The Bitcoin Level That Decides the Next Few Months

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]Hello and welcome to an episode of Casual Friday. I'm here with Duck. As always, the show is brought to you by Kraken Pro. Kraken Pro is the fancy bit of Kraken, where you go if you're a serious trader or if you want more functionality, features, more advanced DYUX, and all that good stuff. As mentioned in previous shows, I' got a bunch of products, PES, margin, futures, XTO, spot, earn, staking, prop, and probably 50 others I've forgotten. But there's a decent chance that there is something there for you if you're interested in trading crypto or even not crypto apparently because that's the state of our industry now dawn. No one cares about crypto anymore and all the crypto companies not just Kraken are doing everything but crypto because that's where the volume is.

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[00:00:47]You guys know the gist. Just sign up so we don't get fired. links available in the description below. And please don't gaslight me about there not being a link because I check very carefully. Um, Don, we are the boomers now. I don't know if you've if you've come to that realization, but crypto used to be the lol. Imagine trading stocks or FX for 2% moves. I'm here for the volatility. Cryptos at the frontier of speculation, etc. And now we are the lower volatility drifting boring market. But it's not even the bullish type of drift where you just kind of invest your paycheck and it generally goes up. It's the one where it drifts down or if you invest your paycheck one headline later it disappears. Uh and everyone else is having fun over in stocks world as we approach a ton of mega IPO liquidity events and at the same time the AI trade and all of its derivatives are going absolutely thermonuclear. So there's kind of a bubbles volatility everywhere uh except in the market that used to be known for its bubbles. So we are the boomers now.

[00:01:55]How do you first of all do you agree?

[00:01:57]Second of all, how do you feel about that?

[00:01:59]>> I mean I 100% agree that I don't think you can there's a world in which someone could not agree because [ __ ] hell like price action in comparison has just been so garbage for so long. Um, so yeah, definitely the boomers and um but I'm having fun seeing the market go up 0.1% and then go down 0.5 and then go back up 0.3 while everything else is 10xing. That's fun. Like I like that.

[00:02:28]This is what it must feel like to be a medium skill level tradfi guy looking at crypto in 2017, 2021, etc. Right? you're kind of coping and convincing yourself that your route is the more reasonable one and those people are going to lose all their money. Meanwhile, you're just coping. Uh that's sort of oh how the tables have turned. Um that said, before we go into full narrative spiral psychosis, uh and I tweeted about this recently and then I scrolled down and realized I basically tweeted the same thing like a week ago about, you know, the state of crypto and I'm like, "Oh, I'm just a onetrick pony now." the guy who posts at the bottom about how crypto is not like it used to be. Go figure. Old man yells at cloud is literally me except it's old man yells at Claude on most days. Um, but we do have uh an important ritual coming up.

[00:03:20]We we talk about the importance of tradition a lot on this channel. Uh, and it's the monthly close in in two days.

[00:03:27]And I think it's quite an interesting one. We haven't had a chance to chat about it in a while, but this is one where it retested the underside of the broken range at 82K. And unlike the meltup arguments where these levels tend to be absolute dog [ __ ] if the market gets there, in this case, it just kind of wicked it and is back trading within previous uh months highs and lows. Like that's that looks like resistance for the time being. Uh and then the saving grace which I think is is sort of the bull bear line or do or die or whatever you know melodramatic language that people who draw lines on charts use is 71k on the monthly still that highest close and that's where we're sandwiched between at the moment. It feels like resistance resisted uh in a pretty dramatic fashion if anything kind of wick and disappear. Uh but we haven't gone into full-blown panic mode yet because 71k is intact. Do you agree with that monthly view? And what do you think of this? Hey, this wasn't supposed to be resistance. Why is the candle red type of formation?

[00:04:28]>> I mean, and we talked about this. I still remember like two or three weeks ago. And if if anyone wonders why it was two or three weeks ago, not last week, ignore me.

[00:04:39]>> Guilty as charged.

[00:04:41]>> But um we talked about this and I was like there there's an obvious like weekly level at like 86. Um, but I think if we're ever going to have a pullback, it's going to be like from the not so obvious, not so much viewed monthly level, which is 82 83, which we pretty much exactly wicked and then went down.

[00:05:03]So, I I kind of feel like this was a little bit expected that it would at least offer some sort of resistance um just because the weekly I think would have just broken through otherwise. Um, but the pullback is a little bit stronger than than I think anyone would like. Um, it's not really that strong.

[00:05:21]It's not like we're moving massively.

[00:05:23]It's just it feels much worse just because everything else is going up so much. And I think it's not like that's not a bad view to have because at the end of the day, like if you're stuck in Bitcoin and everyone else is getting hilariously rich trading something else as a trader, like you're probably doing something wrong. Like as an investor, that's fine, but like as a trader, you're probably in the wrong um market at that point in time. But um just generally looking at it, it's not the worst um pullback that I've ever seen.

[00:05:54]We've we've seen much worse, but it's also like just contextwise, it's quite bad given given everyone is getting rich and we're not.

