Projects
![]()
No projects found
Investors
New
DAO Treasuries
DATs
Lend / Borrow APRs
Chains
Categories
Spaces
Market Talk Roundtable with Ben Cowen : #Bitcoin makes new 2023 high
Recorded: July 6, 2023 Duration: 1:43:01Space Recording
Full Transcription
Hey, guys, just doing a mic check, testing, testing.
Sound good, Wobby.
Perfect, perfect.
Uncle Ben, what's going on, brother?
You able to hear us?
Yeah, I can hear you on my end.
Can you guys hear me?
Perfectly.
Loud and clear, man.
Great to have you back on the show, brother.
How are you?
Good to be back.
Pretty good.
Good to be here.
Snorlax, you able to hear us?
Tucker, you able to hear us?
Testing, testing.
Yeah, we're good.
Slava, Dow, you guys able to hear us?
Yeah, pleasure to be here from Entangled Side.
Thank you so much for going to be here.
Yeah, same here, man.
Happy to be here.
Okay, cool, cool, cool.
All right, we'll get rolling in about a minute.
We'll just let the room filter in, and then we'll get started.
Before all that stuff, Ben, I want to thank you for coming on the show and for always supporting
us here because of Bitcoin.
I think this is the fourth time that we've done Spaces together, and we truly appreciate
this opportunity, man.
We've all been following you pretty much since the beginning, man.
Back then, I remember when you got started, the market as far as social dynamics wasn't really
as active as it was right now.
I think only 20, 30 people would tune into live streams and things of that nature, and
now so much social capital has been added to the space where even though it's a quieter
market or a bear market, whatever you want to call it, people are still active, man.
Do you remember those times, like 2019, 2020, where it kind of seemed like a ghost town
for a minute there?
Yeah, the good old days.
Yeah, I think it took me like six months to reach 500 subscribers.
So yeah, if I were doing a live stream or anything or anything like that, hardly anyone would tune
in back then.
Little did we know just how crazy it was going to get, but it did get really crazy.
Beautiful.
I think we can get started now, guys.
Before all that stuff, I want to thank our newsletter subscribers, our Discord members, our Twitter
community, our YouTube community for tuning into our spaces with Ben Cowan.
We're here joined by Max Norlax, Tucker Slava from Entangle, and also Dow Chemist, a good
friend of the brand.
So shout out to Dow as well.
Thank you so much for coming on, guys.
And today, here on Twitter Spaces, we're going to be discussing our market outlook going into
the second half of the year.
And we're here joined by Ben Cowan.
So Ben, want to welcome you on the show again, man.
So I guess we can start off by saying, you know, we've had all these, you know, ETF filings
from BlackRock, VanEck, and all these other institutions.
And it kind of falls in line with Bitcoin dominance breaking out.
And it's eerily familiar, Ben, if you recall, in the summer of 2018, right when we hit that
local bottom of about 5,800 in June, the Winklevoss twins, the founders of the Gemini Cryptocurrency
Exchange, they applied for an ETF.
And around that time frame, alts were getting demolished against Bitcoin.
And BTC ran from 5,800 to 8,400.
So, you know, I'd really like to know your outlook going into the second half of the year.
And you kind of see that similarity and, you know, also would like to know what are some
differences that you're seeing between between this between this scenario with BlackRock and
all those things compared to back then, because now we're having all these major institutions,
which back then during that bear market, I vaguely remember all these figureheads following
the same line as Warren Buffett calling Bitcoin rat poison and all these things.
And it's kind of ironic as well that, you know, the SEC was suing Coinbase despite BlackRock
and Brian having somewhat of a deal for their custodian solutions.
And we'd really like to know your thoughts on that.
And yeah, great to have you on once again, brother.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Yeah, I mean, I think there are a lot of similarities between back then and today.
And actually, we had a dominance rally that started off more or less at the same level
back then, around 38, 39 percent.
We then rallied on up to about 51 to 52 percent on a Bitcoin rally back in 2018.
And it essentially wrecked the altcoin market on their Bitcoin pairs and even on their USD
pairs, right?
Like even today, like, you know, Bitcoin is near the yearly highs.
And I even think it put in a new yearly high today.
But you actually have a lot of altcoins probably closer to their lows than their yearly highs,
right?
Like a lot of them, you know, where they were back in March and April, that has come and
gone.
And most of them have not been able to reclaim those levels, even though Bitcoin has.
And that's all that's all in line with the dominance theory is that, you know, no matter
the direction of Bitcoin USD, we should see the dominance go up.
