Is Korea's Upcoming Election Behind the Meme Coin Frenzy? With Markus Thielen

This meme coin rally started around, you know, February 28th and it almost came out of nowhere. I mean, a lot of people have predicting it, but I think the timing is quite interesting and I think the timing coincides actually with some political developments in Korea and Korea is very well known for the main coin trading. For more on the market's action. Let's bring in founder of 10 X research Marcus Teen who has been on the show before and he's been very accurate with his predictions. Marcus, welcome. Thanks for having me. Now. I have to, I have to bring it up, Marcus. Every time you're on this show, you give us some predictions that sometimes they're very hard to fathom and most of the time they come true. So I'm very excited to have you here this morning. Uh You heard me read the prices there. What are you watching this morning? Well, we're definitely watching, you know, ETF flows. Uh you know, we have been watching, you know, end of last week, you know how the market has reacted towards those flows and, you know, for the last kind of like 89 days we have the suspicion that the flows might actually run out a little bit and I think that would be, of course, a little, I guess, you know, uh, headwind really for the markets. And so I think we saw already, you know, the first, you know, kind of like taste after the US markets closed on, on Thursday. Really, when the fidelity number came out and the fidelity number was very low. It was from, you know, more than 200 million, you know, the previous days to just I think like 13 million. And then of course, on, on Saturday, well, you know, Saturday, Asia time, Friday night, us time when basically the blackrock number came out, that was also very weak. So I think that's what we had to sell off over the weekend. Of course, you know, sentiment came back a little bit because also when you look at how the flows actually are distributed during the week, we're seeing very strong inflows on Monday and Tuesday, but basically Thursday and Friday is usually only half. So really today is a big testing uh level really for the market if the flows are going to be strong, uh the rally can continue. If not, I think the market is on, you know, on a fragile footing here. Were you surprised to see that uh drawback in flows? You know, if you read the headlines, one could derive that a lot of folks thought that we were gonna see flows come and come and come and they were never gonna stop because advisor platforms are eventually gonna um offer access to the ETF sr I are eventually gonna offer access to the ETFS. But now we're seeing this drawback. Were you, were you surprised to see that? So suddenly? Well, I think eventually the flows have to kind of like calm down a little bit, right? We had like really super strong inflows even last week on Tuesday, we were more like a billion US dollars. But what's interesting is of course, that that the gray scale G BT C flows have actually also quiet down a little bit. So it's actually a really easy hurdle to beat. And at the same time, you know, that the net inflows have really also, you know, come down. But I think what's also interesting is that um and you know, we have noticed actually for the last 23 weeks that Bitcoin actually the prices have not gone up during US trading hours. So what has actually happened is really during the last kind of like 34 hours before the US markets opened. So before the, the ETF actually opened, somebody was buying in Bitcoin and the price actually tended to rally during those 3 to 4 hours before the US market opened. And then of course, despite the strong buying we had through these ETF S, the the price actually didn't go up. And I think what's interesting is really on, on Thursday, we also didn't have this for the first time in, in actually, in a long time that Bitcoin didn't go up during European hours. And of course, then, you know, the buffer was a little gone and I think that's where we had like the pressure. So I think that's quite interesting. And again, today, I think we seem to be struggling a little bit as well. So maybe this, you know, mystery buyer that tends to front run the flows is not there anymore. What do you derive from that? Uh Bitcoins being bought up in European trade? Trading hours? What do you make of that? What does that tell you? It tells us that, you know, somebody had some, you know, call it inside knowledge or somebody was really just like, you know, front running the flows until the flows really stop. And I think we were a little bit suspicious that this kind of like tended to stop last week. But somebody was very confident that every time and this was like a nice alpha trade where you just say you just buy it, you know, 6 a.m. Eastern time and then you kind of like sell it at uh basically at noon Eastern time. And I think that's kind of like the trading uh rhythm we have seen, but this rhythm, you know, stopped and I think there's a lot of insights to be taken from this because maybe somebody you know, kind of was predicting where the flows are coming because they had some, you know, deeper insights about, about the market. Marcus, you mentioned the potential for a fragile market