话李话外

As of the 2025 fiscal year, we have released 5 e-books, including the Crypto series and Travel series:
1. (Blockchain Thinking Advancement) 2023
This book is the e-book "Talking Li Talking Outside" launched on December 30, 2023, with approximately 123,000 words, divided into 9 main chapters, covering essential knowledge for newcomers, commonly used blockchain tools, self-cultivation for investors, investment and trading strategies, project research methodologies, blockchain knowledge popularization, and common knowledge of blockchain security.
2. (Blockchain Methodology) 2024
This book is the e-book "Talking Li Talking Outside" launched in 2024, with approximately 623,000 words, mainly divided into three major categories: investment strategy methodologies, self-cultivation for investors, and annual narratives, each of which consists of different sections of articles.

Source: Talking Li Outside the Box
Remember we shared an interesting website before that tracks every declaration of Bitcoin's death (or going to zero) by mainstream media, celebrities, and economists since 2010. As of April 2026, Bitcoin has been declared dead 472 times, as illustrated in the chart below.


The latest media outlet to declare Bitcoin dead is The Economic Times, and this time the declaration comes from renowned economist Steve Keen, who accurately predicted the 2008 financial crisis. He recently warned that Bitcoin might eventually go to zero, citing excessive energy consumption as his reasoning. See the chart below.

Source: Talking about Li, talking about the outside
In the previous article (June 18), we mainly discussed the Fed's policies and interest rates, and we also touched on the US-Iran conflict. I thought the formal talks in Switzerland on the 19th would go off without a hitch, but due to some new squabbles, it got indefinitely postponed.

As a 'straight-up' trader, sometimes I just can't wrap my head around 'politics', so let's not dive into that topic today. Regardless of who wins or loses in a war, it's always the regular folks who get the short end of the stick, and the ones who are most rattled and sensitive are the financial markets.

Source: Talk about Li, talk outside
In the last article (June 16), we talked about 4 factors influencing the current short-term market trends. When discussing the Fed's policy expectations, we mentioned that if the newly appointed Fed Chair Kevin Warsh can provide a more dovish sentiment on June 17 (Eastern Time), then with a potential pullback of the DXY, the market might continue to react accordingly.

So, what impact did the FOMC meeting that ended early this morning (June 18, corresponding to Beijing time) have on the market?

Source: Talking about the market
From a sentiment and liquidity perspective, the current short-term market trends are mainly influenced by several factors, including the US-Iran conflict, SpaceX's IPO, ETF fund flows, and expectations around the Fed's policies.

First up, the US-Iran conflict. Yesterday (June 15), there were reports that both sides have signed a memorandum of understanding online (the formal signing is set for June 19). This is definitely bullish for the market, as risk appetite has quickly rebounded, leading to a noticeable uptrend over the past couple of days.

Source: Talking about Li
Since 2024, I've been all about making cuts for myself. For instance, I've gradually stopped updating some of my social media accounts, and my content output has shifted from daily to weekly. Even in the crucial trading aspect, my trading frequency has been on the down low; most of the year is spent waiting, and I don’t engage in too many trades.

I took a quick look back at my historical notes in Notion, and throughout 2025, I've basically been executing sell orders as per my plan. I sold Bitcoin twice, and I cleared out all my altcoin positions in batches before Q3. Of course, the sell operations in 2025 mainly target the positions I bought during 2022-2023. For those interested, you can check out my eBook (Big Dragon's Crypto Notes 2025) for a recap and search; I won't go into detail here.

Source: Talking about Li
In the last article (June 6), we mainly talked about indicators, including macro indicators like DXY (Dollar Index) and US Treasury yields. However, due to space constraints, we didn't delve deeper. Some traders asked: Can we analyze the market trends with these macro indicators?

In our previous article, we discussed the specific applications of those macro indicators. We've shared this in previous posts multiple times, but data is always refreshing when you revisit it. So today, let's dive back into macro indicators.

Source: Talking About It
A couple of days ago, a buddy hit me up in the DMs with an interesting question: why do you prefer dollar-cost averaging when the market drops instead of just going short?

