cuts.
Invest in defense tech drone warfare.
Delphi has been investing in defense tech over the past 12-18 months because of the war and drone warfare in Ukraine and the Middle East; they are trying to invest on both sides of that trend.
This Empire video, published September 14, 2026,
features Yan Liberman, Santiago R. Santos
discussing Crypto Market, LIT, HYPE, AI-SECTOR, Turkish lira carry trade, PUMP, ARB, ZEC, VVV, Revenue-generating crypto tokens, GRASS, ETH, Crypto gaming, AERODROME, BTC, ITA.
16 trade ideas extracted by AI with direction and confidence scoring.
Speakers:
Yan Liberman,
Santiago R. Santos
· Tickers:
Crypto Market,
LIT,
HYPE,
AI-SECTOR,
Turkish lira carry trade,
PUMP,
ARB,
ZEC,
VVV,
Revenue-generating crypto tokens,
GRASS,
ETH,
Crypto gaming,
AERODROME,
BTC,
ITA