ahead. What do you mean by that? Give us a prediction. You've you've always been spot on. So I'm curious to hear where you think this market is heading. Yeah, of course, you know, we wish that the market goes goes higher, of course, but I think if the flows run out, I think we, we have a little bit of an, of an, of an air pocket where we could see the market going down probably just under like 60 K. We don't think it's going to go much lower. Uh because, you know, there are no people really willing to really sell on mass. But I think what we had is of course, a huge increase in futures, open interest. Uh even the funding rate has come in a little bit from like 80 to around like 30 but it's still kind of elevated. So we could still still see more uh liquidations. But of course, you know, you cannot put everything on the shoulders of these ETF buyers. So somebody else has to buy the market. But of course, everybody is already very long. So if we see more kind of like a, you know, like a, I guess, uh um you know, kind of like, like a weak sentiment towards those flows, I think then the market can go down because you know what we're seeing, of course, is that this uh uh another driver of this market which is the, the, you know, the catalyst is, is out of the way with, with last week's upgrade basically. OK. So draw back to just under 60 k. What do you think happens after that? Maybe give me a price prediction for Bitcoin and Ether by the end of the year. Oh, it's difficult. But I think uh Bitcoin can still rally to, you know, 83 K if not really take out the, you know, the 100 100 K, so 100 2 K, I think that's where we can go, but we would also expect that Ethereum is gonna underperform. Um I think the, the big risk is that the, the M ETF might not happen. I think we have, uh you know, heard nothing so far from like a two way conversation between the SEC and the issuers. This is very different than, you know, than when we had the Bitcoin ETF where there was, of course, you know, a lively discussion back and forth. There were refiling of the S ones, but so far we haven't heard anything and we are sort of like, you know, two months, two months away until I think May 23rd is when the so called, uh you know, approval of the ETF should happen. And of course, the SEC can argue already, you know, against it because, you know, it's, it's not so clear if Bitcoin is really the same as Ethereum. So if Ethereum is also a commodity, and I think that's a little bit uh the worry in the market and I think that could also be like a, you know, like, like a risk factor. Marcus. I want to turn now to meme coins because I opened my eyes this morning and Solana was up above $200 meme coins specifically in the Solana network um have been rallying in recent days. What do you make of this? Why all the attention on the Solana network? And where do you think this is all heading? Yeah, I think of course, you know, Solana has, of course, you know, a big treasury that they can, you know, finance a lot of the, you know, the marketing around it. But of course, we're seeing a lot of activity in decentralized exchanges, but really the volume has really been exploding. But I think the interesting aspect is really that this meme coin rally started around, you know, February 28th and it almost came out of nowhere. I mean, a lot of people left predicting it, but I think the timing is quite interesting and I think the timing coincides actually with some political developments in Korea and Korea is very well known for the main coin trading. And as an example, you know, Shiva traded for seven consecutive days as the number one token on up and up. It is in Korea focus exchange with 80% market share in the country there. And you know, shea traded at one point $3.5 billion. So over this seven day period, it traded more than, you know, 10 $11 billion. And I think when you look at uh breakdown, kind of like the flows or the performance of all these various, you know, tokens from, you know, from B DC really to the main coins, you're seeing that a lot of the main coins are actually 80% of the performance occurs during Asia hours. And Asia hours is really driven by, by Korean traders. So we think there is something very closely uh correlated to the political developments and Korea has elections on April 10th where initially the the leading party, uh the ruling party which is also leading in the polls initially indicated in early February that they would also uh Bitcoin spot ETF. But then on uh February 28 they kind of stepped away from this and it was no longer a priority and it was basically the status quo. And I think that's when basically people started to, to buy these meme coins because you know, it was basically the green light. And I think that's really kind of an interesting development but it really seems to be driven more during Asia hours uh because there's this large retail component and just as an, as an in another example, I mean, trading volumes in we just kind of like 2 to $3 billion before February 28. But at 1.2 weeks ago, they went all the way to 16 billion. So this was an eight X just in volume. And you know, these days, we are still around 8 $9 billion which is equivalent to the to the whole stock market which you