Are We Still in a Bull Market?
Speakers
Avi Felman
— Principal, GoldenTree Asset Management
Jonah Van Bourg
— Head of Trading, Cumberland / ex-Vitol
Summary
The hosts record in person and frame crypto as a weird, decaying bear market into year-end, dominated by tax-loss harvesting rather than conviction. They discuss Jonah's CryptoPunk sale, broad crypto/equity/commodity positioning, and several Trump-linked trades such as Bitcoin, equities, Intel, and REMX. The back half covers private space/robotics/defense investments, the L1 and ETH valuation debate, and waiting for Hyperliquid/Aerodrome to bottom. They end with crypto career advice and a Zcash/privacy-crime aside.
- Year-end tax-loss harvesting and crypto's lack of wash-sale rule dominate near-term trading.
- Jonah sold a CryptoPunk at a loss and argues the NFT/Punk meta is unlikely to return.
- Avi remains bullish Bitcoin, equities, Tesla/robotics, Intel, and REMX; Jonah warns on Tesla valuation.
- The hosts debate whether ETH and L1s have sustainable value; Jonah favors shorting L1s versus Bitcoin.
- Private-market ideas include Rocket Lab, SpaceX, Apptronik, and Anduril.
- Hyperliquid and Aerodrome are long-term themes, but they advise waiting for supply and falling-knife dynamics to clear.
- They discuss Trump policy trades, AI/robotics disruption, and crypto career paths.
- Zcash is mentioned as a potential beneficiary of hacks and crime-driven privacy demand.
Ideas
Bitcoin best risk-reward over altcoins.
Bitcoin is the cycle and the best risk-reward asset on the board versus altcoins; he advocated GBTC/ETF and the macro upswing. Later he adds that Trump policy, a new Fed chair, rate cuts, balance-sheet expansion, inflation/debasement, and Hassett's pro-crypto stance should support Bitcoin, while Bitcoin is also a bet on alternative reserve currencies and M2 debasement.
Tax-loss crypto selling pressures losers.
Because crypto lacks a wash-sale rule, investors can sell large unrealized losers before year-end, claim losses, and rebuy in January; the more a coin is down and the more unrealized losses held by funds, the more vulnerable it is to year-end tax-loss selling. TIA is given as an example of a coin that could be shorted into year-end.
CryptoPunk meta dead; sell for loss.
He bought a CryptoPunk at the 2021 peak as an avatar but lost emotional attachment; Punks are a 2021 NFT meta that will not return like BTC/ETH, have 10,000 supply and a community that no longer scales, and always face tax-loss sellers. He sold it to harvest losses and free roughly $400k liquidity to redeploy into Bitcoin/Hyperliquid/Aster. CryptoPunks are down 70-80% while BTC is up 500%.
Bitcoin persists when crypto metas die.
Once crypto metas end they do not come back; only Bitcoin and Ethereum persist across cycles. He would rather redeploy Punk-sale liquidity into Bitcoin and notes Bitcoin has rallied 500% while Punks are down 70-80%. He is mostly in Bitcoin/crypto; alt trading outside Hyperliquid has not worked.
Robinhood is five-year no-brainer.
He is still ridiculously bullish on Robinhood and calls it a no-brainer trade for the next five years. The transcript gives little additional support, but the view is explicit.
Tesla is clean robotics exposure.
He remains very bullish on Tesla for the robotics/humanoid thesis; Tesla is currently the clean public way to get exposure to that theme. He ties this to broad bullishness on equities and Trump's market-supportive policies.
Tesla valuation is dangerously stretched.
Tesla valuation is totally out of whack, unlike Google which has cash flows and a reasonable price/sales ratio; he would not be surprised by a 50% drawdown. He is not saying short, but flags the valuation as dangerous.
Trump support makes equities bullish.
Very bullish on equities because Trump needs to support the stock market, wants a new Fed chair, rate cuts, balance-sheet expansion, more spending, and may tolerate or encourage inflation. This should support equities even if it mortgages the future.
Avoid broad commodities despite stimulus.
Do not get bullish broad commodity indices GSCI/BCOM on inflationary stimulus; the first retail-flow trades are Bitcoin, NASDAQ, Tesla, and AI/robotics. Broad commodities face supply response because high prices cure high prices, so production comes out and caps rallies. Commodities may rally 20% but are the wrong bet.
AI exposure through Nasdaq.
If inflationary stimulus and retail flows hit, buy the NASDAQ as a way to bet on AI/tech exposure disconnected from traditional valuation models; it is one of the preferred venues over broad commodities.
