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I got to be honest, like, I'm very confused.

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And I...

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This is the thing, though, David.

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I mean, you've probably gone through this before where, like, the market just doesn't make sense to sometimes.

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Like, you know, like, it's like, why is, you know, last cycle, why was Ethereum trading, you know, so low when Bitcoin was so high, right?

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Like, why...

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There's so many different times in markets where it doesn't make sense, but markets don't have to make sense.

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You know, I mean, maybe crypto is pricing all this stuff in before it happened.

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Bankless Nation, it is an interesting time in the market.

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There appears to be an inflection point with the sentiment, the bullishness around the market.

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And so we're bringing back on Ben Cowan from the Cryptoverse.

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Ben, welcome back to Bankless.

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Thanks for having me.

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Pleasure to be here as always.

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Ben, you recently had to put out a video boldly stating, I was wrong.

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You were calling for a Q4 flush.

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I think that was pretty consensus for a while.

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A Q4 flush around the time of the midterms, which matched previous cycles.

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Yeah.

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As I understand it, you are basically calling for a repeat of the standard four-year cycle, which that's where like the Q4 bottoming happened.

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You're also pointing to the midterms rather than seemingly a Q2 bottom, which is what we are so far experiencing.

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What gives you the conviction now that you were wrong then?

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Like why, what made you actually wave the flag and say like, okay, I was actually wrong?

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Well, I mean, the post about me being wrong was not about sort of whatever happens in Q4, because who knows what happens in Q4, right?

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Like, we don't know yet.

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It was more so, like, I didn't think we would take out the May high, right?

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Because in all prior bear markets...

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Once we've crossed the 50-week moving average, once we put in a higher high, the bear market was always over.

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And so I didn't really give the idea of taking out the May high a lot of weight.

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And so the 57K that Bitcoin hit on July 1st

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I thought that was a local low because in 2018, we kind of bottomed at 5,700 right around the same time.

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It seemed like that would be the summer low.

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And then, you know, I expected a rally in July.

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And that was kind of where I first felt like I was...

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kind of like getting off because we didn't really have a rally in July.

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We kind of just stayed at 60K.

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And then so by the time August came around, I was more so in the camp that we would go ahead and start kind of trending down into a low.

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But instead we started, we got the rally I thought we would get in July.

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We got it in August, right?

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And so that was kind of how I first got on the wrong side, I think, of that.

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From here, I mean, you know, I don't really know what's going to happen in Q4.

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A lot of it, I guess, depends on if we get this, you know, if Bitcoin can continue to accept above the range highs.

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If it does not, like if we fade back down, we could still see Q4 weakness.

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But I don't like I wouldn't necessarily be in the camp that it has to be like a lower low, right?

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Like it could be a it could be a higher low for all we know, especially given the fact that we've printed a higher high.

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So I think that that's kind of where I am right now.

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The reason I admitted I was wrong was just because I think it's important to do that when you are wrong.

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And, you know, if I spend two months saying, I don't think we're going to take out the May high and then we take it out.

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I mean, like, where am I to hide?

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So, yeah, I think that was important.

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And we'll see what we'll see what Q4 has in store.

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Just to emphasize what you're saying, really, it was about the middle of the year, the time frame around now about being bullish.

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You go on to crypto Twitter, everyone's very, very bullish and excited.

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There's a lot of momentum.

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There's a lot of happiness in the market.

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And that's the part where you weren't expecting, where...

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Sure, even in bear markets, we can go up 30%, but we kind of did it twice.

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Bitcoin kind of did it twice from 63K up to 77K and then up to 85K again.

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That second move feels a little soon in the bear market.

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And if you are in the opinion that actually the low is behind us and we're resuming the next phase of the cycle,

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And then you look at the length of that bear market that we've had so far.

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It's short and it's easy and it's not that painful.

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And that's like the unique odd thing that I think people like you and even people like everyone I think are really contending with right now.

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Yeah, I mean, it's kind of the same length of the 2019 bear market.

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About nine months, which I think I've made that comparison on your channel before.

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But the reason why I thought that, you know,

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And I still honestly have a hard time kind of coming to terms with the reason I thought it would it would still last a year was because in 2019, when it only lasted nine months, we also had price based capitulation, right, where there is a huge drop.

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And it was also accompanied by a large market.

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a large increase in volume.

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And a lot of the prior lows in the bear markets have ended when there was a massive spike in volume.

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And we just haven't had that.

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I mean, the counterpoint, of course, is if we topped on apathy, right?

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If we don't top with a lot of volume, maybe we don't have to bottom with a lot of volume.

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So, yeah, I mean, right now, I think that I have to just be a student of the chart and say,

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It doesn't make sense to me.

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Like it frankly doesn't.

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I mean, with the long end going up and, you know, energy prices heading higher, the dollar heading higher.

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To me, it makes sense to just kind of go and get your typical Q4 drop.

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But, you know, the market does not have to conform to my expectations.

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And as it stands right now, it's not.

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It's not conforming to my expectations because we're trading at like, you know, 85,000.

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At least that's where it was or when I checked earlier.

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So, you know, I don't,

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That's kind of where I am.

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And I'm basically now the opinion that as long as Bitcoin can kind of hold above 83k, then it's hard to be deterministically bearish.

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It's a lot harder to sort of be in that camp.

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One thing I want to check with you is something that does make sense to me, and that is comparing last bear market to this bear market and the congruence with the real world events found in each bear market.

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So last bear market was really bad.

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Bitcoin fell below the 200 week moving average for the better part of a year, like 270 days.

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It was 30% below the 200 week moving average.

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I think that was pretty idiosyncratic in Bitcoin's history to be that far below the 200 week for that long.

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Right.

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And then also we had three really bad events.

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You had Terra Luna, you had Three Hours Capital, we had FTX, so much contagion that we had to heal from.

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And then we had the Gary Gensler era.

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And so if you just look at the bottom of the Bitcoin chart, it's down bad, it's long, it took a long time to recover.

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And if you compare it to this era, we touched the 200 week, we were briefly below it by a few single digit percentages, not really for that long.

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And then we were only there for just like a very short number of days by comparison, something like 100 days rather than the 270 of like last bear market.

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And if you look at the sins that we've had to pay for as an industry, it's really just sailor selling Bitcoin below his average buy price.

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There's not really a congruence with Terra Luna, 3R's Capital FTX.

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Instead of Gary Gensler, we have the most favorable regulatory conditions of all time.

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And our bear market, correspondingly, is just not that bad.

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So these things do match.

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We have fewer cents to pay for, less time at or below the 200-week moving average.

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To me, that feels pretty explanatory about the differences between these two bear markets.

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When I say this, what do you think about?

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How do you react?

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Yeah.

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Yeah, I mean, historically, buying Bitcoin around the 200-wing moving average works out pretty well.

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And then last cycle, we went pretty far below it, which was somewhat abnormal.

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We don't really usually do that.

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So, I mean, as far as I'm concerned, what I think the right approach to crypto has been, and hopefully will continue to be, is just start buying in the second half of the midterm year, and you're often rewarded.

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You know, I mean, I did it in 2018 and 2022, and I got wrecked in Q4 after buying in the summer.

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And then this time, my biggest regret was that, you know, in July, basically, I gave myself the what I told myself I would do.

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I would buy in the second half of the midterm year, as long as Bitcoin was below the 0.3 risk level, which is the risk metric that I use to navigate, you know, to buy Bitcoin.

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And I did do that, but it only lasted for five days.

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Right.

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So it wasn't a very long time for me to accumulate.

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Like it was a it was some time, but not a lot.

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And so, I mean, I guess that's kind of the important part of it is, you know, when the opportunities arise, like to take more advantage of them and and, you know, sometimes just kind of lump summing, I guess, is is.

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more advantageous than DCAing because you can see just how little time we spent down at those levels.

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So, yeah, I mean, last cycle we had the collapse of FTX.

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And you could argue that it was like a sort of like a dislocation event where it took Bitcoin kind of lower than perhaps it really needed to go.

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And this cycle, you know, we did have sailor selling, but we haven't really had a sort of like a dislocation event that is...

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That is kind of comparable, I feel like, to what FTX was.

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And I mean, now, now with Bitcoin, I mean, the closest, the main thing I think crypto has to at least consider in Q4 is just if the long end goes up, is that going to put pressure in any way?

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Because normally you would expect the long end going higher to pressure long duration assets the most.

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And that would be like, you know, cryptocurrencies is one of those.

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But.

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it's completely shrugged it off, right?

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Completely shrugged it off.

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And so, I mean, that's an example of just having to like respect the chart rather than to put too much faith in the macro.

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What do you think about the four-year cycle then these days?

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Even in the condition that we do get a higher low in Q4 around the midterms, kind of what you're saying.

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The window, what I'm hearing you say is the window is still somewhat open for that possibility.

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Maybe the lower low in Q4 is starting to look pretty not likely.

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But on the conditions of a higher low in around Q4, around the midterms, still nonetheless, the four-year cycle would have been something like a three and a half year cycle.

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Is that significant at all?

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Do we care about the cycles?

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How do you think about the cycles these days?

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Yeah.

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I mean, with the S&amp;P, you know, I mean, it kind of has a four year cycle as well, historically.

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And, you know, through the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, then we had a low in 2014, 2018, 2022.

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I think that, you know, with stocks, if you go back and look at the 1960s, 1970s, it would often bottom in Q4, but occasionally it would bottom earlier in the year, right?

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Like occasionally it would bottom like May or June.

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Um, but I still feel like it's sort of representative of four year cycle.

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I think a lot of people would have a hard time accepting that it'd be like, well, no, the four year cycle is dead.

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If you don't find a low in q4.

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But like, I looked at the stock market throughout those decades and still consider it to be a four year cycle, even though occasionally the low was in, like earlier in the year.

