Think Tech Away, civil engagement lives here. Aloha. Welcome to Sister Power. I'm your host, Sharon Thomas Yarbrough. We need more affordable housing opportunities for local hardworking families. Our topic for this segment, the impact of zoning on housing affordability. Kimberly Marcos Pine never imagined that she would be an elected official, seeing her community neglected by government leaders in the areas of traffic relief, school funding, and crime motivate her to run for office to ensure that the leeward coast would no longer be left behind. Sent her election to the Hawaii House of Representatives in 2004 and now as a member of the Honolulu City Council, her district has received over a billion in funding for new roads, schools, parks, beaches, and various community improvement projects. Tougher crime laws were all so passed. Meet our special VIP guest, Kimberly Marcos Pine, Vice Chair Honolulu City Council. Welcome to Sister Power. Wow, what an introduction. I love this Sister Power show. Oh, me too. Yay! Well, it's a Sister Power who's sitting in the Sister Power seat. We're so happy to have you. Thank you for having me. Yeah, thank you for coming. And for our Sister Power viewers, just tell us, for instance today, it's Thursday, what are your responsibilities as soon as you walk into the office on Monday? What are your responsibilities about zoning and housing affordability? Well, of course, my first responsibility is making sure that my dogs are fed in the morning. The stray cats that I adopted outside are fed in my fish, and most importantly, that my baby girl feels loved, is fed, and gets to school on time. And then from being a mama, then I kind of become the mama of my district and now the entire city to make sure that families can afford to live here in Hawaii. My number one mission in being in politics is to ensure that I can improve your quality of life so you can stay here. A large part of my family lives in Vegas because that's where they can live and afford and be happy. And my dream is to make sure that my daughter's generation doesn't suffer like that ever again. So everything that I do, from every meeting that I do and from morning to the end of the day, is about how do I make people's lives better. I love that. I just had that conversation with a young man and he said, I'm still living at home with my mom and I want to move out on my own. So you're the perfect person to have here this week to talk about affordable housing. It is so needed here in Hawaii. How do you solve affordable housing in parts but focus on the whole? Well, there's several things going on. First, within our own system within the city, we have a very outdated and problematic functioning of our Department of Planning and Permitting. So for example, in a week's time, we're going to finalize a bill to speed up building of single family homes. There are people, for example, a family in Waipahu that just wanted a slightly bigger house for their multi-generational family, but they've waited a year now for that permit. But they still own the house that they live in and that empty lot in Waipahu. And the dad said, you know, Kim, this process is so long that I either have to go bankrupt, sell this property or get another job. It shouldn't be like this. So we're looking at the systems within the Department of Planning and Permitting that has plagued the department for years. We have great staff, but a lot of things have happened over time that has made it very hard to build an affordable house. In the private sector. And second, what we're doing, what we passed, we passed historic legislation where every developer that builds units of 10 or more now must build affordable homes for the people of Hawaii within their development or just outside somewhere, partner with a nonprofit. And so now that is the law that if you're going to build in Hawaii, you're going to help others as well. But we have to do our part to help make sure that it's financially beneficial for you to do that. No one's going to build if they lose money. So we also gave them additional densities and incentives that would speed up the process as well as financial incentives that they build affordable housing. OK, well, so let's just back up a little and break it down to our viewers about zoning and housing affordability. So there's different needs right now. And half of the need for affordable housing is for a family for that makes a combination of $80,000 a year. Half of the units that we need, we need 24,000 units of affordable housing. OK, so that's something that includes the lowest levels of two people that work in McDonald's, any of the house. And so it has it ranges up to 80 percent and mine below the $80,000 family of four. So government is helping for people who make 80 percent and 60 percent and below or $60,000 a year in terms of family of four. But what we're doing is for the family of four that makes the 100 to $120,000 a year, we're asking the private sector to help government a little bit. And so that should be the working class. And then market rate, which is the family of four making $140,000 or more. And those are the people that can afford something, but we need to get some more supply in the middle class area. So it's a little complicated, number wise. I hope I simplified that just a little bit. That is complicated, but, you know, won't it sink in? What I love about sister power shows people, they rewind it and listen to the parts that they don't quite get. So it's all good. What gives you hope in our democratic system? I would have to say, seeing my own experience in government gives me hope. You see, I've always ran against the machine. I remember my first election running against an incumbent. I didn't know what the heck I was doing. I just had a heart for my community and I knew things were wrong. And I went door to door and I talked to people about we can stand up and bring change. We don't have to put up with all of these crime issues, these traffic issues, our schools falling apart, our parks falling apart. We're the bosses here. And I wasn't supposed to win. In my first election, we won by a landslide and the $100 million road that we campaign and fought for that was taken out of the state budget for 20 years. We got in our first year and it wasn't because of anything I did. I told my community if they want that road, they've got to come to the state capitol and fight for it. And people of all walks of life who never gotten government before, they came to the capitol and they backed me up and they fought for this road. They said, okay, who's the chair of the finance communities? Okay, which auntie has a nephew or who knows or is related to this finance chair? And they on their own had relatives. And I think the finance chair's own mother was called. It was friends with another lady from the Ewa Beach area. And if people can understand that they can take care over their government, just district by district, that gives me hope. But they have to know that it can be done. Can't be done. Is that one of your favorite accomplishments? So just maybe one of them or you want to share, like the one with us? Well, we weren't getting enough money for our schools either. And we were able to in that, while I was in the legislature, we were in the top 10 of capital improvement projects out of 51 legislators every year that I've been in office. And it's just really about people backing up your elected politician.  No, you back that person up and you show up when they need you that one person alone can't do this. And that is something that can imagine if there's 51 house districts, if one person in every district gets inspired and inspires 20 people to inspire 20 people, that can start a whole revolution. So when people don't want to vote, they don't want to get involved, I just said, look at me. I was a nobody. I was just someone that had a passion and a spirit to fight for my community. And we won. And you can do it too. You can do it. Keep hope alive. Keep hope alive. I love that. Well, Kimberly, why do you think it's important for women to be on our city council? Well, we had something historic happen this year. OK, tell us about it. Another mama close to my age ran for city council against what I call the machine. And when I say the machine, they're not necessarily bad people. We have all good people. But it's people that have been in power that choose the leaders who lead us. And she was a young mom that was tired of seeing people that she loved, like me, moved to the mainland. And he says, I'm going to put my hat in the ring. Her name is Heidi Sunyoshi. Tell me her name. Heidi Sunyoshi. She won in the primary outright. So for the first time in the history in a very powerful city government in Honolulu, we have four women in the city and county of Honolulu City Council. That's never happened before. So women, young women like my daughter, who's three and a half, they need to see women of all different races and backgrounds and ages in areas not necessarily of power but of influence. So that they can know that they can do whatever they want to do. I never had anyone be my mentor. But I was such a tomboy that I saw men and I saw me as being able to do the same thing that's what my mom just raised me is not seeing gender as being a problem. And I guess because she knew her struggle. Sure. And so it's important that we step forward no matter how hard it is, because it is hard. It's hard. Well, this is a long detail question, but one I think should be asked. Some advocates have conflated affordable and workforce housing. That is combining homelessness, low income and middle class needs together. Does such an approach sufficiently address the complexities of the debate? Or are cities more successful when they address these issues separately? That's a tough question. Yeah, that's a tough one. Because in all those categories from homelessness, low income, to middle class, working class, that's the 24,000 units that we need, with half of them being in the lower level. You have to see the whole picture, because when I look at zoning and housing, if I just help homeless and if I just help the low income, we still have half the people from the middle class to the working class that are not being taken care of. So for example, in Al Moana, when I was doing different high rises, I saw what happened in Kaka'aka where it was just all luxury. Yes. And so I said, this is not the Hawaii that's for local people. This is for some other people coming in and having a part-time residence. You'll see some of the towers at night that are built, there's like maybe eight lights on, right? Everyone else is in another country or somewhere else. And so I said, okay, Al Moana, we're going to do different. So in one building, we have 60 units, all for senior citizens at the lowest income rate. Okay? So even people that were homeless senior citizens, they can go in there as well, because there's benefits that can go with that. Another building, I said, okay, we're going to have our millennials affordable housing. So those new workers that just got out of college, we're going to give you units in this building. And then just down the street, we're going to say, okay, people who want to purchase, okay? Because the other two were rentals. Okay. People who want to purchase at the middle income affordable rate, we're going to have a building that you can get into. So that's how I looked at it. So when I'm looking at the zoning in different areas and say, how do we mix this place up? So we don't just have one type of people in a neighborhood. You've got to integrate kids especially so they can see different types of lifestyles. The lower income residents can aspire to have a college degree when they grow up and get a better job than their parents did. And so this is really something you almost have to look at everything all at the same time. It's a lot more complicated to do, but you can't forget each different category because what's happening and what's happening with all this, the homelessness, especially in my district, so the prices in town went up so the people that used to go to town are now living in IAEA. That prices there went up so then they moved to Ewa Kapolei. The prices there went up, went to Wynine. And so if you don't take care of everyone, the middle class is going to take the lower income homes. We'll hold that thought and we're going to take a small break and take care of that cough with a little water for you. Don't touch that dial. We'll be right back. Thank you. Aloha. I'm Marcia Joyner, inviting you to come visit with us on Cannabis Chronicles, a 10,000-year artist where we explore and examine the plant that the muse has given us and stay with us as we explore all the facets of this planet on Wednesdays at noon. Please join us. Aloha. 