[00:06:02]>> Yeah. It just makes you feel worse about it. Um >> Yeah.

[00:06:06]>> Okay. So, some this is the thing about that month like the monthly level I agree is clean. The weekly is 86. I completely agree with that too. But in terms of where where that's left us, the monthly support is 71. And then the weekly highest close breakout level, we're basically trading there now, right? Unless you got something radically different, but it's like 72.8 or whatever level you want to use as the highest close. So like I think this is the mustold level at this at this point. Like again, all the same dramatic language, do or die, everything rides on this level. uh it it feels warranted in this case because if that fails then I think any signs of relief are kind of gone because at that point you will have had a monthly retest in a market that's already lagging behind. Uh and then it falls back inside the range that led to the breakout. Uh and then I think you kind of run out of reasons to be bullish unless it's some sort of like oh yeah well this breakout didn't work but we're back inside the range. as long as you know 60k holds, we'll just go sideways.

[00:07:11]You just go down the entire path. Um and it, you know, a completely separate path. But in terms of keeping this, you know, the last two months of price action defensible in context, I don't think it can trade back within the range cuz that would just be shitty. What do you think?

[00:07:25]>> Yeah.

[00:07:26]>> Yeah, I agree. I mean, for usable price action anyway, my my gut feeling, I look at this, I'm like, it's probably going to stay [ __ ] for for a while and I could see it just chop around here. Um, but that's not really usable price action, is it? Right? Like you can you can argue like, hey, um, if it goes up afterwards, that's still good, whatever. But it's for like from a trade perspective, if if it chops through all the levels.

[00:07:50]>> Yeah.

[00:07:51]>> You kind of you kind of, >> okay, it went up 12 weeks later, it's fine. You just overreacted, you know?

[00:07:56]>> Yeah. And and I mean that that like always kind of like depends on on what kind of um mindset you go at it. um like an investor mindset or like a trader mindset, but from the trader mindset like if it chops or breaks your levels, I mean obviously like okay then like that's the last level. Um I'm probably going to like what I bought, I'm probably just going to hold it because my my gut feeling is that we're just going to have [ __ ] price action and I could see could see it just be like go sideways a bunch and break all those levels. So, you're basically saying, I think directionally it will still ultimately resolve higher from here, but I'm willing to be non-technical and open-minded about the time frame of it.

[00:08:39]Like, [ __ ] the levels, [ __ ] how long it takes. I just generally think it'll go up eventually, and if it goes down, not that much further. Is it like that type of abstraction?

[00:08:48]>> Yes, but if I was trading leverage, like this is not the mindset that I would be.

[00:08:51]>> No, of course not. That is totally inappropriate for >> like this is just like like just like a spot kind of trade. Yeah, but we've all done that before as well, right? Like, sorry to interrupt, but that just that gave me Vietnam flashbacks of like, listen, bro, this is the exact level.

[00:09:05]This is the perfect structure. This is the precise invalidation. Everything has been calculated to a T. And then it goes against you. You're like, well, is TA even real? You know, like what are we doing here? Like that's that's happened so many times, which is terrible, by the way. it shouldn't happen. But um I'm I'm sure it's relatable to those of us who've to put to put it politely let a trade drift before.

[00:09:29]>> Yeah. I generally this also reflected in position sizing like if I was all in this not how I would treat it. Um like but I'm not. So I'm just kind of like okay I I I'll let this play. Um but I'm quite cognizant of the fact that like it it doesn't really look that great. Um the last show that I did um people were like, "Oh, Don Don is like hedging his bullish view." That was like two one week, one and a half weeks.

[00:09:57]>> Oh, you were getting cooked. I need to go for the first time. I might actually watch one of your shows. That sounds like a fun comment section. It's my type of comment section.

[00:10:05]>> And that was when the market was still up a bunch, but um now it's like a little bit lower. Like I said, not significantly lower, but the reason why I was like a little bit more defensive in in that in that show was just because like the market's just been kind of weak. Um, and I kind of like like I said, my gut feeling is kind of like we're just going to have we're going to eat a [ __ ] sandwich for the next couple weeks. Um, not necessarily in price dumping, but I think as long as all the other markets just run so hot, it's really hard to get like a sustained bid.

[00:10:40]um if they slow down a little bit maybe um maybe get like a little bit of a rotation but that's also a hard sell. I think this just like a time thing like I don't think we're necessarily the the crypto market and this is excluding all coins obviously but like Bitcoin doesn't need to go through 80% corrections anymore. Um, I think it's more like like kind of like gold has traded like in the gold bare markets where it's just like it's not really doing anything and you're just sitting there being like am I stupid for having this and then it just doesn't do anything for for like and I'm not saying Bitcoin is going to go do nothing for 5 years but that's what gold did like 5 10 years just do nothing.

[00:11:19]>> My god it took you like 10 minutes to bring up the dawn lost decade like it's just not something this >> the the lost decade for for Bitcoin. Um, nah, just generally I think it's just going to be like a little bit boring for a while. Like any anytime someone in in real life asks me like, "Hey, what do you think about the market?" I'm like, I kind of feel like it's just going to be shitty for a while. Um, not in a it's going to be bearish. I could even see price go up from here. Just more from a like we're probably going to be outperformed by everything else and that's just going to suck.