know, trades at 8 to to $9 billion a day. So I think that's an interesting development and because of the green light from basically the status quo on, on the on the policy side, you know, it was really all in meme coin land. Now you mentioned the political landscape in Korea elections coming up next month. What do you think happens to meme coins after the election? Do they start to lose steam? They might lose a little bit steam. I think we have seen this already that, you know, volumes have peaked volumes have exploded and, you know, struggling a little bit with support levels. Um I mean, it's very difficult, you know, to pump in more and more money. Um But I think, you know, in, in the end, I think what we still have, we still have the Bitcoin story going to continue for the the rest of the year because it's also, you know, more like a macro asset. But some of the other catalysts are slowly kind of like falling, falling away. As I said, you know, the, the Ethereum, you know, upgrade catalysts is out of the way. Then I think the, um, the ETF seems to be less likely and I think the meme coin, you know, those stories come and go as we have seen, you know, a few months ago with the ordinals, you know, just in December, that's when we had, of course, a lot of the, the crypto stocks, the mining stocks really exploding because of this. So I I think, you know, this will be still a year of like, you know, themes come and go and we just have to see what's going to be the next theme. One of the big themes is microstrategy who keeps buying up Bitcoin. And you know, you've been watching Microstrategy very closely as investors use this as a Bitcoin proxy. Uh Talk to me a little bit about your analysis between micro strategy and Bitcoin's reg. Of course, this is really, you know, a crazy development because microstrategy tended to trade almost like as a discount to their Bitcoin holdings because investors were evaluating the the rest of the business is almost as, as a, as a negative part. But of course, you know, things have become very different over the last two weeks. So we're based on, on the uh Bitcoins that the company is holding. Basically the net asset value is, is, is twice as much and the value of the stock price is twice as much as the value of the net asset value. And when you run a regression, this Bitcoin versus Micro strategy, it still indicates that the shares are 60 to 70% overvalued. And of course, it can gap a lot. I mean, the company does not have so much leverage that it's really warranted to this cycle. Um You know, some people of course, arguing that the company is, is basically shorting cash shorting bonds. And with that, you know, using those proceeds to really buy Bitcoin really tries to lever up. But at the end of the day, it seems to be more that uh that 401k s can probably buy already uh micro strategy because it is a stock. There's also, of course, uh the possibility that micro strategy might be part of the S and P 500 because you need to have a market cap of around $15.8 billion. And micro strategy is close to 30 billion or around 30 billion. So it would easily satisfy this. And the, the review is going to be in, in June where the company could actually qualify for it. But it also seems that uh international investors that don't have access to a Bitcoin uh spot ETF that they can buy uh stocks in the US. And investors seem to be the ones who are really bidding up the price because it just goes up. But nevertheless, the company or the shares are really massively overvalued. So we would actually, you know, advise people to really take profit here and rather put the money in, in Bitcoin ETF. So this is very similar to, you know, to buying G BT C 18 months ago at a massive discount as more folks get access to the ETF, what do you think happens to microstrategy shares? I mean, eventually the shares should really, you know, trade more or less uh at par if not at a, at a, at a discount. Because historically, you know what we're seeing, for example, for the gold market, a lot of the gold mining companies, you know, they tend to trade at a discount because usually management does something, you know, interesting that sort of like, you know, is less favorable for the shareholders. But of course, here, I think uh Micros has played it, you know, perfectly and really like topped it up because uh what we have seen last, last year, every time the shares were trading 20% above fair value, the company came out and issued more shares and used those proceeds to buy Bitcoin. So there was of course some irrationality by these shareholders, you know, buying these shares at, at inflated levels. But of course, the micro has done now when the price went again, 20% above it, they actually start to issue, uh you know, convertible notes are kicking in a lot. So they're even trying to sell shares, not at 20% premium. They're trying to sell shares at, you know, 6070 100% premium. And I think that's quite an interesting financial experience. Uh, you know, Fsia, I think they're doing this this really well, but in the end, I think a lot of the shareholders might not make the returns that they're hoping for and they might be better off, you know, buying Bitcoin at these levels. All right, Marcus, thanks