Lark: 0:00

It's always a bit of a tight rope walk when you're making content, because there's a lot of people who have been here for years and they have a different level of understanding of the game. And then we have a lot of people who just came in today, literally. And some always try to think how to balance and point it out so that beginners can get a lot from it but people who have been around in the space for a while are still gonna benefit from that and be able to get good information from that video.

Joeri: 0:28

Hello everyone and welcome to the Web3 CMO Stories podcast. My name is Joeri Billast and today I have invited Lark Davis on the show. I'm so excited. Thanks for having me on, because I'm excited to talk crypto with you. Yeah, and it's you know, L lark, I think we have the record today actually for my podcast. When it comes to the time difference, I'm in Belgium. I'm based out of New Zealand.

Lark: 0:52

So basically almost the exact opposite end of the world. I think the exact opposite point for New Zealand ends up in central Spain somewhere. So almost exactly the opposite.

Joeri: 1:05

Okay, yeah, yeah, so that's. That's really exciting to have guests really from all over the world. But, guys, if you don't know, L lark is the founder of the weekly crypto newsletter, W wealth M mastery with 90 125 000 now even more than 90k subscribers 125 000, whoa, that goes really fast. So a lot of subscribers, guys, and it covers D defi, NFT nfts, A altcoins, technical analysis and more. It's also been a crypto investor for more than five years now, has made millions of dollars, also had some losses in the markets everyone and with his bold crypto price forecast, this occasional content with the memes, L lark has had yeah, now an impressive social media following on X, also on youtube, and maybe that also is more at this moment, but last time I looked, it was 71 million views that you had on YouTube, L lark, so those are amazing numbers. He has also been featured in Coinpedia and Coindesk. By the way, C coindesk is the main sponsor of our podcast today for Consensus. Yeah, to start off, L lark, could you share a bit about your journey into the cryptocurrency world and what initially attracted you to the space?

Lark: 2:24

For sure, it's funny, I actually first learned about Bitcoin back in 2012. And I didn't buy any Bitcoin back then. I was in university. We were talking about it. Well, that sounds really interesting because we're all politics nerds and we've been talking about monetary theory and all this stuff and that's wow, bitcoin really interesting. But I need your money for the weekend, so it's not going to work out this time. Fast forward a few years. I kept a peripheral view on, okay, what's going on with Bitcoin see the news once in a while, read about it but I didn't really go full into Bitcoin until 2017. That's when I decided, okay, it's time, I need to get into this, I need to invest, I need to start learning everything I can about the space and, as a lot of you will know because you've been there as well, once you start, it's like an obsession. You get hooked. You just want to learn more, you want to learn everything. You want to learn everything right now what's Bitcoin, what's mining, how do I get Bitcoin, how do I earn Bitcoin, what are all these altcoins doing? And you go right down the rabbit hole. So that was quite the interesting experience learning about all that stuff. And then I started figuring out OK, this is interesting buying it and playing the game and all that stuff but maybe I can find some ways to earn crypto. So I actually started posting on. It's probably still out there, people are probably still using it, but this blockchain called Stem S-T-E-M and it was an early social media platform in the crypto space. You could post stuff there and if people gave you upvotes or reposts or whatever, you'd get some steam tokens. So I thought that's cool, I'm going to post some stuff there and I post a random stuff there. And, of course, I was posting stuff about my crypto journey as well and that stuff started becoming the most popular posts. So I started posting more stuff about that. And then I decided it's taken a long time to write all these posts out every day, so I'm just going to start recording my thoughts on video documenting my journey. I'm trying to answer some of these questions that people are asking me, because through answering that question, I will learn myself about all these different things. And so, going down that rabbit hole, I just started posting stuff on YouTube and then posting it over to Stem. The link say hey, check this out and read about it. But then, of course, the YouTube videos started taking off and everything just started to move really fast.

Lark: 4:28

And then, by November 2017, I quit my day job, which is an interesting time to quit my day job because obviously then the bear market came shortly thereafter. So there were definitely some times in 2018 where I was like, was this really a great idea? And I said no. Of course it was, because, when I've understood crypto, 2018 was a tough bear market. 2022 had some obviously very atrocious things happening, like the FTX collapse. However, 2018 was a different breed of bear market because there wasn't really anything to do in crypto back then.

