“There Was No Alt Season”: The Crypto Chart Nobody Wants To Look At w/ John Gillen

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]And you were saying too, I think you said this at some point that the rest of crypto definitely never went into bull market. Maybe you said that, maybe somebody else told me that on the show.

[00:00:07]Uh but this is the chart for uh the whole market cap excluding Bitcoin and ETH and I think stablecoins as well. So, total three, I believe. Yeah. Um and that I think that definitely has a better argument as well. I don't know if you said that, John, so correct me if I'm wrong, but um we never really went beyond the all-time high from the last cycle.

[00:00:28]And obviously saw a huge rotation of of tokens in terms of like what's making up this this market cap, um you know, especially with new incumbents like uh hype and and probably some others that were in the top 20 or top 10 that that are no longer. Um but definitely the rest of crypto never had a blow-off top at all, right? And that's why we always joke about that there was no alt season um in this last cycle, if that's what you even want to call it, but uh this to me is a much much more damning chart that we never really got that run. Do you think that we could even get that run, though? Like does this just tell you that there's no there's no juice left to squeeze or that the next run is going to be the big one because it maybe we were just weren't ready. So, I think this is a really good question. A lot of people are wondering about this, too. I think that people have been very frustrated with this perform this bull market's performance from all coins. Obviously, there were some that performed very strongly, but only for a certain periods and and a lot of that has retraced in certain areas and in certain assets. I do think that now, you know, the setup for the next bull run is we've got the Genius Act passed. So, stablecoin legislation is through and people know how to launch those and that's a much more adopted thing. That brings more capital into the digital asset ecosystem overall. The Clarity Act is, you know, you know, God willing going to pass finally in May.

[00:01:41]That's the estimate now from the committees and from the Senate and from most people that I've I've heard comments on this. Novogratz, for example, just had an interview recently saying that he does believe it'll be law in June.

[00:01:52]So, if we get the Clarity Act in, that gives people um rules of the road in terms of taxonomy, um rules for DeFi, for developers, for uh you know, launching different kinds of uh crypto-centric or crypto-native products and services in the United States. So, that allows a lot more people to come to market with things there. And then, we've seen, you know, I think the the big thing that I've been calling attention to recently is that Michael Saylor with Strategy has iterated, I think, at this point, 18 different kinds of products to bring to market based on Bitcoin as digital capital backing those products. And this STRC stretch is the one that's finally found product market fit. And because of all of the capital that he's pulling into um into Strategy with that product, that's that's been the sort of forcing function for the rest of Wall Street to start launching their own products, bringing things to market, and trying to compete with him so that they don't lose a lot of capital to to Strategy.

[00:02:43]So, in that setup, that environment, you're going to see a lot more capital come into digital assets. The other thing I think is going to be important in the next bull run is the rise of the agentic economy. So, you're not just going to have human beings adopting digital assets in crypto, but you're going to have agentic operators launching products, launching services, leveraging a lot of the infrastructure that has been built cuz that's what a lot of has been built in crypto is is just infrastructure for use cases, for applications, for users that have not really come in size. We've built a lot of this stuff to be um scalable, fast, and secure, but I think the agentic economy is what's going to bring the actual users in. So, in that environment, you're looking at a much more um constructive thesis, I think, for the digital assets space overall and for a lot of altcoins because while they're leveraging all of this infrastructure, if it's cheaper or or more efficient, effective to leverage, you know, infrastructure that it's comes from an alt um an alt L1 or an alt L L0 or whatever whatever option they they have, they're going to not really be bound by friction or uh other hurdles that human beings would not really care about. They're going to go where they can get efficient um infrastructure to to accomplish what they want to do and create the economic activity they're trying to do, the transactions they're trying to do, and just create value through whatever means are available. And there are a lot of means available in the digital asset ecosystem. So, I could see a setup for a much stronger alt season and and crypto bull run, not just Bitcoin bull run, in the next cycle. Um but I'm, you know, not even convinced that that Look, I mean, this setup we have right here, right? We're bumping our head up against resistance on Bitcoin. There's a lot of people going short because they're expecting Bitcoin to collapse down and continue into a deeper bull market.