so much for joining today's show.This meme coin rally started around, you know, February 28th and it almost came out of nowhere. I mean, a lot of people have predicting it, but I think the timing is quite interesting and I think the timing coincides actually with some political developments in Korea and Korea is very well known for the main coin trading. For more on the market's action. Let's bring in founder of 10 X research Marcus Teen who has been on the show before and he's been very accurate with his predictions. Marcus, welcome. Thanks for having me. Now. I have to, I have to bring it up, Marcus. Every time you're on this show, you give us some predictions that sometimes they're very hard to fathom and most of the time they come true. So I'm very excited to have you here this morning. Uh You heard me read the prices there. What are you watching this morning? Well, we're definitely watching, you know, ETF flows. Uh you know, we have been watching, you know, end of last week, you know how the market has reacted towards those flows and, you know, for the last kind of like 89 days we have the suspicion that the flows might actually run out a little bit and I think that would be, of course, a little, I guess, you know, uh, headwind really for the markets. And so I think we saw already, you know, the first, you know, kind of like taste after the US markets closed on, on Thursday. Really, when the fidelity number came out and the fidelity number was very low. It was from, you know, more than 200 million, you know, the previous days to just I think like 13 million. And then of course, on, on Saturday, well, you know, Saturday, Asia time, Friday night, us time when basically the blackrock number came out, that was also very weak. So I think that's what we had to sell off over the weekend. Of course, you know, sentiment came back a little bit because also when you look at how the flows actually are distributed during the week, we're seeing very strong inflows on Monday and Tuesday, but basically Thursday and Friday is usually only half. So really today is a big testing uh level really for the market if the flows are going to be strong, uh the rally can continue. If not, I think the market is on, you know, on a fragile footing here. Were you surprised to see that uh drawback in flows? You know, if you read the headlines, one could derive that a lot of folks thought that we were gonna see flows come and come and come and they were never gonna stop because advisor platforms are eventually gonna um offer access to the ETF sr I are eventually gonna offer access to the ETFS. But now we're seeing this drawback. Were you, were you surprised to see that? So suddenly? Well, I think eventually the flows have to kind of like calm down a little bit, right? We had like really super strong inflows even last week on Tuesday, we were more like a billion US dollars. But what's interesting is of course, that that the gray scale G BT C flows have actually also quiet down a little bit. So it's actually a really easy hurdle to beat. And at the same time, you know, that the net inflows have really also, you know, come down. But I think what's also interesting is that um and you know, we have noticed actually for the last 23 weeks that Bitcoin actually the prices have not gone up during US trading hours. So what has actually happened is really during the last kind of like 34 hours before the US markets opened. So before the, the ETF actually opened, somebody was buying in Bitcoin and the price actually tended to rally during those 3 to 4 hours before the US market opened. And then of course, despite the strong buying we had through these ETF S, the the price actually didn't go up. And I think what's interesting is really on, on Thursday, we also didn't have this for the first time in, in actually, in a long time that Bitcoin didn't go up during European hours. And of course, then, you know, the buffer was a little gone and I think that's where we had like the pressure. So I think that's quite interesting. And again, today, I think we seem to be struggling a little bit as well. So maybe this, you know, mystery buyer that tends to front run the flows is not there anymore. What do you derive from that? Uh Bitcoins being bought up in European trade? Trading hours? What do you make of that? What does that tell you? It tells us that, you know, somebody had some, you know, call it inside knowledge or somebody was really just like, you know, front running the flows until the flows really stop. And I think we were a little bit suspicious that this kind of like tended to stop last week. But somebody was very confident that every time and this was like a nice alpha trade where you just say you just buy it, you know, 6 a.m. Eastern time and then you kind of like sell it at uh basically at noon Eastern time. And I think that's kind of like the trading uh rhythm we have seen, but this rhythm, you know, stopped and I think there's a lot of insights to be taken from this because maybe somebody you know, kind of was predicting where the flows are coming because they had some, you know, deeper insights about, about the market. Marcus, you mentioned the potential for a fragile market ahead. What do you mean by that? Give