Now, in 2018, we saw the rally of dominance from around 38 to 39 percent to about 51 to 52
percent.
And that occurred on a Bitcoin rally.
We then saw the dominance go from basically like 51, 52 percent all the way up to over
60 percent.
And that occurred on sort of like a reversion of Bitcoin back down to where it was previously,
but not not really taking out the June lows.
It was not until the final capitulation where, you know, where Bitcoin truly got wrecked.
But that was, you know, that was essentially after the altcoin market had led back to Bitcoin.
What I think is going on, and I think I've said this basically every time I come on here,
but just as a reminder, right, like I think we're in the phase where, you know, where altcoins
and Ethereum are essentially bleeding back to Bitcoin.
Bitcoin, it is that bleed that supports the rally of Bitcoin.
It's not really much of anything else because, I mean, we can see the social statistics.
I mean, I follow the social statistics quite closely.
And the social sentiment, while it is still well above where it was in 2018 and 2019,
it's still getting pretty low, relatively speaking, even if you assume a larger base.
And so I do see people losing interest, just like we saw people losing interest back then.
And normally when people lose interest, it's the altcoins that go first
because the altcoins are reliant on liquidity a lot more.
Or they need that excess liquidity a lot more than less risky assets are.
And so basically what ends up happening, and it happened last cycle too,
you see the altcoin market just bleed back to Bitcoin.
And it's this bleed that sends Bitcoin higher.
But eventually the thesis is that the liquidity from the altcoin market will no longer be sufficient
to prop up the price of Bitcoin USD, right?
And basically if you look at every pre-halving year,
we see the rally top out in sort of like June or July.
It's hard to know exactly when.
I mean, sometimes it tops out sooner, sometimes it tops out later.
But, you know, I'm still under the impression that if Bitcoin wants to make a move higher this year,
it probably needs to do so relatively soon.
Because one of the things that I've said previously when I've come on your spaces
is that I thought that sometime in the second half of the year,
or as late as Q1 of the halving year,
Bitcoin would likely get a sort of secondary scare.
So, and to give you an idea of what that was,
like, so back in two cycles ago, Bitcoin had its fair market in 2014,
and then put a double bottom in August.
So we had basically a 50% drop from July of 2015 until August,
and we put it at double bottom.
For reference, if Bitcoin had a 50% drop today,
that would put it essentially back at 15.5%, which would be a double bottom.
In the next cycle, we ended up having a higher low because of the pandemic.
And you might call it a black swine, but as I've said before,
we still had an inverted yield curve in 2019.
Hey, Ben, we're not able to hear you, brother.
I think you covered your mic or something.
For how long?
Only for like three seconds, man.
You're good now.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, so...
Sorry, what was I saying?
You had just mentioned the inversion of the yield curve.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So in 2019, we had an inverted yield curve,
and I think we just needed something to sort of send us into a recession.
It ended up being the pandemic.
And we got a higher low, right?
So Bitcoin put in a higher low, and then we took off.
So we essentially have a couple cycles to look at.
One was a double bottom.
One was a higher low.
This time, I think we're still waiting to find out what it's going to be.
And I do think we likely will have that at some point.
But we're still right now, I think, in the phase where the liquidity from the altcoin market has been sufficient to hold the price of Bitcoin up, right?
I'm not saying that there's no money coming in from institutional money.
I'm not saying that that's not happening.
I'm sure to some degree there are some larger players coming in.
But when you essentially have, like, you know, millions of people that are finally capitulating their altcoins to the blue chips,
that will provide some liquidity to that cryptocurrency, sort of remain elevated.
And again, Ethereum is not immune to this either.
It's alts go first, and then Ethereum goes, and then Bitcoin.
It's sort of like, it's kind of like the reverse of what you saw back in 2021, right?
So, like, right now, it's the altcoin market is dumping first.
And we're watching the altcoin market bleed, right?
A lot of them are putting in new lows.
As recently as a few weeks ago, and they're putting in new lows in their Bitcoin pairs.
But you're also seeing Ether Bitcoin slowly bleed, right?
And, you know, I know a lot of people have been optimistic about Ethereum.
But it is, I mean, technically, it is still just a series of lower highs and lower lows.
And so I think we're, you know, after Ethereum goes, after the Ethereum Bitcoin valuation drops,
then that could finally start to mark the end of sort of this altcoin reckoning that we've talked about.
But that's what I currently see in the market.
I think that liquidity from aughts has improved Bitcoin's outlook.
Dominance has gone up a lot.
Still think the dominance is going to go to 60%.
