Wolf Of All Streets worries about a world where Bitcoin hits $1M: Hall of Flame
Scott Melker is the host of The Wolf Of All Streets Podcast and author of The Wolf Den newsletter.
“If I tweeted about a small cap [crypto] of some sort right now, the price would probably change by like 50%,” says Scott Melker, better known to his 904,800 Twitter followers as The Wolf Of All Streets.
Melker says he takes this responsibility seriously and won’t share tweets that might “impact the market” – but this makes Twitter “a lot more boring” from his end. In fact, Melker declares that Twitter “stopped being fun” when he reached 100,000 followers.
“That’s when I went through a phase of a real love-hate relationship with Twitter because that’s when I guess 10% of the people who respond to comments were trolling at any given time.”
All you can really post to 900,000 followers is “Bitcoin and inspirational quotes” because “everything else” will land you in hot water.
After graduating from Penn State University with an Anthropology degree in 1999, Melker tried his hand at a “million” other things — finding the most success in his 20-year stint as a DJ.
Shortly after finishing university, he also started his own magazine in Philadelphia called 101 Magazine, focusing on street culture and city vibes.
It caught the attention of a “huge” magazine called Frank 151, which acquired it, and Melker became the editor-in-chief of both.
During that time, he had the opportunity to attend “insane” parties and rub shoulders with legendary acts like the Wu-Tang Clan and Outcast.
The music industry led him to try crypto trading in the first place.
“I just happened to look into crypto because there was a bunch of DJs trading it,” he says.
He first started trading on the Gemini crypto exchange in 2016 and recalls buying Bitcoin to send it to another exchange, Bittrex, so he “could buy Ethereum and Ripple.” ETH was “under 20 bucks” back then, he notes in a cheeky humble brag.
Rather than some lofty higher purpose, he says the main attraction was making cold hard cash.
“I was really just trading, trying to make money to support a new family; it had nothing to do with what Bitcoin was or what the asset class was.”
What led to Twitter fame?
Melker initially started stacking up followers when he was “trading the market well” and posting about it on Twitter. At that point in time, his content was “100% charts and trades.”
However, Melker didn’t want his account to be based on trades because it’s “fickle.”
So, he transitioned toward a more holistic approach to his content within the crypto industry.
“I would love to tell you there was some strategy that I took to grow my account, but it was always just me doing whatever I enjoyed doing the most at any given time.”
Melker has observed a direct correlation between his follower growth and the performance of the crypto market.
During previous bull markets, he has experienced an insane influx of daily followers.
“There was a time when I was getting a hundred thousand [followers] in two months,” he says.
Melker used to “literally respond to everybody” who commented on his tweets or messaged him, but that ship has now sailed.
“That’s like a full-time job, and then you just get to the point where you literally can’t open all your DMs anymore,” he says.
But it’s best not to refer to him as an “influencer.”
“I hate the term influencer because, to me, I’m just a student of crypto, and it’s something I’m passionate about and want to learn more about.”
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What type of content do you do?
Melker’s content revolves around crypto news and keeping people up-to-date with what’s happening in the market.
He likes to share his take on what’s important, and “what’s kind of noise and not signal.”
“[My content includes] all the lessons that I’ve learned in my streams and podcasts, but I would say it’s generally educational/informational content about this market.”
Melker emphasizes the overwhelming pressure he faces whenever he decides to “fire off a tweet,” considering how many followers he has amassed on Twitter.
“Twitter is like a movie where you throw a grenade in a room and walk away, and there’s a huge explosion behind you. That’s how I feel every time I send a tweet now,” Melker says.
Extreme beef: Gary Gensler
Melker is not a fan of United States Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler.
He admits that his Twitter is filled with many “angry tweets against Gensler.”
“I literally contributed to aggressively getting #firegarygensler trending on Twitter,” he declares.
He explains that his problem with Gensler is his recent regulatory actions, which he perceives as a “massive overcorrection” targeting crypto firms.
He believes that it stems from a sense of embarrassment over the fact Gensler was meeting with Sam Bankman-Fried before the collapse of FTX and didn’t realize “he was a fraud.”
Read also
Spicy beef: ZachXBT
ZachXBT, a pseudonymous on-chain researcher, accused Melker of pumping and dumping shit coins to his followers in 2021. It was a troubling time for Melker, who received threats and became the target of white-hot anger.
