Jan 27, 2022 · 1h 7m · startup-ideas
The Wolf of All Streets, Scott Melker | Where It Happens
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of Where It Happens, hosts Sahil Bloom and Greg Isenberg interview Scott Melker (The Wolf of All Streets) to explore his journey from professional DJ to digital media powerhouse. The discussion delivers actionable frameworks on scaling content brands, macro crypto portfolio strategies, and navigating unconventional career pivots.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Greg holds 8.8% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Greg as informed peer 1.9 Guest teaching 2.8 Guest disagreement 0.7 Greg pushing back 0.3
speaking balance: gold is Greg, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 40:20 Scott's forceful anti-trading reframe
Scott directly warns the audience against trying to trade, flatly stating that everyday investors will lose and highlighting that the wealthiest baby boomers never looked at technical charts.
Hardest push from Greg ▶ 51:08 Greg challenges Scott on accessibility for average investorsGreg pushes back against Scott's recommendation to allocate capital to expert friends' funds, pointing out that everyday listeners lack Ivy League networks and accredited investor access.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 52:20 Scott explains concentration versus diversification for building wealthScott cites Mark Yusko to explain that diversification is a wealth-preservation strategy for the already rich, while wealth creation requires concentrated focus.
Greg holds their own ▶ 53:25 Greg synthesizes Scott's multi-decade high-conviction patternGreg connects disparate stories across the interview, reframing Scott's career as a consistent 20-year strategy of concentrated conviction rather than an overnight pivot.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Greg as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Greg pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Episode Preview: The Wolf of All Streets | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | The episode opens with an intro, an ad read, and Sahil recounting how Scott amplified his early Twitter threads in 2020. The tone is entirely friendly, reminiscent, and collaborative. | |
| The Positive-Sum Ethos of Web3 and Crypto | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Scott and Sahil discuss the collaborative, positive-sum nature of crypto communities compared to cutthroat industries like music. There is total mutual agreement across the board. | |
| Greg and Scott's Gainesville Grooveshark Connection | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Greg and Scott discover their shared connection through Grooveshark in Gainesville, Florida. They reflect on the eclectic, diverse backgrounds of people entering Web3. | |
| Pivoting from DJing to Crypto Charts on Twitter | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | Scott shares his pivot from music DJing to charting Bitcoin on Twitter, alienating half his followers. Greg offers an insightful comparison to Jack Butcher's pivot. | |
| Ephemerality of Virality Versus Focused Content | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Scott discusses why random viral moments did not lead to sustainable audience growth compared to focused educational content. The hosts validate and build on the insight. | |
| Navigating the Dark Side of Crypto Twitter | 1 | 3 | 1 | 0 | Scott details dealing with crypto Twitter's dark side, including hacking attempts, extortion, and sim swaps due to being fully doxxed and publicly visible. | |
| Authenticity Over Anonymity and Handling Criticism | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | Greg asks Scott whether he would choose an anonymous persona if restarting today. Scott explains why staying authentic and visible fits his personality despite false cancellation rumors. | |
| Building and Monetizing a Multi-Channel Media Brand | 2 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Scott walks through the step-by-step monetization and scaling of his newsletter, Blockworks podcast, and daily YouTube live streams. The hosts ask clarifying questions. | |
| Daily Content Routine, Burnout, and Playing Golf | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Scott details his intense 4:30 AM routine, balancing daily live content with raising young kids and playing golf to decompress. The hosts listen with admiration. | |
| Lessons from Trading Disasters and Technical Analysis | 2 | 6 | 2 | 0 | Scott offers strong, blunt advice against active retail trading, recounting his own disaster riding a pharma stock to zero. Sahil shares an embarrassing interview story confirming the point. | |
| Portfolio Strategy and Macro Asset Allocation | 2 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Scott shares his macro asset breakdown, including an 70-80% crypto allocation weighted towards Bitcoin and Ethereum, while advising general listeners to hold broad market index funds. | |
| Prediction Markets and Circle of Competence Investing | 3 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Sahil pitches prediction markets like Kalshi, while Scott explains his strategy of only investing in specialized areas by outsourcing to fund managers within his trusted network. | |
| Concentration Versus Diversification for Wealth Creation | 3 | 4 | 2 | 4 | Greg pushes back on Scott's strategy of relying on elite networks, asking how non-accredited or non-Ivy League individuals can invest. Scott quotes Mark Yusko on concentration vs diversification. | |
| Scott's 20-Year History of Entrepreneurial Failures | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Greg highlights Scott's lifelong conviction, prompting Scott to recount over two decades of entrepreneurial failures before finding product-market fit in crypto content. | |
| Playing Your Own Game and Overcoming Fear of Judgment | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | The conversation focuses on ignoring external judgment, playing your own game, and putting yourself out there relentlessly. All three participants share aligned philosophies. | |
| Managing Psychology, Losses, and Stop Losses | 1 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Scott ties trading discipline to life psychology, explaining how managing emotions around losses and respecting stop losses determines long-term survival. | |
| Sahil and Greg's Key Takeaways on Focus and Niches | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | In the outro, Sahil and Greg summarize their core takeaways about finding personal niches and doubling down on strengths before ending on a sponsor ad read. |
Statements from this episode (21)
Melker: Music Industry Is Predatory And Zero-Sum Unlike Crypto
“The music industry is quite literally the opposite. Everybody is for themselves. Nobody wants to help each other. Anyone you do business with is gouging you at every possible turn. And it really is not like that in the crypto industry.”
