The Market Gave You 5 Bull Runs. You Married The First One.

It’s been a while since I’ve written about my thoughts about equities sector, but I think it’s time to share some thoughts on what I’ve been seeing in the markets lately.

As I mentioned recently, I’ve been pivoting more into commodities, forex, equities and boy, has it been a learning experience.

This administration gave us a lot of bull markets to chase.

Not one bull market. Multiple. Rotating. Overlapping.

And that distinction matters, because it changes how you should think, position, and most importantly, how you should not get hypnotized by whatever is making headlines this week.

What I hear in this conversation isn’t “metals good, AI bad” or “Trump means lower rates.”

Twitter: https://x.com/arndxt_xo/status/2009616473296425225

FULL article: https://threadingontheedge.substack.com/p/the-market-gave-you-5-bull-runs-you

➥ The Walls Are Down - XRP is Now Multi-chain Asset

https://x.com/Eli5defi/status/2009551743726874958

here's my 2026 decoupling theory.

- btc/majors vs onchain activity
- onchain activity will keep cooking because gambling demand is infinite. but it's decoupling from "crypto" as normies understand it
- stocks are the new altcoins
- gold is the new btc
- onchain hypergambling cannot be superseded
stocks

unfortunate but it seems to be getting more true

so we're splitting into two completely different markets:

1) btc/eth becoming institutional macro assets competing with stocks and gold for normie attention and losing
2) onchain activity becoming pure hypergambling venue for people chasing asymmetric returns

normies are done with crypto. novelty wore off. comparable returns in stock market without rug risk without bundlers without wallet drainers without the constant paranoia. why would they stay

retail got absolutely destroyed maybe they're not coming back

https://x.com/arndxt_xo/status/2009925191418462340

I made 44% profit in one day thanks to the new Polymarket liquidity rewards

https://x.com/0xMaidez/status/2009600596504973358

that 265k bet on polymarket cooked so hard based on one simple thesis:
ALL METADAO ICO COOKS

nonetheless, 14x oversubbed, $86mil raised by @ranger_finance's ico on @MetaDAOProject.

i have my conviction well placed in this ico. we are in the ico season and people demand more ownership, futarchy wins.

Every verified launch via $META has traded well above its ICO price and every single one is still holding above ICO today.
$AVICI +687%
$UMBRA +370%
$OMFG +427%
$SOLO +80%

anything Solana, MetaDAO and revenue generating is the playbook.

now we will see more projects FOMO to want launch on MetaDAO and people will soon be max aping.

the aping sesaon has began.

some other launchpads which are interesting:
@echodotxyz by cobie, got acquired by coinbase
@legiondotcc recently did @solsticefi ico
@LaunchOnSoar similar model to @MetaDAOProject
@stardotfun did a first sale for @surfcashx cooked well, next up @fairscalexyz on 19 jan
@KaitoAI did some launches but didnt turn out wonderful
@buidlpad launches always cooks
@JupiterExchange DTF did $WET @humidifi sale sold out in 1 second, 100% botted, but i think launches there could cook

if you think the team can retire from the funds raised, wrong, they gotta ship, hit milestones/kpis to get paid and get their unlocks. if anything investors in the ico are probably richer than the team.

keep shipping keep printing, looking forward to $RNGR tge

https://x.com/arndxt_xo/status/2010032412395483329

Yeah.. basically @solana is the only chain you need:

https://x.com/molusol/status/2010033918205161472

The Reach Allowance is REAL.
I made a site for you to check how much you have left...

https://ReachAllowance.com

No need to connect anything, just type a username or anyones name in and check

https://x.com/EasyEatsBodega/status/2010162012572279206

brutal lesson but necessary

lets analyse the @infinex token sale

$100m FDV $3.2M raised from 650 people missing the $5M target vs @ranger_finance raised $86m on @MetaDAOProject

meanwhile other ICOs in the past week: @TroveMarkets went on to raise $11m, @cascade_xyz sold out in 3 seoconds

infinex had synthetix founder. massive following. strong brand. but market said no

heres my take:
- app-layer tokens now priced on demonstrated cashflow
- people want to see revenue model
- fundamental problem was valuation vs demonstrated value
- patron NFT holders paid premium for early access implied equity-like upside but didnt turn up well

this accelerates the separation. protocols with real fee capture will launch successfully. protocols with vague utility stories will flounder regardless of team

defi valuation reset is real and it's accelerating

https://x.com/arndxt_xo/status/2010679168120607084

2026 is consolidating into 3 really big bets where if one fails would result in a short term collapse of the bubble

1. data centers

anthropic, Xai scaling aggressively to 1M gpus. both plan to hit that target by Q2. the resulting models trained on this infrastructure needs to confirm compute scaling law is still effective. otherwise will indicate we need to explore a new model architecture. this is also dependent on energy infrastructure (power shell) being scaled though that’s going to be a problem for the next decade let alone this year.

