Navigated to Bitcoin All Time High: Has the Cycle Broken? | Rational Root - Transcript

Bitcoin All Time High: Has the Cycle Broken? | Rational Root

Episode Transcript

What is the macro uncertainty that might cause some damage?

Technologically, Bitcoin is developing.

We have eCash, Lightning.

It's all getting more integrated in a protocol level.

Everything looks actually fantastic, but it's the macro uncertainty that probably might cause some damage.

Prolonged bull market is possible, and we won't, because then there's no basis to really go into the bear market.

I actually think there's a fair chance we stick within the four-year cycle.

But if we just continue the gradual channel up, channel up, I think we can get prolonged and actually break the four-year cycle.

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Mr.

Root, the big orange carrot.

I'm excited for this one.

All-time highs, although we have crashed.

We have crashed down to $119,861.

Wow, we're below $120, man.

It's over.

Pack it up.

It's over.

Time to go home for four years.

Yeah.

No, no.

I'm very excited, of course, about the price action.

You know, $120,000.

Let's round it to $120,000.

It's pretty good.

You know, we're in the next lag up.

And I think there's still some room for more upside.

but yeah let's I've actually prepared some charts so let me know what you want to cover as well cool there's lots to talk about we can get into all of that but maybe the best place to start so we last spoke in February Bitcoin was at basically 100k and since then it's kind of like to be honest it's been sort of six or seven months of relatively sideways and obviously now we've broken out hit 120 Do you want to just give us a bit of a recap to start with?

Yeah, actually, I do have a really great chart to recap on that part.

Let's do it.

Maybe I should share the chart.

We don't have to do it in the order that...

Well, let me share my screen.

I'll try and describe these as well for anyone listening on audio.

This one.

So basically, Bitcoin has been very correlated to risk-on assets still.

You know, we're still that early, I guess.

But here I compare the performance of the risk on assets, like the S&P 500 index and NASDAQ 100 and Bitcoin.

A starting point, I chose actually the 16th of December, 2024.

So many times people look at performance year to date, right?

So how well, like what is the return on Bitcoin so far this year?

um and but here i took um uh the 16th of december because that was the moment that like all of these three assets had an ultimate high at the same moment in time and so it's a good it's a better starting point you know more fair starting point because actually um all of uh so all three have been like kind of um found resistance at this ero percent line which was kind of the plateau for bitcoin that was 100k of course for the for nasdaq and the s&p was a different price range but uh but you can see that the performance of all of these three and we were kind of like the more times you hit that resistance the more you're like you you you're like building up and eventually going to push through and so um bitcoin is of course the more volatile beast so that was like we had a bit more downside uh but we also had a slightly early autumn high but you could see like they they all kind of marked this same bottom which was in april 2025 and uh and and since then like risk on like they have all in line been moving up and so for me that was like risk on momentum was building again and we were going to push again against that plateau and and so when when the uh s&p and nasdaq pushed through i also yeah communicated with my followers like, okay, Bitcoin is going to follow through as well, you know, like, because just momentum is building up.

And yeah, Bitcoin is now at all time highs.

And so I think now this plateau, so for Bitcoin, again, that's like kind of the 100k one, is now going to function as a support zone in the future.

And so on this chart here, it looks like obviously Bitcoin's broken out, the NASDAQ and S&P haven't broken out to the same degree.

Bitcoiners like to talk about decoupling.

Is it too early to say Bitcoin's decoupled here or do you think that is a possibility?

Yeah, yeah, it's definitely too early.

You know, as you can see, it's very correlated.

Of course, the further you oom out, because Bitcoin is more volatile and Bitcoin will have, like, of course, bigger returns, it will outperform.

And, you know, you won't have the same correlation if you start ooming out.

But in, like, shorter time frames, you can definitely see the correlation still there.

So, no, unfortunately, Bitcoin is still seen as risk on.

And since we have so much institutional interest and kind of like the traditional financial system now interested into Bitcoin, I think it will remain correlated for some time.

And what do you think has driven this move?

Is it a load of shorts getting squeezed?

Definitely that was part of it.

But also, yeah, I think there were a lot of macro events that were kind of causing fear in the market.

You know, we had the tariffs, we had real wars going on.

And so it was not just Bitcoin.

It was all risk on assets.

And so we had, yeah, just downside, like a long consolidation.

And you can see now also, like there were again, some new tariffs by Trump.

But this time it didn't have, like now it doesn't hardly have any impact.

So that's a very positive to see.

And for me also to believe that indeed this lag still has more upside.

So you don't think we're going to stop here at 120K?

How sustainable do you think this move is going to be?

Yeah, I mean, we might have some short consolidations of a few days or even a week or whatever, but I still think there's going to be more.

I think it can still continue to move up further.

Yeah, I mean, we'll get into some of the details with all of the charts.

I don't know, maybe we should just walk through some of the charts first.

Yeah, let's do it.

Because actually I wanted to start off with the spiral chart.

I saw this chart on your Twitter and I really like it.

So this is, for anyone listening, this is a Bitcoin version of the Wall Street cheat sheet.

Exactly.

And we use the cool way to show the cyclical behavior by using the spiral chart.

And then align all the faces, which so far in Bitcoin's history has just been playing out.

like you know extremely well and so it's uh you know human beings are human beings and the psychology uh will kind of remain the same now of course there there might some be some slight difference from cycle to cycle you know as macro events now have a bigger impact on bitcoin bitcoin is a two trillion dollar asset now and so it's you know if there's some macro event like terrorism war bitcoin is affected as well and and and this might cause some slight variations to a cycle but overall, I mean, Bitcoin has been moving in this four-year cycle pattern.