[00:11:51]>> Yeah, I think that's the real sucker for me. It's context contamination because you you know you look at this chart and you're like okay well this thing is at a proximity to validation is high it's at multi-time frame support do or die usual drama I'm going to take a pun but then if you zoom out and it's like if I'm going to blast risk into something on the long side why would it be BTC you know like in order to justify that it would have to be either only kind of the only asset you trade or uh you think that for some reason not only does support holds, but support holding then leads to outperformance kind of relative to everything else that's available to you. And I think that's the tricky part cuz if I'm going to blast risk, like part of me almost wants to be like, okay, well, I think BTC is going to go up. Uh, and I know I know that will be invalidated most likely. Not really know, but I'm guessing that will be invalidated if the wider market like equities and stocks go down as a result.

[00:12:47]Why don't I just blast the risk into those things that are actually strong, right? Like do you see do you see the kind of argument? I'm making here like these things are correlated and if you want long exposure like BTC is the towards the bottom of that list or maybe one of the worst ways to express that view unless you have a supplementary argument that not only will it continue to go up but it'll actually outperform those things. That's the tricky part.

[00:13:11]Now you could reasonably argue that just [ __ ] trade the asset in front of you [ __ ] What are you doing? And that's completely fine. I think especially over the last I guess few months at this point, it's just been so hard to contextualize like BTC/ Major's risk relative to everything else that whatever your long bucket is in the universe of things that you can long um BTC has just not been the best bet for it. So like if you're risk off, yeah, I mean you you don't buy anything, but then if you're risk, is BTC the thing you want to buy? Like if you're trading in the crypto universe, like maybe. But the crypto universe compared to everything else has just been so disappointing that it's difficult to be like, "Hell yeah, risk exposure. Let me choose Bitcoin." This sort of sort of falls apart.

[00:13:54]>> Yeah, I I do agree. Um then again, the reason why I'm like taking a stance and then kind of like taking a sort of trade is because I just like it. Um but that's like a completely different.

[00:14:09]>> Yeah. familiarity and you know I've got even stuff like hey I've got like money on this exchange you know and I don't want to send it somewhere else stuff like that is >> laziness >> laziness laziness is very real um but yeah on the TA side I don't think there's anything too anything else to add the market could just be non-technical choppy [ __ ] if you're going to view it from a technical perspective 71 to 73 is like hey are there uh any signs of life and below that it goes to [ __ ] essentially Is there anything on the daily that you think captures an effect or a level or a structure that isn't well represented on the weekly and the monthly? I personally don't think so. Um like I pointed out on one of the episodes I did the kind of market structure inflection point at 75K and that gave a spike and a bounce but ultimately led to nothing. Uh so here we are at the big boy level now. Um, but I think the daily doesn't really add any color that isn't already on those two time frames. Are you Are you of the same mindset? I >> I agree. I mean, the you had that little breakout above 78.7 or whatever.

[00:15:18]>> Yeah.

[00:15:18]>> Um, but that's reflected by a weekly level. Like that's the exact weekly level. Um, so there's not really anything that that 80 adds. Um, I think if we come back above 78 on the daily, you're probably going to see some acceleration to the upside. Um, I think that would be like a nice snowball. Like that's where I would probably put on some extra risk because I >> like I I like how it sets up at that point. Like you get like a daily close above 78.

[00:15:45]>> Sure.

[00:15:46]>> Um, and then that would probably lead to a close back above 78 on the weekly and that would probably lead to just I think the monthly level that has been holding us back breaking uh which I think would lead to upside. Um but until then um there's probably better like ways to especially like extra risk just seems seems risky. Um but yeah, what do I know? Um so it's a hard market right now. I think like it's really really difficult. Um especially if you're trading technicals like I I can see like a lot of people getting chopped by this just trying to to to time it. Um, and yeah, I whenever it's that hard, you should probably not do too many trades. Um, because like you want to be doing stuff that is easy with your money. Um, you don't have to pick the the most challenging times. Like it's not it's not like a like, oh yeah, I'm going to train myself in the hardest market and I'm going to be great in the good one. It's like actually not how it works in that's not how it works in trading. If anything, you're going to be worse in the good one because you've been participating in the bad one >> just because you're going to be more risk averse and more skittish.

[00:16:59]>> And this is why a lot of us ate [ __ ] in early 2021 or even much of 2021, right?

[00:17:04]Like if you're around in 2018 and you got used to 2% mean reverting Bart pattern, etc., and no trend, no momentum effects that lasted more than 3 hours.