[00:04:19]Well, bull markets or bear markets usually end at a similar A similar thing happens when bull markets end as when bear markets end.

[00:04:27]Uh when a bull market ends, usually there's a lot of bulls who get super enthusiastic and over leverage, and then they get wrecked. That's a lot of what you saw on October 10th. Everybody was expecting the most bullish Q4 of the entire bull run. And so, everybody got levered long on Bitcoin, and then they got wrecked, and then they got liquidated. A lot of capital changed from the hands of the bulls to the bears, and that was kind of the the top of of that bull run.

[00:04:47]In in a in a bear market, the bears get overconfident in shorting, and they take out leverage, and then the bulls uh flip that, and then they liquidate them, and a lot of capital goes from the bears to the bulls, and then that brings prices higher, it brings attention, it brings more capital in, and that creates momentum that leads to a bull market.

[00:05:03]So, in this environment that we're in, that setup is forming. It's not to say that that's guaranteed to be the outcome, but I think there is an increasing risk because of all of the accumulation that we're seeing from major players, long-term holders, and when whales are accumulating, I think there's been a little bit over 300,000 coins have moved from short-term holders who have held Bitcoin for 155 days or less to long-term holders who have held it for over a year. So, the 300,000 coins are moving from short-term holders to long-term holders. Um Saylor's buying, uh Tom Lee's buying, Wall Street's buying. We saw, I think it was 1.2 billion dollars of inflows into ETF products um for for spot crypto products. And Bitcoin obviously got the lion's share of that. So, there is a setup here where we do get a short squeeze, we do flip ADK from resistance into support, and we may see a beginning of a bull market much sooner than people anticipate cuz it's not just going to follow the calendar. I don't care what anybody says. This is not going to work out just the way everybody expects it to. You know, look at your watch and it's going to play out that way.

[00:06:00]It's going to deviate a little bit.

[00:06:02]Bitcoin is going to zig when you think it's going to zag at least a couple of times somewhere in here. I don't know if that'll be now, but I do see the potential for that happening. And you know, I I would say like that could meet be the catalyst that pushes Bitcoin back into a bull market, and it could follow equities and gold and other risk assets higher. Alt season could come with that.

[00:06:19]Um but you know, at this point it all remains to be seen. All this has to be proven. We're still in a Bitcoin bear market for now, and all I'm doing is watching very closely and paying attention because this is I think a key decision point for the market here. If you're not seeing this, you're trading blind right now. There are real moves happening behind the scenes that most people don't see until it's way too late. Inside Milk Road Pro, you can track exactly what our analysts are buying, selling, and what's on their watch list before it moves. Martin recently unloaded 40% of his cash off of one signal, and Melvin is up multiple calls by like 50%, and we're already up 30% this month on some alts. This is all happening every week. You can try it out for just a dollar for 7 days. The link is in the description. What do you think is the biggest the most consensus narrative right now? Cuz I think that that's I ask people that a lot on on the episodes that I do. Maybe you ask them you you probably ask them smarter questions. But I ask them these retail questions.

[00:07:15]But no, but like you know, Q I I'm I feel like I'm going to use Q4 2025 and what we anticipated for that. I'm going to use that for the rest of my career.

[00:07:24]You know what I mean? That this idea that as a perfect example of like everybody was like, this is what's going to happen. It's coming. Look at the past.