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Um, yeah.

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That is kind of my interpretation of it.

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But I think that, you know, if someone wanted to take the other side of that, they could just simply say, well, you know, that's kind of like coping.

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It's not really true.

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But, you know, as it relates to the 200 week moving average, if you think about it, like we during the midterm year, we went below the 50 week, below the 100 week and then to the 200 week and even below the 200 week, which is what we always do in the midterm year.

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So it's kind of hard to say like it didn't work out, right?

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Like the four-year cycle failed when Bitcoin still ended up dropping below the 200-week moving average, which is something that many people thought wouldn't happen this year.

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So I think it's mixed.

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And I think there's going to be a reason to continue the debate as to whether, you know, whether that is the four-year cycle or not.

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Like I tend to be more so in the camp that it is still indicative of a four-year cycle.

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But I could understand why some people might not necessarily agree with that.

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Yeah, I think if somebody wanted to call the four-year cycle dead, we would need a lot more salient evidence and more of it.

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So like 3.5 is still pretty close.

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And then also we're going to need that multiple instances in a row to have conviction around that.

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And Bitcoin topped when it always tops.

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I mean, you know, from that perspective, it really didn't change.

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Mm-hmm.

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What do you make of the fact that Bitcoin from top to bottom dropped 53%, which is the smallest that it's ever dropped top to bottom, which is expected.

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This has always been the way that Bitcoin has behaved over the cycles.

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But does this make you re-rate Bitcoin's next possible highs in any particular way?

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I mean, honestly, I feel like going lower would allow for a more euphoric bull market.

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But, you know, if that's the low, then we still likely have diminishing returns where you're only going to have like your last cycle, we went up seven or eight X.

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And so this cycle will probably be, you know, less than that would be my guess.

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Yeah.

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If Bitcoin were to go have gone lower, then maybe you would have a higher multiple just because you really wash people out.

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But that doesn't really seem to be the case right now.

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So I would I would just say expect diminishing returns.

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But then the other part of it, too, is if the low is truly in, which, you know, every day that goes by where we continue to close above May high, I feel like the odds increase.

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If the low is in, then we have to start measuring the timing of the bull market from July, which will mean at the end of this bull market, it might top sooner.

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Right.

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Because if you think about it, last cycle, Ethereum bottomed in June and then it topped in August.

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Right.

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Like it topped earlier.

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So.

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It would make me think that if Bitcoin has bottomed in the summer, then it will likely top perhaps a little bit earlier than it normally does just because the length of the bull market would be kind of reaching that sort of the maturity point earlier in the cycle.

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There's already been like quite a bit of froth in the market.

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like in specific assets, and so there are some specific assets that have done very, very well.

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Hyperliquid comes to mind, VVV, LiDAR, NIR, a lot of these assets are up bigly.

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A backpack, for example, is up 50% today.

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So some assets are getting a lot of movement in the middle of the market.

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The blue chips not responding in the same way.

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So like, yeah, we're talking about maybe some early, unexpectedly, unexpected bullishness a little bit early on the Bitcoin chart.

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But ultimately, at the end of the day, it's still kind of just like not moving all that hard.

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Is there any signal there that some tokens in crypto are up bigly, pushing all time highs?

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Zcash, I didn't even mention, is putting on $28 billion.

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Right now.

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inside of just like a year.

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And so there's been some incredible wealth gained despite Bitcoin only being up like a total of like 12 or 13% so far in the last like three months.

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What do you make of this?

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Yeah, I think all coins are running because monetary policy is not restrictive right now.

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I think that's kind of what it comes down to.

201
00:15:14.385 --> 00:15:24.651
If you think about it, from 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025, monetary policy was actually really restrictive because the Fed funds rate was above what I consider to be the neutral rate.

202
00:15:24.751 --> 00:15:29.053
So if you approximate the neutral rate as the two-year treasury yield in the United States,

203
00:15:30.153 --> 00:15:34.976
monetary policy was Fed funds rate was basically above that level for the entire duration of the cycle.

204
00:15:35.536 --> 00:15:41.120
And therefore, because of that altcoins underperformed essentially for the entire duration of that cycle.

205
00:15:41.460 --> 00:15:44.622
But right now, the Fed funds rate is at 4%.

206
00:15:45.202 --> 00:15:48.504
And the two year yield is at almost 4.9%.

207
00:15:48.864 --> 00:15:55.468
So right now, you could argue the Fed funds rate is still 90 basis points away from actually being restrictive.

208
00:15:56.068 --> 00:15:56.168
And

209
00:15:57.149 --> 00:16:02.793
You can see, as you mentioned, altcoins are wasting no time in sort of taking advantage of that.

210
00:16:02.853 --> 00:16:10.198
So if they were to get back to a more restrictive stance, that could certainly affect altcoins.

211
00:16:10.218 --> 00:16:16.863
But as it stands right now, if the status quo remains unchanged, if the two-year yield remains unchanged, which it won't, like it will change.

212
00:16:17.183 --> 00:16:18.624
But let's say it stays constant.

213
00:16:19.024 --> 00:16:22.507
And if you look at like expectations for how long it will take the Fed to get there.

214
00:16:23.127 --> 00:16:28.171
That's not going to happen until, say, April, as it stands right now, or even June, I believe.

215
00:16:28.611 --> 00:16:36.857
So, you know, I think there's the argument that altcoins are kind of feeling that monetary policy is not as tight.

216
00:16:38.058 --> 00:16:39.039
It's not as restrictive.

217
00:16:39.319 --> 00:16:46.644
Liquidity is still restrictive, but the central bank balance, or the Fed funds rate,

218
00:16:47.760 --> 00:16:48.441
is not.

219
00:16:49.301 --> 00:16:52.284
And so, of course, altcoins are sort of taking advantage of that.

220
00:16:52.304 --> 00:17:01.512
I mean, what's really interesting is if you look at like altbitcoin pairs, I think I've shared that on your channel before, like the altbitcoin pair chart.

221
00:17:01.852 --> 00:17:04.614
Like it hasn't really even made much of a move, right?

222
00:17:04.654 --> 00:17:05.815
And that's kind of the crazy thing.

223
00:17:05.835 --> 00:17:07.276
Like I could share my screen and show that.

224
00:17:08.517 --> 00:17:12.281
But here, if you look at altbitcoin pairs, I mean, it's a

225
00:17:12.901 --> 00:17:16.202
I mean, we haven't even taken out the summer high, right?

226
00:17:16.222 --> 00:17:22.064
Like it's still, it still looks like you would never, you would never look at what's happening now.

227
00:17:22.424 --> 00:17:27.426
If you look at certain altcoins, you could be like, all right, this is, this is like, this is really crazy and whatnot.

228
00:17:27.766 --> 00:17:29.087
But if you were to look at this chart,

229
00:17:29.847 --> 00:17:34.310
it's not necessarily any different than like every other little rally that we've had by alt Bitcoin.

230
00:17:34.350 --> 00:17:35.791
At least not at this point, right?

231
00:17:36.512 --> 00:17:47.199
And the thing is, is the major rallies by alt Bitcoin pairs that you see in 2021 and 2017, they didn't occur until after Bitcoin had a euphoric rally.

232
00:17:47.879 --> 00:17:50.120
And Bitcoin hasn't had a euphoric rally, right?

233
00:17:50.140 --> 00:17:52.921
Like it's still hanging out at around $85,000.

234
00:17:53.801 --> 00:18:04.364
And so you would argue that in order for Bitcoin, in order for it to have sort of like a true durable rotation into altcoins, Bitcoin would need to be a lot higher than it is right now.

235
00:18:05.024 --> 00:18:07.745
And people would have to be convinced that Bitcoin has topped.

236
00:18:08.245 --> 00:18:14.331
The reason why there was no rotation into altcoins in 2025 was because we topped on apathy.

237
00:18:14.872 --> 00:18:19.556
There was not really, it was never really obvious the majority of participants that we had actually topped, right?

238
00:18:19.576 --> 00:18:20.397
It was never obvious.

239
00:18:20.737 --> 00:18:25.142
So why would people sell their Bitcoin for altcoins if they think Bitcoin's going to keep going up?

240
00:18:26.763 --> 00:18:44.158
Whereas if you trigger all those top indicators, like the terminal price and the NBRBD score is going to the roof and all the on-chain metrics are going to the roof and people are convinced that Bitcoin's topped, then they rotate into altcoins and then you get these massive rallies by alt-Bitcoin pairs.

241
00:18:44.358 --> 00:18:49.203
But ever since, because we haven't had that, every single rally we've had by alt-Bitcoin pairs has just...

242
00:18:49.723 --> 00:18:52.905
I mean, still, the chart is still kind of trending down, right?

243
00:18:52.925 --> 00:19:02.990
Like, it hasn't necessarily given the indication that it's going to just completely spike upwards and, you know, and really take everyone by surprise.

244
00:19:03.010 --> 00:19:04.931
Again, I'm not, and I said the same thing last cycle.

245
00:19:05.271 --> 00:19:07.373
You can have rallies with altcoins, right?

246
00:19:07.393 --> 00:19:09.174
Like, we're not, I'm not saying you can't have rallies.

247
00:19:09.674 --> 00:19:15.337
It's just that until you have a euphoric rally by Bitcoin, you shouldn't expect a longer rotation into altcoins to occur.

248
00:19:15.737 --> 00:19:15.997
I see.

249
00:19:16.197 --> 00:19:17.459
Something you said I want to double tap on.

250
00:19:17.479 --> 00:19:27.187
You talked about how we have had more permissive monetary policy as of late, giving oxygen for altcoins to run, but we haven't had a lot of liquidity.

251
00:19:27.207 --> 00:19:29.028
There hasn't been a lot of liquidity injection.