And so the question is also, will it remain in the four-year cycle pattern?

It's still tough to answer, although there are actually this time some on-chain early signs why maybe it might be different.

And we'll get into some of those details as well.

And I mean, I'm still skeptical because every cycle, You know, people have been calling for lengthening cycles or shortening cycles or all kinds of super cycles.

But, you know, we've always kind of remained in the same pattern.

And of course, because human psychology doesn't change.

And I really do think we're kind of in the thrill phase, right?

Like, do you feel thrilled, Danny?

Do you know what?

It was this move is the first time this bull market where I've actually had a bit of like excitement going on.

I'm kind of numb to a lot of it now.

But when Bitcoin hit $120K, that was the first time I felt something again.

Just before we get into this, I'm sure most people listening to this will already know your work and know the spiral chart.

But for anyone that doesn't, this chart looks wildly different to anything else people will have seen.

Do you want to just explain the spiral chart before we get into it?

Yeah, I'll just give a quick explainer.

So it starts actually in the top of the spiral, in the center, but from the vertical line.

And that's 2009.

And then a full rotation in the spiral represents a period of four years.

And so you can see how Bitcoin expands.

And each ring is on lock scale.

So it's a move times 10.

So we go from $1 to $10 to $100.

And so we continue.

The outer ring is actually $10 million.

So the one before that is $1 million.

And we're now, we crossed the 100K ring, which is pretty exciting.

And so Bitcoin has been moving in the same pattern.

Actually, the color coding that you see here is based on short-term holder behavior, which in general, short-term holder data, which we take from the on-chain data, is very susceptible to price action.

And so if we get overextended or undervalued based on a standard deviation to the average purchase price of people that are a relatively short amount of time in the market, we can actually color code the chart.

And you can see, for example, that second quadrant is all red with all the bottoms and the cycle bottoms, actually those big red dots in the south of the chart.

And of course, in the first quadrant, towards the end of the year, we have these big green dots, which are the cycle peaks historically.

So they've all been kind of at the end of the year.

And so that gives us more or less in the four-year cycle still, you know, five to six months time to make a cycle peak if we will stay within the four-year cycle.

Okay.

So we're going into the thrill stage now.

So do you think, so like you said, this gives us five to six months left in this bull market to make a top.

Do you think that's actually likely?

Because when people talk about things like the super cycle or elongated cycles, I'm with you.

I'm always kind of cautious about that kind of claim.

But there are some things happening in the market now that are very different to anything that's happened before.

Do you think this could end up being elongated?

Yeah, I think actually we've been really moving up in a structural way.

And we might get a prolonged bull market, actually.

There are some early signs for why that could happen, but it doesn't have to.

So I'm still skeptical because, you know, every cycle, you know, people have called for this.

And so, you know, I don't want to be.

But indeed, it's good to track those signs and we'll get into some of them.

So I'll explain a bit what those signs are in the coming charts.

um but but yeah we're now in a trail phase and it kind of feels like it you know i think there's now you know before people were really thinking oh the top might be in you know this might be it and now now you know everyone really does want to tell everyone to buy so uh so i can't wait to feel like a genius again uh but uh we'll see uh you know it depends a bit uh you know in my opinion Also, if we stay within this four-year cycle, depends on how much more upside do we get.

Like if we get significant, like again, hype in the market and perhaps like a blow off top or really like fairly high prices, like maybe 200K and above, we could see like a prolonged bear market again.

Like we might follow the same path.

But if we kind of keep on moving in the structural way that we have been, yeah, maybe this time might be different.

So, yeah, it's too early to tell still.

What do you think is driving the Bitcoin price at the moment?

Because normally when you see Bitcoin flying, the volumes on the exchange data go through the roof.

And that doesn't seem to be happening from what I've seen so far.

So is this all coming through ETFs?

Where is the buy side coming from?

Yeah, so there's definitely Bitcoin treasury companies and ETFs that have a big impact.

So institutional interest, which is measurably there.

I have a page on institutional adoption and we can actually track and it's growing.

So that's very exciting to see.

Indeed, hype is currently low.

So we've had a bit of, well, let's maybe get into the next charts.

So here we look at the average purchase price of short-term holders, which is currently at 100K.

So that's pretty cool.

We broke 100K now with the short-term holder cost basis.

We've had a two-year bull market and we've been kind of moving up in a structural way.

The 100K is now becoming like the support one.

As I said before, we kind of touched that plateau that was like this area here.

We touched that plateau a few times and then we managed to break out now above it.

So now this previously resistant one now becomes support.

What we did have so far, we had like two times a bit of an extension, right?

We had, after DTF approval, we had a bit of hype.

And so that allowed us to like a big lag up.

Then we had like a, you know, a reasonable consolidation, quite a long one.

And then the election pump, we had again, like a bit of hype in the market.

And then that faded again.

And so in April of this year, we had the bottom.

And since then, we have been moving up again.

And so it's still a little early to tell if truly like hype from retail and so forth is coming really back.

But we've always kind of had this structural bid on the Bitcoin price.

I even think Bitcoin treasury companies have been limiting somewhat the downside price action.

Saylor, whenever we had a significant dip, Saylor would announce a billion dollar purchase.

And that kind of limited the downside.

There's even some evidence for that in a way like on-chain, to see that realized losses have been very low.

So we'll get to some of that as well.

But so now we have the 100K one and actually that big black line that I drew there now is the $2 trillion market cap line.

So we actually have a bit of confluence of a few things.

So we have the short and older cost basis of the 100K, which is in the middle of that one.

