Hall of Flame – Cointelegraph Magazine
2023.07.20 10:00
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.”
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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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Ciaran Lyons
Ciaran Lyons is an Australian crypto journalist. He’s also a standup comedian and has been a radio and TV presenter on Triple J, SBS and The Project.