And the altcoin market will likely suffer as a result, especially on their Bitcoin pairs.
But once we get there, then we can, then the altcoin market can potentially start a new cycle where they can finally catch a bid again.
The problem right now is that, you know, and you'll see this, right?
Like if Bitcoin goes up, it kind of leaves the altcoin market behind.
And then when Bitcoin drops, the altcoin market gets crushed again.
And it's like nothing good is happening in the altcoin market compared to Bitcoin.
They just keep going down.
So that's more or less where I see where I think we are.
As far as the whole ETF stuff, I mean, I guess there's probably some reasons to be more optimistic today that it'll get, you know, that it'll actually get approved than there was a few years ago.
But I also wouldn't, I would not be that surprised if the SEC went back and forth with them for a while before actually approving it.
So, I mean, like they already have once with, you know, trying to figure out who's going to be, who's going to be the custodian.
And I think a lot of them pick Coinbase.
So I don't know.
I mean, I don't know if it'll get, if it'll get accepted this year.
But I mean, I'd have to imagine that at some point within the next year or two, we should have, we should have a spot ECF.
Awesome, Ben. Awesome.
So, you know, in regards to Bitcoin dominance, is there a certain level where you feel that, you know, like the dominance does have to break out?
Otherwise, it'd make you bearish.
Is there, is there anything that would make you bearish on Bitcoin dominance?
Perhaps a rejection off of a certain level?
Seeing ETH, BTC catch a small bid.
What would make you bearish on Bitcoin dominance?
What are some things that you would want to see that has you saying, okay, I'm getting out of bed for this.
I'm putting on my rally hat and I'm going to schedule my Forbes interview or at least a pre-Forbes interview, as you say.
I think if we, if we started getting like weekly closes back below 49%, that would probably be a pretty bad sign for the dominance.
Because, like, that was the level that it took a long time to break out from.
And, you know, we spent years watching that level, that 49% level.
And, and finally, we broke out above it.
And normally, once we break out above it, we kind of, we get a strong breakout.
And then we kind of hesitate for a week or two before continuing the trend.
So, I think we're right now, we're just sort of in that hesitation phase where, like, the market is trying to accept it.
But a lot of people still don't want to accept it.
Like, they don't want, they don't want the dominance to go higher because of what it would mean for their, for their altcoin, for their alt Bitcoin pairs.
Like, it just means the purchasing power of their altcoins continues to go down.
And so, I think a lot of people don't really want to accept that that's what's happening.
I think for me to accept that it wouldn't happen, I, again, I would probably need to see, like, you know, two or three weekly closes back below 49% for the dominance.
I don't really think that's the most likely outcome.
I suppose that one way that you could get something like that is if, like, if Ripple wins the SEC case, like, just outright, and there's just no, there's no really middle ground.
It's just, like, the SEC completely loses, then maybe you would see altcoins catch a more sustained bid.
But even in that scenario, like, I still would struggle to see how the altcoin market would outperform Bitcoin on, like, a monthly basis.
Because, like, even if altcoins are not securities, which there's a good case to be made that they are, but if they're not, then it doesn't take away from the fact that they still are very risky assets, right?
And they still require excess liquidity to do well.
So, whether there's security or not, I mean, like, put it like this, like, you know, like, XRP wasn't considered a security in 2019, and it still put in new lows compared to 2018.
And it still put in new lows in 2020 compared to 2019.
And a lot of altcoins did this.
Cardano put in new lows in 2020 as well.
You know, none of them were considered securities back then, and they still put in new lows.
So, while I do think there is some potential for a move back down on the dominance, I would not think it would be sustained.
I think what's the most likely outcome right now is that we just see the dominance explode to the upside.
I mean, the two ways that that happens, of course, is just either Bitcoin keeps moving higher, or we get a pretty big dump by Bitcoin back below its 20-week estimate.
And you saw what happened about a month ago when Bitcoin got that one weekly close below the 20-week.
We just saw altcoins dumping like crazy, right?
Like, they were dropping like 20%, 30%.
So, you know, imagine what happens if Bitcoin gets back below that, but we don't get back above that level immediately, and it just stays like that for, you know, six months.
That is where altcoins can get wrecked quite badly if something like that were to play out.
And I do think that that phase will, we will eventually reach that phase.
It's just hard to say.
I mean, it's really hard to say at what point the liquidity from alts is no longer sufficient to prop up Bitcoins.
From a seasonality perspective, I will remind people that in the pre-halving year, normally, so on average, on average in the pre-halving year, the return of Bitcoin is negative 4.74%.