皆さんこんにちは。 Big Tech Hawaiiが日本語でお届けするこんにちはハワイの日本語放送のコスト 国主へゆかりです。 各州月曜日の2時からお届けしています。 日本語コミュニティー、ハワイの日本語コミュニティーに便利なお助け情報、ニュースなどをゲストを招きしてお届けする番組です。 こんにちはハワイ。 各州の月曜日2時からぜひ皆さん見てください。 コストの国主へゆかりでした。 Aloha. アロハ。 Welcome back to Sister Power and the title of our episode for today is the impact of zoning on housing affordability. And we have our very special guest, Kimberly Marcos Pine, who's the vice chair of the Honolulu Council. And we've been talking about some very important issues on zoning and affordability. And my question to you, Kimberly, is affordable housing hard to build? It's very difficult to build in Hawaii because your material costs are higher because you're shipping it in. The land costs are higher because there's so little land. And we also have higher labor costs. And so how we've tried to do it is government will do, of course, for the lowest of income. And we have the private sector now helping the middle class and some of the lower income residents. Wow. Yeah. You know, bringing things from across the water, I guess, adds on the costs for everything. Explain inclusionary zoning for affordable housing. Well inclusionary zoning is very similar to what I described and what we had passed earlier. It's not very popular with the development community because, and rightfully so, they say, well, you're making us do these affordable homes. So just making the prices of the other houses and other units higher. And so what we did was we tried to find a middle ground where for every, whenever they do a units of 10 or more, they have to build a certain percentage of affordable housing. But how we made it better than what other cities did, we said, okay, we're going to speed up your permitting process. We are going to fast track some approvals that are normally required. We're going to give you more density so that you can build more units, go make your profit, but still build the units that we can't afford to build alone. What so do you want inclusionary units to be set aside in all new market rate developments or just those of a particular size? Well, actually, we gave people options. It's really the square footage. If they want to do a studio instead of a two bedroom unit, if they feel that the market for their particular product is better for studios, we don't care. It's really the square footage that we want you to provide that equals the amount that by law you have to build. By law? Mm-hmm. All right. Well, tell us about the two, I don't know if they're two new projects. The Nohana, Holly, and Kulana, Holly Housing. Tell us about those affordable housing projects. Those projects are for the lowest level income residents on our island. Some of them will be just homeless straight off the street. But we have some subsidies from the federal government, the city government, the state government that we will provide to help them to have that home.  If you're mentally ill or have health issues, of course, we always want to help those citizens and those people, many of them have access to social security that they had paid up their whole life and just at the end of their life, they've had some issues. So units can go as low as $500 a month. Wow. Now, in the unit, what comes with the unit? Is it a one bedroom, two bedroom, wash and dryer, or do you go downstairs to do your laundry? The laundry rooms will be in a separate area and that's how we're able to afford. In some of these areas, we're combining vying of construction material with other large for-profit companies so that it's more affordable to build. There's studios, there's one bedroom, and in a couple of units, there's just three bedroom homes. And actually, it's more like an apartment. It's not like a single family home. And there's also going to be park areas so that the kids can play and we're going to have access to a lot of things for the kids so that they make sure that they have good after-school programs. But that's good. Have you done an assessment of the housing need across income levels in our community to know how many new units are needed and what level of affordability? Yes. And so there's the 24,000 units that we need just for Oahu. We're not even talking about the Big Island or Maui or any of that. We need 24,000 units in all different affordable categories. For the lowest of income, we need 12,000 units. And sadly, in Alamoana alone, I've really only just did a couple thousand units, but that's a lot more than we used to do. It used to be just 500 total houses a month. And that includes everybody, even the higher income ones. So we've made a lot of strides in this last year that we've been a chair of his owning and housing. And so we really think that our effort combined with the state's effort is really going to help pick up the pace for all these affordable housing units to be built. Well, that's good to know because you are having an event November the 15th, and we have just a snippet of it. And I think that this is a good time if people have additional questions and they can come and meet and speak with you. Tell me about this event on November, is that the... The 13th? Yeah, November 13th. They can come and talk to me at Jay Dynasty restaurant. You know, it is kind of a high end fundraiser, but I want to let you guys know the hint about these fundraisers. It suggests the donation. Oh. You can still come and all my fundraisers, I don't require people to pay. It's like if you can help out, great, but it really is a time for us to celebrate the successes of the four women that are going to be on the council starting in January. And so it's a week after election and we're just going to be kind of you there, answer your questions, and we're just so happy to see you there. Oh, I definitely want to attend that. It's an evening. It's an evening. And what time? It's from five to seven. Five to seven. So right after work, you can just stop right by Dynasty and meet and greet and chat with you and give you some ideas and we can learn from each other. Yes. I would love to have that. And I'm very excited. I know a lot of women in Hawaii felt very sad that some of the top female candidates didn't win. Yes. But the Honolulu City Council is kind of the sleeper that no one knew about. All these women were fighting in their own areas and not winning because they're women. They're winning because they were smart, they were hardworking, and they love the people that they represent. And that is how they got elected, and they're going to bring a different type of leadership to the city council. Well, I'm excited. Are there other factors I'm not taking into consideration that I should be on this issue? Is there something that I'm not asking that you would like the public to know about that is close to your heart, that's a passionate issue that you want to let the sister power view of this know about? Well, in terms of affordable housing, I want to let them know that we are making a lot of gains. And to not lose hope that you're not going to be able to stay in Hawaii, we're doing a lot of stuff to make sure that you stay here, and we're not there yet, but we're heading in the right direction in terms of women leaders. I just want to encourage everyone to take that chance to know that you're the best person to run, not this other person, and you don't have to have any experience whatsoever. You just have to be strong in what you believe in, love the people that you want to represent, and just go for it. You don't have to have all of these lobbyists backing you and these big money people, because I didn't have that in my first race. Who was your role model? I didn't have one. She didn't have one? I didn't have one. I just had to make my own because there weren't any real women leaders when I was growing up.  I wasn't supposed to win, but we surprisingly won because the people helped us to get there. Tell us your districts. My district right now in the Honolulu City Council is from Ewa Beach, Kapolei, Kaila Loa, Makakilo, all the way to Waianae and Makaha. Beautiful areas. And Koalina. And Koalina, one of my favorite places. How might and can cities in the position of Honolulu create policies that address scarcity in affordable housing? Well, I think what we've been doing is making sure that we build more in the urban core where all of our transportation systems are at. And what we're doing now, too, is we are looking at ag land for our ag workers. That's something that I forgot to mention early on, not to build these luxurious homes like those fake farms, but this is actually for agricultural workers. And so what cities have done is they've done the inclusionary zoning where they failed was not giving the incentives to developers to actually build. So a lot of development stopped all across. And even on Honolulu, when our inclusionary zoning was not incentivizing the developers to build. So they would just sit on land. And so we're doing a lot of things incentivize people to build more housing. This has been so informative, Vice Chair Kimberly Marcos-Pine. And we're coming to a close. Oh, I was so fast. I was so fast. We just have to come back and talk in November the 13th. We can chat with you more. And thank you so much for taking the time to stop by and educate us about zoning and housing affordability. Finally, Sister Power is coming to a close now. And I wanted to chat about very briefly that we only have five days before we are to vote. And that is just something that I want everyone to get out, get your children out. If you need to carpool or whatever it takes, if you get out there and vote on November 6th, we can change the world. Yes, we can. We can. And so again, thank you for spending part of your day with Sister Power Aloha.