Bloom: Silicon Valley Tech Is Monocultural Compared To Eclectic Web3
“Like, in, in tech, I lived in San Francisco in the Bay Area for a long time, not anymore, luckily, but there, it's like, it's only really one type of person, and it gets a bad rep for that, but it's like a lot of the tech bro is like what it gets a rep for. Wh…”
Melker: Web3 Attracts Second Acts Because Incumbents Lack Multi-Decade Advantage
“All these other industries, even tech to a degree, because Silicon Valley is an eighties thing, right? As much as it evolved into what it was, Silicon Valley already had its core. I think everybody's sort of figuring it out together and came to it through some…”
Melker: Success In The Crypto Industry Is Largely Luck And Timing
“A huge part of, I think, anyone's story in this industry is certainly luck and timing, right? If I had had the exact same story at the very beginning of 2018, it would be very different, right?”
Melker: Lost Half Of Twitter Following After Pivot To Crypto Charts
“And so I immediately, like, cut my followers in half, right?”
Melker: College Story About Donald Trump Jr. Became National News
“I went viral for writing a story on my Facebook page about Donald Trump Jr. When we went to college together, which was screenshot and became national news.”
Melker: Faced Countless Hacks, SIM Swaps, And Extortion Over Public Crypto Profile
“I've definitely dealt with some crazy stuff, you know, it turned into a lot of sim swapping and hacking people attempting to, you know, I mean, I've been hacked so many times at this point, it, it's hard to count, but, you know, people threatening me and tryin…”
Melker: Would Choose Real Identity Over Anonymity If Starting Over Today
“I would be myself, without, without question. Although, like, I envy the guys who are anonymous to some degree because they're, I think it's just an easier way to interact with this particular community. I wouldn't change a thing because, like, I feel like eve…”
Melker: Wolf Of All Streets Was Among Revue's Largest Newsletters
“Yeah, and I think, I can't speak, but I think at one point, I'm one of their two or three probably largest newsletters, just because I started really in their infancy.”
Bloom: Crypto Media Company Blockworks Has Become A $20M+ Business
“And now it's a, you know, twenty million dollar plus business.”
Melker: Retail Traders Will Lose Money And Should Only Use Play Funds
“Trading's fun, but the first thing everyone should know is you're going to lose and it should be your play money.”
Melker: Do Not Trade Crypto; Making Money Is Easier Buying And Holding
“The most important thing everyone can know is just don't trade. Just don't trade. It's so easy to make money in crypto by simply investing and waiting.”
Melker: Crypto Makes Up 70% To 80% Of Personal Investment Portfolio
“But for me now, crypto is You know, 70, 80% of my portfolio, and then breaking that down, 70% of that I've always believed 70% investments, 15% cash, 15% for trading and investing in your best friend's company that is going to lose your money.”
Melker: Core Crypto Portfolio Is Split Roughly 60/40 Bitcoin And Ethereum
“Ethereum caught up, so it's a sixty-forty Bitcoin-Ethereum split now for me, and then the rest, okay, we'll call that you know, 58 38, and the rest is the dust From the best trades of my life.”
Melker: People Should Own Stocks And Hard Assets To Exploit Inflation
“I still think your average person should have a stock portfolio, right? Like, listen, we can rail against the problems with inflation and the problems with Fed policy, but that benefits people who take advantage of that inflation by buying assets and buying ha…”
Bloom: Invested In CFTC-Regulated Prediction Platform Kalshi
“And then recently I came across this platform, which it called Kalshi, that I had a lot of fun with, was like, it was the first CFTC regulated, they, like, spent two years getting CFTC regulated
So there's no limits, and there's market makers, there's liquidi…”
Melker: Metaverse Investment Opportunities Will Surpass Anything In The Real World
“Metaverse is going to be economies of scale beyond anything we've even seen in the real world for the investment opportunities.”
Melker: Accredited Investor Laws Block Average Citizens From Wealth Opportunities
“The fact is, the United States law that is supposed to protect consumers actually prohibits consumers, or prohibits your average citizen who does not have enough money from the same opportunities that wealthy people have.”
Melker: Wealth Is Created Through Concentrated Bets, Not Diversification
“Diversification is what you do when you're already rich. You don't get rich through diversification. You get rich through concentration with the caveat being that you choose right.”
Bloom: Ignore Weaknesses And Double Down On Core Strengths
“You're much better off, and it's like, maybe it's contrarian advice, and it's a hot take, but, like, you're much better off just saying fuck it to the stuff you're bad at, and, like, I'm probably not gonna ever be amazing at those things I'm bad at. Let me jus…”