[00:17:16]When it actually came time to participate in those paradigms, we we just had no muscled memory. Well, the muscle memory that we had for it from 2017 had atrophied completely and it was replaced by this mean reversion skitso algo trading. So when things just go up multiple weeks in a row, uh it's almost like a category error. Um so yeah, I completely agree that you can't leapfrog market conditions or assume that they participating in difficult ones will make easier ones easier. It's more of a specificity issue, right? Like if you're used to trading uptrending conditions, then when they come around, you'll be more prepared. But if you're used to trading shitty conditions, you'll be prepared for the shitty conditions when they come around. And you can't sort of apply a difficulty slider to it and say, "Hey, I traded some terrible price action, so this uh you know, bullish trend price action should be easy." It's definitely not the case. Um, okay.

[00:18:11]That's that's BTC. I talked [ __ ] about you in my ETH coverage. uh specifically ETH BTC >> as usual >> if you recall the absolute relative strength on this baby uh which you were pointing out at the pico top uh and that it's been >> I mean it's actually not really moved to be fair.

[00:18:32]>> Oh, give me a break.

[00:18:33]>> But but one thing that I want to say is like when you have like DeFi protocols being like literally like exploited every day um which has been the case for the last couple of weeks. I wonder why.

[00:18:45]Like it's been like a massive uptick on that. Um that's obviously not going to play out. Um but yeah, it's I mean it's down like what 5%. Not the best.

[00:18:59]>> Yeah, not great. I I agree. Like I'm DeFi in this AI era is like particularly scary. Um and also some of it is not AI to be clear as well, right? Some of these are just like bad security >> error. Yeah.

[00:19:14]>> Yeah. User error, security vulnerabilities, also like insider exit scams. A massively underappreciated category like, "Hey, why do all these hacks happen in the bare market when money is tight?" That's milliondoll question there or in some cases much more. So, I don't know. I'm not >> It's actually something that I've heard a lot when talking with devs.

[00:19:36]like >> yeah just like kind of like an open secret that everyone knows about is that like whenever like whenever the going gets gets tough like it most of this stuff is either like just people being really [ __ ] stupid with their security or insiders just taking advantage um because they're desperate being stupid um so yeah it's not necessarily like a lot of the the exploits that have happened are not necessarily like like most of those have just been like, "Oh, whoops.

[00:20:09]I did a whoopsie." Like, "I did something stupid and now every everyone's money is gone." Uh rather than like, "Oh, yeah, there's North Korea sitting there." I mean, that's also been the case, but largely it's been just people being [ __ ] stupid.

[00:20:23]>> Yeah. And it's actually very easy to be stupid with DeFi. Um >> Yeah.

[00:20:28]And and like you said, like a lot of the stupidity can also just be someone like an insider just being like, "Oh, I was I was stupid." But actually, they were not. They just managed to get some money out of this thing somehow working with someone else. Like it's not like that is impossible. Like a lot of these these are Yeah. I mean, my bad kind of situations, you could also be like that might be someone just pulling the strings and that's like a convenient excuse, but Yeah. Yeah, it's and you'll never know conclusively or by the time you find out it'll be too late anyway.

[00:21:02]Um but yeah, I don't I don't know what you think about ETH USD like it's just kind of back at the range low.

[00:21:11]>> Yeah, that one just looks like it's ranging. Um it got rejected by by the monthly level that that we that we kept talking about like the the line in the sand for it being >> Oh, yeah. You liked that one, didn't you? 2.3 or whatever.

[00:21:24]>> Yeah. like that was basically like, okay, if you're bearish, you're going to be bearish there.

[00:21:28]>> Uh we got rejected. Now we're kind of like back at the support. Um >> but obviously the longer we hang around at that higher low area that we put in in in May 2025, um we really wouldn't want to break that. Like that would start looking quite shitty. Um generally speaking, uh not the best. Not like to me I look at this I'm also kind of like this is probably just going to go sideways but I could also just be hilariously wrong on that one. Um but to me it just looks like more more pain in terms of time coming rather than more pain in terms of price. But um yeah, we'll see how that turns out.

[00:22:09]>> Yeah, dude. I don't know. Ether has just become so uninteresting even within crypto as an asset. And the Ethereum Foundation as well just keeps going through I don't know leadership/org crisis. Um it's it's just not great. Sort of a lot of the magic has is lost. Uh where the magic isn't lost however if we go over to altcoin land hyperlquid.

[00:22:31]>> Yeah. The one coin that's still fantastic.

[00:22:34]>> Actually two Ccash and Hyperlash and Hyperquid. Yeah.

[00:22:39]>> Uh the immaculate conception continues to please. The last time I spoke about it, I was like, "Yeah, just be careful with this all-time high stuff." Um, because in the short term, as we've seen with other crypto assets in general, people sell into all-time highs, uh, or at least take profit, which I think is always going to be a bit psychotic, but it is the nature of the market. And I think that's where a lot of this recent voland stuffiness came in. Or also headline related stuff like, you know, I think pers are basically legal in the US now. That's kind of a big deal. Um, I was looking at the Kraken feed earlier today and they said, "US clients will soon be able to trade with petrol futures on Kraken Pro. Continuous pricing, no expiration, 8 hour funding rate, all integrated alongside the spot and futures markets you already use available to whatever US clients in the next 30 days." That's pretty mental, right? Yeah, >> like if you consider a lot of the current like a lot of the current exchange landscape both centralized and decentralized is entirely a function of this regulatory arbitrage where you couldn't trade these instruments in the US. Uh and so initially that came in the form of offshore exchanges that were a bit more permissive before the US cracked down on them and then decentralized exchanges. I mean hyperlquid being the runaway most successful case but also some like dydx and others which came and went. Uh but a lot of I think it's fair to say that a lot of crypto market structure and exchange market structure as we know it now is a direct function of the prohibition of per in the US. Do you think that's fair or an exaggeration?