Good day fellow investors and welcome to the weekly stock market news with a fundamental twist. Today we are going to discuss potential and actual GDP numbers. Then we are going to talk about Japan to see how the situation there has evolved over the last 30 years. Then we are going to look at where could that situation that unstable financial system crack first because that's very important if you want to start a hedging strategy and then we're going to finish by discussing how a YouTube video can erase 40 million in market capitalization. This means that also Wall Street is not that big as we imagine it to be. So let's immediately start with this chart here. You see the blue line is the potential GDP, what can be produced if all the inputs are used and employed. And you can see the actual GDP that goes sometimes over the potential creating inflationary pressure and is often below the potential GDP especially after recession. And we can see that now finally after eight years the actual GDP has crossed over the potential GDP. This means that every input every factor that the economy has in this case the US economy is employed which means this is the sustainable level of an economy. This also means that we are closer and closer to recession. So always remember one thing the economy nature human nature the economy always works in cycles. Don't forget about the cycle even if everything looks well everything is employed now capital labor everything looks perfect but don't forget that the economy has always been and will always be a cycle. So we will see again a recession somewhere. The only important thing is that the economy grows cyclically but it grows and that's very very important. However that's not the case everywhere there is the US which is usually discussed but there is also Japan where the situation is a little bit different. Let's see the first issue that Japan has which is of course demographics. If we look at Japan in 2010 it reached peak population with 128 million inhabitants which is expected to fall to 86 million in 2016 and it is already falling. And you can see here how the percentage of children has dropped from 40% in the 1960s to the current 18% and will drop even to 14% in the future. The working age population the 20 to 64 year olds had peaked in 1990 and has been declining ever since. However the 65, 74, 75 year population has been surging. And this is a perfect example of a country that will not grow anymore. It can grow artificially but no population no immigration no growth it doesn't lead to good times. And we can see that the Japan GDP growth rate has been anemic for the past 15 years. When there was growth it was very very slow sometimes here and there in a quarter it would hit 2% but usually it is around zero or negative. What is the Japanese government doing? They are piling, piling on debt because of course in the 1980s debt was smart because it was a growth economy. Now debt is to pay for the social securities, to pay for the elderly people, to pay for the development whatever. But if you have less people the only way is to get into debt and hoping that somebody will pay that debt eventually. But with less people it's very very difficult. So Japan is really an example of an unsustainable economy. And this is also a very interesting chart. This is the Nikkei stock index, the Japanese stock index and you can see how it was around 10,000 points in 1985 then it spiked in a bubble to almost 40,000 only to crash to 15,000 and then in 2002 to crash below again to 10,000. Then it spiked up to almost 20,000 then it crashed again in the financial crisis and now it's again from 10,000 it's touching 20-22,000. Now what is the reason behind this spiking prices? Of course the Bank of Japan has been printing money, has been buying assets, has been buying stocks, ETFs and of course the Japanese market has to go up. If we check this chart total assets of the Bank of Japan in trillions have risen about fivefold since the financial crisis. Now somebody would think okay they are printing so much money this means that their currency should fall in value because if there is so much more of a currency it has to lose its value. However if we look at the dollar and the Japanese yen index over the last 20 years we could almost draw a stable line with short-term fluctuations. The Japanese yen was lower in 2012 to 2015 but then it regained its strength. Now how come that if a bank is printing so much money if the economy is looking really bad, if the demographics are looking really bad, the budget deficits are really really terrible? How come that the yen didn't lose value? Well because the same situation is in the US, big budget deficits, central bank printing money, the same situation is in Europe so the situation is unstable in most developed countries and it all evens out in their currencies over the long term. So they are capable of printing a lot of money because all the others are doing the same. I wonder where the system will crack first? One hint perhaps I still have to analyze but it's very interesting to look at is of course Italy and the upcoming elections. Here you have the opinion polls for the upcoming elections in Italy. You have Democrats in red, let's say the right wing party in the blue and the comedians party, yes comedians party in yellow. And you can see how public opinion is very very volatile. They can lose a lot of percentages in just a few months and others gain. This means that nobody knows what will happen in Italy in 2018, 2022, 2019. Who will go into coalition? Will they want to get out of the European Union? Will they want to remain? Will the Germans want to remain in the European Union? So it's a very very fragile system there and if you look at the spread between the Italian five-year bond and the German five-year bond it is extremely extremely low. So the risk of Italy with its deficit budget with everything that's going on there, high unemployment is very close to the German risk which is of course unsustainable and unrealistic and shows again that we are living in a distorted market. When it is going to crack I don't know but there are definitely some hedging opportunities which we are going to look in deeper with time to take advantage of the situation or at least to de-risk our portfolios. So that that will be something very interesting to play with and to see how we can protect ourselves from the unsustainable financial systems out there. Now the third part of this news and perhaps the most interesting, this is again the chart of a mirror nature foods. They published their earnings on first day pre-market. We analyzed the earnings. The market wasn't so happy. There was immediate selling as the trading opened and then the stock stabilized for a while and then somewhere in the evening one hour, two hours before the market closed a video came out by yours truly and the stock dropped another dollar. So if we calculate that Amira has 40 million shares the stock dropped a dollar after the video came out so we erased with the video 40 million of market capitalization. This has led me really to think about what I do with the channel, how I do it and whether what I do is good. What I do is I look at companies, I do my research, I share my research and I share my opinion. I never thought that I could do bad with it and some I have received a lot of private messages that why did I release the video, that I should time my releases better, that I should be careful with what I do because I move markets. Then I really thought about it. Okay, I move markets but I just share my research. Is that my fault or Wall Street fault? And then I really looked at okay Amira is a small cap, the free float is extremely small and it is very easy that the stock price swings a lot. So in my next videos I will continue to share my research analysis and everything but I will really warn you when we talk about the company that has a low float or is very very volatile or a small cap because even if we think the market is efficient we have seen the impact of one video which is really really crazy. I never thought that that would be possible but when you think about it there are 40 million shares 75% owned by the CEO 10% by fidelity so there is 15% or 6 million shares in free float. 