Lark: 4:58

The biggest use case in 2017 for crypto was the fundraising, the ICOs. Payments were, of course, done and interesting, but they weren't really big and mainstream yet, so there wasn't that much happening in crypto in 2018. During the bear market. There wasn't that many applications to use. There wasn't many reasons for people to stay on chain or to stick around in crypto at all. Crypto was pretty dead for a while. However, when I had orange-pilled myself on crypto, I decided you know what this is going to be the future of finance. How can it not be? This is going to have such a big impact on everything that we understand about digital ownership, about digital payments, owning your money, all this kind of stuff, and I just stuck with it and kept creating content, and here we are today, basically.

Joeri: 5:44

Wow, and so YouTube was the first type of content, so videos was the first type of content you started making, but you also have your newsletter.

Lark: 5:54

So at the moment it was 2021. Is that right? Maybe even 2020. It's been some years now. It's been around for a few years four years ago and so we started with YouTube primary content. It was just me making all the content. Then I started posting a lot more on Twitter back then X now around 2018, 2019, posting pretty consistently over there.

Lark: 6:18

And then, yeah, I got the idea I really need to have more of a business that's my own, not just be a content creator dependent on affiliate income or sponsorship revenue or anything like that, but to actually have my own business that I control. And so I decided to launch a newsletter and I got a team of writers on board and we've been trying to provide just massive value with every newsletter. Essentially has been our goal from day one is to provide people with lots and lots of value. So we've got a team of eight writers now writing the majority of the newsletter. I still do some small sections like my portfolio section, stuff like that but they are doing the most of the research. So we've got a whole team of people spending 40 plus hours a week, scaling in a way that I could never do it personally, as well as also make videos. I had my full-time job just writing my newsletter. It probably still wouldn't be as good as my team of writers are doing.

Lark: 7:05

So it's pretty interesting how the business has scaled, the newsletter scaled, and we made, of course, wild amounts of mistakes with running our newsletter business, because you do Don't know anything about newsletter business. I'm going to launch a newsletter, let's go, and so yeah, but going through that journey has been very interesting. One of the big mistakes we did early on was actually using what the heck was the name of that platform. Did early on was actually using what the heck was the name of that platform. It's called GetReview and it was a newsletter platform, but it wasn't a very good newsletter platform and it had a lot of limitations. That meant that we grew a lot slower than we probably should have during 2021. But we're making up for those mistakes now.

Joeri: 7:40

What is interesting to me is you have these different channels. You have YouTube, you have your newsletter, you your, you have x. There's different types of content. So what I'm doing, I'm creating my podcast, which is my main channel, and I'm repurposing that on all my other channels. Actually, but, if I understand you correctly, you have a team doing the newsletter and the youtube set, the content you make yourself. And is that different content that you post on YouTube, that you put in newsletter, that you put on X?

Lark: 8:11

There's a lot of balance overlapping between the content. Obviously we're posting different places. We also have been really trying to focus on getting our Instagram growing. This year we took a long time to even get our Instagram account because scammers had the Instagram name for me and they kept reporting my account as being an impersonator every time I tried to start an Instagram account. But it took a long time. We finally got a verified Instagram account. Now we're growing that account.

Lark: 8:35

But essentially what we're sharing in the newsletter it's a whole wide variety of information. That's just not practical to share all that stuff on the YouTube channel. It's tutorials and all kinds of altcoin setups and wide amounts of news and we try to cover like the main news on YouTube. So right now we're doing about five live streams a week and usually posting six or seven long form videos in addition to that. Plus, we do 18 scripted shorts per week that we research and write out and then we do 18 clip shorts per week. So we've got a whole giant pile of multimedia going out every single day, with the marketing team helping me post a lot of stuff and the editors helping get everything done. So we're doing a lot of content right now, trying to just provide as much education as we can to the space right now, because we know a lot of new people are coming in and we want to make sure people will get good information and that they're having the right mindset and information that they need to be successful in the market right now.