252
00:19:29.348 --> 00:19:35.293
Does liquidity correlate to Bitcoin returns while permissive monetary policy more correlates to altcoin returns?

253
00:19:35.393 --> 00:19:37.195
Or did I just read into something that's not there?

254
00:19:37.415 --> 00:19:39.136
So there's a chart I can show.

255
00:19:39.697 --> 00:19:46.842
I think I should probably explain what I mean because it's kind of, some people don't really understand what I mean when I say like monetary policy is accommodative, but liquidity is still restrictive.

256
00:19:46.862 --> 00:19:48.023
It's like, what does that even mean, you know?

257
00:19:49.184 --> 00:20:01.474
So if I, just so people understand where I'm coming from, if you sum up the ballot sheets of like a lot of different central banks and convert it to dollars, you get this orange line here.

258
00:20:02.274 --> 00:20:03.996
And what it shows you is that

259
00:20:04.796 --> 00:20:09.679
In 2021 and 2022, global liquidity was around $30 trillion.

260
00:20:10.200 --> 00:20:12.021
And right now it's at around $25 trillion.

261
00:20:12.581 --> 00:20:22.127
So the reason why altcoins have sucked for so long is because there's just not nearly as much liquidity as there was back in 2021.

262
00:20:23.048 --> 00:20:26.630
And you were in crypto back in 2018 and 2019.

263
00:20:27.030 --> 00:20:34.015
And you saw, do you remember the 2019 bull market where Bitcoin kind of like outperformed most everything else?

264
00:20:35.696 --> 00:20:47.229
Oh yeah, like the middle of the year It was like the ghost bull market Where Bitcoin went to like 14k Ether went to like $450 And everyone thought it was on And it was the biggest bull trap of all time

265
00:20:47.747 --> 00:20:47.987
Right.

266
00:20:48.027 --> 00:20:54.709
But the reason why back then there was no rotation into altcoins is because for the same reason today, right?

267
00:20:54.729 --> 00:20:57.109
There just wasn't enough for what liquidity was really low.

268
00:20:57.449 --> 00:21:02.931
And so if you zoom in here, you can see back then that liquidity topped in March of 2018.

269
00:21:03.371 --> 00:21:07.552
And it was still well below those highs for several years after that, right?

270
00:21:07.572 --> 00:21:11.653
And throughout that entire period, altcoins underperformed Bitcoin.

271
00:21:18.254 --> 00:21:28.822
It wasn't until that forced the money printers to come back on that in 2020, that's when altcoins really started to to durably outperform.

272
00:21:29.283 --> 00:21:32.004
And there's a chart that kind of helps explain.

273
00:21:32.585 --> 00:21:35.607
If you look at it, it's called the Advanced Decline Index.

274
00:21:35.627 --> 00:21:39.130
And we're going to look at the Advanced Decline Index of the top 100 cryptocurrencies.

275
00:21:39.630 --> 00:21:45.354
It's been trending down since 2021, meaning that like most cryptocurrencies have been going down rather than up since 2021.

276
00:21:45.374 --> 00:21:45.474
Yeah.

277
00:21:46.535 --> 00:21:54.698
The time that everyone wants to get back to is 2020 and 2021, where in early 2021, where this thing was trending up, where everything was going up, right?

278
00:21:54.718 --> 00:21:55.738
Like Bitcoin is going up.

279
00:21:55.758 --> 00:21:57.018
A true alt season.

280
00:21:57.118 --> 00:21:57.699
A true, yeah.

281
00:21:58.119 --> 00:22:07.622
But the problem is we didn't get that until after there was a crisis to then justify the money printing, which then allow global net liquidity to surge to new all time highs.

282
00:22:07.962 --> 00:22:09.523
So we're in this like catch 22 where Bitcoin.

283
00:22:11.263 --> 00:22:17.129
As long as there's not a crisis, there's no reason for liquidity to really ramp up.

284
00:22:17.590 --> 00:22:19.812
And so because of that, it doesn't mean you can't have bull markets.

285
00:22:19.832 --> 00:22:25.058
We had a bull market for three years, not too long ago, despite restrictive liquidity conditions.

286
00:22:26.179 --> 00:22:27.661
So it doesn't mean you can't have a bull market.

287
00:22:27.721 --> 00:22:31.485
It just means that the returns are probably not going to be as impressive.

288
00:22:31.525 --> 00:22:32.305
But eventually...

289
00:22:33.366 --> 00:22:35.327
the money printers will come back on, right?

290
00:22:35.347 --> 00:22:38.789
Like we know that because that's the only way they seem to be able to solve our problems.

291
00:22:39.149 --> 00:22:44.992
And so eventually like those types of market conditions will come back, but I don't think it's going to happen until there's a reason for that.

292
00:22:45.012 --> 00:22:55.217
So in the meantime, you can still have moves in altcoins, you can still have moves in Bitcoin, but I wouldn't expect a full-blown alt season when global net liquidity is much lower than it was in 2021, 2022.

293
00:22:57.260 --> 00:23:03.664
Is what you're saying is that the people who are wishing for an alt season, they're by proxy wishing for some sort of crisis to happen too.

294
00:23:03.724 --> 00:23:04.725
So maybe they shouldn't do that.

295
00:23:05.145 --> 00:23:11.489
And that was that was what I kind of kept saying last cycle was like in order for people to get what they want, you have to have a crisis.

296
00:23:11.690 --> 00:23:11.870
But.

297
00:23:12.710 --> 00:23:14.771
But crypto wouldn't hold up well in a crisis.

298
00:23:14.791 --> 00:23:17.032
Like think about what crypto did during the pandemic, right?

299
00:23:17.052 --> 00:23:18.213
Like it dropped a ton.

300
00:23:18.613 --> 00:23:22.715
So in order to get an alt season, in my opinion, I could be wrong, right?

301
00:23:22.735 --> 00:23:26.676
I mean, we already established I was wrong about Bitcoin taking out the May high, which it already did.

302
00:23:26.777 --> 00:23:30.878
So I don't want to imply that I can't be wrong about this too.

303
00:23:31.339 --> 00:23:32.979
But in order to have that,

304
00:23:34.580 --> 00:23:36.541
It's kind of like you have to go down.

305
00:23:36.681 --> 00:23:38.222
You remember last cycle with Ethereum?

306
00:23:38.282 --> 00:23:40.544
I kept sort of screaming that Ethereum had to go home.

307
00:23:40.784 --> 00:23:42.005
And like everyone thought it was crazy.

308
00:23:42.065 --> 00:23:43.646
You know, like, why don't you shut up about this?

309
00:23:43.746 --> 00:23:45.527
And you were wrong for a really, really long time.

310
00:23:45.567 --> 00:23:46.407
And then you were right.

311
00:23:46.688 --> 00:23:46.948
Right.

312
00:23:47.308 --> 00:23:49.830
But the point is, is it finally went home.

313
00:23:49.870 --> 00:23:55.413
And I think I even came on your show and said, I was like, in order for Ethereum to go to all time highs, it needs to go home first.

314
00:23:55.513 --> 00:23:55.673
Right.

315
00:23:55.693 --> 00:23:58.555
And then right after it went home, it actually did go to an all time high.

316
00:23:58.875 --> 00:24:04.399
But unfortunately, the four-year cycle kind of like stopped it from really continuing beyond that.

317
00:24:04.740 --> 00:24:12.846
And we just, Ethereum just ran out of time to run because the midterm year kind of arrived and Q4 of the post-halving year arrived.

318
00:24:13.206 --> 00:24:18.550
So that's sort of the argument for alt season is you can't have it until there's a crisis.

319
00:24:18.890 --> 00:24:23.314
And there's not going to be a crisis until stocks drop, right?

320
00:24:23.674 --> 00:24:26.116
And stocks aren't going to durably drop.

321
00:24:26.676 --> 00:24:28.897
Until there's a reason for them to.

322
00:24:29.037 --> 00:24:32.058
And a lot of that is related to the AI trade, right?

323
00:24:32.078 --> 00:24:47.565
And so as long as this build out in AI continues, and there's not really a crisis over there, if you look at the stock market, the top seven, or the mag seven, I think make up like some 35% of the overall S&amp;P 500, because it's weighted by market cap.

324
00:24:49.181 --> 00:25:07.743
so if the AI trade were to ever struggle and the wind comes out of those most concentrated names first that could then lead to a reason to turn the printers on but yeah it's like it's how do you how would crypto escape you know not dropping during that crisis and that's why it makes it such a hard

325
00:25:08.744 --> 00:25:09.806
cycle, a hard market.

326
00:25:09.826 --> 00:25:15.193
And that's why I was a hard market last cycle too, is because everyone kind of knows in order to have that you have to drop.

327
00:25:15.594 --> 00:25:17.296
So then it keeps some people from buying.

328
00:25:17.877 --> 00:25:23.444
But that doesn't mean you can't have a bull market just have kind of have more realistic expectations of what's possible.

329
00:25:24.045 --> 00:25:24.245
Yeah.

330
00:25:24.586 --> 00:25:41.682
I've been trading crypto for almost a decade, and I've used so many different wallets, exchanges, aggregators, or front ends, and I'm basically always looking for the same thing, just one interface with a deep liquidity across a bunch of chains and assets where I can access markets like perps, earn yield, trade confidentially, and still control all of my funds.

331
00:25:41.802 --> 00:25:42.763
And I've never really found it.

332
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333
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334
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335
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336
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337
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338
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339
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340
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341
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342
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378
00:28:13.491 --> 00:28:22.358
Well, one thing I do notice about this global net liquidity chart that you've got is that the red line, the liquidity line, the one that, you know, goes through the moon right during COVID.

379
00:28:22.758 --> 00:28:22.919
Right.

380
00:28:23.099 --> 00:28:30.525
The only reason why it is flat now and it's been flat since 2022 is because of the crisis in the first place.

