>> right now, we're converging on a point and they understand this we can take the whole thing down >> we can take the whole thing -- >> what if they devalue their currency. >> they're going to flood more dollars out. they get $3 trillion of reserve and that's what their own people think about their economy. we've allowed these guys to push us around and we've allowed these guys to take the south china sea, and when we were in the navy, it's central of the south china sea to be free and open navigation. the bush administration and the obama administration looked the other day whether they militarized it and we want to talk about where in the trade war is going >> how it ends -- how it ends is in victory donald trump is not going to back off this. the chinese are going to blink >> what is victory >> victory is when they give us full access to their markets and victory is when they stop. remember, the warlordism in

china and xi is under, i think, tremendous pressure is the state-owned industries main china 2025, they said it was to converge on advanced chip design and robotics and artificial intelligence, eventually with genetics to converge on manufacturing. what the reality and what we saw with gte was -- zte, was to get off the west supply chain for components i think the number one thing you will see out of the trade war is the re-orientation of the complete supply chain of japan, western europe and the united states and southeast asia that 800 million people even before you get to india, okay around the freedom-loving countries. i think the regime in china is in deep trouble. the chinese people are some of the hardest working and best people in the world. it is this regime that has led them down this past and it's the personality around xi that tried to get up in united states' race

and this trade war will end in victory and what we will see is the reorientation out of the supply chain in china. >> we discussed it on cnbc frequently when it is all said and done, are there going to be fewer tariffs in the world and is china going to be more open? >> let's go back to the g-7, and the g-7 on the first day, he got lit up, right? lit up by everybody. the worst guy over the world saying next morning he walks in there and i've got an idea and how about no tariffs no tariffs whatsoever. raw trade and reciprocity. >> and larry kudlow brought that up, and no subsidies macron didn't know what to do and couldn't get out of the seat the whole scam is the state-owned industry and brexit in 2016 are inextricably linked and what links them is china it's china's exporting and it's deflation and chinese exporting excess capacity that is gutted, the midland heartlands of inland and obviously through germany

and the upper midwest of the united states. if you go out to the midwest and you give them a fire breathing speech on china, you don't have to get them up to speed like the elites in new york and they reminded me that these studies from m.i.t. and harvard show there was a direct correlation between the factories that went overseas and the jobs that went with them and the opioid crisis. remember -- >> let me ask you this -- >> tariffs are not just about economics and they're just not about manufacturing jobs it is about self-worth and identity and people understanding they have jobs, okay this is bringing these manufacturers back -- >> is it good for the economy? >> 100% good for the economy it's great for the economy >> we will continue to monitor that conversation with steve bannon, of course, taking place at alpha let's bring in eamon javers, cnbc contributor, and dan clipton. eamon, i'll start with you

he said very clearly, the trade war with china ends in victory what's your take >> michelle caruso-cabrera walked him through there a number of recent news items and got him to make a number of headlines here the first one, steve bannon thinks the president's performance in helsinki was fine and he didn't have the command performance that he had in singapore. i think that will be a comment that will be remarked upon widely, and i think he also said that the president gravitates toward people who have strong personalities in terms of president xi, president putin and erdogan in turkey, but bannon says he's fine with that because ultimately the president is leading here from a position in strength, and that will be a widely remarked-upon comment t the meddling did happen in 2016, but it was on the margin that is that the president -- it appeared to be the president was suggesting as steve bannon was suggesting that the president should take the approach that it

was the u.s. election and it didn't make the difference overall in the election and bannon seemed to not quite understand why the president can't separate those two things and he conflates those two things and he addressed the trade issues right now and said we are at war with china and he referred repeatedly to the trade war and you hear white house officials here on this complex trying to go out of their way extensively to avoid suggesting that we're at a trade war and the conflict and the dispute and it's something that could be resolved in the short term bannon putting this in a multi-generational context and suggesting the rules-based international order de-industrialized the united states and the upper midwest and said we are in a trade war with china and that we've been in one kind of war with china for a long time and those are provocative comments >> say what you will, jimmy p. about steve bannon and trust me, we're getting a lot of commentary pouring in, whether you agree with him or hate him, this is clearly a man that is

