The Cavs' Tristan Thompson Told Teammates to Long Bitcoin: 'Stack Digital Gold, Buy it Every Day'

NBA champion Tristan Thompson on Tuesday said he shorted HYPE at $61 and exited with a profit, while telling teammates to buy Bitcoin every single day.Why Thompson Is Buying Bitcoin Daily?Thompson appeared on Anthony Pompliano’s podcast, saying he owns Bitcoin not because he expects the dollar to collapse but because he expects the internet to keep winning.He said Bitcoin has appreciated over 60% annually on average across the past 14 years and challenged anyone to find a savings account that matches that.He said teammates have been calling him during the current market asking whether to buy, and his answer is always the same.“Buy every day. Stack it. Stack your digital gold,” Thompson said. He added that the Genius Act and a potential Clarity Act passage would unlock significantly more capital for everything on-chain.He frames the decision in simple, personal terms: he doesn’t want to be 70 years old explaining to his grandchildren why he didn’t buy more Bitcoin when it was trading at $63,000.Why He Shorted HYPE And How It Played OutThompson said he shorted Hyperliquid, as measured by Hyperliquid Strategies Inc ) at $61 at a moment when sentiment around the token was broadly bullish, a call that drew public criticism at the time.Price moved up before coming back down, and he closed the position with a clean, profitable exit.Moreover, he described himself as an active perpetuals trader who posts his crypto trades and positions in real time on X under the handle TSM13, separating this kind of tactical trading from his long-term Bitcoin accumulation strategy.How Does Thompson Approach AI And Tech Investing?Thompson told Pompliano that the AI bubble looks a lot like the early dot-com era to him.Hundreds of companies are raising tens of millions of dollars, but most of them will eventually go to zero. The ones that survive will be the ones with real products that real people actually want to pay for.He said energy is the most critical piece of the AI puzzle right now. Without solving the power problem, all the money going into data centers and AI models above it means nothing. He compared it to building a house on a weak foundation.Where He Is Putting His Money Right NowHis most excited current bet is Palomino Labs, a company whose founders previously sold technology to SpaceX ) and are now building micro-LED cooling channels that cut data center electricity and water usage by roughly 40%.He said that kind of efficiency technology is exactly what mid-market towns need to stop pushing back against data center expansion in their communities.On prediction markets, Thompson said they have brought fans closer to sports and pointed to how the NBA initially resisted outside platforms showing highlights before eventually embracing them as a natural parallel.Photo via Shutterstock