381
00:28:31.185 --> 00:28:38.427
But if you, this short goes all the way back to 2007 and up to that point, it's just a pretty solid linear slope up and to the right.

382
00:28:38.847 --> 00:28:39.007
Right.

383
00:28:39.027 --> 00:28:48.270
And so, you know, what's stopping it from just kind of, you know, being flat for a while as we, the dust settles from like the greatest monetary expansion event ever

384
00:28:49.090 --> 00:28:51.873
And like maybe it just takes five, 10 years.

385
00:28:51.953 --> 00:28:52.393
I don't know.

386
00:28:52.874 --> 00:28:57.938
But like why, why doesn't it also just slowly start grinding up into the right as it had from 2007?

387
00:28:58.018 --> 00:28:59.059
It probably will.

388
00:28:59.159 --> 00:28:59.400
Right.

389
00:28:59.520 --> 00:29:09.789
But, but the point is, is like your, people should temper their expectations for like a rotation and for, like all season, if it is just a sort of a slower expansion, because,

390
00:29:10.470 --> 00:29:16.774
you know, in order to get what you saw in 2020, 2021, I would argue you would need, you would need true ample liquidity coming in.

391
00:29:16.854 --> 00:29:20.055
If it's just a slow grind to the right, up into the right, that's different.

392
00:29:20.075 --> 00:29:28.460
But right now, you know, the reasons why it's so low is because a lot of central banks embarked on a quantitative tightening for so long, right?

393
00:29:29.141 --> 00:29:29.261
And

394
00:29:29.961 --> 00:29:35.402
And now the reason why it's dropping is not because of quantitative tightening, but it's because the dollar is going up.

395
00:29:35.482 --> 00:29:40.884
Because if you think about it, in order to have this chart, we have to convert all foreign currencies into the dollar, right?

396
00:29:40.904 --> 00:29:44.004
So that we have a common denominator to add up.

397
00:29:44.504 --> 00:29:50.926
And if the dollar goes up, then that means the purchasing power of currencies worldwide goes down.

398
00:29:51.446 --> 00:30:09.712
Therefore, that's what can kind of keep this from from really moving up in the short term is if the dollar continues to show strength, which the dollar likely will continue to show strength for a while because we're still trying to figure out how many rate hikes we need in order to actually kind of bring inflation back to, you know, so back down to 2%.

399
00:30:09.732 --> 00:30:09.832
Yeah.

400
00:30:11.252 --> 00:30:18.173
I don't really think that this is going, I don't really think that global net liquidity is going to new all-time highs anytime soon.

401
00:30:18.193 --> 00:30:22.374
And even a 20% drop in stocks would likely not move the needle.

402
00:30:22.394 --> 00:30:27.775
I mean, we had a 20% drop in stocks in 2025 and net liquidity still stayed really, really low.

403
00:30:28.195 --> 00:30:32.516
So yeah, I think if you don't have a crisis, there's no reason.

404
00:30:32.556 --> 00:30:35.696
And you can see with the crisis in 08, this thing moved up a lot, right?

405
00:30:36.016 --> 00:30:37.556
Like it really started to increase.

406
00:30:38.277 --> 00:30:40.397
And so if you actually take this,

407
00:30:42.068 --> 00:30:46.530
amongst other things, you can create a liquidity risk metric.

408
00:30:46.890 --> 00:30:47.190
Okay?

409
00:30:47.610 --> 00:30:48.391
And it looks like this.

410
00:30:48.971 --> 00:30:53.533
And so what this shows is that liquidity conditions are still really tight, right?

411
00:30:53.853 --> 00:30:55.153
And they have been since 2022.

412
00:30:55.173 --> 00:30:55.313
And...

413
00:30:57.334 --> 00:31:05.522
If you think about it, the only other time there was a top on apathy was in 2019 when also conditions were really, really tight.

414
00:31:05.862 --> 00:31:10.606
Bitcoin was started in 2009 when liquidity conditions were really, really loose.

415
00:31:11.047 --> 00:31:16.372
The only time that we've seen conditions this tight was before Bitcoin even existed.

416
00:31:16.692 --> 00:31:21.016
So that's the reason why we're in, we're kind of an uncharted territory for Bitcoin.

417
00:31:21.036 --> 00:31:24.200
We haven't seen restrictive policy for so long.

418
00:31:24.620 --> 00:31:31.607
And, but this chart, if you think about it, and I know like when Bitcoin's going up right now, like it's hard to be like, oh, well, no, policy's loose.

419
00:31:31.627 --> 00:31:32.768
Like just look at everything that's happening.

420
00:31:33.188 --> 00:31:34.350
But if we take a step back,

421
00:31:34.910 --> 00:31:46.713
and we say, what has Bitcoin accomplished relative to the S&amp;P 500 over the last five years, you can see that Bitcoin is at the same valuation against the S&amp;P that it was at in 2021.

422
00:31:47.013 --> 00:31:51.915
And, you know, 2022 and 2024, 2025, it hasn't really moved.

423
00:31:51.935 --> 00:31:55.656
And so the reason it hasn't really moved is because liquidity conditions are much tighter.

424
00:31:56.476 --> 00:31:56.656
Hmm.

425
00:31:57.076 --> 00:31:57.516
Interesting.

426
00:31:58.497 --> 00:32:03.498
Is there any reason to suspect that Bitcoin would be lagging behind the S&amp;P and it has some catch up to do or is that totopium?

427
00:32:04.504 --> 00:32:07.486
I think eventually it will outperform the S&amp;P again.

428
00:32:07.526 --> 00:32:18.893
But I think in order for it to, and that doesn't mean it can't, I mean, look, last cycle, it did outperform the S&amp;P for a few years, but it just didn't, it didn't really go up nearly as much as it normally does is the point.

429
00:32:19.273 --> 00:32:21.275
So if you think about like where it is right now,

430
00:32:22.095 --> 00:32:23.676
I'm not saying it can't go up, right?

431
00:32:23.696 --> 00:32:32.361
I'm just saying that it's unlikely to have that large catch up trade until liquidity comes back down.

432
00:32:32.381 --> 00:32:34.542
And I'm not saying it doesn't have to go back to zero, right?

433
00:32:34.562 --> 00:32:38.724
Like maybe it drops just back to like 0.5, 0.6.

434
00:32:38.764 --> 00:32:41.006
And that can maybe be enough.

435
00:32:41.026 --> 00:32:45.828
Because in 2017, when we had an alt season, liquidity risk was around 0.5, 0.5, 0.6, which was

436
00:32:48.750 --> 00:32:49.350
reasonable, right?

437
00:32:49.371 --> 00:32:52.773
That's kind of like an area where there's liquidity is not nearly as tight.

438
00:32:53.093 --> 00:33:04.140
But when it's at 0.8, 0.9, I have to be a little bit skeptical as to the strength of sort of the, and by the way, I mean, you mentioned several altcoins earlier that are rallying.

439
00:33:05.260 --> 00:33:09.661
As I've said in 2023, 2024, et cetera, like I'm not talking about your altcoin, right?

440
00:33:09.681 --> 00:33:13.162
To the audience, like I don't, like yes, a lot of altcoins are going up.

441
00:33:13.622 --> 00:33:18.423
And yes, as long as Bitcoin holds above the May highs, they will likely continue to go up.

442
00:33:19.324 --> 00:33:21.404
So, and I'm not trying to take anything away from that.

443
00:33:21.424 --> 00:33:26.505
I don't want to discourage people from taking on risk because the liquidity risk is high.

444
00:33:26.585 --> 00:33:32.907
I'm just trying to communicate to people, hey, don't expect 100X return on some of these altcoins

445
00:33:33.727 --> 00:33:49.478
at this stage, by the way, David, if liquidity risk were at zero right now and, you know, we were in like a bear market, like a massive drop, like I would be banging the drums about- Backing up the truck, right, yeah.

446
00:33:49.518 --> 00:33:53.920
Yeah, and a lot of people think I'm like the Grinch when it comes to altcoins, you know?

447
00:33:54.481 --> 00:33:55.622
But if you think about it,

448
00:33:56.362 --> 00:34:03.461
Ever since my channel has been really popular, right, for like the last five years, liquidity conditions have been really, really tight.

449
00:34:04.477 --> 00:34:09.900
People don't remember what I was like in 2019 and 2020 because my channel was so small.

450
00:34:10.141 --> 00:34:12.922
But back then, I was all about these riskier assets, right?

451
00:34:12.942 --> 00:34:15.304
I was all about them and kind of banging the drum.

452
00:34:15.344 --> 00:34:17.845
Hey, you know, go buy Ethereum.

453
00:34:17.865 --> 00:34:26.271
Because when Ethereum was $100, I'm like, this is, I mean, the first video on my channel is when, is about Ethereum and talking about how undervalued it was.

454
00:34:26.731 --> 00:34:28.313
So it's not that I'm like the Grinch.

455
00:34:28.353 --> 00:34:41.809
I just I'm trying to recognize that in order for the for the riskier assets to do well, there's certain types of liquidity conditions and monetary policy conditions that allow them to do well and then certain conditions that allow them to kind of underperform.

456
00:34:41.929 --> 00:34:47.936
There's a lot of metrics and a lot of things I've been looking at, charts I'm looking at that are five years old.

457
00:34:48.396 --> 00:34:58.668
And what I mean by that is like the precedent of the average crypto investor based off of the charts that we look at, it's really started and at the end of the COVID bubble.

458
00:34:58.808 --> 00:35:00.129
like 2021 to 2022.

459
00:35:00.169 --> 00:35:05.994
Maybe a lot of us got into crypto during the COVID bubble and that imprinted upon us some unrealistic expectation.

460
00:35:06.374 --> 00:35:10.958
But ever since 2022, we have been in a restrictive environment.