Melker vehemently refuted the claims and announced he would steer clear of tweeting about projects with small market caps altogether.
Melker says he doesn’t want his audience to get the wrong idea and prefers to focus on the educational stuff. He reiterates that he “was passionate” about trading altcoins, but says it can be difficult to navigate the boundaries of what you should and shouldn’t talk about as your following grows.
“You don’t just show up with 900,000 followers one day and understand what you can and cannot tweet about.”
Price predictions?
“There’s nothing that makes you look dumber than a price prediction,” Melker states. He should know, given he took an optimistic swing at predicting Ethereum would hit five figures in 2021.
However, he is bullish on Bitcoin hitting six figures in the next bull run.
“I think the next cycle would be somewhere between 100 (thousand) and 250 (thousand),” he declares.
But Melker believes that after that, the market will see another huge decline before it hits half a million.
“Then we drop down to 60 (thousand), and it’s boring forever. Then, we pop up to half a million, like we continue these four-year cycles.”
However, Melker doesn’t want “to live in a world where Bitcoin is a million dollars.”
“The faster it happens, the worse the world is,” Melker says.
“Because if Bitcoin goes to a million dollars. It means that everything else has exploded, including the United States dollar, and we’re living in some Mad Max dystopian future.”
“Where you and I are those guys without faces painted going to gas town, fighting off the enemies,” he describes, referring to the 2015 movie Mad Max: Fury Road.
But maybe in a couple of decades.
“I would like to see Bitcoin at a million dollars in 20 years, following reasonable cycles,” he adds.
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Politics
Watchdog criticises ‘unprecedented’ government offer to delay local elections – as five councils confirm requests for postponement
The elections watchdog has criticised the government for offering to consider delaying 63 local council elections next year – as five authorities confirmed to Sky News that they would ask for a postponement.
On Thursday, hours before parliament began its Christmas recess, the government revealed that councils were being sent a letter asking if they thought elections should be delayed in their areas due to challenges around delivering local government reorganisation plans.
The chief executive of the Electoral Commission, Vijay Rangarajan, hit out at the announcement on Friday, saying he was “concerned” that some elections could be postponed, with some having already been deferred from 2025.
“We are disappointed by both the timing and substance of the statement. Scheduled elections should, as a rule, go ahead as planned, and only be postponed in exceptional circumstances,” he said in a statement.
“Decisions on any postponements will not be taken until mid-January, less than three months before the scheduled May 2026 elections are due to begin.
“This uncertainty is unprecedented and will not help campaigners and administrators who need time to prepare for their important roles.”
Mr Rangarajan added: “We very much recognise the pressures on local government, but these late changes do not help administrators. Parties and candidates have already been preparing for some time, and will be understandably concerned.”
He said “capacity constraints” were not a “legitimate reason for delaying long planned elections”, which risked “affecting the legitimacy of local decision-making and damaging public confidence”.
The watchdog chief also said there was “a clear conflict of interest in asking existing councils to decide how long it will be before they are answerable to voters”.
Sky News contacted the 63 councils that have been sent the letter about potentially delaying their elections.
At the time of publication, 17 authorities had replied with their decisions, while 33 said they would make up their minds before the government’s deadline of 15 January.
Many councils told Sky News they were surprised at yesterday’s announcement, saying that they had been fully intending to hold their polls as scheduled.
They said they were now working to understand the appropriate democratic mechanism for deciding whether to request a postponement of elections. Some local authorities believe it should be a decision made by their full council, while others will leave it up to council leaders or cabinet members to decide.
Multiple councils also emphasised in statements to Sky News that the ultimate decision to delay elections lay with the government.
Reform UK has threatened legal action against ministers, accusing Labour and the Tories of “colluding” to postpone elections in order to lock other parties out of power – a sentiment echoed by Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey.
But shadow local government secretary Sir James Cleverly told Sky News this morning that the Conservative Party “wants these elections to go ahead”. Sky News understands that the national party is making that position clear to local leaders.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government, said it was taking a “locally-led approach”, and emphasised that “councils are in the best position to judge the impact of postponements on their area”.