[00:24:13]>> Yeah. No, it's been been a huge driver.

[00:24:16]>> That's like the whole thing, right?

[00:24:18]>> Yeah.

[00:24:19]>> Uh and now it's basically gone. So, I'm really curious as to what the impact there is going to be. I'm not sure whether I agree with the immediate uh knee-jerk of this is bad for hype because hype isn't just at this point I think is not just a regard play. At least that's not how it's evolving. Um like the 24/7 trady markets are actually really popular and have broken out outside of the crypto bubble and the token itself.

[00:24:49]>> Isn't that changing though? like in chatfi world, aren't they?

[00:24:52]>> It's incrementally changing. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:24:55]It's catching up in that regard. But in terms of like price discovery, volume and also where a lot of these pre-IPO type markets and so forth uh are shaping up, it it's sort of converging around Hyperlid for weekend plus new and tentative listing price discovery like especially on the weekends for obvious reasons. Uh and there's the whole token element of it, right? like it's not a useless governance token. It there are real mechanical buybacks happening with it and it occurs like it's actually linked to the platform not in a governance theater type of way but in terms of the trading activity and the fees and so on and so forth. So I don't know if you if you think this is I'm over 4D chessing it but I I'm not immediately sold on oh PE's illegal in the US therefore hyperlid goes to zero because that's all it was ever for. I I think it's sort of evolved beyond that personally.

[00:25:50]>> Yeah, I mean I agree that generally like just having something onchain um like if crypto is popular at all and that's the best onchain exchange that we have like that just seems like even if if people can trade per whatever I don't necessarily think that makes it valless.

[00:26:09]Also, I mean, price action wise, I it's up on the day, right? Um, so it's not like people are like, "Oh, this is terrible, terrible news."

[00:26:17]>> Um, it it made a new alltime high today.

[00:26:20]Um, >> so completely like I'm >> I'm I'm not I'm not too like freaked out, but then again, like I'm >> um I'm not the biggest hype holder either. though. Um, >> it's cuz you're sidelined, seething, coping that you missed the airrop.

[00:26:40]>> Exactly.

[00:26:41]>> And all the other usual mechanisms. Uh, I am curious though how these how per like what's going to happen, >> right? Like for for the US. I mean, yeah, it's a bit too late. Um, and also like platforms tend to be very sticky and also there isn't this implicit trade-off that like, oh, I only use Hyperlid uh because I can't get PES on my normal exchange, but if I could, I would go back immediately. It's like, have you seen the liquidity on Hyperlquid? It's absurdly good. Uh, it is one of the most liquid venues for price discovery. Um, it's not So, what I'm trying to say is there's no obvious trade-off there. They're like, "Oh, hyperlquid liquidity is [ __ ] but it lets me reggga, so let me go trade there." It's like, "No, the liquidity on Hyperlquid is actually very good." And there is a regar angle, but you could people also use it because it's good and because it's liquid at this stage anyway. Um, but you should also try out when it's available in your country. Uh, I guess Kraken pros via our left ref because we get fired otherwise. So, here I am saying [ __ ] tries exchanges and then uh the commercial part of my brain was like, "Hey buddy, don't forget Um, one thing that I will say about all of this, and I mean this this I mean people are going to be upset about it, but I generally prefer the trading experience on centralized exchanges than anywhere else. I think the the it's gotten less bad of like a difference.

[00:28:07]Like the decentralized stuff used to be really [ __ ] and now it's quite decent and I think it's it's quite good and it's usable. Um I have I I I am personally kind of I like it better on the C on the centralized exchanges but um just from an ideologistic point of view I like the decentralized stuff better. So it's kind of like it has up and downs downsides like I I like the experience better. I >> do prefer the the ideology about the decentralized exchanges. So >> and they are different products to some extent right like think about I mean the gap is closing at a at lightning pace but at least historically it's like the products the suite of products tends to be richer on centralized exchanges um and the onboard offboard tends to be less you know there tends to be less friction there uh support and so on and so forth but again the big elephant in the room is custody like you are trusting a counterparty with your money and your identity. That's another huge one. We've spent a lot of time talking about um exchange risk and counterparty risk from like a financial point of view like hey use leverage to have to keep all your funds on there etc. But as we've seen if you live in France, uh the identity side is actually really scary too. Uh and I think that's kind of worth its weight in gold when it comes to uh the DEX to centralized exchange sort of trade-off paradigm. It's not just the money. It's not just the liquidity. I think it's the identity part as well. And if you're French, then I mean, God help you. Uh, are there any other old I mean, look, Micro Strategy is one that's coming up. He's I don't know if you feel this way. Maybe I'm just lazy. Well, there that's not a maybe. That's definitely true. But I feel like I'm losing track of Sailor's Empire. Like, it used to be very simple in the past. Yeah, he just buys Bitcoin, you know, and now it's like there's Micro Strategy, preferred debt, convertible debt, there's stretch, there's all there's all sorts of things.