461
00:35:11.359 --> 00:35:12.299
All coins have bled.

462
00:35:12.680 --> 00:35:16.443
ETH BTC is almost at a five-year downtrend.

463
00:35:16.543 --> 00:35:19.806
Five-year downtrend, a decade, a half a decade of going down.

464
00:35:20.266 --> 00:35:24.209
And this is now the new normal for, I think, the average crypto investor.

465
00:35:24.229 --> 00:35:26.952
And so when you show the pretty restrictive liquidity environment,

466
00:35:27.693 --> 00:35:30.638
for five years, I'm actually kind of just like, well,

467
00:35:31.689 --> 00:35:35.452
We've been, as investors, we've been living in this restrictive environment for five years.

468
00:35:36.273 --> 00:35:39.855
It's like the assets are probably pretty sensitive.

469
00:35:40.036 --> 00:35:48.082
If liquidity goes up any more than it has been for the last five years, that would probably be pretty good because we're used to pretty restrictive environments.

470
00:35:48.242 --> 00:35:57.849
And so at least maybe that's my, I'm trying to find some silver lining here of just like, hey, like we've been living in this industry for five years of restriction.

471
00:35:58.750 --> 00:36:05.472
I'm not saying that that means that it's going to go down and be in our favor now, but even if it does, imagine the upside there.

472
00:36:05.652 --> 00:36:05.952
Yeah.

473
00:36:06.072 --> 00:36:14.295
And I did an interview the other day and they were like, you know, they asked me, they're like, I'm guessing they're like, we don't, you know, people ask about alt season and if it's going to ever happen again.

474
00:36:14.315 --> 00:36:17.076
And we're like, we just kind of roll our eyes and, you know, it's never going to happen.

475
00:36:17.136 --> 00:36:18.496
And they're like, I'm guessing you think the same.

476
00:36:18.516 --> 00:36:20.617
And I'm like, no, I think I think it will happen again.

477
00:36:20.657 --> 00:36:21.237
I just think that.

478
00:36:21.737 --> 00:36:26.802
I think that you just can't have it until there's a reason for liquidity conditions to be looser.

479
00:36:26.862 --> 00:36:32.347
And I don't think that's going to happen until the AI trade starts to unwind some, you know?

480
00:36:33.088 --> 00:36:33.709
And who knows?

481
00:36:33.929 --> 00:36:34.850
Who knows when that's going to be?

482
00:36:34.870 --> 00:36:37.372
I mean, that could be, you know, years from now for all we know.

483
00:36:37.392 --> 00:36:38.253
Like, we have no idea.

484
00:36:39.494 --> 00:36:42.096
If there were a drop in stocks

485
00:36:42.917 --> 00:36:47.542
then that would honestly, like it would hurt crypto in the short term.

486
00:36:48.043 --> 00:36:56.031
But if anything happened that allowed policy to become a lot more looser, it would be great for crypto, right?

487
00:36:56.051 --> 00:36:58.333
I mean, and I don't like, I don't know

488
00:36:59.154 --> 00:37:00.816
at what point we get there.

489
00:37:01.436 --> 00:37:04.499
But, and I don't think we're going to get there right now.

490
00:37:04.519 --> 00:37:11.446
I mean, you can have a drop in stocks, but I don't think you're going to have a reason for the printers to come back on because inflation is getting away from us.

491
00:37:11.466 --> 00:37:15.429
And if they turn the printers on, that's just going to lead to a massive

492
00:37:16.170 --> 00:37:16.931
wave.

493
00:37:17.151 --> 00:37:19.675
And honestly, do we really want that?

494
00:37:20.115 --> 00:37:25.302
Do we really want our grocery bills to double up just so we can have a few months where crypto is doing well?

495
00:37:25.422 --> 00:37:27.024
I don't really know if it's worth it.

496
00:37:27.064 --> 00:37:28.867
Yeah, that doesn't feel like the right trade.

497
00:37:28.927 --> 00:37:33.232
Everyone wants the upside of 2021 without the downside of 2022, but you can't have that.

498
00:37:34.574 --> 00:37:45.459
And this, by the way, this chart here kind of was, I was trying to communicate or visually communicate what you were already telling the audience about how, you know, like look at 2021, there was so much interest in crypto and then it's just been trending down ever since.

499
00:37:45.519 --> 00:37:50.342
And I have a, I think I've shared it with your audience before, like a social risk metric.

500
00:37:51.002 --> 00:37:54.464
And what you see is that it's just been trending down since 2021.

501
00:37:54.524 --> 00:37:59.306
Like social interest in crypto has only been going down for the last five years.

502
00:37:59.906 --> 00:38:02.268
And yeah, you could paint it, you could say it's because of...

503
00:38:03.248 --> 00:38:06.089
you know, people's fascination with meme coins last cycle.

504
00:38:06.169 --> 00:38:14.191
And, you know, you could argue one of the reasons Ethereum underperformed last cycle is because people just got distracted by garbage, right?

505
00:38:14.211 --> 00:38:16.792
Like random crap and stuff.

506
00:38:17.472 --> 00:38:20.673
But yeah, I mean, social interest has been going down for so long.

507
00:38:21.013 --> 00:38:25.034
And I keep looking to see if this is ever going to change.

508
00:38:25.354 --> 00:38:27.055
And I haven't seen it change yet.

509
00:38:28.095 --> 00:38:33.617
I would love for it to change because I don't want, like I don't want the industry to just kind of fade away.

510
00:38:33.637 --> 00:38:34.877
Like I want it to come back.

511
00:38:34.917 --> 00:38:39.579
I want it to have relevance, but I also haven't seen the evidence yet that retail is coming back.

512
00:38:39.719 --> 00:38:39.899
Yeah.

513
00:38:40.139 --> 00:38:50.602
I will say anecdotally, anecdotally, I use the weekly roll-up that I record every Thursday that comes out every Friday with Ryan as kind of a barometer because it's so consistent.

514
00:38:50.642 --> 00:38:50.962
Like there's,

515
00:38:51.262 --> 00:38:51.942
There's no guests.

516
00:38:52.122 --> 00:38:53.003
It's just me and Ryan.

517
00:38:53.183 --> 00:38:54.603
It's the same show format.

518
00:38:54.623 --> 00:38:55.584
We talk about the news.

519
00:38:56.024 --> 00:38:58.745
And it's been consistent as long as we've done it.

520
00:38:58.785 --> 00:38:59.325
So five years.

521
00:38:59.385 --> 00:39:02.106
And so I'm kind of able to use that as a barometer.

522
00:39:02.666 --> 00:39:04.667
The views I'm able to use as a barometer.

523
00:39:05.207 --> 00:39:08.388
In the last month or so, views have doubled.

524
00:39:09.048 --> 00:39:10.349
on the weekly rollup.

525
00:39:10.569 --> 00:39:18.234
And that's also indicative of some of the other like more normal content like we've had on Johan Kirbat five or six times.

526
00:39:18.454 --> 00:39:20.676
And the most recent one, double the views as average.

527
00:39:20.696 --> 00:39:22.677
And so I definitely agree with you.

528
00:39:22.697 --> 00:39:25.639
I've been seeing it for myself, the downtrend in views ever since 2021, 2022

529
00:39:27.670 --> 00:39:32.711
But recently I have actually shown, I have seen a changing of the winds, which makes me, you know, makes me bullish.

530
00:39:32.771 --> 00:39:33.491
Makes me pretty bullish.

531
00:39:33.791 --> 00:39:41.333
Is it, I'm curious, is the doubling, is it higher than it was in say like 2024 and 2025 or is it still below the arc levels?

532
00:39:41.713 --> 00:39:43.694
It's high, definitely higher than 2024, 2025.

533
00:39:43.714 --> 00:39:45.234
Like the weekly rollup from last week is at 20,000 views.

534
00:39:45.294 --> 00:39:48.815
And on a weekly rollup in 2021, 2022, it would have been like 30,000 views.

535
00:39:48.835 --> 00:39:50.035
So we are not far off.

536
00:39:50.055 --> 00:39:51.035
Is that on YouTube?

537
00:39:57.857 --> 00:39:58.477
That's on YouTube.

538
00:39:58.497 --> 00:39:58.677
Yeah.

539
00:39:58.857 --> 00:40:00.198
So I should say something.

540
00:40:00.398 --> 00:40:02.798
And I don't mean to.

541
00:40:03.779 --> 00:40:05.699
YouTube metrics are different now.

542
00:40:06.139 --> 00:40:06.459
They are.

543
00:40:06.699 --> 00:40:08.700
So I was wondering about that.

544
00:40:08.720 --> 00:40:10.420
Would you like me to explain it?

545
00:40:10.941 --> 00:40:12.601
Yes, I would actually.

546
00:40:12.801 --> 00:40:17.082
So my views for forever, like I was getting around 100,000 views a video.

547
00:40:17.682 --> 00:40:19.103
Now I'm getting like 200,000 views a video.

548
00:40:20.383 --> 00:40:28.869
So starting in August of this year, which is probably exactly when you notice the change, starting in August, YouTube changed the way they count views.

549
00:40:29.329 --> 00:40:33.512
So previously, they never published what it was previously.

550
00:40:33.872 --> 00:40:43.799
But the general consensus among people who made long form videos was that it took about like someone would have to watch your video for about 30 seconds for it to count as a view.

551
00:40:44.379 --> 00:40:45.180
And now they lowered it.

552
00:40:45.460 --> 00:40:48.482
And now it's like if they see it for one second, it counts as a view.

553
00:40:48.927 --> 00:40:50.287
You know why they did that?

554
00:40:50.728 --> 00:40:52.808
Because that's what Elon Musk did with X.

555
00:40:52.928 --> 00:40:53.388
Exactly.

556
00:40:53.408 --> 00:41:00.710
Where a view on X, he just, Elon Musk pumped the hell out of his metrics to make X look good.

