ROLLUP: Bitcoin to $57K? | Wall Street Bets on Hyperliquid | The Tokenization War | Zcash Drama
10/30/2026 · 71 min · transcript via mlx
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Key topics
— Bitcoin price predictions ranged wildly this week, from Jason Kalkanis's bear case below $57K to Bitwise's bull case of $1.6M by 2036; Willy Woo's Monte Carlo simulations showed a 2028 median of $1.5M with a base case range of $240K–$413K.
— Hyperliquid secured a major partnership with ICE (parent of NYSE) and TradeXYZ to launch a CFTC-regulated U.S. perpetual futures venue; Stanley Druckenmiller and Elon Musk publicly endorsed the move, sending HYPER up ~17% to near all-time highs.
— Over 30 companies including Microsoft, Alphabet, and Goldman Sachs requested to be delisted from OKX/ICE's tokenized stock offerings after a coordinated Wall Street Journal ad campaign warned of "unregulated venues."
— Robinhood Chain revenue collapsed 99.6% from peak—from ~$8.3M daily in September to ~$32K last Saturday—despite the network generating $50M in Q3 revenue; chain community demanded support for native meme coins.
— Zcash's $125M developer fund sparked DAO governance drama after a $550K grant to an adult-event promotion organization surfaced; proposals range from slowly winding down the 8% allocation to ending it immediately.
— Venice broke $1M VVV monthly burn rate with burns accelerating at 1% daily (34% month-over-month), funded by subscription tiers, API credits, and discretionary founder buybacks.
Market & price signals
— PCE inflation (September headline) printed at 3.6% year-over-year, continuing three months of acceleration; oil prices near $111/barrel, highest since Iran conflict. Federal Reserve held rates steady at FOMC meeting; Polymarket predicts 80% probability of rate hike in December. Michael Howell noted consumer confidence data signaling real affordability stress despite high nominal spending. Galaxy Digital's Alex Thorne confirmed Bitcoin bottom already in place; cited 916 days into halving cycle past prior-cycle bottom windows. 50-week moving average for Bitcoin sits at $76K—key support level if early bull thesis holds. Ether ETF flows down 6% AUM over two weeks vs. Bitcoin ETF +0.5%, largest divergence in recent memory. Anthropic S-1 filing showed revenue and unit economics better than expected but faces $1.5T–$2T IPO valuation; Google search revenue fell below 50% of total for first time, down from 85% four years ago.
Actionable insights
— If Bitcoin holds above the 50-week moving average ($76K), historical precedent suggests the early bull cycle remains intact; breaks below this level would challenge the "bottom confirmed" thesis that multiple analysts are backing.
— Tokenized equity markets appear inevitable despite corporate objections—price discovery on-chain during off-hours (e.g., Alphabet dropping 10% when TradFi markets closed) suggests investor demand will eventually override issuer resistance; monitor Uniswap and Hyperliquid liquidity for leading signals.
— Venice's accelerating burn rate (1% daily) and subscription-driven revenue model offers a testable case for token-backed services; however, buyback-and-burn remains contractually squishy compared to dividends or equity—reinvestment growth may create more shareholder value than immediate capital returns in early-stage projects.
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— Zcash offers private digital money with privacy enforced by zero-knowledge cryptography, letting users send and spend without publicly revealing counterparties or amounts; get started with Visor, the wallet Zcash developers use, by downloading on mobile or desktop at bankless.cc/vizor.
— NEAR just launched confidential trading with 20% fee back at bankless.cc/near-podcast.
— Ripio is bringing local currency stablecoins to emerging markets via Wrapped Fiat—six currencies covering Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and Peru—each pegged one-to-one to local fiat and fully backed by regulated reserve institutions. Users can move between local payment rails like PIX and SPAY with zero fees and no FX conversion at platform.ripio.com.
— The DeFi Report, hosted by Michael Nadeau, publishes weekly 30-minute episodes analyzing portfolio holdings, market structure, entry targets, and Bitcoin/Ether fair value across the cycle; new episodes every Wednesday on thedefireport.io/bankless.
— NEAR Hackathon runs Monday, November 1st through November 14th with $250,000 in prizes across tracks including AI/crypto intersection, NEAR Intents, privacy, and private AI; judges include Ilya, Mert, Avicil, Cain, Haseeb, and Eddie from A16Z; sign up at bankless.cc/near-hackathon.