familiar with the president's thinking especially as it relates to trade so when he does say things like we'll see a complete re-orientation of supply chain around the freedom-loving countries, is that realistic >> is russia one of those freedom-loving countries i think he included russia as part of his sort of civilizational war against china. i don't consider china a liberal democracy or part of the west. apparently, he does and how he values liberal democracy does the president really share his view of what this trade war, whatever he wants to call it against china? >> he focused a lot on the technology >> when i hear the president talk, he mostly talks about the trade deficit and occasionally he'll mention the tech aspect. >> larry kudlow talked about it. >> i don't know if he buys the bannon, we're in a war for genetic engineering and nano

technology supremacy >> sarah, what's your take on that was there some sense in any of what we have from steve bannon there? >> oh, he does know the president very well and he's familiar with his thinking anden f influential with his thinking and the president, and i don't agree with president trump's approach on this, but you do have to give president trump some credit for moving these nat owe countries to spend more on their own defense. i wouldn't call it a protectorate it's a partnership, but he's right. european allies do need to do more and i do think his approach is off, but his approach is at least effective in getting them to spend more money. >> so, dan, let's get to the investor takeaway from all of this michelle asked what is winning the u.s. will win the trade war and steve bannon has full access to their markets and what kind

of bumps along the way, if we even get there how much pain is the market and the global economy going to have to endure to get to that prize if we even get there >> sure. and i saw a lot of similarities between what steve was saying and larry kudlow today and they have very different ways of saying it and if you take those two remarks and the two speakers from your conference, larry was saying trump needs a win on nafta, possibly eu autos because we're going to focus on china, and what steve bannon just said is put yourself in a seat belt, lock yourself in this is going to be a long process. it's not going to be a short run, and it is akin to the build-up of the soviet union with reagan fighting the cold war. it's just going to be with china on trade policy rather than defense spending and so from an investor takeaway, getting a win on the eu or nafta for trump will be important. investors have given trump a pretty big leash on china because there is no time line or

deadline and let the process play out, and sarah, i think what steve is saying is a win is two different parts of this. number one, tariffs in china right now are 9% if you can get them down to the rest of the developed world at 3% there will be better market access and two, to stop stealing the intellectual property of the united states and that defines a victory, but it will not be easy to get there >> and to comment on the deep immorality of bannon's alternate reality and china is forever poor is that what he thinks that we should keep china forever making $2 a day forever. >> this is an excellent point. >> this is where he's going. >> this is an excellent point, my former boss, president bush used to talk about, they need to create millions of jobs a month, and that's what their leaders worry about is job creation as people move into these cities

and steve bannon completely, as jimmy pointed out, avoided the need for them to educate and employ their people. >> listen, final word. we'll have to leave it there >> one of the things that steve bannon said toward the end was one of the most important things we heard him say and not something that we heard him say at the white house tariffs are not just about economics. they're about identity and self-worth he tied the tariffs right to the opioid crisis that's hurt so much of this country when the white house officials now currently talk about the tariff, they don't talk about it in that language they talk about it as a negotiating tactic and economic. he's saying this isn't economic, and what the president is doing is about identity and it explainsa i lot of the white house approach and even though white house officials don't stand here on the north lawn and say that on television. >> it's also sort of the bannon spin dan clifton, will you be joining

us in the administration, we reported that you're in talks with larry kudlow. >> we can leave the interview there. >> i will command the space force. >> that's a no comment >> guy, we'll have to leave it there. we're out of time, eamon javers and thank you all very much. we've overrun here on "closing bell." let's hand it over to melissa lee with "fast money". >> it really has been an extraordinary day and if you're just tuning in you're watching "fast money" and all of the talk on wall street has been the alpha conference where the who's who of the investment worth gathered to share their ideas everyone from larry kudlow to former trump adviser steve bannon they're all in the room and let's get to cnbc leslie picker with the conference. >> there were a lot of themes and a lot of optimism. larry kudlow believes gdp could

be 4% for a few quarters despite the trade tensions he hinted about. he hinted that the administration was considering tax cuts 2.0 like the flattening yield curve and kudlow being the growth part of the cycle has room to run. >> consider the possibility that a capital spending boom that we never really had, okay, widespread capital returning back to the united states, you know this is the hottest country right now in the world trillions of dollars are coming here it's leaving europe and leaving china and a lot of places and we've never seen these kind of inflows probably since the 1990s. it is possible that a, quote, real business growth cycle is right there in front of us for the next four or five or six years. >> david rubenstein also sees the economy full speed ahead his firm owns nearly 300