[00:30:10]And I feel like I'm losing track uh of this sprawling empire a little bit. Um, and I'm certainly fuzzier than I was in the past about the interaction effects between all of these debt and equity uh vehicles and setups. Do you feel the same way or am I just stupid and behind now?

[00:30:30]>> No. No. I 100% feel the same way. I mean, it all kind of seems and I I I mean, I might be completely wrong and this is all like legitimate, but it all seems very Ponzi like when you make something that is quite simple and over complicated to sound really financially sophisticated like that to me like it's just like that's a bad look. You know what I mean? Like he had this thing going micro strategy and that was going well and then he was like, "Oh, but I want to do more." and then he starts something new and then he's like ah but I want to do more and then he starts something new again. It's just kind of like I don't know why why but that just kind of makes me like a little bit skittish but it is up on the day in comparison to um Bitcoin that isn't um so there must have been something newswise >> he's safe. It's fine. Yeah. Um but but just generally like I I don't like it at all. Um I don't like that it's so over complicated now. Um, now am I in the same boat as like most people now in crypto that I think it's going to implode anytime soon? Not necessarily.

[00:31:36]No. I think that's probably going to be something that sticks around for a little bit longer. Um, but to me like the my Ponzi alarm bells ring like really hard and harder the longer this goes on. But I don't think it's it's necessarily this cycle as in like the next three, four, five years where this implodes. Um, and it might never implode and I might just be wrong on the Ponzi side of things, but I I just have a bad feeling about all of this. Like it's one of the things if this if if we were at like having the same price action that we're having right now um just without SA at all um being around, I'd be much more bullish.

[00:32:19]Like that's holding me back from being bullish quite a bit just because I like I just don't like it. I don't know how you feel about it. Too bad he's not going anywhere, Don. Um, and if he is, we're in trouble anyway.

[00:32:30]>> Yeah.

[00:32:30]>> Uh, so you got to learn to learn to love him. Um, is up 20% today. So there you go.

[00:32:37]There's your there's your altcoin headline. Uh, probably should look at Zcash as well. Uh, does Kraken list Zcash? Oh, yeah, they do. Fancy that.

[00:32:47]>> Yeah, they do.

[00:32:48]>> Uh, let's look at the spot pair. Yeah, I mean this thing is kind of just back at the highs and at least I mean the monthly chart is it's traded around here before like funny enough December 2017 on this chart >> uh is a is a very similar price. That was a good time. That was a simpler time.

[00:33:06]>> Oh, the good times and no one like anyone that's not been around in 2017 just would never understand that was the golden age. Like it's just how it is. I mean obviously like you could say the same thing about like people in 2014 or whatever when Bitcoin came around like not when but like when when like the the first kind of like big explosion happened. Um but man was 2017 good. You couldn't do anything wrong. Um like it was just so good.

[00:33:35]>> Yes. And then 2018 you couldn't do anything right. Uh which is usually the way it goes.

[00:33:40]And then we had 2021 where all the broccoli heads came into the market and like we had like other like the NFTs and stuff um that couldn't go wrong.

[00:33:52]>> That was bust and busting for real.

[00:33:54]>> Yeah. But that was like a different feel altogether. Like people were so optimistic in 2017 and then I think like the the kind of like negativity had already seeped into 2020 2021 like that whole >> cynic it's like cynicism right?

[00:34:09]>> Yeah. Yeah. Very different.

[00:34:12]>> And then we saw I think peak cynicism with meme coins basically which is like listen nothing matters. Let me just try to make as much money as I can before >> which is why we're in the bare market.

[00:34:22]>> Yeah.

[00:34:22]>> Yeah. Which is why we're in the bare market that we're in. I think that's legit like it has done so much damage that even though like we have like that entity of sailors just buying infinite um and we have like the ETFs and everything that cryptos just become so toxic that people just don't want to and now they have a good excuse not to with the stock market just going wild.

[00:34:44]>> Yeah, I was I just had the NASDAQ open.

[00:34:46]I mean look at this on the weekly, right? Just genuinely unbelievable. One of the biggest momentum moves I think in decades for sure. Uh, I don't have the exact stat, but both the NASDAQ and the S&P just absolutely melting faces. Um, >> and then go to Korea, it's even worse.

[00:35:04]Like that's >> dude. Yeah.

[00:35:07]>> Like there's other markets. It's not even like not necessarily even these ones.

[00:35:12]>> Oh yeah. This looks like Bitcoin in 2017. Um >> Yeah.

