Coinbase's John D'Agostino on why inflation comes in waves "I see nothing to indicate that the trajectory of inflation over the next ten to twenty years has changed in any way, shape, or form. If anything, the curve's been exacerbated." "Inflation comes in waves. The bond market and people get angry, and then we do some short term things to adjust it. It kinda cools off." "Even though gas prices are not the majority of consumer spending, we feel it more viscerally, especially in the US, than we do other aspects like food and rent." "When gas prices are low, people feel better. They feel they can still drive, and they can go on vacation. And so, we forget about it for a while." "Then we are reminded of it a decade or so later. So I think that cycle will persist."

Coinbase's John D'Agostino on AI’s spending math "Part of it is just people realizing that the debt capital markets are gonna get shut off to these companies at some point. There's already a few junk rated." "One of the big banks put a report saying they're expecting 50 gigawatts to go online in 2027. If you believe Jensen's number, it's $50 billion a gigawatt." "Let's say you cut his number in half because he's motivated to inflate the value. That number represents in 2027, 96% or so of all tech investment. We're usually about $1.6 trillion." "People just realize this is not possible. It's the same when I would argue with people 5, 6 years ago about Bitcoin's gonna keep going up at 10,000% per year. I'm like, but it can't, because it'll be bigger than the global economy." "People are just saying, don't wanna be the last person on this train. I'm up 100%, 200%. Even if I give up another 50 or 75% run, I won't care because I've done so well, and that's very rational."

Agora's Nick van Eck says GENIUS Act pulled stablecoin demand forward by 3 to 5 years "We obviously operate a stablecoin business. What we've seen over the last year is the asset class is really maturing. Stablecoins and the growth of that sector is completely separate from what is happening in the risk assets of crypto." "With the stablecoin market, GENIUS really pulled forward enterprise demand, I would say, by 3 to 5 years when that passed. And that was the big surprise." "I certainly didn't think we were going to get the most important piece of banking legislation in my lifetime, 6 months into a new president's term, given what had been happening in the prior administration." "We are seeing enterprises across the spectrum race to adopt stablecoins. Whether it's telecom companies, global mobility businesses, traditional hotels." "That market is accelerating and heating up, I would say probably at a much higher rate than what is happening with regards to Bitcoin and other risk assets."

Coinbase's John D'Agostino on why $BTC is holding up "I'm always very hesitant and concerned about describing any asset, whether it's my old days in commodities or Bitcoin or crypto, as non correlated over the long term. Because as we all know, that correlation tends to hop to one at the worst possible time." "The answer to why Bitcoin is trading the way it's trading is just a function of its liquidity level. Like lots of other asset classes, it goes through periods of tighter liquidity, and you have these liquidity gaps." "There's people who postulate that we're gonna have this massive correction in AI and all those hundreds of billions or trillions of dollars of forward investment is gonna shift back into other assets." "If that is what we had seen over the last few weeks, then we would have seen Bitcoin do more than just tread water." "I think it's getting some of the runoff. It's also just beneficiary of thinner liquidity than the AI market. The market's not as large as the AI equities market, and so it takes less to hold it up." "I don't like reading too much into it, but it's nice when we see these handles being held through choppy periods."