557
00:41:00.830 --> 00:41:05.071
And I guess now YouTube has to adapt for view inflation to compete.

558
00:41:05.411 --> 00:41:08.672
Right, but a lot of other platforms are already like that.

559
00:41:08.692 --> 00:41:14.374
I think like Instagram and TikTok, I think they would always just count the view from the first second.

560
00:41:14.814 --> 00:41:17.995
YouTube was unique in the sense that it wouldn't count it.

561
00:41:18.475 --> 00:41:27.441
And so I got the notification on my YouTube studio a month ago that said starting like I think it was mid-August.

562
00:41:27.461 --> 00:41:31.884
I don't remember like August sometime like around August 15th to August 20th, maybe like the 18th or something.

563
00:41:31.924 --> 00:41:32.444
I can't remember.

564
00:41:33.305 --> 00:41:33.465
But.

565
00:41:33.845 --> 00:41:35.727
Around that time, they started changing it.

566
00:41:35.787 --> 00:41:40.530
And it was exactly at that point where my views essentially doubled.

567
00:41:40.970 --> 00:41:46.454
And so, like, I don't have two to three times the amount of people watching my channel that I did before.

568
00:41:46.474 --> 00:41:47.155
I see.

569
00:41:47.635 --> 00:41:49.497
It's just that they count the views differently now.

570
00:41:50.180 --> 00:41:50.480
Okay.

571
00:41:50.841 --> 00:41:51.141
Damn.

572
00:41:51.281 --> 00:41:53.082
I was worried that that was the bearish answer.

573
00:41:53.122 --> 00:41:53.403
I'm sorry.

574
00:41:53.463 --> 00:41:55.224
I don't mean to rain on the parade.

575
00:41:55.244 --> 00:42:00.068
But I know that because I just was watching my own views, and I'm like, I know this is not an organic increase.

576
00:42:00.188 --> 00:42:03.591
I was like, man, is attention really coming back into crypto this hard?

577
00:42:03.611 --> 00:42:04.752
Because it seems, yeah.

578
00:42:05.372 --> 00:42:05.652
All right.

579
00:42:05.713 --> 00:42:06.033
Bummer.

580
00:42:06.453 --> 00:42:10.676
Well, so you have this metric where you look at everyone's YouTube views.

581
00:42:10.957 --> 00:42:15.180
And so now is that metric kind of just blown up for you because the algorithm changed?

582
00:42:15.200 --> 00:42:16.081
Yeah, I can show it.

583
00:42:16.101 --> 00:42:16.601
Yeah.

584
00:42:16.681 --> 00:42:16.922
Yeah.

585
00:42:18.082 --> 00:42:19.343
I was sort of showing it earlier, but I didn't.

586
00:42:19.363 --> 00:42:20.744
I could zoom in on it more.

587
00:42:21.185 --> 00:42:21.965
So here it is.

588
00:42:22.025 --> 00:42:22.826
So let me go down.

589
00:42:22.866 --> 00:42:24.688
It's YouTube.

590
00:42:24.708 --> 00:42:25.468
So YouTube views.

591
00:42:26.229 --> 00:42:29.431
And it takes a little while to load.

592
00:42:29.511 --> 00:42:31.373
I think we actually have your channel.

593
00:42:31.493 --> 00:42:32.654
Yeah, it's pulling a bunch of data.

594
00:42:32.814 --> 00:42:36.977
Yeah, so we can actually look at your channel if you want.

595
00:42:37.357 --> 00:42:37.858
Where is it?

596
00:42:38.498 --> 00:42:39.179
Bankless right here.

597
00:42:39.699 --> 00:42:42.041
So yeah, you had a huge surge.

598
00:42:42.281 --> 00:42:44.403
But look when it surged right around in August.

599
00:42:45.563 --> 00:42:49.566
Yeah, we also had Tom Leon right then, and he always pumps in a ton of views.

600
00:42:49.986 --> 00:42:51.407
But yeah, I get your point.

601
00:42:51.447 --> 00:43:00.414
But if you look at mine as well, this big surge here, it started going up a lot in August right around the time that they changed it.

602
00:43:00.654 --> 00:43:07.679
The reason why it dropped a lot in September was because I was out of town and I just wasn't making as much videos, and so that's why it's not as elevated.

603
00:43:07.719 --> 00:43:12.703
But if you combine everyone back on here and you zoom in...

604
00:43:14.398 --> 00:43:16.660
Right, yeah, that's pretty distinct.

605
00:43:16.940 --> 00:43:21.242
There was an issue in September with the way they were kind of like collecting the views, which is why it went down.

606
00:43:21.543 --> 00:43:25.865
But the spike, the spike occurred because of an artificial thing.

607
00:43:26.506 --> 00:43:34.191
It's kind of like when you're, you know how a lot of like the inflation reports or like labor market reports are really, really frustrating because they'll change the way they calculate it.

608
00:43:34.271 --> 00:43:37.213
And then they expect you to still monitor the same series in the same way.

609
00:43:37.533 --> 00:43:42.676
That's what makes it kind of hard now because for the social interest, I don't know how to factor that in exactly.

610
00:43:42.696 --> 00:43:43.517
Like how do I...

611
00:43:44.697 --> 00:43:53.524
I probably should scale prior views like relative to what we're seeing now and then maybe have a better understanding of what views are actually doing relative to the past.

612
00:43:54.125 --> 00:44:00.530
Yeah, I'd say there's not even a single Internet metric that I can really rely on because even Twitter followers, I'm just like, OK, sweet.

613
00:44:00.570 --> 00:44:03.052
I'm getting a growth in Twitter followers, but that's because of AI.

614
00:44:03.272 --> 00:44:05.333
Like AI bots are just like through the roof now.

615
00:44:05.353 --> 00:44:07.255
And so that even that metric is all messed up.

616
00:44:07.502 --> 00:44:08.602
Well, actually, we could look.

617
00:44:08.642 --> 00:44:14.684
I mean, we could look at other metrics, other social metrics and see if, you know, because we could say, all right, YouTube went up.

618
00:44:14.964 --> 00:44:17.365
Did other platforms go up and come and turn them out?

619
00:44:17.405 --> 00:44:17.665
Right.

620
00:44:18.085 --> 00:44:22.067
And so if you were to look at, look at like YouTube subscribers, for instance, like that didn't change.

621
00:44:22.087 --> 00:44:23.347
You still have to hit subscribe.

622
00:44:24.767 --> 00:44:25.908
So let's see what that's doing.

623
00:44:26.548 --> 00:44:26.988
You see this?

624
00:44:27.048 --> 00:44:28.368
Yeah, that's close to zero.

625
00:44:28.428 --> 00:44:29.269
That's close to nothing.

626
00:44:29.289 --> 00:44:30.669
So that hasn't really changed.

627
00:44:31.089 --> 00:44:40.451
If you look at followers to analysts on Twitter or X, that hasn't really... All these charts take forever to load, but that hasn't really changed a whole lot.

628
00:44:40.491 --> 00:44:41.491
It's still really, really low.

629
00:44:41.531 --> 00:44:46.172
It's still well below where it was in 2025 and for a lot of 2024.

630
00:44:46.512 --> 00:44:47.052
We could even...

631
00:44:47.252 --> 00:44:49.833
I don't know who's going to Wikipedia to learn about crypto.

632
00:44:50.013 --> 00:44:51.953
I don't know if any of the people, but...

633
00:44:52.373 --> 00:44:53.655
that's still really, really low.

634
00:44:54.916 --> 00:44:58.079
And then we also have a few other ones, I think, since I've been on your channel.

635
00:44:59.160 --> 00:45:04.686
One was Coinbase, I think.

636
00:45:04.786 --> 00:45:06.467
Coinbase signups or Coinbase volume?

637
00:45:06.668 --> 00:45:08.109
Yeah, like the Coinbase app.

638
00:45:08.169 --> 00:45:09.591
I think we have a risk metric for us.

639
00:45:09.611 --> 00:45:10.331
Let me show you.

640
00:45:11.653 --> 00:45:12.914
It's like the app rankings.

641
00:45:12.934 --> 00:45:14.435
Yeah, so this...

642
00:45:15.453 --> 00:45:19.594
This is the social risk, but here you have Coinbase app rankings, right?

643
00:45:19.634 --> 00:45:21.935
And you can see that that's still pretty low right now.

644
00:45:22.015 --> 00:45:25.716
Like it actually did get a nice bounce, but it's still really, really low.

645
00:45:26.596 --> 00:45:29.337
Google Trends, like that is still really low.

646
00:45:29.357 --> 00:45:30.298
That hasn't changed.

647
00:45:31.858 --> 00:45:39.300
And then if you look at like followers to Twitter or followers on X to like exchanges and layer ones and analysts, like they're all still really, really low.

648
00:45:39.320 --> 00:45:43.922
So unfortunately, the bump we saw on YouTube hasn't really been...

649
00:45:45.682 --> 00:45:46.883
corroborated other places.

650
00:45:46.903 --> 00:45:47.623
All right.

651
00:45:47.643 --> 00:45:49.444
Well, I'm glad I got that mystery out of the way.

652
00:45:49.524 --> 00:45:54.005
Hopefully the listeners found that as interesting as I did, because I've definitely been looking for some answers around that.

653
00:45:54.025 --> 00:45:54.485
So thank you.

654
00:45:55.046 --> 00:45:56.606
Let's get back into some macro stuff.

655
00:45:56.666 --> 00:45:59.107
I want to get your read on the macro story and just economic health.

656
00:46:00.227 --> 00:46:08.410
One of the things that you correctly predicted was that we were going to get higher energy prices, higher yields, higher raising rates, and then the dollar was strengthened.

657
00:46:08.530 --> 00:46:09.671
All of those things happened.