[00:35:16]>> Yeah. That is that is mental. Equity holders are having a fantastic time at the moment. Uh but I bet even within that market there's a whole just like in crypto right like you look at Bitcoin 2017 it was like wow how could anyone ever lose money and then if you zoom in there there are people who were just trying to day trade altcoins and got absolutely murdered I imagine and this is based on absolutely nothing at all uh there is a similar class of people trading equities where they're like oh my god the volatility is so high let me pile into a bunch of calls and zero DTE options etc and they have tried to day trade and they get their asses handed to them and then if they Look at what would have happened if they just put their money into the index and done nothing else. Probably makes them feel sick. Um, >> 2017 >> 100%.

[00:35:59]>> Right. Like by definition, that's that's kind of what happens. 2017 is the same.

[00:36:02]You look at Bitcoin, it's like, wow, how did anyone lose money? It's like, well, it's actually quite easy. Uh, it's very easy to lose money, especially if you're short-term trading. But yeah, equities look [ __ ] mental. I mean, again, this is the sort of sad point about all of this that we're in the middle of a mega acceleration. uh and a very concentrated riskon environment. Even though the breadth of it is reasonably shallowish, it's nevertheless like all engines go uh on that side. And then you look at Bitcoin which is supposed to be this like I mean you remember on this show we used to make wells supported arguments that Bitcoin is like a it's more of a of a tech stock type of thing the way it behaves. Uh, and the frame the context for that was when equities were getting [ __ ] hammered if you recall, right?

[00:36:53]Like equities were getting hammered.

[00:36:55]People like Bitcoin's going to decouple and we were there like, uh, I don't think so. Like it's more of a tech risk on type of asset. Uh, and I just wish that were true today cuz we're in the middle of >> you got it right on the downside and then it's like, >> well, that says something about the asset class in its current form, right?

[00:37:12]like it does it's just not lining up or benefiting or correlating with this stuff in any type of meaningful way. And that sort of raises the question that if there if there's even a slowdown on the equity side, what does that do to Bitcoin? I think the answer is nothing good personally like I I don't know if you've if you agree or if you pay attention to this, the amount of sort of rotation incoming cope cycles that we've been through over the last what 3 4 months have been extraordinary. It's like, "Oh, it's the gold rotation. Okay, no, it's going to be silver. Oh, no. Let this thing cool off and then it'll be Bitcoin. Okay, no, that was a prank, bro." You know, it's like those rapture people who are like, "Listen, on this day, Jesus is going to come down to earth and all of us are going to [ __ ] disappear." And then it doesn't happen.

[00:37:56]The guy's like, "Ah, my bad. I misread the Bible verse. It's actually next week." And then next week comes along and you're all still bad. It's like, "Should I leave this cult?"

[00:38:05]Um, it's it sort of feels similar with these sort of narrative rotation type arguments where it's like, bro, just one more bubble has to burst and then Bitcoin is next. Meanwhile, you've sort of missed five bubbles. Um, that that's what that feels like to me. And I'm not exactly sure what the what the tiebreaker is. Gum to my head, it would be something like crypto has to [ __ ] go to zero. I mean, that's a dramatic version, but like actually massively underperform and then it gets so cheap and easier to push around that it can be the fastest horse or a fastish horse.

[00:38:38]I'll take any non-dead horse uh on a recovery if everything kind of gets pulled down. But apart from that, I'm just kind of struggling to think of what conditions would have to come together for this thing to either catch up or start outperforming. It might have to be one of those rug and recover as opposed to, you know, go sideways and then miraculously start going up. But my thinking on that isn't super polished.

[00:39:04]What do you think?

[00:39:05]>> Yeah, I think it can go sideways and go up, but it would have to go sideways up for a while. So basically like very slow up, but sideways for a while and then like just run out of sellers. But that doesn't seem to be possible right now. S sellers always find more coins somehow.

[00:39:24]Um but I generally Yeah, I mean if it does that I think that'd be a good starting point like if if we do nuke like massively like those are the ones that I love to buy in any case like um always have like the the big massive nukes is where where I like to do most of my business. Uh that's where where you actually get serious. Um I'm not entirely sure which one it's going to be. Um, I generally think, um, that a lot of the kind of bad price action we're getting is just people kind of pivoting away from crypto, going into AI, going into like other like stocks and stuff.

[00:40:06]>> And the question is, are they going to come back or not? And that's not really easy to answer. And I mean, they're probably not going to come back unless the stock market kind of stops. But then you'd think that the correlation takes us lower anyway. Um, so yeah, I I don't know. It's like it's a it's a hard question to answer right now. Um, so I'm just >> unfortunately. So >> yeah, I'm just I'm just sitting here being like I'm trading as little as possible, enjoying the sun while I can.

[00:40:37]Um, and like in in the crypto space anyway. And then if if it if that changes and I do have like a good like a good eye on on things just because I I love the market like it's my favorite market in the world. Um for better or worse right now I wish the the the chat market was my favorite market in the world but it's just not like this is what I grew up with. Um so I'm just kind of for better or worse stuck with it. I I understand the gold people now and I think this might be very karma based where do you remember like for 10 years like everyone was just making fun of gold like especially crypto people. Yes.