Joeri: 9:30

Do you feel that there is a difference this year, comparing, for instance, last year, when I felt on the marketing side that there was less demand, less interest, but now it's starting to come back, probably because you have the well-run. Do you also see this effect on your views?

Lark: 9:45

100% Views are definitely up a lot this year and part of that is just us doing more. So you put out more content, you get more attention, you get more subscribers, etc. Etc. Sure, there's part of it's that, but I think right across the board we've seen views pick up for most crypto channels to some extent. Last year, for example, I was getting probably, let's say, 20,000, 25,000 views on my average sort of long form video, and these days, for my usual long form videos, they're getting 40 to 50,000, sometimes 60, 70,000. So there is more attention. Right now, not every video format does well.

Lark: 10:21

We've been experimenting with some new video content as well. We've been doing a lot of tutorials which have not been very popular with the audience. I don't know how long we'll be able to viably continue doing those. We've been doing a lot of coin reviews as well, just like explainer videos, right, because people are coming in they see okay, what is this coin? What do I? What's it about? So we're trying to make a really simple. This is the coin, this is what the token does, this is the risks and opportunities with it Really simple stuff, right. Educational videos and those can do okay sometimes. So it's.

Lark: 10:47

We're experimenting some new content styles with the bread and butter content, so to speak. The content, whether that be the live streams or more crypto, bull run guide kind of stuff, what's going on the market, big picture sort of stuff. That stuff's still doing really well, but some of our experimental content's been not going down as well with the audience. We're going to keep doing it for a while, see if we can get some traction traction with it. If not, then we have to pivot, which is part of the content creation game. I've pivoted so many times. Sometimes you'll just find things that really work, and sometimes you find things that really don't work.

Joeri: 12:10

Yeah, and you just keep on trying to like for my podcast. I just continue to make content and then see and finally this takes off. I think with YouTube I haven't been able to scale that, which maybe it's also a matter of putting the attention there and continuing before deciding on the type of content. How long, on average, does it take for you to decide on a certain type of content? If you want to continue doing it?

Lark: 12:39

You can usually find out within three to six months. We'll try for a while. You can't just make one or two videos and go that didn't work work. You have to actually try it and try different experimentation, yeah, in that and see, okay, maybe the content's really good, but maybe the titles aren't good, the right kind of titles, or the thumbnails aren't the right kind of thumbnails. It's this whole game you got to play it's. It's very interesting for me, having played the game for a while, of trying to create attractive thumbnails and attractive titles that actually get people to click on them. And then it's always, of course, the on the flip side, what you're making. Your titles are too sensational, yeah, but if I don't make them more interesting, then you're not going to click on them. Are you at the battle, of course, constantly for that kind of stuff, but definitely you need to try things for a little while.

Lark: 13:16

You have to let things run their course. So, like I said, with our review videos we're doing right now we started those on January, maybe late February, and we're going to let that run for four to six months and see what the kind of traction or long-term traction for some of these videos is going to be and if they're not doing well, then I can't viably continue doing them, because it's not just me recording. I've got to pay a researcher to help write the script and we've got to pay a video editor to edit the video and got to pay our marketing team to help schedule that across all the social media platforms. I'm the one recording. But if the numbers don't make sense because people don't want to watch the content, then we can't keep creating that content forever, even if it's really good content. I think it's valuable for people.

Joeri: 13:56

Yeah, do you have one specific person in mind when you are creating your content, like, they say, one typical avatar? Or like someone that is already knowledgeable about Web3 or also people watching your videos that are just want to learn when you make the content?

Lark: 14:25

It is, definitely. We have our ideal customer avatar in mind, actually its interesting if you look at our demographics, I think a lot of those people do watch the channel. That being said, it's always a bit tightrope a walk when you're making content, because there's a lot of people who have been here for years and they have a different level of understanding the game. And we have a lot of people who just came in today, literally. And some always try to think how to balance and point it out so that beginners can get a lot from it but people who have been around in the space for a while are still going to benefit from that and be able to get good information from that video. So it's interesting to try to think of it that way sometimes.