AI exposure through Google.
Google is a way to bet on AI exposure; in the surrounding discussion it is noted as having cash flows and a reasonable price-to-sales ratio versus Tesla's disconnected valuation.
Buy Intel on government support.
Trump taking a stake in Intel and Intel signing US government contracts makes it a no-brainer-looking national-security/Trump trade; he says wink-wink, buy some Intel.
REMX rare earth national security.
China has started a soft war over rare-earth minerals, so the US will have to support domestic rare-earth companies. REMX holds US-based rare-earth mineral companies; it is one of his larger positions, about 5% of portfolio, and he is super bullish.
UnitedHealth oversold on dysfunction thesis.
If you are bullish on US healthcare dysfunction, UnitedHealth is attractive: it fell from $600 to $324, back to roughly 2020 levels before a massive runup, and he thinks this is a good place to get back in.
RKLB could 10-15x in space.
Rocket Lab is the only public stock he is long for space exploration; SpaceX is private and much of the best space exposure is private. He thinks RKLB could 10-15x, and expects asteroid mining/resource extraction to become possible in 10-15 years.
SpaceX best private space exposure.
SpaceX is the key private space asset; it went from about $70-77B on the secondary market two years ago to about $800B, and he personally invested in a SpaceX SPV about a year ago. He cautions the trade is less juiced now but still views it as central.
Apptronik could 100x in robotics.
He made a private investment in Apptronik at a $1.2B valuation and thinks it could genuinely 100x as a humanoid robotics company; he accesses these through SPVs. He likes long-duration robotics/space themes outside traditional valuation metrics.
Anduril disrupts defense with modular weapons.
Anduril is approaching defense the right way by taking startup mentality to a legacy industry; it builds modular weapons that share parts and can be manufactured on existing automotive/machine pipelines, which should help scale. He thinks it could be a trillion-dollar company and wants to get long.
Short L1s against Bitcoin.
The next big crypto trade is shorting L1s versus Bitcoin. L1s can theoretically coexist, but flows are all that matter; even the best L1s like Solana and ETH have gone sideways for years despite legalization and usage growth. No new L1 is likely to gain monetary premium. Short mechanics favor shorting after a bounce/inorganic price action to harvest short-squeeze alpha, e.g., Aptos/BTC, Sonic, Worldcoin, and Optimism/Arbitrum versus Bitcoin.
ETH value accrual is broken.
ETH is not a commodity in a useful valuation sense: circulating supply is over 100M tokens while less than 2% is spent annually as gas, so a commodity model implies near-zero value. It is not a security but a DAO selling blockspace whose value should come from usage/burn. L2s and cheap blockspace cannibalize fee revenue; crypto has not found a way to raise fees without degrading UX. ETH has gone sideways since 2020/2021 despite growth.
Hyperliquid wait for supply overhang.
HYPE is underperforming due team unlocks/supply overhang and new competition, so he would step out of the way and wait for supply to clear and price to bottom. Long-term, a no-KYC perp DEX with traction like Hyperliquid has value, so once the knife stops falling and volume patterns improve, it becomes buyable.
Aerodrome wait for falling knife.
Aerodrome is a long-term proxy for transactions occurring on Ethereum; the thesis is good, but it is a falling knife like HYPE. Wait for huge volume bars, then crickets, then a small uptick before buying.
Zcash benefits from crime/hacks.
Zcash is newly in public consciousness as a privacy asset; large hacks and crime create demand for hiding funds, and Zcash is up on that dynamic. He says getting long crime/privacy demand is a great trade because crime never stops.
Up Next
This 1000x Podcast video, published December 09, 2025, features Avi Felman, Jonah Van Bourg discussing BTC, TIA, CRYPTOPUNKS, HOOD, TSLA, SPY, GSCI, BCOM, QQQ, GOOG, INTC, REMX, UNH, RKLB, SPCX, Apptronik, ANDURIL, APT, SONIC, WLD, OP, ARB, ETH, HYPE, AERODROME, ZEC. 23 trade ideas extracted by AI with direction and confidence scoring.
Speakers: Avi Felman, Jonah Van Bourg · Tickers: BTC, TIA, CRYPTOPUNKS, HOOD, TSLA, SPY, GSCI, BCOM, QQQ, GOOG, INTC, REMX, UNH, RKLB, SPCX, Apptronik, ANDURIL, APT, SONIC, WLD, OP, ARB, ETH, HYPE, AERODROME, ZEC