We you know the 100K well more from like a technical analysis Now we you know we had resistance before now that becomes support and uh you know we have the two trillion market cap uh right there and i i actually also think like people like sailor probably won't like bitcoin to fall below the the true trillion dollar market cap anymore because you know we're now a multi-trillion dollar asset right that and so so i i'm pretty sure he would prefer to defend that that level as well and so so i think possibly this level might be like the new baseline for Bitcoin.

So we obviously, like I said earlier, we've spent six, seven months around the 100K one.

Do you think that is kind of building the support for the next bear market?

And that might be the next bear market floor.

Like, because when I look at these things, I always think the funniest outcome is the most likely.

And so I've had 58K in my head for a long time.

But do you think that 100K support is going to be hard to get through now?

Yeah, it's definitely going to be a critical level.

So it might possibly be a new baseline because it's like the $2 trillion market cap, it's the 100K support.

We're now hanging out here for a relatively long amount of time.

But if we get a prolonged bear market, we tend to fall below realized price, which is the average purchase price of all Bitcoin.

So where the short-term holder realized price, so the short-term holder cost basis is 100K, realized price which is the average purchase price of all bitcoin is at 50k so that's still quite low and so if you think of like uh yeah getting a prolonged bear market and falling below that one that would kind of still hurt but but there's still room of course that it's it is rising and i so i think in the next months it can get to 60 70k as well uh you know especially you know depending if if we get like an x lag up it starts rising faster as well because people start buying at higher prices, which moves that average purchase price up.

And so it's still too early to tell.

But I do think there's no real basis for a prolonged bear market at this moment.

And I'll explain also in a bit why I think that's the case, because we've had a bit of a few resets.

We've been moving up in a structured way.

We haven't really had a huge overextension.

And so we've had actually like fairly good resets as well, which are kind of shown on chain.

I'll get in a bit to a chart where I can actually show this.

But for me, that means there's just no real basis for a prolonged bear market at this point, except for maybe like macro circumstances.

I don't think that a prolonged bear market this time would be Bitcoin related.

It could be macro related.

If we get a recession or if war breaks out again or whatever happens, if stocks are going to start moving significantly down, Bitcoin could go with it.

But Bitcoin by itself at this point, I don't think can have an 80% drop from here.

There hasn't been a buildup of unrealized profit in a way that that could happen.

And so I think that's very unlikely for here.

So actually, yeah, I do think there's still room for upside.

I mean, on the macro side, that actually could go the other way.

Like, it looks like Jerome Powell is going to leave his position.

Trump is almost certainly going to bring someone who's a bit more dovish.

And like, I think this could get pretty nutty.

Indeed.

Like, the psychological level of 100K is obviously like, those big round numbers always attract like support and resistance.

but after 100k we're now at like 120 where is the next psychological level is that 150k is it 200 like where do we go before we hit one of those big psychological numbers yeah i yeah i think 100 like is uh it's really significant i mean maybe a round number like 200 or so uh you know i i suppose there will be some profit taking there but of course the million is the next really true like psychological number but uh but that might not happen this cycle i i do think uh you know that will still take another, you know, five to eight years, to be honest.

But I do think prices above 200K are possible still this cycle.

It might, you know, maybe it depends on how hype will pick up.

I mean, if we get it fast, we will also get like a more fierce correction, like a bear market with like a more significant drop.

But if we keep kind of moving in the structured way up and maybe ask for stocks, you know, if they do kind of the same thing, then we can gradually move to those levels and just have like a lag up consolidation, lag up consolidation.

You know, and then because with each of those consolidations, we actually got like a fairly good reset of like unrealized profit that has been built up and that gets kind of reset to ero.

And then, you know, there's again room for the next lag up.

So that seems to me what's actually happening currently.

And that is also what causes me to believe that potentially we might get a prolonged bull market into 2026.

instead of the four-year cycle.

But it's still to see.

I mean, I would like to see, it depends a bit on, you know, where's price by the end of the year.

You know, like if we really get to prices at 180, 200K or so by the end of the year, I mean, I personally think there could also, there's room for a bear market again.

But, and it depends also in which way it happens.

I mean, if there's really going to be like a lot of Bitcoin treasury companies that, you know, are going to take like severe risks, like, you know, then there's, you know, maybe more reason for downside than, you know, if we just get this kind of gradual move up.

Yeah, that's definitely something I see as a risk for like causing the next bear market.

So at the moment, while Bitcoin's ripping, the mempool is basically empty.

You can get in the next block for one sat.

Like how much does on-chain data, like how accurate can on-chain data be right now in the sense that so much stuff has moved off chain with ETFs, like options are becoming a bigger and bigger part of the market.

How valuable is the on-chain data still?

Yeah, so I still think it's very valuable.

But indeed, a lot has moved to secondary markets.

And one has to take that into consideration.

Some of the ETFs are actually, their stash is basically classified as long-term holders.

So even though there might be new entrants, they will not all be classified correctly necessarily by on-chain.

But I do still think that the direction of on-chain is correct.

I mean, also, for example, ETFs like Bitwise actually, that does show up as short-term holders.

So maybe it's not like the absolute levels of data that is maybe representable, but the direction of where that is going is, in my opinion.

And so I still think, yeah, there's very valuable data in on-chain.

That makes sense.

Okay, cool.

So should we get into the next chart?

Yeah, so here I wanted to show how Bitcoin has been moving up in that structured channel.

And yeah, what I actually can see here is that, so we have this ETF pump, which kind of reached the top of that channel, and the same for the election pump, which reached the top of the channel.

