Ryan Watkins & Monk: Hyperliquid's Future, Trading in 2025, and More | TG Podcast
Ryan Watkins & Monk: Hyperliquid's Future, Trading in 2025, and More | TG Podcast
232 days agothreadguy@notthreadguy
YouTube59 min 39 sec
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Note: AI-generated summary based on third-party content. Not financial advice. Read more.
Quick Insights

Consider investing in Solana (SOL) to capitalize on telegraphed institutional buying pressure from new Digital Asset Trusts (DATs), which are expected to deploy billions into the asset. For long-term growth, Hyperliquid (HYPE) is a high-conviction investment, with its upcoming HIP3 upgrade poised to unlock new markets by allowing the trading of traditional assets. The current market strategy has shifted to favor holding quality projects with strong fundamentals for longer durations, rather than short-term meme coin trading. The significant capital flowing into Solana is also expected to lift its entire ecosystem, making projects like Pump.fun (PUMP) potential secondary beneficiaries. As institutions move beyond Bitcoin, Ethereum (ETH) is positioned as the next core asset to receive major capital inflows.

Detailed Analysis

Hyperliquid (HYPE)

  • The speakers from Syncracy, a major crypto hedge fund, identified Hyperliquid early and consider it a massive success and a core long-term investment.
  • It is the dominant on-chain perpetuals exchange (perp dex), capturing over 90% of the market share on some weeks.
  • The platform's success has led to a valuation between $30 billion and $50 billion, with the speakers noting that people are still excited about its potential.
  • The long-term bull case is that Hyperliquid will "export permissionless trading to the world," offering more asset classes and greater accessibility than centralized exchanges like Coinbase or Binance.
  • A major upcoming catalyst is the HIP3 upgrade, which will allow for the creation of markets for non-crypto assets like U.S. equities, commodities, and pre-IPO companies, all with leverage.
    • This is seen as a way for Hyperliquid to transcend the cyclical nature of crypto markets by attracting users and volume from traditional finance.
    • A key use case mentioned is trading pre-IPO shares of companies like OpenAI with leverage, a product that doesn't exist in traditional markets.
  • The speakers believe its future growth will come from the community and ecosystem building on top of it, rather than just the core team's efforts.

Takeaways

  • Sentiment: Extremely Bullish. The speakers view Hyperliquid as a "generational platform" and a long-term investment, not a short-term trade.
  • Strategy: The discussion suggests a long-term holding strategy. The speakers evaluate their position based on whether the long-term thesis remains intact, not on short-term price movements.
  • Catalyst to Watch: The HIP3 upgrade is presented as a pivotal development. Its successful launch could unlock new markets and user bases, potentially leading to significant growth independent of the broader crypto market cycle.
  • Competition: While new competitors like Aaster are emerging due to the massive market opportunity, the speakers believe Hyperliquid's established ecosystem and network effects create a strong competitive moat that will be difficult for newcomers to overcome.

Solana (SOL)

  • Solana was another major winning investment for the Syncracy fund.
  • The ecosystem is currently experiencing a significant tailwind from the emergence of Digital Asset Trusts (DATs), specifically the one managed by Kyle Samani (Ford).
  • This DAT deployed $1.65 billion into SOL in a very short period, and the manager has signaled that significantly more inflows are planned, with a goal of growing the DAT to a $50 billion company.
  • This is described as a "telegraphed trade," where massive, predictable buying pressure from institutional vehicles is expected to hit the open market, which is fundamentally bullish for the price of SOL.
  • SOL is considered a superior asset for these DAT vehicles compared to Bitcoin because it is a productive, yield-bearing asset. The DAT can stake its SOL or use it in Solana DeFi to earn yield, allowing it to increase its SOL-per-share holdings through on-chain activities, not just financial engineering.

Takeaways

  • Sentiment: Very Bullish. The expected institutional inflows from DATs are seen as a powerful, telegraphed catalyst for SOL's price.
  • Strategy: The discussion implies that being long SOL is a rational position, given the foreseeable institutional buying pressure. Fighting this trend is framed as a low-probability trade.
  • Ecosystem Play: The "rising tide" of capital flowing into SOL is expected to lift the entire Solana ecosystem. This suggests that investors could also look at top Solana-based projects as a way to get exposure to this trend. Projects like Pump.fun (PUMP) and Cards (CARDS) were mentioned as beneficiaries of this positive sentiment.
  • Thematic Bet: Investing in SOL is also a bet on the success of DATs as a new form of institutional investment vehicle and a bet on the growth of the Solana DeFi ecosystem, which will be needed to absorb and utilize the incoming capital.