Joeri: 14:57

Yeah, that's also what I try to do. I have a bit of bread and butter for everyone, of course. That, of course, it's always about new technologies that they can have. Get something out of every episode. What interesting for me is also I had an investment club for years. I did technical analysis of stocks. Now you are obviously doing that for the crypto market. You are without giving financial advice, but how are you balancing between technical analysis of stocks and then seeing the whole picture of a coin? This also takes lots of homework.

Lark: 15:31

It is tricky. I was writing a script yesterday and it's really in a lot of ways for the average investor coming in. The odds are against you. It's pretty tough. A lot of these coins are simply not going to make it long term. It's definitely an attention game that you have to play and there is technical analysis. That is, I think, pretty valid right. It makes a lot of sense sometimes and then sometimes it's just the hype and attention that stuff gets just goes absolutely crazy. And of course, I know that the charts are this reflection of human greed and human fear and all this kind of stuff. So it's definitely valid even for meme coins and stuff. Once they get out the gate and get a bit established, you can definitely get some great TA on some of the big meme coins and stuff like that. So the charts never really become invalidated at any stage in the crypto game. If you ask me, they're a great representation for how coins are performing, how coins are going to perform. We see long term picture and stuff like that. However, one thing that you cannot ignore in crypto is and the charts will often tell you this when you're looking at a coin, whether the hype's there or not, but I think something that's this very intangible thing but really has to be paid attention to is this hype cycle, the attention cycle where's money actually going? And understand what people want to buy in the market, what people are interested in buying in the market, where the market's actually valuing stuff, and you'll see common themes start to recur and those narratives form up. For example, right now, meme coins are very popular. Ai coins are very popular.

Lark: 16:58

Some of the new blockchains coming out are getting a lot of attention, but then there's just huge sectors of the market that are just not really getting attention. There's too many blockchains for example, too many layer one blockchains out there, and just a lot of them are not going to succeed. And I've got a theory around that is that probably in let's say, 10 years time In fact, it's already starting to happen if you're looking at it but in, let's say, 10 years time, you're probably going to have three or four, maybe five blockchains that have got 90% plus of all users, all total value, locked on chain, and they will have cemented themselves as really just the industry leaders you argue. Ethereum's already there, especially with the flywheel around its layer two space. Solana is obviously heading in that direction.

Lark: 17:42

We'll see what the next big movers will be.

Lark: 17:44

Maybe it'll be Avalanche, maybe it's going to be upcomers like Sui, but I think we'll see very much most of the users in a very small amount of places, and then the remaining 10% of market share will be shared around, with 90% of the blockchains and with, again, probably 90% of the users in the last 10% being on just three or four blockchains, and now we have 200 blockchains, probably maybe more.

Lark: 18:13

These days, it's absolutely absurd the number of just blockchains we have. So then you have to think about that in the regards that. So 90% plus of the blockchains are going to have almost no users, no total value lock, almost no developers, very little happening on them, and the winners will just keep winning, because, basically, the longer they win, the more likely it is they are to continue to keep winning, and so it will then become for investors. Either you want to just bet on the big winner coins so that's Solana, ethereum, whatever and look at the lower gains potential by having those bigger cap assets, or look at the beta plays on those networks, the big exchanges, big meme coins, stuff like that Recently is the Bitcoin halving.

Joeri: 18:58

Who do you? Because people talk about it, but what can we really expect of the impacts that it has? There is, of course, also the Bitcoin ETF and so on. These events do you feel like there is?

Lark: 19:11

Absolutely, and there always has been an impact on the market. With the Bitcoin halving, it's very interesting to see, of course, a new layer of demand coming in from Bitcoin ETFs. It's really quite unprecedented, especially when you see how much Bitcoin Wall Street Bitcoin ETFs have so far accumulated about 13 billion dollars plus worth of Bitcoin. That's a lot of coins. We also see Hong Kong now getting into the game, which I understand. The numbers are never going to be as big as Wall Street, OK, but they're still going to be significant. And then South Korea is likely to launch Bitcoin ETFs. Australia is probably bringing Bitcoin ETFs this year. England's launching I think they're called ETNs or ETPs, but basically Bitcoin ETFs as well. So we're getting huge amounts of demand coming in, and what's always been the case with the Bitcoin having is that reduction in supply, in emissions that the miners are receiving, means that they can sell less into the market.