But the other price action is kind of all between that bottom and that middle part of the channel up.

and so that and this is because really we had a bit of hype in in in that first leg up and also in that second leg up and so it depends if if hype really comes back we can again move to the to the top of the channel which is currently more or less at 180k um but you know if we don't uh we might just kind of start like hovering you know between the this middle line of the channel and the bottom line of the channel um so so yeah then you know we could get like a consolidation around the current price more or less where we are, you know.

So that is, this displays how, yeah, what, it's really different from historical Bitcoin cycles.

And I mean, you can see on the left edge of that chart, like the bull market in 2020, this looks completely, completely different.

Yeah.

So, and even in previous bull markets, it was even higher.

But in 2020, we had like, of course, a lot of hype by retail in the market as well.

And so we saw indeed four standard deviations from that short to molar cost basis, where now we had just really like a mild overvaluation and a mild undervaluation.

So of course, the bigger you go up, the harder you crash, right?

And then this time it has been much more structured.

And I guess it is because of institutional demand for Bitcoin, which just has been more gradual over time, a bit less affected by price action and a bit of the absence of retail, really.

Like we've had a bit during that ETF phase and also bid during the election, but we haven't reached levels similar to previous bull markets yet.

And so that could come.

And actually, if we look at the next chart, this is a, I like to use it.

Before we move, is the reason for that because people like Saylor are just buyers regardless of price.

Like they're not impacted by price.

They just buy every week.

Exactly.

That's why I think Saylor has been limiting downside price action.

And this has cost actually just a more gradual move up because Bitcoin treasure companies just buy on a weekly, monthly basis and they don't care about price.

Same as El Salvador, you know, he's stacking one Bitcoin per day.

And so you got this, uh, uh, this passive demand for Bitcoin.

And, and by the way, like, uh, yeah, for strategy now, there might be soon the, the S and P 500 inclusion, which would, you know, if, if, you know, strategy gets included in the S and P 500, we're going to get lots of passive demand for Bitcoin again.

And so I think all that demand, I mean, it puts pressure on price, right?

But so I think it actually more limits downside than it really, you know, causes like gigantic upside because it's like, it's just gradual demand.

So it starts to limit downside.

And, you know, whenever there's a bit of hype, we can see that we, you know, we reach the top of the channel and, you know, then we get, you know, of course, a bit overextended and we, you know, consolidate and we do that again.

And so it seems that that is happening again now.

That makes sense.

Okay, cool.

So let's go on to the next one.

Yeah.

So in the next one, I wanted to show how, you know, short-term molar supply can actually be used as a measurement for a hype in the market.

So again, we had like this huge peak of short-term molar supply in the 2021 bull market, where this time we just had like kind of more, you know, smaller peaks, you know, not, not very overextended.

And, and, and so, and now we, we are kind of forming this bottom formation again.

So we've had like a peak, we, we, we formed a bottom, we had again, a bit of a hype and then we're forming now, it seems like we're forming a bottom again.

And so it depends.

So if we get like hype, if hype really starts to build up, it's still just a little early to tell, you know, we could start moving sideways as well, or it's still down from here.

So it's not like guaranteed, but I'm, I'm tracking this pattern as well.

And, you know, if we start to move up significantly here, then I also believe there's like more room for that upside to reach like levels to 180k, like the top of the channel currently.

Is it sustainable for Bitcoin to reach the top of this channel in the short term?

Or do we want it just hovering around that midline and just gradually grinding upwards?

Personally, I prefer like gradual adoption.

I mean, I prefer actually to have limited downside and just like a constant upside.

But that would mean that we would move out of the four-year cycle.

Now, psychologically, I don't know if that's possible because we're all human beings.

We're emotional.

You know, if we get the trill and the four-year phase, you know, maybe we'll get a huge demand wave here.

That might happen, you know.

So it depends a bit on, you know, if that happens, if we continue in the four-year cycle or if that doesn't happen.

Like if we would just go flat until the end of this year here, then I indeed don't think we could reach the top of that channel as easily.

We might just move the bottom part of that channel and uh you know but then there's also maybe not so much uh like there's no real basis for a prolonged bear market because we you know we haven't over extended yeah so in a way like these these uh these huge peaks of short molar supply are uh just a build up of of unrealized profit which is unsustainable you know and then and then you know it comes crashing down and it's a natural part of the cycle obviously yeah i mean i love to see this i I think a more sustainable, longer bull market is good for everyone.

I also think so.

But people will find it boring and will say like, oh, TradFi is taking over Bitcoin.

And in a way, that might be the case.

I actually do think Bitcoin treasure companies are potentially limiting downside price action.

But I don't think it's a negative.

I think, personally, I think Bitcoin is like the Trojan horse.

I mean, it will infiltrate.

like wall street might think that they now are controlling bitcoin somehow like you know maybe by limiting downside or uh you know or just that they can still have an influence on the market but eventually i mean we're gonna have sound money and then the fiat games will stop you know so so so i think uh it's the other way around i think bitcoin is infiltrating into the into the traditional financial system and and not the financial system uh you know taking over bitcoin which some claim.

Yeah.

So on this chart, you can see obviously the previous bull market compared to this one and they look structurally completely different.

A lot of people have compared this cycle to 2017.

Do you have any charts on here that show like this, the comparisons, the two side by side?

And do you think this time looks like 2017?

Yeah.

So let's get a bit into the evidence also why I think we could get a prolonged bull market and also why structurally this cycle is a little bit different, even than 2017.

So in this chart, we're actually looking at short-term holder profit.

So we're looking at the amount of supply of short-term holders that is in profit.

And what we see is generally in a bull market, so let's take 2017 as an example.

It's a very good example.

We see this huge buildup.

It's still volatile, of course, but there's like a clear buildup of unrealized profit for short-term holders, which at some point becomes unsustainable.

