This week, Ryan Watkins join the show to discuss the current state of crypto and where he sees the most opportunity in 2026. We deep dive into running a crypto fund in 2026, do four year cycles still exist, the Hyperliquid thesis, token unlocks and more. Enjoy! -- Follow Ryan: https://x.com/RyanWatkins_ Follow Jason: https://x.com/JasonYanowitz Follow Empire: https://x.com/theempirepod -- Robots will soon outnumber humans onchain. peaqOS turns them into a new trusted liquid asset class, with yield tied to real-world workloads. It gives robots all they need to do business on any chain — and lets humans earn from automation. Explore the Machine Economy: https://peaq.xyz -- Timestamps: (00:00) Introduction (04:02) Running A Crypto Fund In 2026 (09:55) Do Four Year Cycles Exist? (16:36) peaq Ad (17:22) How To Find A Trade (25:52) The Hyperliquid Thesis (49:44) Is The Hyperliquid Trade Overcrowded? (53:28) Opportunities In Crypto, Token Unlocks &amp; The L1 Trade (01:02:16) Zcash &amp; Privacy -- Disclaimer: Nothing said on Empire is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Santiago, Jason, Rob and our guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.

The Bull Case For Hyperliquid | Ryan Watkins 

Empire

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** Empire

## Participants

- **Jason Yanowitz** (Blockworks)
- **Ryan Watkins** (Synchrocy)

## Transcript

Nothing said on Empire is a recommendation to buy or sell any investments or products. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and the views expressed by anyone on the show are solely their opinions, not financial advice or necessarily the views of Blockworks. Our hosts, guests, and the Blockworks team may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.

All right, everyone. Welcome back to Empire. Very excited about this one. We've got Ryan Watkins, co-founder of Synchrocy on the pod. Long short, I think mostly long, actually. Long biased, I think is what the professionals would call it. Liquid fund in crypto. So Ryan, welcome. Yeah, thanks for having me on. Long biased hedge fund? Long biased hedge fund. Okay, only crypto assets? Only crypto. All right. All right. Well, I want to talk about a bunch of stuff. I mean, the biggest trade that I've seen you guys be public about is Hyperliquid.

And when I think about people who have put on the Hyperliquid trade in size and done quite well, you know, you guys are top of mind for that. But maybe before getting into the Hyperliquid trade, we could talk about just this market environment in general. I think you're one of the first, one of the only people I've seen on Twitter who is positive and saying that we're entering a healthy market environment right now. Maybe you could just expand on, yeah, what that means to you.

Yeah, I think when I say healthy, I mean that there's opportunities that are available, but it's not necessarily rising tide lifts all boats. And I remember heading into this year, one of the biggest, almost like cognitive dissonance that I had was that I'm bullish, but at the same time, I'm like so cynical about all these assets in the asset class and all the behavior that we've seen over the past year, two years, even past four years since the 2021 peak.

And I think when you zoom out, like one helpful lens that I think we've kind of developed, and I think it's also helpful just to even just personally invest in many different asset classes to help you get to this conclusion, is if you actually have like the kind of global capital allocator hat on, and you're thinking about, and you don't have a mandate to invest in crypto, like what within crypto would you actually buy?

And I think heading into this year, the answer was like almost nothing. Like almost nothing. You could buy like AI equities, you can go into private crap. I mean, there's so many different things you can do. If you're a global capital allocator who could buy anything in the world, would you actually buy anything in crypto? Exactly. Maybe there's one or two things. There was like a handful. There's like a handful. And it was, I think it was, it was just being brutally honest with ourselves about like what is the actual state of the industry or the state of l...

The Bull Case For Hyperliquid | Ryan Watkins

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.

The Bull Case For Hyperliquid | Ryan Watkins

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.