658
00:46:10.371 --> 00:46:15.918
Except the one difference is that Bitcoin just bulldozed through all of those into a higher high.

659
00:46:16.038 --> 00:46:16.639
Exactly.

660
00:46:16.759 --> 00:46:17.600
What do you make of that?

661
00:46:17.620 --> 00:46:22.667
I think like the market, including the equities market right now, is looking at that is looking at high rates and getting jittery.

662
00:46:23.107 --> 00:46:26.311
But also another part of the market is looking at higher rates and being like, I don't care.

663
00:46:26.391 --> 00:46:27.633
I'm going up anyways.

664
00:46:27.893 --> 00:46:28.974
How are you reading this situation?

665
00:46:28.994 --> 00:46:29.435
Yeah.

666
00:46:29.788 --> 00:46:32.789
I got to be honest, like I'm very confused and I...

667
00:46:33.770 --> 00:46:39.693
This is the thing though, David, I mean, you've probably gone through this before where like the market just doesn't make sense to sometimes.

668
00:46:39.753 --> 00:46:47.736
Like, you know, like it's like, why is, you know, last cycle, why was Ethereum trading, you know, so low when Bitcoin was so high, right?

669
00:46:47.756 --> 00:46:48.337
Like why...

670
00:46:49.137 --> 00:46:55.563
There's so many different times in markets where it doesn't make sense, but markets don't have to make sense.

671
00:46:55.803 --> 00:47:00.447
You know, I mean, maybe crypto is pricing all this stuff in before it happened.

672
00:47:01.027 --> 00:47:01.848
I don't really know.

673
00:47:02.168 --> 00:47:09.395
All I know for me is that I am confused by what's happening because the hard part for me to accept is that

674
00:47:10.075 --> 00:47:12.197
The macro trade was right, right?

675
00:47:12.277 --> 00:47:20.622
But the things that I said, like all the things that don't matter were correct, you know, like the dollar going higher, energy going higher, yields going higher.

676
00:47:20.942 --> 00:47:22.764
The things that people aren't really trading.

677
00:47:23.524 --> 00:47:25.085
I mean, I trade energy.

678
00:47:25.125 --> 00:47:26.886
So like I like that's done well.

679
00:47:27.767 --> 00:47:36.453
But for most for the most part, like a lot of the viewers are not out there, you know, buying XLE, right, or Exxon because they're trying to they're just wanting to buy crypto.

680
00:47:37.173 --> 00:47:38.034
Those were all right.

681
00:47:38.174 --> 00:47:43.096
And so I thought that that would then affect Bitcoin.

682
00:47:43.877 --> 00:47:45.318
And it hasn't, right?

683
00:47:45.358 --> 00:47:45.998
Like it hasn't.

684
00:47:46.098 --> 00:47:54.683
And I've just forced myself to say, look, as long as we're above 83K, I'm going to have to take a step back on this bear market idea.

685
00:47:55.243 --> 00:48:02.528
If we get back below 83K on like a weekly, if we're back below the May high, then I will still lean into Q4 weakness.

686
00:48:03.228 --> 00:48:06.052
But I wouldn't be as deterministic about it being a new low, right?

687
00:48:06.072 --> 00:48:09.136
Like it could just be coming back down to print a higher low.

688
00:48:09.517 --> 00:48:16.145
In fact, that would probably be my base case at this point is if that weakness were to actually materialize because crypto has gone up a lot.

689
00:48:16.186 --> 00:48:17.387
I mean, think about how far...

690
00:48:18.423 --> 00:48:21.625
some of these coins would have to drop in order to put a new low at this point.

691
00:48:21.665 --> 00:48:23.607
Like it'd be a massive, massive drop.

692
00:48:24.327 --> 00:48:30.692
And I don't know, like, I don't know if that is the most likely outcome with where Bitcoin's trading right now.

693
00:48:30.772 --> 00:48:33.494
So, yeah, I mean, I think that's where I am.

694
00:48:33.754 --> 00:48:36.876
And I'm happy to admit that I don't fully understand it.

695
00:48:36.936 --> 00:48:46.723
And I hope that people don't, you know, I hope people like look at that and just recognize that I'm human and I'm fallible and that I don't always have the answers to what's going on in the markets.

696
00:48:47.563 --> 00:48:48.384
Yeah, yeah.

697
00:48:48.704 --> 00:48:56.151
I'm trying to not be too inherently bullish about it, but when I see Bitcoin just, again, bulldozing through some really tough macro conditions,

698
00:48:57.010 --> 00:48:58.271
I'm like, sick.

699
00:48:58.652 --> 00:48:58.992
Awesome.

700
00:48:59.132 --> 00:48:59.953
That's so bullish.

701
00:49:00.153 --> 00:49:00.594
I don't know.

702
00:49:00.814 --> 00:49:02.216
It's like hindsight bullish.

703
00:49:02.656 --> 00:49:03.477
I'm trying.

704
00:49:03.938 --> 00:49:10.525
I want it to be forward looking bullish because if it continues to bulldoze and it'll continue to bulldoze.

705
00:49:10.625 --> 00:49:10.905
What's up?

706
00:49:11.246 --> 00:49:14.009
Let me show you something just to keep us a day.

707
00:49:14.269 --> 00:49:14.669
Okay.

708
00:49:14.689 --> 00:49:17.913
Just so that we're not blindly bullish.

709
00:49:18.093 --> 00:49:32.026
OK, because like I really you know, the thing I've wanted ever since 2021 is to feel like with a clear conscience to be super bullish on the entire industry, you know, like and just say like it's going to outperform the S&amp;P.

710
00:49:32.066 --> 00:49:32.907
It's going to outperform gold.

711
00:49:32.927 --> 00:49:34.969
Like like this is the time to get in the industry.

712
00:49:35.229 --> 00:49:40.914
Like I want that because like I want to I want to root for the market, you know, like I didn't.

713
00:49:42.008 --> 00:49:45.931
Like, why would I spend my entire life making videos about crypto if I hated it?

714
00:49:46.272 --> 00:49:48.634
You know, like that wouldn't make sense.

715
00:49:48.654 --> 00:49:54.599
It'd be it'd be a lot easier for me to just bullpost about altcoins and and make a lot of people, you know, like me.

716
00:49:55.340 --> 00:49:59.683
The one thing that like kind of makes me like, OK, like what am I like?

717
00:49:59.703 --> 00:50:00.484
Am I missing something?

718
00:50:01.084 --> 00:50:06.789
Is this silver chart from, you know, a decade or two ago where we set like a high.

719
00:50:07.650 --> 00:50:09.312
And then we set a low.

720
00:50:09.792 --> 00:50:13.475
And then we had this like massive surge above the range high.

721
00:50:13.916 --> 00:50:14.396
You see that?

722
00:50:15.597 --> 00:50:18.280
But then by the end of the week, we were right back below it.

723
00:50:20.044 --> 00:50:23.989
And so I'm trying to like, I don't think that's the base case here.

724
00:50:24.230 --> 00:50:25.732
Like, I'm not saying that's the base case.

725
00:50:25.972 --> 00:50:28.195
Bitcoin is still trading above the range high.

726
00:50:28.655 --> 00:50:37.787
What I'm saying is, if Bitcoin were to come back down and close back below the May high and you unwind,

727
00:50:38.548 --> 00:50:45.591
it could, I mean, altcoins would unwind a lot faster because they're trading the Bitcoin's breaking out and the bear market's over.

728
00:50:46.131 --> 00:50:53.454
If you get an idea that the bear market is not actually over, then altcoins are going to unwind a lot faster than the Bitcoin would.

729
00:50:53.694 --> 00:50:55.355
So I would say, like, just watch.

730
00:50:55.875 --> 00:50:58.396
Like, this is all I'm saying, and I'm not saying it's going to happen.

731
00:50:58.416 --> 00:51:01.397
I'm just saying watch the weekly candle because this is where it is.

732
00:51:01.537 --> 00:51:04.138
If we close back below 80, what, 82.8K,

733
00:51:07.325 --> 00:51:07.806
On the weekly?

734
00:51:08.126 --> 00:51:08.647
On the weekly.

735
00:51:09.188 --> 00:51:12.312
A close below that, which is only $1,000 lower than where we are, right?

736
00:51:12.332 --> 00:51:16.297
Like there's not a lot of wiggle room and we still have two days before the weekly close.

737
00:51:16.758 --> 00:51:24.548
If we close below that, then I think everyone needs to go take a cold shower and be like, all right,

738
00:51:25.349 --> 00:51:27.712
Maybe we have to go down one last time.

739
00:51:27.732 --> 00:51:29.734
Like maybe we have to go down again into Q4.

740
00:51:29.994 --> 00:51:31.115
Okay.

741
00:51:31.295 --> 00:51:34.138
And from there, hopefully we can then start a new bull market.

742
00:51:34.358 --> 00:51:35.479
That's the only thing I would say.

743
00:51:35.820 --> 00:51:38.522
If we accept above it, if we accept above it.

744
00:51:38.823 --> 00:51:41.045
If we accept above it on this weekly candle.

745
00:51:41.345 --> 00:51:42.886
Yeah, I'm in the same camp.

746
00:51:42.966 --> 00:51:44.147
Like, I'm in the same camp as you.

747
00:51:44.167 --> 00:51:49.470
Like, I'm not going to sit here and be the Grinch for the entire fourth quarter of the year, right?

748
00:51:49.770 --> 00:51:52.191
So by the time your viewers are watching this, well, they'll know.

749
00:51:52.431 --> 00:51:52.932
Like, they'll know.

750
00:51:52.972 --> 00:51:54.873
We're recording this on Friday, September 5th.

751
00:51:54.893 --> 00:51:57.114
This is coming out Monday, September 28th.