And then we come crashing down hard when we get this prolonged bear market.

And those red signals are actually, you know, when we get like a big crash near ero, those indicate like severe crashes and potential local bottoms.

And so, you know, we had so after a huge buildup of unrealized profit, we get like also a prolonged bear market.

and in 2021 or in the 2019 we had a bit of an early run-up which then also caused here was also the covid crash still which was a bit of an outlier so it was but but after that 2019 run-up we had a bit of a correction the chinese ponzi that won in 2019 exactly yeah it was that one yeah it caused the market to to go up like actually early in the cycle but then we had a heavy correction because again it wasn't sustainable it was not yet time really to move up you know like significantly.

Then we had the COVID crash here right before the third halving, which caused again, one of those signals to, you know, that was a bit of an outlier in a way, because then actually, you know, we started to have buildup again of that unrealized profit for short-term holders.

And then that was again followed by a long, prolonged bear market.

But this time, we had actually limited buildup of that profit and we had to reach that ever since you know So and to me it seems like this is exactly what gonna happen again What are those pink lines on here What do they represent So they actually are a reset of profit Like so all the unrealized profit that in the market gets completely evaporated.

And so it's actually, in a way, a reset of the severity of bear markets.

And so to me, what that means is that, you know, we just had it in April.

And so in a way, we start with a clean slate again you know like and so uh so there that's why i also think we could potentially get like a prolonged bull market and why there's no real like basis for a prolonged bear market at this stage because we just had a reset and we're again moving up in the structural pattern with more passive demand for bitcoin and and so uh so yeah that's that's what i you know think is likely to happen but i see compared to 2017 there was there was none of those like we had i don't know how long that is two exactly yeah a single reset exactly yeah it was just build up and then uh yeah of course unsustainable and prolonged bear market and and so this time is very different in that sense um you know we haven't have we haven't had as much retail hype uh you know it's just been more the structural demand and so yeah indeed it is a change in in in in the dynamic of the cycle and we're still human so we're still in the four-year cycle and we're still approaching the thrill and euphoria phase and so i don't know how much influence will that have like you know it depends also if we start to get this build up now in the next five months like to peak like similar to maybe 2020 2020 or 2021 uh you know maybe then indeed we do get a prolonged bear market but if we kind of just keep hoovering at these levels i think it's it's fairly likely that we just continue to structure channel up it looks far more sustainable you're making me bullish here.

It does.

Yeah.

Yeah, and if we then look at actually the realized profit and loss, and in particular, realized loss, that is also very interesting because like those, these red spikes actually represent realized losses, so where people actually capitulate.

And so there's this dotted line that, you know, you can see in the bear market bottom, for example, of 2018, you have this huge spike which even reaches that dotted line.

And so this really could be seen as a capitulation event.

And so, so far for two years, we have hardly had a spike.

And so to me, that means there has been very limited down, like muted downside.

And I think it's because of Bitcoin treasury companies, structural buying from institutions, ETFs, like these passive demands into Bitcoin, which have just caused limited downside.

Now, we also haven't seen the heights of realized profit as we have during previous bull markets.

That might still come.

Maybe we still get a spike like that.

But it depends, of course.

Like the higher price moves up, yeah, more profit will be taken by long term.

I still think many haulers are not very interesting in selling at these prices.

Maybe if we get to 140 or 200 again.

Of course, there was some selling around that 100K one.

But I still think, you know, people have been waiting for 100K Bitcoin for more than a cycle.

And so 100K just doesn't feel high anymore to most people.

You know, it just feels like we should have been here a long time ago.

It's totally true, but it's a wild thing to say.

Do you think the part of the reason that these, we might not be having the same sort of capitulation spikes is down to sort of education on people understanding what Bitcoin actually is.

And it's not going to die.

It's not going to go away.

So it stops the kind of panic selling.

I think there's definitely conviction, you know, in long term holders.

That has been true.

But indeed, the pattern is just more obvious now.

You know, we have the natural, the power law that Bitcoin is following.

It's just unlikely to stop, you know, like, you know, a bit like if you think Bitcoin goes either to a million or to ero, I think it's so much more likely that it goes to a million.

Right.

And so, so I think, you know, people in general, maybe, I mean, some people want to take profit.

Maybe they want to buy a house or a car or whatever, you know, at a certain price level for everyone that is a bit different.

But I think in general, yeah, there's a big, there's a large group of haltlers that use Bitcoin as a savings vehicle, you know, like, you know, instead of real estate, which used to be the savings vehicle for the boomer generation.

Do you think there could also be another thing that's going to prevent people from profit taking in the same way as previously, in the sense that the sort of financial services around Bitcoin have got so much better, taking loans out against your Bitcoin and things like that?

Yeah, and that is still in the making.

I mean, using Bitcoin as collateral for a loan with your own bank, that would be amazing.

And that seems to be coming as well in the US, at least.

Europe is still, you know, far away from that point at this moment in time.

But in the U.S., that seems very likely that that's going to happen.

And that will, again, be one of those steps for Bitcoin to become more mature as the reserve asset.

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And so again, you see these red vertical lines.

Those are actually pullback signals.

And so this cycle we have had two so far.

And so what I'm also waiting again for is like, I think there's still room for like in this lag up because we haven't had a spike here yet.

So I was kind of waiting for this spike to happen.

Of course, if there's like gonna be more buildup of hype.

So, for example, by looking at short molar supply, like a peak there, then it's also more likely that this will start to spike.

And as soon as it starts to drop, we get a pullback signal fired.

And that might, again, indicate a local top or potentially a cycle peak, depending on how much of that buildup has been there from profit, unrealized profit.