6 million shares times four dollars is 24 million dollars. If we put our money together we could buy the 24 million dollars very easily and that's why the fluctuation is there so high. So I will be more careful however I won't stop discussing I just share my opinion that's nothing illegal so I will just continue sharing my opinion I think I'm not doing anything bad imagine what would have happened if I would have been right if there would have been an improvement in revenues if Amira would have taken advantage of the improvement situation in the Basmati rice environment Amira would have had higher profits and let's say that there wasn't the issue with the receivables they would have had 75 million in cash on their balance sheet 75 million two dollars per share Amira would be at 15 so that was the positive upside okay we missed I hope we'll find better ones the downside unfortunately was there because Amira missed our expectations we say next we'll find better perhaps Amira will improve in the future perhaps the situation in India with the payments will improve so I don't know however be careful always I will try to emphasize it with small caps with the liquidity and with the issues that that can create however don't worry there will be plenty of research and what I learned is that there is one catalyst with these small caps it is cash there is no institutional coverage for Amira but there is one thing that everybody looks at and that is cash if Amira would have been able to create cash on the balance sheet the story would have been much much different so we're going to still focus on small caps and on small caps that create cash because that's the trigger that will shoot up stock prices so thank you for watching I'm looking forward to your comments this is a very very interesting topic and I'll see you in the next video


Welcome to MRI Onlines, section on renal masses. I'm here with my colleague, Dr. Pina Fennazo, an expert on body imaging. We're going to talk about how you use MRI to approach lesion in the kidney and why you would use MRI. We're going to begin with a 69-year-old man. He's got a history of bladder carcinoma, and he's got a few renal masses which you would call quote, unquote, cis. Now just a little bit of background. Renal cell carcinoma is the most common malignant epithelial tumor. It accounts for 90% of all solid renal tumors. So you think solid, CT, no big deal. I can figure that out. Why do I need an MRI? On the other hand, 70% of all renal cell carcinomas are clear cell carcinomas. And when you think clear, you think cytoplasm. When you think cytoplasm, you think water. When you get close to water density, things get a little bit dicey on CT and MRI. So why would you need an MRI? And let's illustrate it with this case. So the most classic example of why we go to MRI is really to determine, number one, is their enhancement. And while that seems like such an easy task for us to do, it's sometimes very difficult. And we tend to start off with CT imaging. And so basically, what are the criteria we use to determine whether something is purely a cyst and can be ignored? We start off with Hounfield units. So being able to put measurements and region of interest curves on a lesion can help us determine if it's a cyst or not. Anything less than 20, we can confidently ignore it. Anything greater than 90, we can say is a hyperdense cyst and we can confidently ignore it.  But one caveat is most residents think I need a Hounfield unit of zero to say it's water. But 20 is the cutoff, right? 20 is the cutoff. But we're faced with a few dilemmas and pitfalls that we need to know. First of all, we need to classify that in the unenhanced CTs. And nowadays, we're either doing base CT imaging, which is the non-contrast, or we're just doing post-contrast imaging. So when we get a lesion like this, if you see in 2017, the lesion looks like it's maybe about seven or eight millimeters, and now you look at it in 2019 and it's slightly larger. We did Hounfield units on it, and the Hounfield units was 50. So the question here is, it's an indeterminate lesion, it's grown, it's about a centimeter. Should we ignore it? Should we watch it? What do we do with it? And we don't have a base unenhanced CT to determine if it enhanced or not. And that's one of the classic reasons why we're asked to evaluate somebody for MRI. And that would have been helpful to have a base non-enhanced CT. I don't know that we do them in every single case, but it is helpful to have a pre and a post, especially when you're making that evaluation. Another caveat in this case is the patient in 2017 had a round, smooth, close to water density mass on the left side, and that one got smaller. And it's not uncommon for cysts to shrink. Sometimes they grow a little bit. I've even seen them have a little bit of hemorrhage with a little hemosteterin around them over a period of time, so they can change. So change alone is not a criteria necessarily to say something as malignant. So as we know Bosnia criteria has held the test of time and size of a lesion isn't a sign or a characteristic that changes the classification of mass. It's the morphology. So the fact that a lesion gets bigger or smaller isn't a criteria. And like you said, it's the morphology that we're looking for. So that's one reason why we order MRIs to look at enhancement versus non enhancement. So is it easier on MRI to see, to rule out, rule in enhancement? We have other tools we can use, which we'll go about in the next vignette, but some caveats we need to know about this when we're faced with these types of lesions is understanding that with the new multi-detector CT scanners, we're, and there's an increased count in scatter. So because of that, we have a lot of pseudo enhancement. So we have to use criterias of when we see a lesion what's considered enhancement. And enhancement is greater than 15 hound field units between the pre and the post. So when you're lucky enough to have a pre-contrast and a post-contrast, you take the post, you minus the pre, and if it's more than 15%, then it's enhancing. And they even have on MRI, they've got something called the signal index, and we can talk about that a little bit later. But so just to summarize, we use MRI because it's better at seeing true enhancement. There's less artifact, especially when you subtract, which we'll talk about. So enhancement is an important criteria. Hounds field unit measurements, below 20, great. Above 80, 90, 70, getting a little nervous. Between, in that intermediate no man's land, you need another tie breaker to help yourself out. And then you've also got not size so much, but shape. A nice smooth round lesion certainly pushes you in the direction of a nine lesion. Let's move on, shall we? Yes. Okay.