companies and a sample size that helps inform him about his opinion on a macro environment >> we don't see any evidence of a slowdown we could have 275 companies that carl owns around the world and we get every quarter their numbers and we correlate with what we see in gdp trends to be and we don't really see any slowdown right now they will happen at some point, but this year and next year, we don't see any signs of a slowdown >> that timeframe seemed to fit with ken griffen's expectations, he runs one of the largest hedge funds in the world and he spoke today and said this could be something that he could see a 2022, 2023 for any type of slowdown. >> the current prognosis is the next six to nine months and we're going to experience strong growth so i think that in the short

run, absent a materiel catastrophe on the trade front, i think we're looking at very strong growth the next six to nine months. i think we -- we pulled forward through the tax cut, the stimulus that goes with that some amount of demand and some amount of capex. we'll see that play out this year it makes, for example, 2021, late 2020 much murkier >> of course, every investor's biggest question mark, trade tensions and most people who spoke today believe that the issues with china and elsewhere will be resolved over the long run and of course, steve bannon's speaking just moments ago talking about how he reiterated the view that we are already at war with china and that tariffs are good for the economy and he believes that we will ultimately be victorious and the u.s. will ultimately be victorious in this trade war,

melissa. >> leslie, thank you >> we're seeing more headlines and bannon is predicting that donald trump will win in 2020. let's start with the most surprising comment and that was the hawkish tone, and hawkish in terms of china from larry kudlow and it didn't hurt stocks today, guy. >> first of all, i thought larry looked great and sounded fantastic and made salient points the most interesting thing to me on a very interesting day were the comments out of j.p. morgan. she mentioned what concerns her and what gives her weighs on her is the violent move in currencies, and want the least of which is the u.s. dollar and the other thing, something they spent an inordinate amount of money on which justifies what we've seen in palo alto. larry did his thing and it didn't have any effect on the market and the fact that the currency moves, concerned her and the amount of money spent on cybersecurity. >> it is almost at a one-year

high for a guy that did think the dollar would run out of gas, and there are things that i heard today and i've heard over the last couple of weeks and here's what you want to think about and this is consistent with the guys and this administration will go for it with china and you don't want to hear me talk about politics what i'm saying is they've got momentum here to dig in, and if they have a 4% economy as they think, they're not necessarily worried about some of the short term stuff that to me says this drags on and a stronger dollar offsets the tariff pressures and certainly a deflationary force on the economy if they're worried about that i think the dollar may be somewhat at play here and i think at a minimum, i think the domestic story and the industrial story has a bigger bid today. i think the bottom line here is trade will be with us for a long time i'm an em guy and china's 40% of the vm index this does not feel good for emerging market investors. >> in terms of the dollar amount of goods that could face tariffs andjim tried to push larry and

should we go 500 billion in should we go the full amount that we take in from china on a yearly basis and larry didn't want to go there >> that part was interesting and the other interesting part was what larry said and how resilient the market has been. time and time again, this is what the trump presidency has been about >> a lot of flash and people trying to decide this is going to be something awful and the d duration of these moves would be limited. you might have thought the market would tip over, and we've gotten through the financial earnings and we're looking ahead a little bit and people are focusing on exactly that and it didn't happen and you look at the industrials and the health care and you look at technology and there are parts of the market that in my opinion look cheap. >> last week, we played this game that we'll break out at 2800 on the s&p 500, and i think all of us, the answer was it's probably more like 2900 is the level or 2950 which was the high on january 26th and it seems

like that's a foregone conclusion that the s&p will test that. we know the nasdaq and the russell 2000 have already made new highs. i'll just mention this when you think about your commentary about trade and when you think about what drove that last leg of the market in 2017, and it's important to remember that the s&p 500 at one point in early january was up 30% from the late 2016 highs. 30%. so there was a lot in the dereg la deregulation and that looked like a runaway breakout, right no fear in sight and the biggest drawdown was 3%. we know where it was all last year >> i was confused. >> what i'm saying is this year, we had this thing and the breakout, and we're talking about it a little bit higher we're going to talk about getting through the january highs and we kind of see what happens as far as the market's concerned because my point is this trade thing is going to go to the midterm and the chinese are not going to sell these before then and we're talking about the threats and we'll get