So if we kind of get mild, unrealized profit buildup, and we get like a pullback signal, then again, I think, you know, we could just continue in the structural pattern.

But if we get like, yeah, a large buildup of, you know, if we got more hype in the market, and we get a large buildup, you know, that like one of these signals could potentially indicate the start of a next bear market.

And so I don't want to put you on the spot here, but I also do want to put you on the spot in a way.

Like, what do you think the top of this bull market is going to look like?

Yeah, that's a good.

I mean, I've been kind of consistent.

I think 240K has always been kind of my estimate.

So I'm not, to be honest, that would kind of be my maximum estimate.

But yeah, it depends much.

Like, as I said, like, do we get really hype still in the next coming months?

And do we continue in the four-year cycle?

Or do we continue like a structural pattern?

Because then we just have a more gradual move up.

And then, you know, that means basically lower for longer instead of like having a huge overextension to some random price, which could be $180.

I mean, it could be $160, $180.

It could be $240.

You know, like that depends on how much hype or how crazy the market will go.

But so far, it looks more structural.

And so I think that that might prolong the bull market.

And, you know, there's actually some evidence, which I just showed, like, you know, because we had a proper cleans of the market with like a reset recently in April, and we kind of start with a clean slate.

Like maybe if we just like continue this gradual pattern, we could move into 2026 and still continue gradually up with like longer sideways price action.

And it might be boring for people and people will again be confused like, oh, is this the top?

Is the top in?

But I think, yeah, much is also going to depend on macro.

With Bitcoin being at a 2 trillion market cap, it's now like really a mature asset.

And so I think macro events might be even, you know, have more influence on Bitcoin's behavior to move into a bear market than Bitcoin price action itself.

Because within Bitcoin, actually, everything is fairly well.

Actually, from a regulation standpoint of view, like in the US at least, it's going great.

And, you know, we've actually had like a proper reset of crypto in 2022.

Dominance is going up.

Bitcoin treasury companies kind of took the stage of altcoins.

You know, for me, technologically, Bitcoin is developing.

We have like, you know, e-cash, lightning, it's all getting more integrated.

And so there's really limited, like within Bitcoin itself, like on a protocol level, you know, everything looks actually fantastic, but it's the macro uncertainty that probably might cause some damage.

In terms of Bitcoin dominance, it's obviously been crushing.

I think Ethereum is still way below its previous all-time high, which I'm sorry to anyone listening who holds Ethereum, but I love to see it.

Sell your Ethereum and buy Bitcoin.

Do you think that's going to continue?

you?

Yeah, I mean, so again, so if we really got like a hype phase still in the market, like into in this next five months, let's say, I also think there's still some potential for altcoins to outperform Bitcoin temporarily, you know, like because, you know, they're just smaller market caps or more easily to move and or like whatever.

There can be again a meme coin that does very well suddenly, you know, for a short amount of time, obviously.

But I think, yeah, I think 2022 in general was very damaging to the crypto narrative in general and hopefully permanent, to be honest.

And I actually, I also like to see how Bitcoin treasury companies are kind of taking the stage of what used to be altcoins, you know, like you actually can use leverage Bitcoin with Bitcoin treasury companies.

And so you can, you know, the gambling can continue there, but at least it's based on Bitcoin.

And it's kind of a speculative attack on fiat.

So I much rather see that than some random entrepreneurs trying to scam people.

I totally agree with that.

And when we've talked here, like a lot of this demand is structural, institutional demand for Bitcoin.

And we've really not seen retail come back in the same way that we have in previous bull markets.

Do you think at some point, if we do get into that hype stage, retail will come back?

Or So to things like just the unit bias, the fact that Bitcoin is now $120,000, is that just putting off the retail investors?

Yeah, in a way it is.

Of course, with Bitcoin treasury companies, they have different prices.

And so there's the unit bias problem is a bit solved.

So that's actually nice to see.

But indeed, it's becoming harder and harder to become a whole coiner, right?

So there's unit bias when Bitcoin, that is a bit of a problem.

I also think it's the market gap.

I mean, we are at the two trillion market cap.

And so, you know, retail as a whole doesn't have as much impact as it used to do, you know, like on a market cap that was 500 billion or so.

And now it's four times bigger.

You know, it has less impact.

And so, you know, I think institutional demand, therefore, is needed.

And so I'd love to see, you know, the S&P 500 inclusion of strategy.

That would, again, put a lot of passive demand for Bitcoin.

And as you said, you called it already.

If interest rates will be cut, that would also be really a trigger for a bull market.

And so maybe we're just waiting for that moment to get a hype phase as we saw in 2020, 2021.

on.

And based on human psychology, that's actually the more likely outcome, right?

Because, you know, people are not good at structural like moves and gradual increases, you know, like it's, that is more like a phase that happens before the explosion.

And so, you know, I think, although, I mean, passive demand definitely causes limited downside.

So that is true.

But, but yeah, from a psychology standpoint of view, you know, if we're now in a trail phase and people actually start recommending everyone again to buy, you know, maybe we will get like a retail hype wave still in the next months.

Yeah, I'll be interested to see what happens there.

All right, let's move on to the next one.

Yeah, so we're getting to the end.

I just wanted to kind of close down with like the on value map And I still have a 3D spiral version of this as well but in the on value map I tried to use on data to you know to have like a heavy undervalue level and heavy overvalue levels and all the levels in between of where price can go.

So actually we have a fair price which is currently at 80k and we can see here also actually coincides with that upper part of the channel.

We have the the the 180K as the heavy overvalue level.