Hello everyone and welcome back to Market Talks. I'm Ray, head of Markets at Cointelegraph. Here we discuss the latest in what's shaping the markets with valuable insights from industry leaders, traders, and influencers. Today's guest is Mohit Saru. Mohit is a co-founder of BitAzoo Capital, which is a proprietary algorithmic trading and investment management platform. He also writes for Hackernoon and Medium. His interests include technology, Bitcoin investing, and market analysis. I was drawn to him because he's always posting on his Twitter different charts and on-chain data and his insights on market momentum, market structure analysis, Bitcoin halving cycles, and all that. So I think today's convo is going to be great. Mohit, welcome. Hi Ray, thank you. Thank you for having me on the show. Thanks for coming. We finally got you on. It's been a while.  There was the flu. I got COVID. We had tech gremlins. FTX rugged us all. Then the winter holidays happened, but it's a new year now and we made it. Yes, yes. It's been a, it's been some ride, right? 2022. Yeah. Yeah, it started off bright on a good foot. So happy new year.  Happy new year to you as well. Is there an expiration date on that? I kind of wonder, like, when do you stop saying happy new year to someone? Is it on the 5th of January? Is it by the end of the first week of January? What's the rule on that? That's an interesting point. I never really thought about it like that. I hadn't either, but I was dropping my kid off at daycare this morning and it's the first time this year that I'm seeing some of those people and it's like, okay, today's January the 5th. I think I'm okay to say happy new year to them, but if I see someone next Monday, maybe it's too late. So it's kind of like Christmas lights. They're still on my house. Yeah, there's a deadline. So my Christmas lights are still up and I was looking at them last night because they're on a timer. They go off at 12. So I was looking at them and I was like, I wonder, you know, is it time for me to turn these off and take them down? I went and looked out of the window at the front of my house to see if my neighbors had their lights on and a few of them did.  Like we're real reluctant here in Texas to let go of the holidays. So anyway, all small talk aside, what have you been up to lately? Mostly been traveling, but then FDX happened. So we had to shuffle some of our accounts. So like a lot of funds were there on FDX. So the remaining funds we had to shuffle and then, you know, had to do some restructuring. Apart from that, just spending some time with family, the new year just went by. So spend some time with family barbecuing at home. So it's been nice. It's cold here in New Delhi. But yeah, it's good. It's nice. Good, good, good. I guess before we jump into talking about trading and markets, what's your background in finance and with trading? So I am technically an engineer. I did my graduation from an engineering college called Delhi College of Engineering. I have never really studied finance, you know, never traded any markets except for the crypto markets, which I've been doing so for the past five years now. Yeah, started in 2017. And here we are. Yeah, yeah, it's funny how people fall into crypto. I think in the last few years, two or three years, we saw all the traditional finance guys get interested in crypto and jump into it and bring that skill set that they have. But those of us that have been around since like 2017 and before don't necessarily have that background and training and finance. And I kind of think it's interesting that playing around with crypto helps you to build a deeper interest and kind of learn basic economic theory and trading skills over time, trial by fire, right? Oh, yeah, definitely. There's this whole new crop of young people who never really knew anything about finance, who got into crypto, and then they learned how actually money works. At least for me, that was my journey. I never really knew how money works or what is the underlying value of gold, for example. And once you get into it, you start thinking, you start learning stuff that they never teach you in school. Exactly. Yeah, I'd say my kind of journey is similar to yours. So what would you say is your skill set or your trading style or your approach to crypto markets? So basically, being a techie, I have some edge when it comes to automating trading strategy. So I do enjoy making discretionary trades as well. But I stick to longer term trades where a profitable trade is held for months, whereas the losers, they get cut early fast. I also have edge in position sizing and aggressively compounding when there is a confirmed trend according to my model. So it's a very ground up approach when it comes to trading crypto for me. I learned everything in the markets and none of it is theory. Everything is just practice.  I would say purely charts and volatility or lack thereof, coupled with the strong fundamental catalysts. Very selective about that. For example, if you remember last year, there was the ETH Ethereum merge that happened. So there was a trade there. So in anticipation of the fork, you could buy spot and short the futures early on. So doing that, you could later cover the futures because the futures would tip because everyone would start shorting it because later on you're going to get the ETH POW chain coin for your spot holdings. So if you caught that trade early on, it had a good return without really any major risk. Yeah. So these are the fundamental trades that I prefer taking where there's really high conviction behind the trade. Yeah, I concur with you on that. I know a lot of institutions and market makers were interested in that trade also being spot long and staking and then hedging with a short position. So what was funny was I had set up a similar structure and the whole narrative came around about the proof of work airdrop that we were going to get. So it was interesting to watch that trade unwind as people started to close those hedges. But then when we got the proof of work token, it was terrible. The proof of stake token was horrible. It didn't do anything. So the money I thought I would get out of holding on to ETH and not thinking it was going to be a buy the rumor, sell the news type thing. It didn't work out so well. I didn't even cash out those silly little tokens or any of that. You're right. You need to be early on. Yeah. So what's your current view of Bitcoin's market structure and price action from the daily or weekly timeframe? What's standing out to you most at this moment? So from a weekly timeframe perspective, let me show you a couple of charts. So there is this really interesting chart posted by someone on Twitter. So this has been my day on weekly timeframe. So what standouts here is the cleanliness of the signals that you can see back on the chart right from 2012 when there was a bullish crossover then in 2015. So all these crossovers happened when the Magdi was in negative region and right now one of them happened before the FTX collapse. So in my view, the FTX collapse actually led to a price dump which is definitely going to mean revert to its original state and then probably go much higher. But yeah, this particular indicator stands out to me a lot. What would that mean? Reversion be price wise? So before the crash, we were actually trading around 19K and excuse me. The dump to current levels was probably not supposed to happen, wouldn't have happened if not for the collapse. Now that it has happened, I think there's a strong case to be built here for the price to go back up to the 20K levels. And once it goes there, I don't think it's going to stop right there. It's going much higher from there. So in your view, what would it take for that 19 to 20K level to become support? And on the flip side, we know that a lot of people thought that it was like, oh, YOLO, let's buy the dip at 30K, let's buy the dip at 20K, let's buy the dip at 15K. So you've probably got people that approaching break even when they get to 19, 20K. You've got people that were at a loss and ready to just cut and run. And 19, 20K is an acceptable level for them to cut that loss. So wouldn't you expect to see a bit of sell pressure at that 19, 20K level? It's also a psychologically important level for some reason. So what do you think? What will it take to flip that to support so that we can retest it and then have price continue on the upside? So yeah, I kind of agree with you that 19 to 20K level is going to pose some selling pressure. But there's also a theory that I have that a lot of participants in the market now are conditioned to or sell. Expects price to go down or everyone is conditioned to short bounces. Okay, now 20K is coming, cool. I'm going to sell that level because Bitcoin is going lower. The first real resistance that is going to come is around 30K in my opinion. 