[00:07:35]It's exactly what happened. And only and only right near that top did some people start to call top. But even you know, but even then that was like that little those little signals were drowned in the the wave, you know, and Michael Nato who's come on from Dfire Report, he he had a few newsletters before 10/10 saying that. Um I think Ben Cowen was one of the first people to to to be like, "Wow, that was bad. We're we're screwed. We're going to bear market." Um but and maybe one or two others, but across the ocean of analysts even despite to even after 10/10, people were like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, that doesn't matter. Something just broke somewhere in Binance or whatever. We're going to We're going to rip back up as soon as they fix that, fill that hole, or whatever the problem is." Um and to me that's that's always going to be a fantastic example of like literally 99.9% of the people think this one thing is going to happen, and as a result you actually have I feel like there's a higher probability that it will be the opposite because because it's not a debated enough issue. And that's you know, this is this is male astrology and stuff. I'm just talking about right now just that you know, this I don't have any metrics for this. But I'm just saying that it's always a warning sign to me now and both in crypto and markets and in in the past as well for other stuff that I've I've traded is that when there's just not enough pushback on the narrative and the idea of what's going to happen, that's actually that can be a pretty big flag. Right? And so and I and I know what you would answer to this question, John, but let's keep it to crypto cuz there's a clear other big thing that I know you're going to say feels like that in the economy. But in crypto, what what would you say? And this doesn't doesn't have to be the what I'm talking about. I don't think that there is a thing like that right now because I think even dipping down to 30K or 40K for Bitcoin, that doesn't have nearly enough consensus. There's still that's a huge debate. That's a 50/50 split, right? Um but what would you say is is the most agreed upon narrative if any out of all the things that go on right that we say right now in in the crypto space.

[00:09:38]So, I don't know what other thing you're alluding to that I would say. So, I'm I'm curious to know what that is, but I think that the big consensus is right now.

[00:09:46]>> for. It's the thing you need you need this kind of stuff.

[00:09:48]>> [laughter] >> Yeah, I got you. Okay.

[00:09:51]Um Yeah, so I think that the one of the biggest consensus opinions that I've I've heard is that because Bitcoin topped when the 4-year cycle said it was going to top, then it's going to bottom when the 4-year cycle says it's going to bottom. So, a lot of people are waiting to buy the Bitcoin bottom in October or November of this year, and they're just like very sure of themselves and comfortable with the idea that that's where that's going to happen. I don't think that that's actually the case, and I think we're going to see a bottom sooner than that. There are a lot of reasons why, but I think that's one of those things. Look, I think markets are, you know, there's been a lot of talk about prediction markets. Markets of all kinds are information generating machines. This is something that's a a natural feature of a market, right? It's a it's a way to distribute risk. It's a way to aggregate capital. It's a way to like, you know, do a lot of different things, but one of the things as a feature of all market is it is an information generating machine.

[00:10:40]So, it tells you what the general consensus is on a lot of things in the market or in people's minds or in in just like the collective consciousness, right? So, what the market is telling you is that it thinks that this pump is shortable.

[00:10:54]It thinks that Bitcoin has not bottomed yet, and it's telling you that that's what, you know, people expect to happen.

[00:11:00]That it's not to it's it's simply you want to be careful about cuz like it just because everybody gets all aligned on one thing doesn't mean that they're wrong. It's usually like the opposite.

[00:11:09]Like if everybody thinks something's going to happen, well, generally tends to to happen. But why that happens that like, you know, you see tops and bottoms is that once everybody agrees, there's nobody else to convince, and so there's like theoretically no more additional capital to to pull in. So, that's why when everybody flips bullish, it's usually around a top because if everybody's bullish, there's not anyone else to to flip from bearish to bullish, and there's no more additional capital to bring in for a marginal buyer. Same thing at the bottom, right? Like I It's like I said last one of these episodes recently, I said it's just me and the cockroaches left in Bitcoin, and I don't even know where the sell button is.

[00:11:43]There's a lot of very long-term holders in this asset specifically, and I think it's something like 16 and a half million coins out of Bitcoin's total supply is currently in the hands of long-term holders. So, it it's it's one of these things where it's like the the the longer we go on with this, the fewer and fewer bears are left to sell.

[00:12:02]And at this point, it's it's kind of like, yeah, you can you can short Bitcoin expecting it to go back down, but at some point there aren't going to be any bears left, and that's when, you know, things will turn around and go the other direction. That may have already happened, and we could see this being the beginnings of a slow build towards a bull market. Um but, yeah, I think, you know, you want to be careful about saying like, oh, this is too popular, it's wrong, because generally like consensus is correct, but you usually top or bottom when there's nobody left to convert one way or the other. And I think right now, there are there's a lot of disagreement about a lot of things in the market. So, that's kind of why we're seeing this grind, right? Like you in the equities market, you saw like a basically a year of slow grinding down, sideways chopping price action, and then a sudden gigantic bullish reversal. Um you know, I'm not saying that's going to happen for Bitcoin, but the bears are getting very confident right now, and I think that that's, you know, I'm paying attention.