ratcheting up with hundred of billions of dollars. >> what i heard you say -- >> i wasn't even talking to you, actually >> that's okay >> you're right. come on. come on. >> go ahead. >> what i heard you say that i thought was interesting, was there no fear and i think there's a lot of fear in the stock market and that's good for the stock market ry repositioned substantially. i think because we're where there are people harping on the yield curve and worried about the banks and i think people are worried about trade and i think that's good for the market going higher and that's part of the dynamic at work. >> i would say trade is the only war. it seems to me that everyone is focused on trade, and front and center every single day since trump started to ratchet this up and not just with china, but everywhere else around the world and that has been an issue other than that, i see people looking at it and weave seen these earnings and we're only 10% of the s&p so far. these earnings you think trade is the only worry out there? >> after monday -- >> don't you think there's a

huge worry that we have an increasingly illegitimate president in the white house >> the market -- >> is that really a worry right now? >> honestly, dan, is that really a worry and i'm not talking from a political side -- >> in all honesty the market hasn't flinched on that. >> i've heard this rhetoric on the network since trump got in, and all i can say is you have to keep your head up and look at what the markets are doing, and i don't feel like people right now have the -- if they have the concerns that you're talking about. >> they would sell >> there would be sellers in the market in my opinion. >> if anything, what you've seen in the last 48 hours is the market doesn't care at all and i don't think the market at various times in the last three months and ultimately, trade matters and we tried to quantify this week we've had the humphrey-hawkins testimony and as much as he tried to tight walk this, the fed basically gave you more room to say

they're going to be less hawkish. >> and i want to go into the spin zone now. let's talk about the names that were on this conference. long huntsman and long biogen, short, evhd, short, and i'm sure the guys, and biogen for me is the huge optionality and if they get alzheimer's right it could be a double here that is actually fact. they rely on their ms business right now to get alzheimer's right, it doubles. the most interesting one and we've had the ceo on, take two interactive. people will knock this on valuation justifiably so with their earnings growth, but this is a hot space and tim has pointed out a number of times and samantha greenberg has gone to 170, and risk reward, take two is the best one out there. >> coming up, we have much more from the alpha conference and michelle caruso-cabrera still talking to steve bannon. that's a live shot we also heard from interviews with those two men, barry

silbert and jeremy allaire they're two of the most prominent voices from the world of crypto and we'll hear from them later on. we are all over ibm and american express both reportingearnings moments ago. you see their split raids and we'll bring you the very latest. we're live from the market from new york city's times square much more "fast money" right after this brokerage like ours, that's tough to do. schwab does it. next question. do you offer a satisfaction guarantee? a what now? a satisfaction guarantee. like schwab does. man: (scoffing) what are you teaching these kids? ask your broker if they offer award-winning full service and low costs, backed by a satisfaction guarantee. if you don't like their answer, ask again at schwab.

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welcome back to "fast money," you are looking at the live shot of the delivering alpha conference just a few blocks away in new york city where bitcoin were all hot topics and our bob pisani is there to talk all things crypto from today's conference. >> hello, melissa. bulls and bears on crypto very much in evidence, and albert is just finishing up and michael from avenue capital took a very bold position and he argued that if bitcoin gets more mainstream the price will rise. >> i think then you're searching the price of it and it's easier for people to buy. i think then you'll have something that will end up being somewhere around sort of, you know, 20,000 to 40,000 >> lasry has invested 1% of his

net worth in bitcoin others took the opposite side of the argument howard markston, bitcoin was a trade, but it's not an investment and that in the long run he doesn't think it will show any substance now, citadel's ken griffith said he's still scratching his head over all of this bitcoin hype saying not a sickle portfolio manager, he says, has told him to buy crypto and that he has hard times being a liquidity provider to a product that he doesn't believe in >> there's no need for cryptocurrencies they're a solution in search of a problem from my perspective. what's unfortunate is the amount of hype and the number of -- of early investors who have been caught up in this hype >> over in washington, federal reserve chair jay powell in his second day of confessional testimony say that cryptocurrencies are not real currencies because they have no