752
00:51:57.174 --> 00:52:02.297
And so the weekly candle will have closed 12 hours ago if you're listening to this Monday morning.

753
00:52:02.637 --> 00:52:03.018
Exactly.

754
00:52:03.058 --> 00:52:05.440
So I would say, like, look at the weekly candles.

755
00:52:05.680 --> 00:52:10.124
And, you know, I would say the most important close is the one coming out.

756
00:52:10.225 --> 00:52:12.567
I'm not going to say that you can't have a future one that happened.

757
00:52:12.587 --> 00:52:14.369
I mean, at any point, if it happens...

758
00:52:15.445 --> 00:52:18.247
But over the next few weeks, everything changes.

759
00:52:18.267 --> 00:52:21.290
But I would say the most important one would be this one.

760
00:52:21.350 --> 00:52:29.537
Because if we close above it, I think that's going to be further confirmation to skeptics that the low is in, right?

761
00:52:29.597 --> 00:52:31.218
Because now you've got the close above it.

762
00:52:31.598 --> 00:52:33.520
Silver didn't get the close above it, right?

763
00:52:33.540 --> 00:52:35.421
It was just a wick back up.

764
00:52:35.842 --> 00:52:38.764
So if we get the close, more bears become bulls.

765
00:52:38.804 --> 00:52:40.786
And it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy in a way.

766
00:52:41.386 --> 00:52:42.828
If you close below here,

767
00:52:44.015 --> 00:52:47.196
Think about how like, like imagine it got rejected.

768
00:52:47.596 --> 00:52:49.396
The new high got rejected.

769
00:52:49.436 --> 00:52:49.616
Yeah.

770
00:52:49.636 --> 00:52:49.817
Right.

771
00:52:49.857 --> 00:52:55.738
Imagine for a moment that Bitcoin is now at 79K and all of a sudden we're going into Q4.

772
00:52:56.038 --> 00:52:57.238
It's like, oh, crap.

773
00:52:57.359 --> 00:53:02.600
Like, what if what if what if we get the Q4 low right after everyone thinks it's not going to happen?

774
00:53:03.380 --> 00:53:05.742
Yeah, that's the only thing that's keeping me back.

775
00:53:05.802 --> 00:53:12.128
But as I said, I'm not I'm not going to sit here and and bang the drum as long as we're above 83k.

776
00:53:12.208 --> 00:53:13.009
Right?

777
00:53:13.209 --> 00:53:20.615
I just want people to watch it and and to just be willing to pivot from the the bull view quickly.

778
00:53:20.995 --> 00:53:26.000
So you're not watching altcoins drop for two or three months and you're wishing you took profits, right?

779
00:53:26.600 --> 00:53:27.861
So just watch the weekly close.

780
00:53:28.281 --> 00:53:30.382
And I don't think you have to front run it.

781
00:53:30.402 --> 00:53:35.425
I don't think you have to sit here and be like, oh, let me front run this and go ahead and predict what's going to happen.

782
00:53:35.805 --> 00:53:37.346
I would say respond to it.

783
00:53:37.586 --> 00:53:42.028
If the weekly close happens below it, then pivot back to being bearish going into Q4.

784
00:53:42.288 --> 00:53:43.609
And if not, then stay bullish.

785
00:53:43.869 --> 00:53:45.590
Ben, incredibly sober analysis.

786
00:53:46.731 --> 00:53:48.592
It's such a gift to have you in the industry.

787
00:53:48.612 --> 00:53:52.734
I appreciate you always coming on and kind of just walking us through so much incredible data.

788
00:53:52.754 --> 00:53:54.075
You're incredibly fluent with all of this.

789
00:53:54.655 --> 00:53:57.777
You have a conference coming up in Miami in November.

790
00:53:57.857 --> 00:53:58.497
Talk to me about that.

791
00:53:59.218 --> 00:54:01.339
Yeah, basically, you know, I've been to a lot of conferences.

792
00:54:01.599 --> 00:54:07.663
And the thing I've wanted more than anything is to be able to have people on stage providing their unfiltered opinion about market.

793
00:54:07.723 --> 00:54:09.464
And not just crypto, but just markets in general.

794
00:54:10.124 --> 00:54:16.628
And to not be afraid to kind of say like what their opinion is, because I've been to a lot of conferences and it feels like.

795
00:54:17.588 --> 00:54:22.590
most of the talks are just the bare case for Bitcoin is it's going to be in 20 at $20 million in five years.

796
00:54:22.650 --> 00:54:32.994
And I'm just like, am I really getting anything out of listening to this talk when I truly like I don't think many I don't think anyone believes that, you know, and I don't really feel like I'm getting anything out of it.

797
00:54:33.414 --> 00:54:41.618
So what I wanted to do was was have people come and provide their opinions about markets, because that's the way we grow and learn is and to not

798
00:54:42.358 --> 00:54:45.439
not assume that everyone's opinion is wrong just because it disagrees.

799
00:54:45.599 --> 00:54:49.881
Because think about, think about how many times I've been wrong over the last, say, five or six years.

800
00:54:50.501 --> 00:54:53.702
And there have been so many times, like recently, right?

801
00:54:53.742 --> 00:54:59.485
Like with taking out the May high, there have been so many times where I was so convinced that my view was right.

802
00:55:00.065 --> 00:55:03.366
And even with Ethereum going home last cycle, like I was convinced my view was right.

803
00:55:04.046 --> 00:55:09.228
And it ended up being right, but it took like, you know, it took two years longer than I thought it would, you know?

804
00:55:09.288 --> 00:55:10.129
And that's like,

805
00:55:11.109 --> 00:55:16.274
I was right in a way, but in another way I was wrong because it took longer than I thought.

806
00:55:16.694 --> 00:55:19.877
So the amount of times I've been so convinced I was right

807
00:55:20.770 --> 00:55:24.891
I have to remind myself I'm going to be wrong again in the future.

808
00:55:24.951 --> 00:55:34.973
And so I want to hear what other opinions are so that I can better articulate or get a better understanding of what my own views are.

809
00:55:35.013 --> 00:55:36.873
So hopefully we have the conference.

810
00:55:37.253 --> 00:55:40.634
We have a lot of different people that provide a lot of different views.

811
00:55:40.774 --> 00:55:49.356
And then people can walk away from it, kind of understanding what the bull case is, what the bear case is, rather than just get one side of the story.

812
00:55:49.556 --> 00:55:55.481
Because if you get one side of the story, then that's kind of how you get rekt because everyone's just in on the same trade.

813
00:55:55.842 --> 00:55:58.184
The conference is in Miami, November 21st.

814
00:55:58.204 --> 00:55:59.265
Where can people get tickets?

815
00:55:59.305 --> 00:56:00.326
Is it a ticketed event?

816
00:56:00.366 --> 00:56:01.226
How do people get access?

817
00:56:01.246 --> 00:56:04.309
Yeah, just benjamincowen.com and then there's a conference tab.

818
00:56:04.329 --> 00:56:05.150
We actually have Sailor.

819
00:56:05.230 --> 00:56:06.531
Michael Sailor is going to be speaking at it.

820
00:56:07.992 --> 00:56:08.692
Grant Cardone.

821
00:56:08.712 --> 00:56:09.753
We got Mark Yusko.

822
00:56:09.773 --> 00:56:11.334
I think you know Mark Yusko.

823
00:56:11.514 --> 00:56:12.234
Yep.

824
00:56:12.774 --> 00:56:14.295
And Alessio Rastani.

825
00:56:14.315 --> 00:56:14.975
He's going to be there.

826
00:56:14.995 --> 00:56:18.137
I think he's pretty interesting and has a pretty good take on markets.

827
00:56:19.097 --> 00:56:20.017
Jason Pizzino.

828
00:56:20.257 --> 00:56:23.679
We got a lot of people that are interested in coming and talking.

829
00:56:24.579 --> 00:56:26.100
We got James Cech.

830
00:56:26.120 --> 00:56:27.420
He's like more of an on-chain guy.

831
00:56:28.801 --> 00:56:30.822
So we got Mike McGlone.

832
00:56:30.862 --> 00:56:31.882
He's more bearish.

833
00:56:32.122 --> 00:56:32.743
But again...

834
00:56:33.383 --> 00:56:34.164
You need to have both.

835
00:56:34.204 --> 00:56:34.424
Yeah.

836
00:56:34.544 --> 00:56:36.325
Gareth Soloway, David Lynn, they're coming to.

837
00:56:36.545 --> 00:56:44.812
But that's the point is we need we need we need everyone because it's a market and the market reflects all of our views, not just your views, not just my views.

838
00:56:44.872 --> 00:56:45.772
It reflects everyone's views.

839
00:56:46.113 --> 00:56:46.993
So I think it's important.

840
00:56:48.114 --> 00:56:56.660
And I think like what I'd like to do is like I feel like by listening to like the really, really bullish views and in the really, really bearish views, I think the truth is probably somewhere in between.

841
00:56:56.680 --> 00:56:57.421
Yeah.

842
00:56:58.676 --> 00:57:00.337
We'll get a link to the conference in the show notes.

843
00:57:00.357 --> 00:57:01.518
Ben, thank you so much for coming on.

844
00:57:01.638 --> 00:57:02.099
Thanks for having me.

845
00:57:02.179 --> 00:57:03.220
Bankless Haitian, you guys know the deal.

846
00:57:03.240 --> 00:57:06.422
Crypto is risky, but that's why we are here.

847
00:57:06.482 --> 00:57:07.663
The institutions have landed.

848
00:57:07.703 --> 00:57:09.265
So we are going even further west.

849
00:57:09.625 --> 00:57:10.166
This is the frontier.

850
00:57:10.186 --> 00:57:12.447
It's not for everyone, but we are glad you're with us on the Bankless journey.

851
00:57:12.467 --> 00:57:12.828
Thanks a lot.