Only three data points to compare to, and so it's not like we can definitively say that that's what's going to happen.
But normally, what you see around the July, August, September time frame is the rollover finally start to get underway, right, where Bitcoin goes back down and it crushes the altcoin market.
I still think that there is still time for Bitcoin to move higher if it wants.
Like, I mean, even today, right, it put on a new yearly high today.
But I think within the next week or two, if not before then, we should start to see it to rollover.
From what level, I don't know.
Like, I don't know if it's going to be from 32K, 31K, 35K.
I don't know.
But I will say, the last thing I'll say about it is that if, you know, if you're an altcoin holder and you value your altcoins under Satoshi valuations,
and the last thing you want to see right now is Bitcoin go higher.
Because, I mean, again, like sort of the theory is that at some point, Bitcoin has to roll over.
And when it does, it crushes all.
So the higher it goes, the altcoins just get crushed on their Bitcoin pairs more and more.
And then they still have to get crushed normally once Bitcoin rolls over.
So I don't really see a compelling case for the dominance to go much lower, although I could see it dropping back to 50 percent maybe.
But in order to change my mind, I would need to see weekly closes below 49 percent.
Ben, and speaking about altcoins, I recall in the 2021 cycle, you know, you were pretty bullish on ADA and a lot of the other O1s, right?
Polkadot as well, things of that nature.
So throughout this year, have you been looking at any narratives for the next cycle, for 2025, 2026?
Have you been eyeing something that's pretty interesting that, you know, is a bit different than, you know, just another L1, just another metaverse platform?
Is there anything that you're particularly looking at?
Not necessarily, like, like, it doesn't really have to be projects, but just more around narratives.
Is there anything that is catching your eye at the moment?
Not really.
I'm kind of, I kind of operate under the assumption that nothing else really matters until the dominance is close to 60 percent.
And to spend too much time thinking about it during the dominance rally, I just, I don't really think it's, like, it's worthwhile because a lot of projects just sort of die out.
And so rather than spend the time trying to figure out, like, which ones those are going to be, I'd rather just kind of wait, see which ones are still, you know, that there's still activity on after we hit, say, like, 60 percent dominance.
And then I'll proceed from there.
I mean, of course, like, of course, I have, like, the layer ones from last cycle on my mind.
Ben, you're coming off a cutoff right now, a bit muffled.
Sorry.
Of course, the layer ones from last cycle are on my mind.
Of course, Ethereum is on my mind.
But until the process, a lot of people ask me, like, well, where is the altcoin going to find its low, like, against Bitcoin or against the US dollar?
And it's like, well, you know, we're in the phase where there's no way to know.
Like, you just, it's not a, like, it's not if altcoin X reaches this valuation, then it's a good buy.
It's more so, like, if the dominance is at 60 percent and if the altcoin is an oscillator at best and it's holding its range lows against Bitcoin for, say, six months or more, then you could argue that it's becoming worth the risk.
Like, if the altcoin can sustain its Bitcoin valuation in a Bitcoin USD downtrend, then you could start to argue that the altcoin is worth the risk.
But right now, we're not really seeing a whole lot of that for most altcoins.
I'm not going to say there's none out there.
But, I mean, I think the ones that are probably doing the best against Bitcoin right now are some of, like, the micro caps, like the five or ten million dollar coins that have very, very low liquidity.
So, like, you just have, like, you know, maybe a few hundred people trading them and they, you know, they think that they're going to hold up against Bitcoin forever.
But a lot of times, just because there's very little liquidity.
Like, so, like, no one with real money could ever sell into it because it would just collapse the whole project.
But, yeah, as a whole, I think we're looking at about another 40% drop of altcoins on their Bitcoin pairs is kind of what I'm looking at, which is not nearly as bad as my outlook was maybe, like, you know, three months ago or six months ago when we were talking about it.
So, if you look at, like, total three over Bitcoin's market cap, it still suggests alts need to drop about 40% or so on their Bitcoin pairs before the Dominus rally is over.
Beautifully said, Ben. Beautifully said.
Slava, anything you want to throw out Ben's way, brother?
Oh, yeah. I was very inspired by what you said, Ben. Very clever.
I wanted to ask you, like, what are your thoughts about, like, recent, like, geopolitical situations, like in Ukraine or Russia, and how could that possibly impact the Bitcoin dominance regarding whatever result comes out of the geopolitical stuff right now happening?
So, I will be the first to say, like, I am not an expert at geopolitics, so I don't want to really, I don't really want to pretend to be.