intrinsic value. also, was there significant consumer protection issues, paul said and the fed was not interested in doing a digital currency of its own, and melissa, of course, you had your crypto panel and i was very intrigued by the currency group barry silver's comments that the bitcoin bottom is in for the year i'm sure you'll pick that up next, and melissa, keep them, and guys, cocktail party's starting get back here! >> we were asked to leave! i don't know how to take that. >> the party doesn't start until you get here >> you know my drink, bob. i'll see you later bob pisani i am joined by the crypto king barry silver, founder of the cryptocurrency group great time at the panel and i'll say what bob said, the bitcoin bottom is probably in. what caused that bottom, do you

think, to be put in place? what caused that surge above 7,000 that we saw so suddenly, it seems i think, it's -- it's -- a lot of people were looking for a bottom a lot of institutional money was looking for an opportunity to get in, and i think the bears just kind of ran out of energy, ran out of bitcoin to sell, and i think from a technical perspective, it's starting to look pretty good and when the chair of the fed says negative things about bitcoin and howard marx says negative things about bitcoin and bitcoin doesn't move, i think that's a really bullish sign >> you're clearly a believer in cryptocurrencies and the platforms surrounding cryptocurrency, but when you have the fed so outspoken against cryptocurrencies and when you have the head of the fed so bullish on icos and cryptocurrencies, aren't you swimming upstream? >> and that's the best part.

that's the best part that's really where you make money, when you're swimming up stream >> i started buying bitcoin in 2012 when the price was $10, and i've gone through now 80% correction and that was a 65% correction it's the same old criticisms and i think a lot of it is it's just -- they're uninformed because i think everybody at this desk and anybody that spends the time into why is it an asset class and why does it have such potential, they come out of it being a believer and they're not running around like i am evangelizing and they come out of it is aing i'll put the money to work in the asset class. >> you mentioned institutional money was looking for an entry point here from just the people that i talked to, it doesn't mean that the traditional hedge funds even have the infrastructure to invest in crypto assets. do you see those more traditional hedge funds considering how to trade these sorts of things and is this the biggest pain point and is there

a strong interest other than just crypto dedicated funds. >> the funds themselves have started to put somebody to work. >> one of our companies was gray scale investment which was the largest manager in the state >> we announced today and we published the first half of work and $250 million raised to date and 56% came from institutions a year ago, and two years ago it was almost nonexistent and we're starting to see that money come in, but we need solutions and i think what you'll hear from a lot of them is you don't want to be first and you want to be second and we don't want to be last you don't want to be first >> barry, you've been first in a lot of this cycle and different parts and you care more about the tokens and the platforms and where are you guys investing and how are you separating two >> we invested in 130 companies and i would say in the entire spectrum, block chain, wallets,

exchanges candidly, on the enterprise block chain, very little traction and very little evidence that the product market fits and i'm all about the value prop and i'm all about the infrastructure that's required to create the onramps and that -- that is being built right now. 2019 will be an enormous year because it's going to be not just easy to get involved, but it will be socially acceptable >> when do you think we'll see the differentiation in trade between the different cryptocurrencies they should trade very differently, in theory >> i'm hoping that the movement of wall street into the asset class is -- which is going to bringer mo of a fundamental valuation approach to the asset class, there are only five that we like. there are only five that we have money in the other 99% will go to zero? >> what is your allocation >> we have 50% of bitcoin and this is the digital currency group balance sheet. 25% in ethereum classic, etc

