Disclosure: The podcast guests in this episode all have significant financial ties to the discussed assets. Qiao Wang's institution holds a large amount of early-stage Web3 projects, with his personal holdings concentrated in US stocks, BTC, and Zcash; Tiki holds S&P 500, government bonds, and a substantial amount of Pokémon physical cards; Justin holds Zcash and Lit airdrops; Jordy holds BTC and Hyperliquid (Hype); Dimma holds Near and Grass; the data shared by FOMO Ventures has a strong focus on customer acquisition and product promotion. This episode faithfully presents the guests' actual holdings and reasoning, and does not constitute independent third-party investment advice. Readers are responsible for their own wallets.
Introduction: This is the return debut of the Steady Lads podcast after four months of silence, coinciding with Bitcoin reclaiming the $80,000 level. Unlike the past discussions on market trends, the highlight of this episode is that several veteran insiders have directly revealed their current real holdings (Portfolio). The results are surprising: in this circle thought to be full of get-rich-quick myths, the truly smart money is either heavily retreating to traditional financial assets or pouring money into a few highly concentrated high-conviction targets, with the vast majority of altcoins being completely abandoned by them.
Key Takeaways
· Deep Dive into the Real Holdings of 5 Heavyweights: The biggest value of this episode lies in puncturing the holding illusion in the circle. Qiao Wang has 70% to 80% of his funds in US stocks, with only BTC and Zcash in crypto assets; Tiki is executing an extreme barbell strategy, holding S&P 500, government bonds, and around $3 million worth of physical Pokémon cards, and clearly stating a bearish view on almost all other tokens; Jordy has a core holding in BTC, retains some Hyperliquid, but admits its valuation is excessive; Justin bought the dip in spot Zcash and retained early Lit airdrops; Dimma holds AI concept coins like Near and Grass.
· Zcash's Decade-Long Bottoming Consensus: Zcash has become a core holding for both Qiao Wang and Justin. The core logic is that its decade-long shakeout has thoroughly cleared out the early investors' selling pressure. Graphically, it has formed a giant bottoming pattern spanning a decade. Compared to chasing high-priced BTC, Zcash, with the same supply but an extremely low price, provides an excellent risk-reward buying opportunity.
· The Harsh Reality of Depleted Meme Token Liquidity: Apart from a few top assets, most tokens have been blacklisted by the guests. In sharp contrast, data shared by FOMO Ventures reveals that approximately 40,000 non-crypto-native users are joining the mobile space daily for Meme coin trading. Retail investors' funds are being consumed through this low-barrier "social game," while traditional classic tokens have been left in the dust.
· Key Disagreement on the Macro Bottom: Regarding Bitcoin's recent significant volatility, Jordy believes that with the USD devaluation narrative, the correlation between gold and Bitcoin has hit a historic high, and funds are swiftly returning. Justin, on the other hand, strictly adhering to the four-year cycle theory, considers it too early to call the bottom at this stage. With an unfavorable risk-reward ratio, he suggests that buying high in Bitcoin is less favorable than investing in AI tech stocks in the U.S. market.
Key Insights Summary
On True Holdings and Defense "About 70% to 80% of my funds are in U.S. stocks, and on the crypto side, I only hold Bitcoin and Zcash. In this high-risk industry where prices can inexplicably plummet by 50% in a single day, you must stay rational." (Qiao Wang) "My strategy is a standard barbell strategy: on one side is the S&P 500 and bonds, and on the other side is my $3 million Pokemon card collection. I am extremely bearish on the vast majority of tokens." (Tiki)
On Zcash's Ten-Year Bottom "Zcash's logic has remained unchanged for a decade, and most importantly, early investors who needed to sell have already done so, while mining rewards have significantly decreased. The buying pressure has finally exceeded the selling pressure." "Look at its long-term chart, which contains three rounded bottoms, nested into a decade-long giant bottoming accumulation pattern. This is the most perfect chart structure you can find."
On the Essence of Mobile Trading "Traditional elimination-style mobile games can earn a billion dollars in a year. Mobile token trading is essentially a game with lower barriers, providing real monetary incentives. Users don't care about which chain is underlying. Yesterday, out of 110,000 daily active users, 90,000 were trading Robinhood chain assets, and 100,000 were on Solana; the user experience is completely seamless."
Part One: Revealing the Real Hands of 5 Crypto Whales: What Are They Buying Besides Bitcoin?
In the latter part of the show, a game called "Reveal Your Briefcase" was played, where these veterans who have been in the crypto market for many years each disclosed their current true liquidity holdings. This set of data brutally proves one thing: smart money has long stopped scavenging in the trash pile.
Qiao Wang (Founding Partner of Alliance DAO): While his firm has a wide-ranging exposure to various emerging Web3 projects, his personal liquidity asset allocation is extremely conservative. He has 70% to 80% of his holdings locked in the U.S. stock market. Among the remaining crypto assets, he has completely abandoned a variety of small-cap coins and only kept Bitcoin and Zcash. In terms of risk-adjusted capital allocation, the amount he has invested in Zcash is even comparable to his U.S. stock holdings.