And so to reach like those heavy overvalue levels, we of course need like hype in the market, like a bit of actually unsustainable height, you know, because if we reach those levels, that's usually unsustainable.

But what we can see now is currently we have kind of been hoovering in that overvalued one, like to the upper part of the overvalued one to the bottom of that overvalued one.

And we're now more or less at that overvalued level price at 120K.

and so yeah i don't know if we will get to have overvalued as i said that depends very much if we really get like hype back in the market which we should probably know soon by looking at short molar supply like is that continue to move up or are we just going to go sideways there you know like if there starts to be a build-up that would mean for me like okay actually those price ranges are possible but if we start sideways it's more likely that we'll continue just around that overvalued range, which these levels are all moving up generally as well.

So if we're in five months, where like fair price is not going to be 80k, it might be 95k or so, you know, and so that starts to move up as well.

But yeah, so I think this has been pretty spot on.

And this is based on on-chain data.

So we actually look at coin days destroyed.

So the amount of coins that, you know, if a coin moves, a coin builds up days as it actually sits silent.

And as soon as there's a transaction, like each coin has an age.

And so the age measured in days gets destroyed.

And actually based on that information, we can kind of have this bottom indicator here of this chart.

So the heavy overvalued level is actually based on that information.

If a lot of long-term holders start selling, then a lot of coins, coin days gets destroyed.

And then so that kind of marks that we use that information to calculate that undervalue level.

And for the top level, I actually have a different approach.

So there actually I look at tradable supply.

So actually supply that's quite active because a lot of supply is kind of liquid because, you know, it just sits in long-term holder wallets or cold storage and it doesn't move.

But the actual tradable supply, so that's all of the circulating supply minus that illiquid supply, that is actually the supply that has much more impact on price action.

And so what I use there is actually by looking at capital inflows, because we can actually see how much capital is flowing into the market, at least on chain.

and so we use that information to calculate that top and this has been spot on.

I made this value map years ago and it's called perfectly the bottom of the 2022 bear market and it's now, it seems to be doing fairly well as well with those overvalue levels based on, for example, if we look at the channel that we're in and it kind of coincides with that overvalued one, which to me is kind of interesting.

Even the top of the channel is the 180K price.

So there's some confluence there as well again.

So before I brought up the mempools being pretty much empty at the moment, is that actually bullish when it comes to on-chain data because there's less transactions that are destroying the coin days?

True.

Yeah, there's indeed less transactions happening on-chain.

A lot of that has moved to secondary markets, and therefore I also look at ETF flows, and actually you know i have an etf tracker where i look at those flows i look at the institutional data from uh uh from the sec you know like by uh by to actually know okay how much of this of the etf flows are institutional then we have the treasury data you know which uh because but you know like some of the for example i i gave example already bitwise okay they are they're actually their supply is actually classified correctly but there's also some treasury companies like with Coinbase, which is actually quite a big part, they are likely classified as a long-term holder supply, where some of it should be short-term holder as well.

And so, yeah, indeed, you get a disconnect.

And so that is context that should be taken into consideration as well.

But so far, yeah, I think the on-chain data still has done really well.

And I tried to take those things into consideration of course the context is important and as i said also the the absolute values of uh like supply or or like they don't matter it's also the direction that matters and i still think in the direction there's still like you know you know only if there's a few etfs that are classified correctly you will see like the direction of of of that flow in the right direction And so more so than in absolute terms.

And so, yeah, I think on-chain, of course, you know, the bigger the market and more complex the market gets, the more we need to look at, you know, a whole range of things like, you know, futures and options data as well.

You know, and so the ETF, that's a whole separate part.

But I still think on-chain plays a vital part and has so much information.

You know, if we think of the Bitcoin blockchain, like we think of Bitcoin as like the most valuable ledger.

Right.

But so that ledger also includes super valuable data.

Right.

And so that's basically what we're using.

So if you think that that Bitcoin is valuable, then all the data in those transactions is valuable.

You know, and so, yes, but over time and the lightning as well.

I mean, so if we, you know, we get a lot of more secondary markets and it will become more difficult with on-chain to measure these things correctly over time, I think, in the future.

But we're still pretty early.

I think there's still, yeah, a lot of insights that we can get from on-chain.

Yeah, I think so too.

Help me understand the Coin Days Destroyed thing because every transaction isn't a transaction to an exchange to sell.

So how do you sort of trade those two things off against each other?

Yeah, you don't.

So it's just, again, a proxy.

You try to get an estimate.

And so what you do, as soon as there's a transaction, nobody knows if that is.

Well, we can actually classify some exchanges.

And so we do know some supply that is moving to exchanges and will be sold.

But we don't know all information 100% correct every time.

What you try to do is just to have something that is more or less correct.

and at least significant for terms of indicators.

And in general, I think that's still the case with on-chain transactions.

And even though there's not that many on-chain transactions currently, that is also because actually hype is more or less gone.

And it's like institutional adoption through treasury companies and ETFs, which is taking part.

And that just happens on secondary markets.

but yeah so coin days destroys you just look at all transactions every transaction is just included and you look at the days that have been destroyed since it last moved and so the accumulation of all those together determine like how many days in total are destroyed on an average day and that information again we can use Can you filter out things like transactions that people just consolidating coins or do you not even bother doing that?

We don't buy for some indicators you do.

So for example, I've also made a multiplier.

You know, the multiplier has been a bit of a hype around the multiplier.

You know, like how much capital inflow do we have on chain?

And then, you know, how does it reflect into the price of Bitcoin?

Like what is the multiplier?

For each dollar that I put in, how much upward pressure on price does it put?