20K might see some selling pressure. But the fact that price has spent so much time here, volatility has contracted so much. So the further price stays here, the stronger the end swing move will be in my opinion. I heard this narrative when volatility was at a record low about maybe five or six weeks ago. And all the firms, Delphi Digital, Arcane Research, Coin Metrics, every single crypto influencer that you can find on Twitter is saying, oh, volatility is at a record low. The Bollinger bands are tighter than ever and prices suppressed and Bitcoin open interest keeps rising. The super guppy is constricted. These are all signs that a strong directional move is imminent, most likely to the upside. And then when we did get that volatility spike, it was to the downside. And I think it was FTX or SBF that triggered that. So I'm curious about record volatility not always culminating with a bullish move. But of course, I know it's hard to determine direction. So on this chart that you posted, the one week chart with the logarithmic Bitcoin price action and the MACD, where the MACD is like, when it's converging that signal line in the MACD line, and you have these kind of like vertical lines that are going across each convergence or each crossover, is that aligned with when the Bitcoin halving takes place? Or are you just notating when a crossover occurred? It's not the halving, it's just the crossover that happened. It's showing on the price chart, so the vertical line is showing the date when the crossover happened and where the price was. So mostly you will see the price was contracting and then a big move came. With the exception of 2015, of course, the price eventually moved up, but it took a lot of time to move up. And again, 2008-2003, there was some contraction and then the MACD crossover happened and then the price moved up. Again, this year the crossover happened, the price actually fell off a bit from 19K to current levels, but the crossover is still valid. And apart from this, there is one more indicator that I will show you. It's a pretty simple Hull Suite, which has, again, really strong signal. If you can see the chart here, there was this one false signal here in 2013. Then the point here, there was this long bear market and here you can see green here and then one more false signal in 2015, September. But it has been green throughout this rally. Again, looking back at the 2018 bear market, once the prices fell, the Hull turned green after the scandal and then again there was a rally. So now after a prolonged down period where the Hull has been mostly red, you will see on the weekly chart now it's about to turn green. So this current week will confirm a green Hull, which is a good signal on a higher time frame. Yeah, that is just a really hypothetical question. How long do you think price would consolidate? Because with the Hull, with the GMMA, with the Bollinger bands, with any indicator that gives you that signal and it flips green, it doesn't mean like, okay, time to go perm along 100X, right? They're still typically, historically, a long period of price consolidation. So what's your kind of estimate? Okay, that's a really great question, which one I have? Yeah, this one. So this is a volatility indicator that we have built for trading. And I will show you some of the levels. So right now on the daily chart, we are here, right? So let me quickly draw online. Yeah. So now you'll see this level. The last time volatility was here was 2018, right? And if we zoom in there, the wall spent around 2nd November till 13. So that's about 10 days, right? So here, we spent around 10 days and then a big move came. Similarly, you will see one more level, a really interesting level here. Okay. Now, this went a little longer. So 22nd September and the move, the move actually started coming earlier, but for the sake of simplicity, let's take this level, 27 October, right? So that's about a month or slightly more than a month. So and there's one more level even further, if you want to see, yeah, here it is in 2016, 3rd April, and then it crossed up 15 April. So about 12 days, and then a little move came and then the bigger move came here. So if I have to quantify using the data I have, I would say a worst case scenario, price console keeps consolidating here for another maybe 30 days. And then there's a strong case for a big move. It may be to the downside, it may be to the upside. The probability for a down move for me is lower. I'm betting on a move that takes us higher. But there's definitely a big move coming and within the next 30 days, according to the models that we have. Right. Thanks for explaining that in such detail. That's helpful. Do you have any concerns or have you considered that maybe this time it's different when you're looking at this fractals and backtested data and like a lot of confluence between these momentum indicators? Of course, we have to like go back and remember that Bitcoin was born during a period of monetary expansion. Bitcoin was born during the 12-year cycle of quantitative easing. Easy money, money was printing, interest rates were at zero, and risk on assets thrived off that. So when we look at like all these precedents and historicals, which give us guidance on how we make our analysis for the here and now, do you worry that things are different? Now interest rates are high, inflation's high. The Fed's targeting like 4.5 to 5%, right? They're not going to hit that 2% like inflation rate that they want. It looks like we are on the verge of a recession. Do those things factor into your thesis on Bitcoin and make you call into question kind of the validity of all that backtested data that you just shared with us? That's a great point because and it's one of the most valid points as well because at the end of the day, you have to look at what's happening around the world, right? And there is no doubt that Bitcoin has been highly correlated with the macro markets for a while and especially when volatility drops that happened earlier as well. So especially when volatility drops, it becomes tightly correlated with these markets. So that's one thing. The other thing that you mentioned about inflation rates and the upcoming recession, it's really subjective to me when it comes to the theoretical part but whereas when you look at some data as to what is happening in the books. So for example, I'll pull up data for you at this one. So this has been quite interesting for me. So this is the COT report, commitment of traders report that is published for S&P 500, right? So the interest again, you might say that I'm looking at historical data, right? But as a trader, that's my bread and butter. So I have to kind of do that when taking bets in the market. Yeah, so if you look at this chart back in 2015, then so okay. So this chart basically shows the speculative net positions in the market in the books. So not people, not what people are saying, but what people are actually doing in the books, right? So in 2015, everyone was net shot around October and November for S&P 500. And then the same happened in 2020. And that has been happening right now. In 2020, you're right, the monetary regime was different then. But the people betting their money in the markets, the nature of humans is still the same. People were net shot then. And I'll show you how the price structure looked then back in 2015, September, October. I have something wrong from earlier. Yeah, your XPS chart looks like mine. While you're bringing that up, I made the mistake during the bull market of not keeping an eye on SPX and Dow and DXY and only focusing on crypto. So by doing that, I didn't see the top and the reversion and trend and was trapped in many crypto positions. So seeing that chart's given me kind of like, it's reminding me to always keep that up on my trading view, which has broken into eight different charts all at once. But anyway, continue, sorry. So it's great that it works for you because honestly, I don't have a massive edge studying the macro conditions. So it has never really worked for me. So I try to stick to the crypto charts when trading my capital. So yeah, here is the here is September for the short spiling and September, October is basically this region. So the market dumped and then there was a little bounce and then it dumped more. And within a few months, the market rallied higher. And I think there was something similar in 2020 as well. Yeah, March, April. Yeah, this is where the shots started piling in this region. And then the market rallied. And now the shots have been piling since seven, which is August, July, July. Yeah. So this region has completely been overpowered with net short positioning. I failed to see how prices can go lower from here, honestly, with the traders positioned the way they are. I don't really see further loads from here. I may be wrong, but that is what my analysis says. Right, right, right. And I guess if you were to connect that to like Fed policy in terms of it's possible that they're running out of time rates or I forget what they're there might be like 3.75% right now or four. So if the terminal rates like 4.5 or five, then and in terms of like the size of every percentage rate hike, and then we have a presidential election year coming up and you know, the public is only going to accept high inflation and rising interest rates for so long. The feds in a way kind of running out of time, right, which would call into question, are interest rate hikes going to get smaller? Will they eventually cease? Will the narrative on why interest rates are rising or why inflation has sticky and high change? And how will that impact public sentiment? Those could all impact in like market sentiment. So I understand your thesis on why you think we shouldn't see a much sharper sell off in the markets, at least in the short term. That makes sense to me. Yeah, it's a really interesting situation. Yeah, it is. I like your process too. Finding what works to you honing that strategy and sticking to it. So doing what works, whether it's conventional or unconventional, as long as you're making money, that's all that matters or as long as you're not blowing up your portfolio, that's all that matters. So you mentioned record low volatility for Ethereum also. And a recent report from Arcane Research also showed the same like record multi-year low volatility for Bitcoin. So is your thesis on Ethereum and your view on Ethereum, I think it's probably the same as Bitcoin, just based off of some tweets and charts that you've posted. But how do you feel about Ethereum? I feel like Ethereum is more of a fundamentals-based trade than a technical analysis-based trade. So what makes you feel good about Ethereum or what concerns you about Ethereum? So the really good thing about Ethereum is that just like any other technology, so there has to be really solid code behind Ethereum, but then it has finance built into it as well. So there is literally zero margin for error and Vitalik and the team have done a really good job behind Ethereum. The one thing that really stands out is that they deliver, they might take time, but they deliver and that's important. Plus, the community of developers that is there on Ethereum is unparalleled. I think only Solana comes close to it when comparing the developer community behind the chain. And especially now that staking has come for Ethereum, that's another driver of buyers coming in when the sentiment turns positive. So let's say the prices start rallying in the future. And as opposed to sellers of Ethereum coming in the market from their unstaked ETH, I believe that more and more people would not want to sell their ETH. Instead, they would want to stake it. So everyone would just pile on their ETH and stake their ETH, which would again just create a loop of positive price action and take the prices higher. So Ethereum is an asset that