[00:41:16]>> How stupid it is. And then >> this show included prominently.

[00:41:21]>> Yep. Uh and um now we're in the same situation where everything is going up but we're not and we're just sitting there um sad.

[00:41:30]>> Yeah. We're the ones coping now. Sort of you know the full circle to the start of the show. We are the copers where every signal is screaming at you that like there is a ton of volatility and momentum and trend effects and inefficiencies in other markets and they're right in front of your [ __ ] nose. Why aren't you there? And the answers kind of suck but some sort some combination of like familiarity, tradition, custom and Stockholm syndrome stop you from participating. Um but you can participate on Kraken with our link which also has X dogs blah blah blah.

[00:42:01]Um, but yeah, very much agreed, dude. I think that's most of it. I did want to try something. I think segments are cringe, but I was just as I was just looking at this 1 hour chart, uh, I got flashbacks. Um, because I don't know how much you've done this in the past where you're trying to trade like a failed breakdown and then the failed breakdown has a failed breakdown and then the failed breakdown has a breakdown. You know, like it just you go into psychosis mode being like, "Yeah, that was the wick." And then you get stopped out and you're like, "Oh, nice move. Okay, that was the wick." Then you get stopped out again and you and then suddenly your account looks different than what it did a few hours ago or earlier in the day.

[00:42:43]So that kind of made me think, what's one piece of generic but sort of universally applicable either trading advice or kind of habitscustoms that you've formed that have helped you?

[00:42:54]Cuz what this reminded me of is one that I used to do a lot more when I was short-term trading, which is if I'm trading within an area and I get stopped out more than once in a similar type of range or structure, I had to delete all of my [ __ ] and go look at just the weekly and the daily to see if what I'm doing has any resemblance to reality or anything reasonable. And a lot of the time I would you'd get like a postnut clarity, right? You're so zoomed in to like the five minute, the 15minute, taking multiple trades and then you kind of delete it all, zoom out, look at the high time frame, you're like, bro, what the [ __ ] am I even doing? Like, where is the market? There's nothing here. I've been hallucinating for a whole day. So, that would be my generic sort of um post post stopout ritual that I think made s kept small losses small and stopped it from spiraling and cascading into something worse. Do you have anything to share on that? Yeah, it's it's funny that you say that because I that that's the the one thing that immediately came to mind for me as well where it's like like especially like if you look at the low time frame structure right now um like you don't like I would never get back into a trade after having like been stopped out twice like just never like I would just have to go out. So that's like one that we have in common like that we came across where because you do kind of like ask just like when you're convinced that you're right and this is very easy for humans to to do um is you kind of like you like justify to yourself over and over again. But then if you don't have that strict rule of okay I will I just have to step away and then come back the next day or like even a week after or something you will just do this mistake over and over and over again and just get get wrecked. So, like that's one that we share. Generally, one thing that I've learned over my my trading career is that like the more I zoom out, the better the better I I trade. It's just always been the case. It's so much easier to compete with with people um trading the higher time frames than than with the lower time frames. Like the the low time frame traders when when you think about it, right? Like you have these firms just sitting there. They're they're optimized. They're like super giga brains, right? And they know exactly what they're doing. Um they not only take information from like crypto, but also from traditional markets. They have like this whole arsenal at their hands and you're just sitting there with your stupid lines on the chart, right? Trying to trade the one hour. Um and I think that's really really difficult, especially if the market matures more and more. It's not even the maturing part. It's just like when the market goes crazy, you can do that, right? Like so if you're trading stocks right now, you can probably get away with that. Um but if the market is just generally like moving lower percentages um and not full of retail, like that's really hard to do. Um because your competition is just really really good. And then when you zoom out, you're basically like you you come back into that your competition sucks because like everyone is just like trading the low time frames doing dumb [ __ ] whereas you can just take advantage of like the the trend the like how it's generally been going your vision for what's going to happen and it's much easier to quantify in your head right like as in like okay I have this idea and that should be happening and if that idea breaks something significant has actually happened right whereas if you're on the 1 hour time frame if your idea breaks I mean that can be just like a number of random things and it doesn't even have to have any impact on the longer term um um direction of the market. It just can be just some random guy just dumping it or just some random guy bump buying a bunch. Like you take a short and then sailor just randomly starts his T-W and you're like, "Ah shit." Um I'm wrong uh on on the short idea because like he's just been randomly buying the last 6 hours and then goes all the way back down and you're like [ __ ] like my idea was right. It's just like sailor was just there like buying enough to push the market up for a couple hours and that kind of stuff like make me like trade less and less on the lower time frames and more and more on the higher time frames just because it's more comfortable. You you have more of like a a way to kind of quantify what the market is doing in in like to yourself generally just make more robust systems.

[00:47:33]That's kind of how I look at it. that like that's been the biggest change over the years in my trading and it's taken most of the stress out um and just made it easier for me um to to kind of be longerterm profitable.

[00:47:49]>> Well said, broki. Well said. Nothing to add there. Perfect monologue to wrap up.

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[00:49:11]>> Talk soon. Bye-bye.