15% in z cash, and 5% in mania and the newest is 5% in zen cash do all of these have to be commodities versus securities? this is dcg so you have to be careful with issues. >> the chairman has made it pretty clear that most icos are securities, so i'm pretty skeptical with icos and we don't really play in the states and we have companies that are involved as an exchange or a wallet, but in terms of where we're putting our money we're focusing on things and assets that have a store value aspect to it >> hold on, barry. speaking of bitcoin. we have an announcement alert. michelle caruso-cabrera just got off the stage with steve bannon. what did he say? >> we talked about a number of topics and we talked about the midterms and talked about china and the president's performance with president putin in

helsinki implicitly, steve bannon acknowledged it wasn't the president's finest performance ultimately he thought the president did fine >> the president's got a lot at stake in russia, vis-a-vis china. i think the president has done a terrific job particularly vis-a-vis all of the previous presidents, and i thought the press conference was fine. i would like to be a little stronger, maybe, about the meddling, but at the end of the day and the democrats will just have to embrace this, the m meddling is on the margins, just not that big a deal. >> we spent most of the discussion talking about china, and that's what he cares about the most, and he thinks that ultimately the u.s. is going to win. he thinks victory means that they're eventually going to end the policies or a lot of the policies that the president has found unacceptable

the other thing that i asked him about, quickly and especially for you guys that they're very interested in, he is a fan of bitcoin. i asked him where he sees it all going. >> i think these cryptocurrencies have a huge aspect in the future obviously, there are problems about the markets. >> we know you like -- >> i like bitcoin. >> do you have a theory? >> no. i've got that and i'm working on 90% of the icos have been a disaster we're working on some tokens now and utility token, potentially for a populist movement on a worldwide basis, but they have to be quality. the problem is there's been too many investors have been blown out by things that were not thought through, but -- they're -- they're the future. >> he acknowledges that he talks to the people in the white house all of the time and he still

talks to the communications president and they have a press war involved >> thank you, michelle >> hot off the stage with her talk with steve bannon clearly, he's an enthusiast. maybe it's not a surprise, but he is an enthusiast. he is a power to the people kind of guy and that's exactly what cryptocurrency is that's sort of one edge of it and how do you get this to be more mainstream for the institutions to come in. >> the infrastructure is being built and the custody solutions have to be rolled out, but frankly, for 12, 24 months and they've been researching and trying to build investment pieces and so we're really, really close with that happening, but i think '19 will be a big year. the second half of this year we have to see some consolidation, but the infrastructure will be there and then it's who will be first? >> larry, thanks so much for

your time and hope you come back to fast some time soon still ahead, we have much more on wall street's love and hate for crypto and the ceo of the first bitcoin-focused company, jeremy allaire, that's later on in the show. i'm melissa lee. you're watching "fast money" on cnbc traders say they can break out into new highs when they report next week we'll give you the names when "fast money" returns lot of tech companies are reporting today. and, how's it looking? >>i don't know. there's so many opinions out there, it's hard to make sense of it all. well, victor, do you have something for him? >>check this out. td ameritrade aggregates thousands of earnings estimates into a single data point. that way you can keep your eyes on the big picture. >>huh. feel better? >>much better. yeah, me too. wow, you really did a number on this thing. >>sorry about that. that's alright. i got a box of 'em. thousands of opinions. one estimate. the earnings tool

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money," shares of american express tumbling after hours ahead of earnings report. >> a big concern was the rise and expenses related to car member spending on rewards which jumped 11% from the same period last year, a sign that consumers are using their points to redeem hotel rooms and flights. ceo steve skwer ellie saying that new partnerships with marriott, hilton will help drive future growth. >> just last month we announced a multi-year partnership with amazon which will include a new co-branded small business credit card in the u.s. this is an exciting opportunity and a great example of why we are the small business partner of choice. because of our ability to bring value to partners and their customers by leveraging our brand, innovative technology and data analytics and other unique assets in addition, we also introduced new value propositions for hilton and marriott's small business card members in the u.s. >> he also said it's developing artificial intelligence and

blotching capabilities to better service customers and that's not enough to appease wall street. the stock is down 3% in after-hours trade. melissa? >> seema, thank you. >> seema modi? >> what do we have on axp? >> it's the most difficult thing and these guys are executing the long provision and it has people a bit concerned and the company is executing across the board and i wouldn't run far from it i don't need to own it >> i wouldn't run from it at all and i own calls right now and i would consider buying more because i think this will absolutely be a race very quickly. >> i don't think the valuation is that unreasonable it 12s at 12.5, and 13 times forward earnings it's not crazy they probably have 10% eps growth rate and the fact that people are using more points, that's interesting and maybe the consumer is not as healthy as they think and i'm not sure that's yet stock is tradiwhy thg lower. i think the street was looking for more, but i'm with pete on this one >> the stock ran 6% at the end