I'm quite bullish on apart from Bitcoin because of these reasons, apart from the technicals as well. You talked about one of my artists there, which talks about the low volatility regime that we are seeing. Yeah, here it is. So I posted it a few days back. It's the same model that I showed on Bitcoin, whereas for Ethereum, it is the lowest ever that we have seen. And that means something for us. So technically, prices have contracted here for too long. The lower probability scenario is that it goes down. But again, I'm a crypto bull. So I think that Ethereum is going to rally and the move will be really strong just based on this volatility regime that we are seeing right now. Right. I feel like personally, I feel like Ethereum is a good trade, a better trade than Bitcoin right now if your purpose is to just make some money, not necessarily increase your position size in Ethereum or in Bitcoin. So because from my view, I see like the sharpest downside being 1,000, which has been tested multiple times, like 1100 to 1,000. The worst case scenario being a drop to like 750, right? In which case like I'm already hedged. So it doesn't matter. I'm spot long and short at the same time. So I don't care. I'm going to stack more spot Ethereum and then be happy with my short, right? And then on the upside, I could see price running to like 1,700 to 2,000 and then rejecting there and either going down to retest underlying support or finding support at 2K and then consolidating there for a long time again. So for me, it's like I like that trade setup from pure just trading technical analysis, not thinking about the long term of the actual asset and the network. But one thing I do wonder about is with Shanghai opening unlocks for people to unsteak, do you see like a swell of sell pressure coming from that event? If prices turn south, then there's definitely going to be some snowball effect, in my opinion. But even so, in that scenario, I don't see prices going down and staying there for a long time. The worst case scenario that I have in mind is probably a V reversal. So price go down and then they don't really spend a lot of time there and then they come back up. And of course, the best case is that prices just start rallying from here. Either ways, I don't see people selling their eats that they get from unsteaking their Ethereum. In fact, I see more people staking their Ethereum in the future because staking is going to be a big rage in the coming future. And this is the biggest change, like there were smaller chains in the past that were doing it and people were crazy for that. Now this is Ethereum, like the most, you know, after Bitcoin, this is the chain. So yeah, I think people are going to stake a lot, further stake more of their eats in the future. Right, we got a question from someone in the audience, Enigma Vision. When can ETH 2.0 stakers unsteak from Merge? I think that's with Shanghai and March of this year, right? Yes, yeah, that's the tentative date, but it's most probably going to get pushed a little later. Yeah, and if they push it, like FUD, you know, like all the Bitcoin Maxis and Ethereum haters will be like, oh, this is just a ploy from the Ethereum Foundation and Vitalik to Delay the Inevitable, which is the demise of Ethereum, blah, blah, blah, scam, scam, scam, you know, rug, rug, rug, right? Yeah, I'm sure that would happen. Yeah, it will happen sooner, soon, like if not March, then probably this year it will happen. April, May, June, July or September. Okay, one other question about ETH before we move on. So Ethereum staking, you can get like 3% at Coinbase, you can get 4% elsewhere, 4.5%, it fluctuates sometimes at 6%. We know the model is meant to turn emissions deflationary when the network's seeing like more use and daily active users and a lot of transactions and with that, perhaps staking rewards increase. It's possible with unstaking that we'll see more DeFi protocols develop staking offerings that are more lucrative than Rocketpool or Stakewise or Frax or Lido, which I think is a bullish thing for Ethereum long-term. But on the flip side, we're in a risk-off climate. Cryptocurrencies are super volatile, clearly correlated with what equities markets do. So interest rates are up. And I was just looking at some personal investment things this week. And I found that CDs, short-term dated CDs and short-term treasuries, three months to six months are paying like 3.7 to 4.8%, which in some cases is higher than what Ethereum offers, minus the volatility, minus the rug risk, minus the tax implications, minus all the risk that comes with crypto, all of that anything could happen, Black Swan event type stuff. So why should people, and we know inflows are muted, like actual money inflows into crypto are still pretty depressed right now. So why should people be paying attention to cryptocurrency right now when they can get a safer, guaranteed return from certificates of deposit and from treasuries, whether it be like US treasuries or even like foreign currency-denominated treasuries? So essentially, the way I look at it, there are two kinds of people who would stake in a chain like Ethereum. So the first category would be people who want to stay invested for a really longer term. Let's say I'm quite bullish on Ethereum and my spot holdings, I am comfortable holding them for probably five years or six years, something like that. Now that my thesis is that I'm bullish on Ethereum, the prices are going higher and then I think to myself, okay, why not own some money on this asset which is just lying there in my wallet? So that is the first category of stakers. The other really interesting category is that when prices start trending a little bit higher, then the positive sentiment starts building in. Everyone is hyped, prices are moving up. The eats that you had a few months ago is much higher in price, you have more money now. So people become generous with their, I wouldn't say trading habits, but with the way they allocate their crypto holdings. So people will start thinking, okay, the prices are going up, then they start staking. It's a sentiment thing really in my opinion. So there is the second category of people who would stake on the network. No, that makes perfect sense. Thanks for sharing. So altcoins, should traders be paying any sort of serious attention to altcoins right now? Buying a few exceptions, I would say mostly not. Right now, at least for the next three months, Bitcoin and Ethereum should be the key focus to anyone who's in crypto right now. Not bank token. Sorry. We shouldn't be trading bank token or CBTU. Yeah, but I don't know anyone who was in on it quite early. But a lot of people got airdrop for it, right? Yeah, I was just joking. A lot of people did. So you're saying that in your view, there's not many altcoins anyone should be paying serious attention to at this moment? Not a lot. Litecoin is a big exception in my case. I have been in what's called bullish. You're also in it. Yeah, yeah, I see a lot there. And you recall Litecoin was an asymmetrical mover and an outperformer early previous bull markets before the bull market started. And Ethereum was that coin last cycle, but the previous cycle it was Litecoin. So I see the exact same market structure. All the technical analysis indicators are confluent right now in green. The volumes are good. It's holding that $65 level. I could see price extending to $110. It's the whole pre-having narrative and fractals that are driving Litecoin. I 100% agree with you on that. Do you think DCG? Yeah, it is. Do you think DCG, if they blow up? Because I think they hold like 3% of Litecoin supply. So if they go bankrupt or there's some issue there, even rumors of SEC securities and exchange commission investigation, do you think that any sort of selling or FUD related to that huge stack that they hold could impact the halving narrative for Litecoin? So yeah, DCG is the elephant in the room right now. Apart from Litecoin, they have a decent amount of Bitcoin as well. The most holding that they have is ETC, which honestly not a lot of people care about. But yes, if they don't clean up their mess, I think there's a deadline that the Winklevoss twins gave them that was January 8th, if I'm not wrong. So it's going to be interesting to watch what transpires by them. But definitely if they are forced to liquidate their positions, then it's going to get messy because that's a lot of supply there. But I hate to be a doomer, so I am banking on the positive scenario that they have their stuff together, they know what they're doing, and I think they'll get through it. I think when you look at the longer-term multi-year market structure and price action of assets like Litecoin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin, and then you contrast that against black swan events, just the technicals like Fibonacci retracements to the golden pocket or 61.8 level, key multi-year support and resistance levels, and things like the halving narratives, they just mean reversions. When I look at every single black swan event and market structure for the older assets, they survive it and they always kind of do the same thing that they did previously in terms of price action and return on investment from certain levels. So personally, I think if any sort of huge blow happens to Ethereum or Litecoin, it doesn't break that Litecoin halving narrative and the price action that results from that. So I'm aware of it and just trying to remind myself that it's probably a kind of like just a restock. Let me lower my overall cost of the current position I have. So that's my view, but I'm not spot-long like holding Litecoin. I don't see any value in that. I'm just playing it from the perpetual's point of view. I don't have much utility in Litecoin itself and no need to like hold on to it forever. Maybe payment reels will come eventually and there will be some value in holding the actual token. So I'm not properly hedged of course, but still like how the market structure looks for that asset. It's the same for me. It's the same for me. I'm holding it for the halving narrative. I have some spot and then there is perpetual long on it as well. Probably it's more of a time-based trade than a price-based trade. So whatever happens, I'm selling it by June-July. Yeah, because I also heard of it and saw that that price rallies into halving. Halving occurs and in the past three halvings, price has just undergone a precipitous drop afterwards. So you can see that pretty clearly on the chart. Post halving is not bullish for Litecoin. So moving on to FTX, a ton of big companies and even you and everyone we know was impacted by FTX Celsius Alameda, but primarily FTX. What's your take on the extent of the contagion and might it continue to impact the crypto markets in 2023? I think a lot of entities had their funds on FTX and we are slowly getting to hear of it. We have heard a lot about it as well in the past. But yes, the maximum impact that we could have had was the initial two-three weeks and now it's just a tapering down effect that we have been seeing in the past. And ever since then, I've been asking this to myself that how much worst can it really get from here? The biggest first, the biggest fund blows up. Multi-billion dollar hedge fund, 3AC.  