[00:12:52]No, but that is what you are say You're saying about crypto. That's That's where your money is. That's where you That's where your portfolio is. You want to be the biggest ETH holder at Milk Road or in the world or whatever you want. Uh that is That is what you're saying. It's not That is 100% what you're saying, though.

[00:13:06]I am basically say My portfolio is a thesis of saying that eventually this number go up, right? So, like I'm I'm I'm my thesis on Ethereum and Bitcoin are very strong. They're not invalidated by a couple of months of of price action, and I'm just willing to be patient and wait while this plays out.

[00:13:22]Um that's, you know, an opportunity cost I'm making with my capital that other people aren't, and, you know, everybody has to do what they think is best here, but that's that's just my strategy for navigating the markets and for getting through these kinds of periods, but I I mean like Yeah, I'm I am leaning bullish. Like I Michael Nadeau is is a great analyst who I followed for a long time. I did an interview with him I think last week or the week before and we we talked a little bit off camera and he asked me what I think was going to happen and I told him some stuff and I'm not saying I changed his mind or anything, but I know that Mike has also started accumulating some alts. So he's starting to get nervous about the bull case too.

[00:13:56]So some of the bears are starting to come around and say like I don't know, maybe maybe Bitcoin's maybe Bitcoin's going to break out here. So we'll see.

[00:14:02]It's a non-zero chance and I'm I'm rooting for it, but if it doesn't happen, I'm just going to if we make new lows, I'm just going to buy more. So like I I really don't care which way things go here. Trillions of dollars in real world assets are stuck off chain.

[00:14:12]Real estate, commodities, private credit, all locked behind outdated systems that [music] weren't built for a global 24/7 economy. The fix, bring those assets on chain. Problem is, most blockchains weren't designed for that either.

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[00:14:53]I really like Michael and if he listens to this or watches a clip from it, shout out to Michael. Great analysis. Your recent bag of alts is freaking crazy.

[00:15:01]That's that's that's that's straight out of milk road DJ and some of that stuff, okay? That's that is literally tokens me out of >> [laughter] >> there. There's stuff that I'm like, yeah, that's a normal one and there's other stuff in that list that I'm like, that's you're wild, man. Like you're really betting on some kind of crazy frenzy that's going to happen here. So shout out Michael for for bringing a diversified diversified ideas to their portfolio.

[00:15:22]But for anybody who was listening to John talk and actually wants to know what's in what's in John's bag. You got to go pro. Got to go pro. Little shout out Milkroad Pro.

[00:15:31]Very you want to see what's in John's bag just a dollar for 7 days. Just you can just pay a dollar, go look at it and go and then and then and then and then just move on. Move [laughter] on with your life.

[00:15:41]ETH, wow. Revelation.

[00:15:44]I needed to pay a dollar to see that John.

[00:15:46]>> There's more in there than just Ethereum. Yeah, there's five other things. Yeah, we could do a we could do a family feud of what they are and most people would get them. So Anyways >> [laughter] >> We'll play that someday on the show.

[00:15:57]Clarity is still I just want to go back to clarity.

[00:15:59]Clarity is still kind of in the doghouse though, man. Like on on Polymarket it's still like a sub 50% chance. So and and that that a Polymarket is you know, that I don't know how connected that is to to lawmakers or if there's any insiders there for that kind of stuff. Um but it definitely you know, if markets are information machines like you said, it's telling us that it's it's still a pretty big split on whether that would happen or not. Um >> Yeah. And and the general warning I've heard is that if that doesn't get done in the next couple weeks um you got summer recess and you got midterm season after that. It's cooked. Like it's done.

[00:16:34]It's not coming back for a while. And and we have some people come on the show tell us that that doesn't matter. If it goes away, it goes away and and you know, we'll find a way but but others saying like that's that's not going to be very good if that if it does not make it through. Um So There is a There is a Republican senator on the United States Senate Banking Committee who has been saying that he is not going to allow Kevin Warsh's nomination to go forward until the Trump DOJ drops their investigation of Jerome Powell.