2. memory

we only have enough memory this year to support 15GW worth of gpus while the hyperscalers are targeting 30-40 over the next 2 years. we’re cutting it kinda close here - if samsung, $MU or sk hynix fck up their production then this will stall bet number 1. also whoever secures majority of this memory capacity to create gpus wins the most within the constrained production capacity and right now that’s $NVDA

3. cheaper, more effective infra

nvidias latest gpu vera rubin is 5X more performant but importantly 4X more compute efficient meaning the inference costs have tanked - frontier intelligence for pennies! there will be an abundance of compute available to train but more importantly use ai this year, so jevons paradox needs to prove itself through rising demand. if that fails then the above two collapse. imo im least concerned about this one - i think agent harnesses and post training RL will continue to strengthen models.

very bullish

https://x.com/cryptopunk7213/status/2010053030625120366

Tier List of Chains that may Shut Down in 2026 🧵

https://x.com/Defi_Warhol/status/2010742901387727292

ok so this is actually interesting because like... everyone's been chasing ICOs, RWAs, Neobanks, AI agents and memecoins while insurance...

literal INSURANCE is just quietly building real cashflow onchain

the thing that gets me is reinsurance specifically, this appeared as a narrative a couple of years back and i think it will resurface to be the strongest pmf in crypto.

not even the retail insurance we think about. the insurance FOR insurance companies. $700B market. grows when shit goes wrong (which... always happens?) and @re just hit $400M TVL in under a year doing this.

no token yet. just stablecoins earning yield from actual premiums not some ponzi farm emissions

the reUSDe thing is smart, basically you take on the underwriting risk and get 16-25% APY when claims stay low. when we talk about ownerships coins by @MetaDAOProject like $AVICI its be your own bank meta... and now you're literally the insurance company.

i believe this will be one of those obvious in hindsight plays.

treasuries > bonds > as institutional grows bigger > reinsurance

watching this NEO FINANCE

https://x.com/arndxt_xo/status/2010855830720266360

a very odd first 3 top performers:

1) social fi
2) lending
3) ICO
4) ICM
5) AI agents
6) privacy
7) data
8) buybacks
9) neobanks
10) defai
11) defi
12) prediction markets

https://x.com/arndxt_xo/status/2010958256714494127

Spot DEX liquidity re-expanded without a narrative catalyst.

Over the last 24 hours, decentralized exchanges processed $9.1B in spot volume. Over the past 30 days, cumulative volume reached $303.0B, up +13.59% WoW. This expansion did not coincide with incentive programs, new token launches, or a broad risk-on tape.

The signal is structural.
Execution demand increased even as positioning remained cautious.

What changed was where flow cleared.

https://x.com/TheDeFiPlug/status/2010648020983984318

PERP DEXs & LAST NEWS

https://x.com/deTEfabulaNar_/status/2010755404360273931

heres the thing about all of these other altchains:

stablecoin launching own chains
neobanks launching own chains
banks launching own own chains
exchanges launching own chains
superapps launching own chains
games launching own chains
nft launching own chains

whats going to happen to these other chains

https://x.com/arndxt_xo/status/2010589951050781116

base won the L2 wars and it's not even close anymore

read this properly: $178M all-time revenue. 24% of total L2 revenue.

here's what i noticed. base isn't trying to be decentralized or community-owned or any of that stuff other L2s pretend to care about. it's just @coinbase chain.

centralized af. and it's winning BECAUSE of that

@arbitrum at $134M.@Optimism at $115M. the gap is WIDENING

the results are exactly what you'd expect when you have 100M+ users in one ecosystem

10M daily transactions now.
5B all-time since launch.

@baseapp launching. rumors of token or prediction markets or tokenized stocks.

doesn't even matter what it is, if it's integrated with coinbase's user base it'll do volume. distribution is the only moat that matters

$ARB and $OP had head starts. better tech arguably. more decentralized. doesn't matter. distribution beats tech every single time

this is the @BNBCHAIN playbook except executed way better. BNB Chain won through binance distribution. base feels too legitimate because coinbase is regulated

how i read this:
- if base launches token with coinbase distribution backing it's instantly top 20 by market cap. maybe top 10. retail will ape because coinbase makes it one-click easy
- base token rumors probably real. coinbase wants to capture more value from the ecosystem they built. token makes sense. incentivizes usage. creates new revenue stream. gives users ownership feel while coinbase maintains control
- the L2 narrative was supposed to be about scaling ethereum. instead it became about who has best distribution channel. base won that competition before it even started
- rollup tech is commoditized now. op stack is open source. anyone can spin up an L2. differentiation isn't technical anymore it's distribution and base has infinite distribution relative to competitors

market will eventually reprice this correctly.

https://x.com/arndxt_xo/status/2011062523936862257

US Macroeconomic Data:
- Producer Price Index (PPI; Nov):
- m/m: 0.2% (prior: 0.3%)
- y/y: 3% (prior: 2.7%);
- Core PPI: 3% y/y (prior: 2.7%);
- Retail Sales (Nov): 0.6% (prior: 0.2%)