And even then, the price, of course, it crashed, but okay, from 20K to like 16K, 15K, that's it. I don't really see any forced sellers in the market in the near future. You know what I mean? There were forced sellers in the past, but there's nobody left to sell now if you really look at it from that angle. So yeah, I think most of the contagion effect that we have had to see of FTX, we have seen it already. DCG is something that even I am a bit very of. But apart from that, there is not really much that I'm worried about. Right. It could a messy situation or sometimes it's FUD and the whole DCG and understanding balance sheets and the fact that there's really no transparency on them. So when they leak, such as the FTX and Alameda balance sheet, when CoinDisk leaked that, cause a lot of FUD, a lot of speculation and that impacts retail investor sentiment. And it just puts people in the scramble, even funds such as yourself, cause then you got to get client funds off the exchange and make sure your hedge properly and there's concerns about our exchange is liquid enough for me to actually cash out. So let me cash out now, even if it's at a loss. So at least we're not like holding on to zero. Like I get all that. But if DCG is messy or a lot of FUD gets built up around it, do you think that that could be the catalyst that sends Bitcoin price like down to that, through that liquidity gap where we're at now, maybe to like 12K to 8K and perhaps that's the final bottom there. Yeah, I think so. Yes. That's a solid case for a price to go further down. I think so. But it's hard to place kind of a percentage likelihood on that. We'll find out by January 9th or before March, right? Yeah, the sooner the better, right? Let's get it over with. A question about crypto trading in general, then we'll start to wrap up. Do you think that crypto traders are not diversified and too laser focused on crypto trading only? So I think most of the crypto traders, they have found their edge trading these markets. So when I even take my example, a lot of people ask me that why do I not trade traditional markets or even just invest mostly? Trade, no, I don't do it because through constant repetition of the edge I found here in these markets, I want to capitalize on that. So I want to put my capital to work in these markets as opposed to a new playground where I have to learn, make mistakes, lose money first and then learn stuff. So that's a big factor. So it's mostly passive investing that a crypto trader would do in the traditional markets. Even there are, I remember one post from a big account on Twitter. He has quite a good track record of making calls as well. So he bought Coinbase shares recently. So the stocks he's buying is also of a crypto company, right? So it's just hardwired into crypto people that they, this is the market that they're in and they don't they don't really move away from it. To me, it sounds like your investing process is a little bit different than Bitazoo because Bitazoo is almost purely algorithmic. So talk to me a little bit about what your company does in terms of investing and managing client funds. So we are essentially a proprietary firm, right? So it's all proprietary capital, me and my co-founders. Our major chunk of portfolio runs on momentum trading strategies that we have built. And these strategies run, I mean, these strategies take care of most of the capital. Apart from that, we leave some portion for discretionary trades in derivatives, as well as options. We don't really invest. There are spot holdings, but against those spot holdings, the algo is running on the perpetual contracts and making trades all the time. So it's completely, it's a complete trading driven approach as opposed to a passive investment approach. Now, I know that in order to do that, funds have to leave money on exchange.  So post FTX, and I know like Silvergate Bank was the only kind of crypto friendly bank where you could onboard money into crypto. FTX looked real legit. Binance, a lot of accredited licensed institutions aren't allowed to use them, use Binance perpetuals if they're US based. So I get that FTX was the best option through Silvergate. Now that's all kind of gone. So how have you had to adjust the way you position and manage client funds now that the biggest exchange or the second largest purpose exchange is gone? So most of the clients that we have got even now, they are crypto native. So they already have crypto with them. So the biggest hurdle has been crossed. And with the lack, with the absence of FTX now, our main exchanges which are, which have quite friendly APIs are Binance, BitMEX, and Bybit. So this is where we are mostly trading now, algorithmically. All right, back to the start, back to the essence like the original spots of degeneracy basically. All right, going into 2023, if you could say anything to all of coin telegraphs listeners, all of your followers, anyone out there that's actively trading cryptocurrency or interested in cryptocurrency. If you could say like three valuable insights or we won't call it advice, right? But just things people should know about cryptocurrency. What would you say to the world right now? What would you say to these people? Okay. So the number one thing would be expect the unexpected when you're in crypto. The second learning that I have, which has been said, passed around a lot of times is that only risk what you can be comfortable losing. I see a lot of people saying this, but when you put it into practice, it makes all the difference. Right. And third, with whatever amount, with whatever capital you are deploying into the markets, bet big, bet big. You're not going to make, you're not going to make bank with taking small bets. Right. Once you have that, once you've decided, okay, this is the amount of capital I want in the markets, just bet big. Yeah.  Of course you've done your own diligence and done the research and are not willing to lose more than you can afford to lose, but then at the same time, bet big. I get what you're saying because towards the end of last year, I returned to my roots. When DeFi summer started, I got all into that staking and this most recent bull market had me slightly convinced that the utility that was needed to catalyze mass adoption was here and therefore you could remain long in certain positions and look at fundamental analysis and like more of the qualitative factors rather than just being a pure charts trader taking the profits into USDC and not holding any longs because I watched Bancorp, Sushi, I watched all those tokens that were DeFi just pump beyond my exit, right? My profit taking level by a hundred X and I was like, damn it. Why did I do that? You know, this time to belong and really belong and strong. So that ended with, you know, an uncomfortable degree of wreckage, but fortunately I have sufficient portfolio left to continue moving on, right? So I've returned to my roots, which is just identifying the strongest trend. Let's look at 50 altcoins that all have the exact same market structure. Bitcoin price is consolidating. I feel confident making some short-term bets on altcoins, but I'm not going to spread my capital between all 50 altcoins because they have the exact same market structure. And then I'm going to get this massive outsize return. I've returned to my roots of just looking at the strongest players that are respecting those resistances and those support levels and maintaining whatever that trend is and have like multi-layered levels of confluence with data and on-chain data. And I'm going big in those trades, but also making sure that I'm hedged or that I'm managing my risk properly this time. And I think the outcome should be better, like in terms of profits taken than just believing that the whole market itself is bullish and that you can go long on assets because they're down 100% from their all-time high. So I agree with you. Like I understand what you mean by have conviction, make a plan, and go big. Like he's not saying go to the local gas station or petrol shop and buy a lottery ticket and bet it all on that because maybe you win, right? Like betting big by playing the strongest trends. Play your winners. When the trend is up and you're profitable on like this Litecoin trade, then buy into that strength and enjoy that bullish momentum and be prepared to exit when that momentum begins to turn. I get exactly what you're saying. It makes perfect sense. I must say that nothing we've said today is financial advice. That's like putting a band-aid on a bullet wound, isn't it? Because we really got deep into talking about trading and stuff. But to cover our butts, nothing that Mohit said or that I said or that Cointelegraph is projecting through your phone or laptop or however you're listening, it's not financial advice. Do your own research and don't make the same trades we're trading because you might get wrecked. I think Gary Gensler got it. Okay. Well, man, that's it. That's all I got. I really appreciate you coming on. It was a really good talk. I hope the listeners didn't find it too dry, but it was really intriguing and invigorating for me to have trader talk with you. Come back anytime. Thank you so much, Ray.  It was mostly hardcore technical stuff from me, but that's what you expect from a trader. It was such a pleasure. Yeah, it was a pleasure. It was great. I'm going to have a good day now. I hope you have a good evening. You as well. Take care. Okay. Talk to you next time. Bye-bye.