They added: “These are exceptional circumstances where councils have told us they’re struggling to prepare for resource-intensive elections to councils that will shortly be abolished, while also reorganising into more efficient authorities that can better serve local residents.
“There is a clear precedent for postponing local elections where local government reorganisation is in progress, as happened in 2019 and 2022.”
The five councils that confirmed they would be seeking postponements were:
- Blackburn with Darwen Council (Labour);
- Chorley Borough Council (Labour);
- East Sussex County Council (Conservative minority);
- Hastings Borough Council (Green minority);
- West Sussex County Council (Conservative).
The councils in Chorley, and East and West Sussex, had decided prior to Thursday’s government announcement that they would request a delay.
An East Sussex County Council spokesperson told Sky News: “It is welcome that the government is listening to local leaders and has heard the case for focussing our resources on delivery in East Sussex, particularly with devolution and reorganisation of local government, as well as delivering services to residents, such high priorities.”
They also pointed to the cost of electing councillors for a term of just one year, and argued that it would be “more prudent for just one set of elections to be held in 2027”.
Read more from Sky News:
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West Sussex County Council echoed those reasons and said it would cost taxpayers across the county £9m to hold elections in 2026, 2027, and 2028, as currently planned.
Chorley and Blackburn councils also cited the cost of delivering elections, and said they would prefer that money be spent on delivering the local government reorganisation and delivering services to local residents.
Meanwhile, 12 councils confirmed to Sky News that they would not be requesting delays:
- Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council (Liberal Democrat-Independents);
- Broxbourne Borough Council (Conservative);
- Colchester City Council (Labour-Liberal Democrat);
- Eastleigh Borough Council (Liberal Democrat);
- Essex County Council (Conservative);
- Hart District Council (Liberal Democrat-Community Campaign);
- Hastings Borough Council (Green minority);
- Isle of Wight Council (no overall control);
- Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council (Conservative);
- Portsmouth City Council (Liberal Democrat minority);
- Rushmoor Borough Council (Labour minority);
- Southampton City Council (Labour).
Keonne Rodriguez, who pleaded guilty to one felony count related to his role at Samourai Wallet, is calling on US President Donald Trump to pardon him, citing similar language that has been successful in previous pardon applications.
In a Thursday X post, Rodriguez said he would report to prison on Friday, where he will serve a five-year sentence for operating an illegal money transmitter. The Samourai co-founder claimed there were no “victims” to his crime, and blamed his incarceration on “lawfare perpetrated by a weaponized Biden DOJ.”
In a message tagging Trump, Rodriguez expressed hope that the US president would issue a federal pardon for him and William “Bill” Lonergan Hill, another Samourai executive who pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four years. Rodriguez blamed “activist judges” for his legal troubles, claiming he was targeted by a “political anti-innovation agenda.”
“I maintain hope that [Trump] is a fair man, a man of the people, who will see this prosecution for what it was: an anti innovation, anti american, attack on the rights and liberties of free people,” said Rodriguez. “I believe his team […] and others truly want to end the weaponization of the DOJ that the previous administration wielded so effectively […] I believe he will continue to wield that power for good and pardon me and Bill.”
Related: Samourai Wallet co-founders to now plead guilty to US charges
Rodriguez’s public plea followed Trump’s statement that he would “take a look” at a pardon for the Samourai co-founder, claiming that he had no knowledge of the case. It’s unclear whether Rodriguez filed an official application for a pardon or is relying on public statements to get the president’s attention.
Other crypto execs successfully lobbied for a Trump pardon
One of Trump’s first acts as president in January was to issue a pardon for Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, who had been serving a life sentence for his role in creating and operating the darknet marketplace.
Former Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, who pleaded guilty to one felony in 2023 related to the exchange’s Anti-Money Laundering program, served four months in prison but also received a pardon from the president. Trump later said he “[knew] nothing about” Zhao when asked about the pardon in a November interview.
Rodriguez’s language addressing Trump mirrored comments from the White House on previous pardons. For example, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said it was a “weaponization of justice from the previous administration” when the president commuted the sentence of David Gentile, who was convicted of defrauding “thousands of individual investors in a $1.6 billion” scheme in 2024.
Crypto users on Polymarket were not given the choice of betting on the odds of a Trump pardon of Rodriguez as of Friday. At the time of publication, Trump ally Steve Bannon had the highest odds, at 9%.
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