of this month and it's butding up against the prior all-time high and since the stronger q1, and i think above anywhere on 95 and it's a buy on valuation, and i think it makes a good value proposition especially when they talked about these other programs they're rolling out >> speaking of earnings, microsoft said after the bell tomorrow and the options market is applying interesting moves on the results. >> no doubt, microsoft is one of the biggest stocks in the world, and the options market implying a 3.5 move in either direction, and the average over the last four quarters has been about 2.5% movement after earnings the call volume today was three times that of puts and there was a lot of rolling activity and again, with the stock at all-time highs, to me, it appeared that there was rolling of overright, if somebody was long the stock and they would take the premium of option premiums are elevated into the earnings and here's a stock that the 110 level seemed to be the

one where one investor thinks it could be capped and if you look at that chart right there. 97.5 and it's the intersection for the one year and the breakout level from earlier in the year and that seems to be great support. >> i absolutely do, and i think it's gone to 110 quicker than people think and it's stalled for quite a long time and the buying that we've seen for the last couple of weeks and the volume, and someone's selling the 110 call and the stock's at 105 and it's up 5% and it seems like the reasonable call away and they bought 15,000 calls and a lot of people are trying to play into this earnings and they expect this thing to go higher and i'm one of them. >> check out the full show friday at 5:30 p.m. eastern time still ahead, we will be joined ich ircle founder jeremy allaire whsaid the team will revolutionize every aspect of the financial industry that is coming up in just a few minutes. e airlines. sending your own clubs ahead with shipsticks.com

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want to demo the latest innovations and technology? do it here. come see how we're making things simple, easy and awesome. plus, come in today and ask about xfinity mobile. a new kind of wireless network designed to save you money. visit your local xfinity store today. welcome back to "fast money," you're looking at the alpha conference in new york city where bitcoin has been the talk of the town it's soaring 15% this week to its highest level after mastercard allowed a patent on credit cards that came amid report that black box was potentially looking into a bitcoin etf this week. larry did dismiss those reports. nonetheless, signs could be shifting for the cryptocurrency after a tough few months that is good news for our next

guest. his company was the first to receive funding from a major back they also acquired pollonious one of the biggest crypto exchanges and is now worth $3 billion. larry is the co-founder of circle where he spoke earlier on a panel with barry silbert good to see you again. >> thank you nice to be here. >> we mentioned the latest round of funding and bit was one of the lead funders in this case with $110 million and it's the biggest bitcoin mining company in china, and you said that your vision in terms of how you guys could revolutionize the financial industry's infrastructure and what are you seeing here? >> yeah. i mean, yeah so wu who is the founder and ceo of bit main, and we have a shared vision and this block schan infrastructure like block chain like bitcoin and ethereum

and there are others is a new foundation infrastructure that we can build on top of we can build applications to build fiduciary trust applications whether that's fiat money and financial contracts like raising capital, issuing debt and transacting and any kind of trust-oriented record keeping and application in the world can be improved with crypto assets and block chain technology and we believe it will be fundamental horizontal technology as broadly adopted as the internet is today. >> it seems like there are a lot of bets being placed right now, jeremy, in terms of financial institutions being able to build on a particular platform whether it's ethereum or ripple or stellar. do you have a sense as to which platforms you think will be in the lead or be in the lead for certain parts of this industry >> sure. you know, one of the things that really catalyzed the market last year was actually that ethereum

in particular kind of got to a place where you could build apps on top of it and you can issue new tokens on top of it. you can create new kinds of financial contracts using the smart contract technology and that catalyzed the ico movement if you want to call it that and it also catalyzed a lot of competing infrastructures to ethereum right now if you look at developer activity and whether you're looking at ans like an app store or an android like google play. right now ethereum has an enormous amount developer activity and eos, and neo and cardono and it's a fertile space in terms of the fundamental, technical and infrastructure that it's really like a new infrastructure layer of the internet that we can all build on top of. >> you sound really excited just now and also on the panel about the killer apps being built