us a prediction. You've you've always been spot on. So I'm curious to hear where you think this market is heading. Yeah, of course, you know, we wish that the market goes goes higher, of course, but I think if the flows run out, I think we, we have a little bit of an, of an, of an air pocket where we could see the market going down probably just under like 60 K. We don't think it's going to go much lower. Uh because, you know, there are no people really willing to really sell on mass. But I think what we had is of course, a huge increase in futures, open interest. Uh even the funding rate has come in a little bit from like 80 to around like 30 but it's still kind of elevated. So we could still still see more uh liquidations. But of course, you know, you cannot put everything on the shoulders of these ETF buyers. So somebody else has to buy the market. But of course, everybody is already very long. So if we see more kind of like a, you know, like a, I guess, uh um you know, kind of like, like a weak sentiment towards those flows, I think then the market can go down because you know what we're seeing, of course, is that this uh uh another driver of this market which is the, the, you know, the catalyst is, is out of the way with, with last week's upgrade basically. OK. So draw back to just under 60 k. What do you think happens after that? Maybe give me a price prediction for Bitcoin and Ether by the end of the year. Oh, it's difficult. But I think uh Bitcoin can still rally to, you know, 83 K if not really take out the, you know, the 100 100 K, so 100 2 K, I think that's where we can go, but we would also expect that Ethereum is gonna underperform. Um I think the, the big risk is that the, the M ETF might not happen. I think we have, uh you know, heard nothing so far from like a two way conversation between the SEC and the issuers. This is very different than, you know, than when we had the Bitcoin ETF where there was, of course, you know, a lively discussion back and forth. There were refiling of the S ones, but so far we haven't heard anything and we are sort of like, you know, two months, two months away until I think May 23rd is when the so called, uh you know, approval of the ETF should happen. And of course, the SEC can argue already, you know, against it because, you know, it's, it's not so clear if Bitcoin is really the same as Ethereum. So if Ethereum is also a commodity, and I think that's a little bit uh the worry in the market and I think that could also be like a, you know, like, like a risk factor. Marcus. I want to turn now to meme coins because I opened my eyes this morning and Solana was up above $200 meme coins specifically in the Solana network um have been rallying in recent days. What do you make of this? Why all the attention on the Solana network? And where do you think this is all heading? Yeah, I think of course, you know, Solana has, of course, you know, a big treasury that they can, you know, finance a lot of the, you know, the marketing around it. But of course, we're seeing a lot of activity in decentralized exchanges, but really the volume has really been exploding. But I think the interesting aspect is really that this meme coin rally started around, you know, February 28th and it almost came out of nowhere. I mean, a lot of people left predicting it, but I think the timing is quite interesting and I think the timing coincides actually with some political developments in Korea and Korea is very well known for the main coin trading. And as an example, you know, Shiva traded for seven consecutive days as the number one token on up and up. It is in Korea focus exchange with 80% market share in the country there. And you know, shea traded at one point $3.5 billion. So over this seven day period, it traded more than, you know, 10 $11 billion. And I think when you look at uh breakdown, kind of like the flows or the performance of all these various, you know, tokens from, you know, from B DC really to the main coins, you're seeing that a lot of the main coins are actually 80% of the performance occurs during Asia hours. And Asia hours is really driven by, by Korean traders. So we think there is something very closely uh correlated to the political developments and Korea has elections on April 10th where initially the the leading party, uh the ruling party which is also leading in the polls initially indicated in early February that they would also uh Bitcoin spot ETF. But then on uh February 28 they kind of stepped away from this and it was no longer a priority and it was basically the status quo. And I think that's when basically people started to, to buy these meme coins because you know, it was basically the green light. And I think that's really kind of an interesting development but it really seems to be driven more during Asia hours uh because there's this large retail component and just as an, as an in another example, I mean, trading volumes in we just kind of like 2 to $3 billion before February 28. But at 1.2 weeks ago, they went all the way to 16 billion. So this was an eight X just in volume. And you know, these days, we are still around 8 $9 billion which is equivalent to the to the whole stock market which you know, trades at 8 to to $9 billion a