That's a solid question. I actually touched on this topic in my last piece (the Notion article from June 4th). It really comes down to personal risk tolerance. I like to think of time as my ally, not my enemy. Shorting is like playing with fire in a high-stakes game, and that's not my style. I remember economist Keynes once said something that sums it up nicely: 'The market can remain irrational longer than you can stay solvent.'

A few days ago, I came across a report on Decrypt where Standard Chartered's analysts stated that Ethereum today resembles Amazon back in 2001. They've set a price target of $4,000 by the end of the year and predict that ETH will reach $40,000 in ten years. Check out the chart below.


Standard Chartered's latest reasoning is that Ethereum is dominating in DeFi and stablecoins, for instance, currently 54% of stablecoins are running on Ethereum, and by 2026, stablecoin trading volume is expected to account for about one-third of Ethereum's total trading volume, with TVL making up 60% of the total network's TVL.

Source: Talk of Li
I remember coming across a theory called Hindsight Bias. Basically, it means that a lot of people tend to create a narrative after things happen, making it seem like the outcome was obvious all along. In crypto terms, it's like saying they are being an 'armchair trader' after the fact.

For example, some folks see Bitcoin dip below $77,000 and then start pulling out all sorts of reasons, confidently claiming, 'See? I knew Bitcoin would drop below $77,000.'

Source: Talking Crypto
Today is May 19, a day that feels very familiar. Looking back, I wonder how many remember: on May 19, 2021, we experienced an epic crash in the crypto market, with Bitcoin plunging 34% in a single day, hitting a low around $30k, and altcoins faring even worse.

Time flies, and just like that, 5 years have passed. We've been through a lot, like witnessing the ETH 2.0 merge, the collapse of AC, Luna, and FTX, the official approval of spot ETFs, Bitcoin breaking the $100k milestone (hitting an all-time high of $126k), the crypto space entering the regulatory era in the US, more institutions jumping in, the rise of AI and RWA concepts, the boom and bust of stablecoins, and countless people coming and going in a flash...

Article source: Talking about Li's Side Story
In the previous article, we mainly discussed Hyperliquid's HIP-4, Coinbase's financial report, the CLARITY Act, and the concept of Uniswap v4 Hook. We also mentioned that as regulations (mainly in the US) become clearer, crypto-related companies like Coinbase and Circle will be among the biggest beneficiaries. Therefore, stocks like COIN and CRCL are worth paying attention to.

However, I personally am not currently involved in trading US stocks; I am focusing more on the crypto space and continuing my dollar-cost averaging plan as shared in previous articles. Regarding the questions some readers have asked about trading stocks like COIN/CRCL, there are actually many US stock tutorials online. Those interested can search for them on Google or YouTube.

Source: Talk of the Town
1. Will Hyperliquid become a strong competitor in the prediction market?
In the previous article, we talked about Polymarket, and today we're diving into a similar new product. Just a few days ago, Hyperliquid officially launched the upgraded HIP-4, as shown in the image below. It seems like a pretty interesting product. Coincidentally, in our earlier article (April 18), we also mentioned HIP-3. So, what are the main differences between these two HIP (Hyperliquid Improvement Proposal) products?


In simple terms, HIP-3 can be seen as a self-deployable perpetual contract product. In this setup, anyone can open a perpetual contract, for example, you'll see various Perps on US stocks opened by others. The idea is quite similar to standard contracts on exchanges. If you want to get in on the action, just pick your target and go long or short. Of course, when I say 'anyone', I mean holders of HYPE tokens. If you have 500,000 HYPE to stake, you can use HIP-3 to set up a small pool and be the market maker yourself.

Source: Talking outside the lines
A few days ago (April 23), I came across a report stating that the U.S. Department of Justice has charged a soldier who recently participated in the capture of Venezuelan President Maduro. The reason? This dude placed a bet of $33,000 on the Polymarket platform before the capture mission, specifically between December 26 and January 2. His bets were mainly about whether Maduro would step down and if the U.S. would invade Venezuela. In the end, he raked in over $400,000 in profits and transferred that stash to a crypto wallet and a newly opened securities account. As shown in the chart below. Looks like this soldier caught on to Trump's trading vibes and wanted to dabble in insider trading, but in the end, it blew up in his face.