Ethereum (ETH)

  • Ethereum is discussed as a primary target for Wall Street institutions after Bitcoin. The narrative is that Wall Street sees ETH as a "stablecoin chain," a simple and compelling story for them to invest in.
  • One speaker shared a thesis from late 2024 that ETH would outperform SOL in 2025 due to its longer history (Lindy effect), greater mindshare among institutional investors, and the availability of accessible investment products like ETFs.
  • Like Solana, ETH is a yield-bearing asset, making it attractive for DATs that can stake their holdings to generate returns.

Takeaways

  • Sentiment: Bullish, particularly from an institutional adoption perspective.
  • Strategy: The "Wall Street rotation" narrative suggests that as large institutions move down the risk curve from Bitcoin, Ethereum is the next logical asset to receive significant capital inflows.
  • Relative Value: While the speakers are clearly excited about Solana, they acknowledge the powerful, established position of Ethereum as a destination for institutional capital, making it a core holding for many.

Investment Theme: Digital Asset Trusts (DATs)

  • DATs are publicly traded companies that hold crypto on their balance sheet, such as MicroStrategy (MSTR) for Bitcoin or the new Ford for Solana.
  • These entities have collectively accumulated over $105 billion in crypto assets.
  • Short-Term Impact: They act as a major source of buying pressure for the assets they hold. The speakers describe the expected inflows into Solana as a "telegraphed" trade that is being "shoved in our face."
  • Long-Term Impact: The speakers believe DATs will evolve into "economic engines" for their respective ecosystems.
    • Because they are structurally long and for-profit, they are highly incentivized to put their assets to work on-chain (e.g., staking, providing liquidity in DeFi) to generate yield.
    • This could make them the "Berkshire Hathaway" of their ecosystems—permanent capital vehicles that continuously reinvest and compound value within that blockchain.

Takeaways

  • Actionable Insight: Pay close attention to which assets are being targeted by large, credible DATs. These announcements signal large, predictable inflows that can drive prices. The current focus is on Solana (SOL).
  • Thematic Bet: Investing in assets targeted by DATs (BTC, ETH, SOL) is a way to ride the wave of institutional capital entering the crypto space through traditional market vehicles.
  • Future Watch: The most successful DATs will likely be those run by skilled capital allocators who can effectively manage both traditional financing and on-chain yield strategies. The performance of these DATs could become a major narrative in itself.

Market Outlook & Strategy

  • The market has shifted away from the 2024 "memescope" meta, where trading low-cap meme coins for short-term gains was the dominant strategy. This strategy is now seen as having "passed us."
  • The current market is rewarding investments in projects with real users, revenue, and fundamentals, such as Hyperliquid (HYPE) and Pump.fun (PUMP).
  • The speakers believe the extreme short-term mindset developed during the meme coin craze has hurt many market participants, who now struggle to hold winning investments for the medium or long term.
  • The contrarian trade today is to have a longer-term time horizon and the patience to hold high-conviction investments.
  • Regarding the cycle, the speakers believe we are in the "mid to late" stages but are not at a global top.
    • They argue that the market structure has fundamentally changed with the introduction of ETFs and DATs, which bring in more patient, long-term capital.
    • They also note that unlike in 2021, most altcoins are actually down year-to-date, which is not characteristic of a market peak.

Takeaways

  • Strategy Shift: The optimal strategy is no longer rapid-fire trading of meme coins. It has shifted towards identifying and holding quality assets with strong fundamentals for a longer duration.
  • Psychology: Be wary of the short-termism prevalent on social media. The speakers suggest that the ability to "fix your mindset" and hold investments for months or years is now a key advantage.
  • Market Position: While corrections are expected, the overall outlook remains constructive. The advice is to focus on picking strong, compounding assets rather than trying to perfectly time the top or bottom of the cycle.
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Video Description
Dual interview with Monk and Ryan Watkins from Syncracy Capital! ‼️➡️ https://counterparty.tv 🔴Follow My Socials: Twitter: https://x.com/notthreadguy Twitch: https://twitch.tv/threadguy Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/threadguyy/
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