LinksSam TwitterWebShow PartnerThis episode is presented by FTX. Trade on an awesome mobile interface fee-free, and still get all the great portfolio tracking features you know and love: https://uponly.tv/ftxShow NotesSam Trabs Intro– Sam Trabs is now co-CEO of Alameda Research    – promoted from “trader” lol– Last time Trabs was on Bitcoin had just dropped to 30k– Thought it was “predictable” and then buying the bottom was also an easy trade– Right now there’s a “temporary round number effect” – people will sell at resistance for big round numbers– Seeing it now with 50k– “NOT LONG TERM RESISTANCE” – Trabs– Trabs: “We’ve done quite well at getting long at the bottom and not selling it at all”New Highs?– Trabs: “If there continues to be good news I could see it continuing to go up”– Rally to 65k was very liquidation based – very likely to get undone– Same the other way [on the way down to 30k]Positioning In Uncertainty– The 10 strongest trades make up all the real P&L– Doesn’t really waste brain power on focusing on smaller, lower conviction trades– Most days don’t put on big tradesNew Ecosystem Plays– Very quantitative– Less thesis driven investing, more soaking up APYs with new DeFi playsAnalysis for Wrong Trades– Cobie: “How do you do postmortems when things go wrong?”WiFi cutting out, robot overloadLedger: “I think Sam has an alpha overload filter that makes the WiFi cut out if he drops too much knowledge”Poor Employee Performance– If someone has a few bad days, talk to them about their thought process– Cobie: “Imagine you’re at Alameda, you’ve had a few bad days and a meeting just pops up 9am meeting with the Sams” lol absolute NIGHTMARE fuelNFT Trading– Trabs: “I feel remarkably ill equipped to be handling this NFT craze”– You can use data to learn about trades… you can’t really with NFTs– Trabs: “There are elements that remind me of DOGE in January”– Trabs: “Its fairly plausible that its correct to buy most of these things – there is just so much upside”– The rocks really got in Sams head– Cobie: “Alameda is coping just like me”– Trabs: “It is +EV to participate in these because the upside is so high”– Ledger: “Have you seen the scissors? (in relation to rock, paper scissors NFTs) they are only like 3 ETH, a bargain”– Cobie: “A bargain relative to rocks? because compared to anything else in life its absolutely ridiculous” lolOptions– Trabs: “People really overstate the importance of options in crypto”– In tradfi, options can influence prices– In crypto, really doesn’t happenAlameda– 2019 was a difficult time– It has since gotten very easy to hire– Now team is about 30 guys– Sam can now focus on game theory trading and shitposting on Twitterco-CEOs– Cobie: “If you and the other co-CEO took a standardized IQ test, who would win?”– Trabs: “I took a MENSA test once… it was very easy. She’s better at trivia than I am though”– For operations, you want to pick one thesis to go with and stick with it– Trabs: “If someone feels very strongly about something, we tend to just let them do it”– Trabs: “If we were ever at a true stalemate we’d honestly probably flip a coin”Alameda Jobs– Trabs: “We are always hiring”– Cobie: “What about internships?”– Trabs: “Hiring interns is our most +EV play we do”    – jk not a real quote but we can dream– Trabs: “First couple months people take away value, then eventually start to add value”– Ledger: “In regards to pay, how do you incentivize people to stick around?”– Mostly copy traditional institutions, based on P&LPotential Future Scenarios– Trabs thinks either new highs or crab– Cobie: “Do you think that Bitcoin dominance can run again?”– Trabs: “I have an unsatisfying answer that both are plausible”– Thinks Bitcoin dominance will remain, but could happen like 5x or more from here– Taxes may cause a liquidity crunch on NFTs by year end, but also maybe notEthereum Dominance– Is EIP-1559 priced in efficiently?– Trabs: “I don’t think the crypto market does anything especially efficiently”– ETH ra