Source: Talk Li Talk Outside
In the previous article, we were discussing DeFi and mentioned the early-month Drift hack, where $285 million was stolen. Now, less than a month later, on April 18th (Eastern Time), KelpDAO fell victim to another hack, losing $290 million (the attack took just 46 minutes and resulted in the theft of 116,500 rsETH, worth about $290 million). As shown in the chart below.


Moreover, the rsETH incident has also affected several other DeFi protocols, with Aave facing significant bad debt. According to the DefiLlama data platform, Aave V3's TVL is currently $14.9 billion, which has dropped about 42% from $25.9 billion before the hack, as shown in the chart below.

Source: Talk Li Talk Outside
In the previous article (April 10), we mainly discussed the topic of DeFi. From the background data and message situation, it seems that everyone has lost much interest in this topic. However, this is understandable. After all, when the overall market is not good, people don't have much mood to talk about those old topics or narratives.

Yes, overall, the cryptocurrency market basically has no new stories at the moment. People's attention and focus have completely shifted to the oil war, gold, and AI. The so-called DeFi also seems to have little attraction. As we mentioned in the previous article, the decline in on-chain yields has already caused many speculative funds to lose their motivation to continue participating in DeFi. On the surface, the DeFi sector seems to be getting worse.

Source: Talking about Li
Last week, many people probably saw the news about the theft from Drift, which was reportedly carried out by a group related to North Korea. The attackers spent six months lurking (the actual execution only took a few minutes) and, with an investment of one million dollars, directly stole 285 million dollars worth of crypto assets.


According to public statements, rather than saying that Drift was attacked by a North Korean team, it is more accurate to say that it was a precise harvest after six months of being set up. Of course, the specific process of how the theft occurred, whether there were any issues with Drift's internal personnel, are not the issues we want to delve into today. What we want to discuss here is: Is DeFi still suitable for ordinary people to participate in?

Source: Talking Outside the Box
In the previous article, we mainly discussed MicroStrategy, and then I saw some friends in the background asking about BlackRock. In fact, these two institutions are somewhat related. For example, we shared in last year's e-book that BlackRock holds a portion of MicroStrategy's shares. As shown in the figure below.


But regarding the way to play with Bitcoin, these two institutions have completely different strategies. In simple terms, MicroStrategy's strategy can be described as a buy-and-hold strategy (which we have shared in detail in previous articles), while BlackRock is currently the world's largest BTC ETF issuer, with its IBIT (iShares Bitcoin Trust) still maintaining a scale of 51.8 billion dollars. As shown in the figure below.

Source: Talk Li Talk Outside
In recent weeks, Bitcoin has continued to fluctuate as expected. Although this week's price has also fallen back to around $70,000 from the previous high of around $76,000, overall, especially against the backdrop of conflicts between the U.S., Israel, and Iran, Bitcoin's performance in the past few weeks has still been relatively better than gold and stocks.


I don't know if everyone has noticed, since entering March, although many retail investors remain pessimistic and on the sidelines, some institutions continue to accumulate and buy Bitcoin in large quantities, especially the most representative Strategy (formerly known as MicroStrategy). According to official public information, in just the past 20 days, Strategy has continued to purchase Bitcoin worth over $3 billion.

Cover Design: Talking Inside and Outside
In the previous article (March 4th), when discussing the topic of information acquisition, I mentioned that I also pay attention to some other bloggers' public accounts, which can be considered a learning process.

Although different bloggers often have different viewpoints, theoretically, our daily learning can appropriately include some completely different perspectives, as this is also a direct way to test our cognitive framework. If a person consistently chooses to read only those thoughts they completely agree with, they may easily fall into an information cocoon or experience what is known in psychology as confirmation bias.