right now. how does an investor profit off of the biller app? is it by buying cardonno and neo, the tokens and investors can't invest like you do or others do like barry >> sure. i think there's, obviously, fundamental assets that there are these four digital commodities and they're used to incentivize and secure the block chains technically has the most market cap and one of the most secure networks, if you look at the amount of securing that secures it and ether represent a commodity that's more like oil it's a commodity that you need in order to fuel applications built on top of it, and that's, you know, as people -- as investors look at this, they can invest at the protocol level and the infrastructure level and we're starting to see apps that are built on top of this and that's really where i think we're going start to see, you

know, more of the exciting opportunities as we go into the second half of this year and the focus isn't just on these core commodities like bitcoin and ether and they get into the applications and higher level utilities. >> jeremy, it's good to speak with you and we hope you'll visit fast money soon. >> thanks for bearing with us. jeremy allaire, the co-founder of circle. they're also doing a stable coin >> you asked the question. how does a viewer at home invest in this early? it's not too different from web 1.0 when you were buying yahoo or amazon or whatever. they lost 90% of their value in the aftermath when that bubble exploded we're down 70% in crypto from the highs in january go open a pollonia account and that's how you will participate in it and you have to manage your risk and you don't want to be outside and that's how you measure that exposure.

>> speak of lost train, ibm talking about it after reporting its earnings and josh lipton has more josh >> let's stick with this theme, melissa, martin schroeder sitting down on "mad money" talking all things block chain take a listen. >> people love our block chains. we have more block chains in the world than anybody else and the reason we have with that is because of the security encryption that doesn't matter. to them, as long as it gets encrypted all of the time and the fact that it's secure and it's encrypted >> also, we should point out, ibm is reaffirming that guidance of silicon of eps for 1380 for the year and cisco shares and check those out in the after hours and we can confirm the report that it will challenge cisco with the switch sales and remember that report hit and took cisco down pretty hard. melissa, back to you >> thank you very much, josh lipton and we do white box switches

>> cisco won't be amazon and look at am one aazon, and in the august earnings, i would say yes and ibm is the interesting one, quickly. >> really? >> ibm has been in the desert for many years, right? they zigged when they should have zagged and they were so far behind the curve microsoft figured it out four or five years ago maybe, just maybe, this is ibm's microsoft moment block chain could be ibm what the cloud was to microsoft just throwing it out there >> i'll tell you right now, cisco, not getting enough credit for what they're doing, cyber and secure security. you want to over simplify your way to cybersecurity. >> i get more and more excited with ibm along with you. the strategic side of what they're trying to do is a big portion of what they really are, but the block chain thing is another way to be involved and we talk about crypto all of the time in all of this area of the

world. they are the biggest so why wouldn't that be -- >> what does that mean in terms of size? >> it's nothing. >> it's not moving the needle and by the way, three-quarters in a row where revenue has grown ask it's not perfect and it's not the transition and we saw it on microsoft, and i think this is the stock that's been on this ascension ever since. >> when they have the show on cramer's show and they want to talk about block chain and they do $80 billion in sales and they just had the year over year revenue growth in a very long time and you talk about, this is a few hundred million dollars in revenues and these are private block chains on their server and they're just ledgers that's all they are. >> you used to say this about the services section of apple and a lot of people are still saying this about the video section of facebook. s all, but growing and that' the areas that you have to focus on >> up next, final trade.

. back to the final trade. pete >> delivering alpha, biogen, this name's going higher giddy up. >> seymour >> hot name from delivering alpha, take two, a name we like. go with that one. >> nathan? >> i don't think american express was mentioned, but tim mentioned it and i think it gets overdone in the high 90s >> you're listening to tim >> barely. >> we do all get along >> the folks at home should

know >> it's true despite all of this. >> bro hug >> bro hug >> i don't want people to be sad. >> you know what made me happy today? >> that presentation they answered all our questions and i thought hunt's valuations -- ea yh. i'm melissa lee. seeanywhere. "mad money" with jim cramer starts right now my mission is simple, to make you money i'm here to level the playing field for all investors. there's always a bull market somewhere, and i promise to help you find it. "mad money" starts now >> hey, i'm cramer welcome to "mad money. welcome to cramerica other people want the make friends. i'm just trying to make you some money. my job not just to entertain, but also to educate and teach you. so call me at 1-800-743-cnbc, or tweet me @jimcramer. nuts and bolts matter. what