Lark: 20:05

The miners are one of the biggest sources of sell pressure in the market. So before the Bitcoin halving, they were selling 900 Bitcoin a day, Not to say that every single day they were selling it, but they would have 900 Bitcoin a day worth of selling power accumulated between them. Most of the miners are now industrial miners. Long gone are the days of some dude with a laptop mining Bitcoin at home. It's mostly giant warehouses in Kazakhstan and Russia and China and Texas and Paraguay wherever Huge warehouses full machines. These guys are running a cash business. Okay, and this is something that not a lot of people realize about Bitcoin. These guys are running a cash business and this is something that not a lot of people realize about Bitcoin miners. It's a cash business. It's not a Bitcoin business. Largely, it's a cash business because they have to invest cash in all these machines. They have to pay cash for their shareholders, all this stuff. So when they mine that Bitcoin, they need to sell that Bitcoin. So they need to find where they can mine it profitably and then sell it for cash to lock in the profits. Sometimes they will hold it if they think there's going to be better market conditions and you'll see, for example, around I can't remember what price point it was, but as we were running up, we had a big run up in the price for Bitcoin.

Lark: 21:10

Miners sold a whole bunch of Bitcoin, whole bunch of Bitcoin. They sold it into that strength to lock in good profits. So they will hold. That's a lot every month. That's 27, 30,000 Bitcoin a month. That's a lot of Bitcoin. Right Now that's dropped down to 13, 15,000 Bitcoin per month.

Lark: 21:37

So at a time that demand is spiking up massively because of the ETFs, but also just because of retail buyers, the demand for Bitcoin just is going up constantly over time from retail buyers. In fact, before the Bitcoin ETFs were announced, we were hitting new all-time highs for number of Bitcoin non-zero addresses. Number of Bitcoin addresses with 0.0 in Bitcoin. Number of Bitcoin addresses with one Bitcoin. People had been buying during the bear market. People were clicking on to what Bitcoin is, the value proposition, all that kind of stuff, so that was going up even before the Bitcoin ETFs. Bitcoin ETFs come in and create a massive new vector of demand for Bitcoin at the exact time that miners have a reduction in emissions so they can not sell as much as they used to be able to, thus reducing sell pressure on the market, making it more likely for the price to appreciate throughout the cycle, as has happened in every cycle previously the cycle, as has happened in every cycle previously, yeah, and then you do technical analysis and, of course, you see these waves happening.

Joeri: 22:35

So do you also have an exit plan, or already a plan, when this bitcoin gets at this price point? I need to do this and I want to preserve my wealth because if it goes there and you just wait, it's just. It's always bull runs and bear any tips. yeah.

Lark: 22:50

Yeah, absolutely, let's I think, especially when we talk about altcoins, you have to understand that even the best altcoins are going to go down probably 90 percent in the bear market. Most of them will go down minus 99.99999 percent. They'll essentially die. When you talk about Bitcoin, it's controversial. If you can perfectly time the top and perfectly time the bottom, then you can acquire more Bitcoin and all that stuff. You have to pay your taxes, of course, on the gains that you had, and so there's a tricky picture there, and if you're willing to stomach the volatility, you can hold Bitcoin intercycle. If you think that Bitcoin is going to go to a million dollars and you don't want to play the game of trying to time the top, sell the bottom or sell the top by the bottom, that's this one. I don't want to do it the other way around, guys. But when it comes to the altcoins, I really think altcoins, you got to sell them for cash, okay, you really do, because when the music stops, when the liquidity is pulled from the market, those things are going to go down. I don't care what use case you think it's really exciting for, or what they're trying to do. They're trying to cure puppy sadness or be the big thing with AI or whatever they're doing, nobody's going to care. In the bear market, everything's going to be sold down viciously and you'll either take your profits or the market will take them away for you. And so when we come to watching okay, when do we get out of the market for the maximum amount of profit? One? You can always keep in mind that you can just ladder out as you go through the game Okay, take a little bit of profits out as your coins are pumping, just take some money off the table. Get your capital back out next month when it's still pumping, take some more money back out and by the end of the full market cycle you might not have a very big bag of coins left, but you probably got a big bank account. So that's one way to do it.