Tiki: He has implemented the most extreme form of a "barbell strategy" (extremely conservative on one end and highly risky on the other). His conservative end consists of S&P 500 ETFs and U.S. Treasury bonds, while the high-risk end is represented by approximately $3 million worth of Pokémon physical cards. When questioned by other guests, he bluntly stated, "Unless it's a project I got in early, I'm extremely bearish on all tokens currently available in the market."
Jordy: His core holding is Bitcoin, and he has accumulated a significant amount. Regarding altcoins, he retains a portion of his Hyperliquid (Hype) holdings, but he candidly points out that Hype's current P/E valuation has become excessively inflated, with the current price support relying more on retail sentiment-driven buying pressure, which is unsustainable in the long run. Therefore, he has been consistently taking profits on rallies.
Justin: He conducted tax-loss harvesting at the absolute market bottom (around $1) and then bought a substantial amount of spot Zcash. Additionally, he still holds the early-received Lit airdrop, with the current amount accounting for about 80% of the initial allocation.
Dimma: He tends to favor popular narratives among them. He holds some fundamentally supported AI-related tokens such as Near and Grass, while also allocating to a growing early-stage AI token venture portfolio.
II. Why Zcash? A Decade-Long Giant Bottom and Expectations of an "AI Currency"
Among the holdings of these heavyweights, Zcash stands out as the most frequently mentioned and significantly held asset. Qiao Wang provides a comprehensive buying rationale.
Fundamentally, Zcash's core features of privacy and resistance to quantum have undergone nearly a decade of market validation. In terms of the chip structure, the eight-to-nine-year-long shakeout has allowed early institutional investors and the team to fully distribute the chips. With the halving cycle progressing, miner selling pressure has also greatly diminished. Today, the market's new buying power has finally begun to overwhelm the historical selling pressure. In recent days, even with a whale executing a cross-chain asset transfer and selling $50 million worth of ZEC in one go, the market still calmly absorbed it without experiencing a significant price collapse.
From a transactional technology perspective, Qiao pointed out that Zcash has formed an extremely rare long-term structure: several smaller nested rounded bottoms continuously converging into a giant bottoming formation spanning a decade.
Even more imaginative is the valuation comparison. While Bitcoin has made it difficult to provide a hundredfold return for new retail entrants, Zcash has the exact same total supply as Bitcoin but is currently priced at only about one percent of Bitcoin's price. Podcast guests speculated that after Bitcoin secures its position as "digital gold," the market is in great need of a native "privacy AI currency" to capture new capital outflow, and Zcash is quietly occupying this niche.
III. The True Flow of Off-chain Funds: 40,000 Newbies Flocking to Mobile Games Daily
While the crypto community is still fixated on various classical edge tokens, Se, co-founder of the FOMO trading app, presented a set of eye-opening data: they currently acquire approximately 40,000 genuine new users daily from the app store, with the vast majority being non-crypto-native pure newcomers from outside the industry.
Their core user acquisition strategy is through User-Generated Content (UGC) marketing, spending $100,000 to $150,000 monthly sponsoring social media creators. By showcasing real transaction records and materialistic lifestyles, they have successfully broken through the information barrier of the average person.
In terms of product design, FOMO has completely abandoned the complex concept of "public chains." Out of yesterday's 110,000 daily active users, 90,000 traded assets on the Robinhood chain, 100,000 participated in Solana, and 60,000 engaged with Base. Users do not need to switch wallets or perform cross-chain transactions; all assets can be seamlessly traded within the same interface. Additionally, FOMO only charges a 0.5% fee, much lower than Coinbase's retail fee of up to 2.5%.
Se's conclusion is blunt: these token transactions on mobile are essentially a social game with real money incentives. Traditional match-three games earn billions of dollars annually; the crypto industry has repackaged financial speculation into a mobile game, creating a significantly larger and more addictive commercial ecosystem than traditional games.
IV. Macro Debate: With Rate Cut Expectations, Should You Chase Bitcoin's High or Embrace US Stocks?
Regarding Bitcoin's recent massive $20,000 weekly volatility, guests had vastly different expectations.
Jordy believes that as the Federal Reserve shifts towards expectations and with a clear macro-level signal of USD devaluation, the market cannot find a better safe haven asset than gold and Bitcoin. Bloomberg data shows that the price correlation between gold and Bitcoin has reached a historic high, with traditional institutions buying both simultaneously.
Justin, on the other hand, is relatively cautious. He strictly adheres to the four-year cycle theory and believes that it is still too early to confirm the bottom at this stage. He did some calculations: If Bitcoin bottoms out at $60,000 and one buys at the current price, the upside potential is less than double compared to the $125,000 top projected in the previous cycle. In a situation where the risk-reward ratio is unfavorable, he would prefer to allocate this portion of funds to AI tech stocks in the US market.
Whether the market moves to the left or the right, the consensus reached by this group of veterans is very consistent: put money into the most liquid top-tier traditional assets or concentrate on a very small number of assets with solid logic, completely abandoning those fringe assets that lack real value creation capabilities.
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