But yeah, so there actually, for example, with indicators like that, I've tried to really separate on-chain data because you can look at inflow and days of outflow and you try to like filter bad data out.

But it doesn't happen.

For example, for the realized price, which is the average person's price of all Bitcoin, you just look at all transactions, whether it moves or not.

So there's some error margin there.

But I think over time, that error margin is relatively small.

And so that doesn't matter for the direction of that indicator.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Okay, cool.

So just to close out, can we get a bit speculative, do some guesswork?

When I spoke to Joe Carlos Aire on the podcast a few months ago, and he was saying, oh yeah, we've got the 3D chart as well.

But so when I was speaking to Joe Carlos Aire, he was saying he thinks Bitcoin is just going to bore everyone to a million dollars.

I would like you, if you don't mind, to close out with like what you think this cycle looks like both in terms of price and in terms of are we in for another four-year cycle or is this going to be different and i know this is speculative this is guesswork yeah this is very difficult well currently um you know based on the data i've actually showed here uh the charts we went through i i think uh there's a fair reason indeed that we can get a prolonged bull market and get this structural way up but uh you know i'm still careful and i'm skeptical because you know every cycle people have been calling for extended cycles and so i don't want to like i want to give the disclaimer and i uh you know it depends very much on how we end the year uh because you know if we look at the 3d spiral so uh so the end of the year is actually around that 100k uh text mark and so there's still like the five months of like green bullish upside so this this this 3d spiral chart is actually uh the same as the on-chain value map that we just looked at.

And the fair price is actually the surface of the spiral.

So the overextensions- Which is about 80K.

Yeah, it's 80K currently.

So it changes, of course, through the cycles.

But so the heavy overvalue level currently, again, is 180K.

That would give us to these top prices.

And so we still, historically, I mean, this quadrant has been the one of bull markets where we never found ourselves below that fair price.

and we actually reach that heavy overvalue level at some point.

And so I still think there's room here for like more of that green price to continue.

And it depends a bit.

So if we get to those heavy overvalue levels, it depends on how much hype will come into the market.

If resale starts taking part, which could, because we actually start, you know, 120K price starts sounding attractive again.

People are getting trilled, you know, we're literally in that phase.

And so where people are starting to tell people to buy.

And so I still think that a retail hype can come towards the end of this year.

And so depending on how overvalued we get there depends on also if we stay within the four-year cycle.

Because if retail doesn't really come in and we just continue this kind of gradual path as we have been, which we can keep measuring, then I actually think a prolonged bull market is possible.

and we won't because then there's no basis to really go into the bear market which is what i've been trying to tell you know the the whole podcast kind of that currently there isn't because we just had like a kind of healthy cleans of the market and and i don't think we're we're not even at like insane levels that we were like if we if you think of the previous bull market where we had so much built up of fdx exchange with paper bitcoin and and so much altcoin craze like none of that has happened so far.

And so yes, there's leverage through Bitcoin treasury companies, but I think actually they're fairly sustainable companies.

And so I don't think we're in any of those crazy times yet.

And so we just had a cleanse of the market.

So yeah, I mean, I need to see how this turns out to the end of the year.

So if we get like overextended to heavy overvalue levels by the end of the year, I actually think there's a fair chance we stick within the four-year cycle.

But if we just continue the gradual channel up, I think we can get prolonged and actually break the four-year cycle.

I think we've mentioned it already in the pod, but I do think one of the things that may break the four-year cycle is what happens in the broader macro world.

Trump is going to want to run things really hot into the midterms next year.

If he brings in someone to replace Jerome Powell, I think things could work pretty crazy.

Indeed, I agree.

like the cutting interest rates will be a catalyst and but potentially also a catalyst to to reach those heavier over value levels i mean true if we if we would get them in january next year and and then you know get to heavy over value levels here you know maybe that is not sustainable and we get a bear market after like so so i uh i would say if we get to heavy over value it's more likely to continue maybe four-year cycle if we just you know stay at over value levels which we're currently at and just continue the gradual path with like a reset as we've seen uh like another local bottom uh yeah then there's uh lower for longer you know so uh we'll we'll have to see how this plays out i don't pretend to yeah i cannot know the future we're in wait and see mode but things are looking good um root i've really enjoyed this uh things are looking pretty good man we're we're making it.

I agree, man.

Bitcoin is just the best performing asset for the last 16 years or so.

So I think it will continue for the next 16 years.

Me too.

All right.

I appreciate that, Ru.

Where do you want to send everyone?

Where can they kind of check out your work and follow you?

Yeah, of course.

I have my Substack newsletter.

It's called BitcoinStrategy.Substack.com.

And you can go to the BitcoinStrategyPlatform.com where you get like access to also these, you know, local bottom, local top indicators.

And what I try to do is not to give an overload of charts to people.

I kind of like try to guide them with each week through like the most important charts that kind of cover what's happening in Bitcoin, the story, like what is likely to happen, what to watch next.

And so, yeah, so that is, so please sign up.

And like there's over 20,000 subscribers now, so it's going fairly well.

And yeah.

That's amazing.

Well, we've got 36 hours or so until this show goes out.

So I'm just praying that Bitcoin doesn't like crash back down under 100k or go to 150k in the meantime.

Hopefully it stays pretty flat before the show goes out.

that could happen.

I mean, either way, I think a consolidation is possible.

We just reached this highly overvalued, or not the highly overvalued, but the overvalued level and that middle part of the channel.

And so a bit of consolidation is fine.

But indeed, there might be room for the next lag as well.

So I'm excited to see what happens by two days.

Me too.

All right, thanks, Ru.

I appreciate the time and I will speak to you very soon.

Thanks, Danny.

Thank you.