Lark: 24:31

For the people who want to more time the top specifically and try to get the maximum they can out of the market, there's a few things that we can watch for. I covered this recently in a video. You can find it on YouTube Lark Davis, top signals, right. But basically there's some main ones watching out for Stuff like the Pi cycle top indicator that has basically within a couple of days for the past three cycles, marked the top for Bitcoin. Now, in 2021, you can argue it gave a kind of a false signal because it marked the top at 64K but not the top at 69K yes, true. However, had you sold everything at 64K, walked away and not come back until late 2022 and bought the FTX blood, then you would have done just fine. You didn't need to wait until the second peak because the El Salvador excitement around legal tender and all that kind of stuff. So there's that.

Lark: 25:17

That's a great indicator to watch for. That's when Bitcoin will top. It's been pretty accurate previously. Maybe it will break the cycle or something. You never know.

Lark: 25:25

These are just indicators. Indicators can have wrong flashes. You got to keep that in mind. Nothing's perfect, but from the time the Bitcoin peaks, usually altcoins then peak around two weeks later. So this is something important to keep in mind that if you are looking to sell your altcoins based on those kind of signals, bitcoin will peak first, altcoins about two weeks later.

Lark: 25:49

And there's other things you can watch out for too. There's lots of different on-chain indicators. A great website's got a lot of free on-chain indicators you can watch. It's called lookintobitcoincom and you can see things there, like the MVRVZ score or the NUPL the NUPL Net Unrealized Profit Loss Score, stuff like this. When these indicators get into their peaks, as they have looked in previous cycle peaks, that's also a good indicator that markets are overheated. Might be time to think about booking in those profits right.

Lark: 26:17

And, of course, there's always the social sentiment stuff. When you see Coinbase app at number one of all downloaded apps Happened twice actually, I think in 2021 at both peaks, and then the peak actually came about seven to nine days later as those people downloaded it. People download it and then they need a few days to get their account, kyc and all that stuff and then they can bring their money on and they bring their money on, they and they buy into. The top happens every time, okay.

Lark: 26:45

So that's an interesting signal to watch out for and that's a we don't make the rules of the market guys. This is just how it is. Unfortunately, the vast majority of people are going to show up at the exact wrong time and buy at the exact wrong time and sell at the exact wrong time. You can't stop it from happening, but you can profit from it happening if you understand how the markets work. It's a player versus player game out here, guys, and unfortunately a lot of people just come in at the absolute wrong time and make the wrong moves and it's just the way the markets keep repeating. It's human greed, human fear, so you can't change those things Exactly.

Joeri: 27:15

Yeah, it's also. You talk about crypto, but also in the traditional way of investing, we have the Warren Buffett type, we have the technical analysis, we have the psychology that people buy at the wrong moment. And actually, if you understand technical analysis and you have the right investments, they understand it. It just gives the probabilities higher that you make a profit, but you're never sure if you follow the indicators. Yes, a lot of knowledge that you shared, Lark. If people want to learn more, I guess they can read your newsletter or watch your YouTube videos.

Lark: 27:50

Yeah, come follow us on X LarkDavis or come follow us on YouTube, L lark Davis, as well. Of course, make sure you're getting the verified accounts. There's lots of personal accounts out there and, of course, you can check out the newsletter at thewealthmastery. io. We're making three newsletters a week, jam-packed full of information and valuable alpha on what's going on in the market.

Joeri: 28:09

Amazing. Like my listeners know, there are information and valuable alpha on what's going on in the market. Henry Suryawirawan PhD. Amazing. Like my listeners know, there are always show notes. There is always a blog article. All the links that Lark has mentioned will be in there. So, lark, thank you so much. It was a really interesting conversation with you. So, guys, a lot to learn, a lot to think about in this podcast episode. If you think this is useful for people around you, really be sure to share this episode with them. They will be really grateful to you. If you're not yet subscribed to my podcast, this is a really good moment to do this. And what I almost forgot to ask if you haven't yet given a review for the show. That really helps me to reach even more listeners. So I would be really happy if you would do that for me and, of course, I would like to see you back next time. Take care.