day. So I think that's an interesting development and because of the green light from basically the status quo on, on the on the policy side, you know, it was really all in meme coin land. Now you mentioned the political landscape in Korea elections coming up next month. What do you think happens to meme coins after the election? Do they start to lose steam? They might lose a little bit steam. I think we have seen this already that, you know, volumes have peaked volumes have exploded and, you know, struggling a little bit with support levels. Um I mean, it's very difficult, you know, to pump in more and more money. Um But I think, you know, in, in the end, I think what we still have, we still have the Bitcoin story going to continue for the the rest of the year because it's also, you know, more like a macro asset. But some of the other catalysts are slowly kind of like falling, falling away. As I said, you know, the, the Ethereum, you know, upgrade catalysts is out of the way. Then I think the, um, the ETF seems to be less likely and I think the meme coin, you know, those stories come and go as we have seen, you know, a few months ago with the ordinals, you know, just in December, that's when we had, of course, a lot of the, the crypto stocks, the mining stocks really exploding because of this. So I I think, you know, this will be still a year of like, you know, themes come and go and we just have to see what's going to be the next theme. One of the big themes is microstrategy who keeps buying up Bitcoin. And you know, you've been watching Microstrategy very closely as investors use this as a Bitcoin proxy. Uh Talk to me a little bit about your analysis between micro strategy and Bitcoin's reg. Of course, this is really, you know, a crazy development because microstrategy tended to trade almost like as a discount to their Bitcoin holdings because investors were evaluating the the rest of the business is almost as, as a, as a negative part. But of course, you know, things have become very different over the last two weeks. So we're based on, on the uh Bitcoins that the company is holding. Basically the net asset value is, is, is twice as much and the value of the stock price is twice as much as the value of the net asset value. And when you run a regression, this Bitcoin versus Micro strategy, it still indicates that the shares are 60 to 70% overvalued. And of course, it can gap a lot. I mean, the company does not have so much leverage that it's really warranted to this cycle. Um You know, some people of course, arguing that the company is, is basically shorting cash shorting bonds. And with that, you know, using those proceeds to really buy Bitcoin really tries to lever up. But at the end of the day, it seems to be more that uh that 401k s can probably buy already uh micro strategy because it is a stock. There's also, of course, uh the possibility that micro strategy might be part of the S and P 500 because you need to have a market cap of around $15.8 billion. And micro strategy is close to 30 billion or around 30 billion. So it would easily satisfy this. And the, the review is going to be in, in June where the company could actually qualify for it. But it also seems that uh international investors that don't have access to a Bitcoin uh spot ETF that they can buy uh stocks in the US. And investors seem to be the ones who are really bidding up the price because it just goes up. But nevertheless, the company or the shares are really massively overvalued. So we would actually, you know, advise people to really take profit here and rather put the money in, in Bitcoin ETF. So this is very similar to, you know, to buying G BT C 18 months ago at a massive discount as more folks get access to the ETF, what do you think happens to microstrategy shares? I mean, eventually the shares should really, you know, trade more or less uh at par if not at a, at a, at a discount. Because historically, you know what we're seeing, for example, for the gold market, a lot of the gold mining companies, you know, they tend to trade at a discount because usually management does something, you know, interesting that sort of like, you know, is less favorable for the shareholders. But of course, here, I think uh Micros has played it, you know, perfectly and really like topped it up because uh what we have seen last, last year, every time the shares were trading 20% above fair value, the company came out and issued more shares and used those proceeds to buy Bitcoin. So there was of course some irrationality by these shareholders, you know, buying these shares at, at inflated levels. But of course, the micro has done now when the price went again, 20% above it, they actually start to issue, uh you know, convertible notes are kicking in a lot. So they're even trying to sell shares, not at 20% premium. They're trying to sell shares at, you know, 6070 100% premium. And I think that's quite an interesting financial experience. Uh, you know, Fsia, I think they're doing this this really well, but in the end, I think a lot of the shareholders might not make the returns that they're hoping for and they might be better off, you know, buying Bitcoin at these levels. All right, Marcus, thanks so much for joining today's show.