[00:17:03]Um and I think he's also the same senator, Tom Tillis, who said that he recommended we wait two weeks on the Clarity Act for markup in the committee until they can reach a resolution on stablecoin yield which I think was another turning of the screw. So, this guy's not up for re-election. He's trying to force the Trump administration to kind of do what he wants basically before he goes out the out the door. Um, to me, I'm reading this as another way for him to hold up the president's agenda and kind of turn the screw to get the D.O.D.

[00:17:33]to drop the investigation to Powell.

[00:17:35]They did drop that investigation to Powell. So, the Kevin Warsh nomination for chairman of the Federal Reserve seems like it's going to move forward and it also seems like that same committee, the Senate Banking Committee, is the one that's going to do the markup on the Clarity Act in the Senate. And so, now it seems like he's going to comply and go along and allow the president's administration or the administration's, uh, legislative agenda to move forward. So, that means that maybe they will actually get a discussion on the Clarity Act.

[00:17:58]But, to me that was a cop-out. It was like he was saying, "Oh, we need 2 weeks to talk about this stablecoin yield thing."

[00:18:03]They've been talking about this for years. They've been disagreeing about it for years. We've delayed the Clarity Act once and months and months while they've been talking about it. So, to me that was like a I I didn't believe him. I was like, "That's you're just using this as another way to to, you know, get the administration to do what you want and to wield the little bit of power and leverage you have over the Trump administration to get get what you want done." But, that he he got what he wanted. Um, the the investigation's been dropped. So, maybe we'll see the Clarity Act come through. But, I have been bullish on the Clarity Act passing for a long time. But, once I found out it wasn't going to come out of the committee in April, I flipped from, you know, 70/30 that it passes to now like 40/60 that it doesn't. Like I I I now think it is unlikely even like they could get this through committee in May and get it into the Senate and get it passed and it could be a law by June.

[00:18:49]But, it's like this is like you got very, very, very little margin of error here at this point. And so, to me I think it's it's less likely than likely that it passes. So, this is like a big loss to a lot of people. Obviously, the SEC and the CFTC are collaborating to try to do everything that they can from a regulatory perspective to, you know, normalize and lay out policy and like give people the the basic things that they would want from the Clarity Act, but there is still a big value add to having something passed that's in law because that's much harder to change than just regulation, and it can be formalized a lot of things, codify a lot of things in language that can't be just, you know, changed and interpreted later. Now, you've seen a lot of critics of the Clarity Act also say that future administra- ambiguity in the legislative language to use that as loopholes to like create waiting periods of years or more on things and make it a an impossible maze of bureaucratic nonsense for crypto projects to get through anyway. In other words, the crypto the the Clarity Act as written might be used as another trap to tangle up the industry and and prevent us from doing business in the United States. That's as may be, uh but I I think, you know, one way or another, like, we we've got to move forward with this industry, and I think that this is a first step. Um so, I don't know. The I have a lot of mixed and conflicting feelings about this.

[00:20:01]We'll see what happens. I don't know if it's going to make it out of committee or not, but it's it's been a a long, messy, frustrating experience watching this process play out. What about the Trump crypto conference?

[00:20:12]What's that all about? Is that Is that related? Cuz I saw them announce that a couple weeks ago as the Iran stuff as he as maybe he lost interest in Iran, and I was like, "Okay, like they're that it's going to be some kind of, you know, way for him to plant the flag of victory at when Clarity passes, and he's just kind of getting ready for that and to sell us another meme coin or something like that." But I'm assuming at this point it's kind of I don't I think that's like right now or this week, and they have put the guest list out last week, and it's it's it's some names we know, some names that John loves like Cathie Wood and and Pomp and stuff like that.

[00:20:41]>> [laughter] >> So, clearly it's some kind of real event. Want insights on what's moving crypto markets and how we're [music] trading each event? Subscribe to our channel, join the Milk Road Daily and Pro newsletters, and start investing like the top 1%. [music] This show is for educational purposes only. Nothing we say is financial advice. Investing is risky. Never invest more than you can afford to lose.