But, in general, my view on geopolitical events are that, like, you really can't plan for them, so there's no reason to really worry about them, because we'd be worrying about basically every single week about what's going to happen.
I suppose that if the war were to come to an end, then, I mean, I have to imagine right now that there are some inflationary forces that were, you know, made worse by the war in Ukraine.
So, of course, if some of that stuff were to come to an end, then it could help, could help bring down inflation.
I think, I think the, the bigger risk is, you know, is, does it, does it sort of bleed into outside of that region?
Like, does it, does it bleed out of Ukraine?
Like, does it, does the war go somewhere else?
Like, does Russia go after something else?
Like, I don't know.
Or does China invade Taiwan, which could happen at some point this decade?
You know, I don't know.
I don't, I'm, again, I'm not an expert on these things.
I don't really have a great answer.
I mean, I remember back in, when it happened, it was, you know, what, a little over a year ago or so?
The markets, the markets sort of actually rallied, if I'm not mistaken, on the day of, of the invasion, right?
I think the markets dumped, and then they sort of rallied as, as it was, as it actually happened.
So, I mean, you could even argue that if it comes to an end, it, it might initially rally because people get excited.
And then maybe it just dumps right after it as we have to deal with a potential recession.
You know, I mean, there's a lot of other, there's a lot of other macro forces at play that I, I would argue are likely going to be more important than that.
But that's, that's basically all I can, all I can say.
I'm not, again, I'm not, I'm not an expert on, on Chia political events.
All right, we'll kick it on over to Max now.
Max, what's going on, brother?
What do you have for Ben?
And also, Max, good afternoon.
How are you?
What do you see in the markets?
I just have to say that.
I have to plug that in every single time.
You steal my line every time.
He, well, he's poking fun at me.
We have a morning Discord call every morning with our community.
And I always start off just like the same way.
It kind of turned into a big joke where I'm like, good morning.
How are you?
What do you see in the markets?
And it just has gone on way too long.
But anyways, we roll with it.
Yeah, Ben, thanks for being here.
It's a pleasure to speak with you, as always.
I want to compliment you on your recent indicator release for your premium members, your ITC
crypto premium members, the global net liquidity indicator.
I find your analysis on it to be extremely interesting.
And I first began to follow domestic net liquidity, I would say probably around the beginning of
last year, I found some guy on Twitter who he put together the equation and I was able
to replicate it on my trading view.
But since then, of course, you and I've seen a couple other ones, you've put together global
net liquidity, which is it paints a much wider lens to view really what's happening on a
global scale rather than just here in the US and how all these markets are truly intertwined.
And for the longest time, the S&P 500 specifically, and I suppose the NASDAQ too, but a little bit
more extreme, they were tracking global net liquidity and I guess domestic net liquidity
for multiple years.
But recently, within the past fiscal quarter or so, we've seen this decoupling where the
S&P 500 has basically diverged from global net liquidity and domestic net liquidity.
S&P 500, for those that don't watch the equity markets, has basically gone straight up in a straight
line while global net liquidity has been falling.
But actually, Ben, something interesting that you've pointed out is there's still a very tight
correlation between global net liquidity and total three, which is basically the crypto market
cap, less Bitcoin and Ethereum.
I'd love if you could just walk us through some of your findings and also thoughts on what's
happening with, I believe you referred to it as sort of the jaws have opened in regards
to the squibble net liquidity equation.
Yeah, give me a second.
Let me tweet it out so that you can maybe, can you like, is there a way for you to put
it, I can tweet it out if you want to like, next to the space.
I'll put it on the desk.
No worries, brother.
All right, I just, I just tweeted it out.
So maybe you can add it to the, sure.
Wabi, can you, can you pin that up there so the audience can do that?
Yeah, doing that right now.
Great.
Yeah.
So if you're not familiar with this one, look, there's a lot of net liquidity indicators.
I'm not the first person to create one.
I mean, you can probably find half a dozen or more variations of it just to give you reference
as to what this one includes.
It includes the assets held by the Federal Reserve, the ECB, the UK, Canada, New Zealand,
Australia, the Bank of Japan and China.
So it's a pretty, like, you know, all encompassing way to look at.
And it also subtracts out the TGA and the reverse repo.
But the point is, is that, or the idea is that, you know, liquidity is much more than
just the Fed, you know?
And I mean, it encompasses a lot of different things.
If you, if you actually look, I mean, the Fed was reducing their balance sheet back in,
you know, back in October, November, December.
But the S&P started to go back up.
If you look at the same time, that was actually when, you know, the China and Japan were printing.
So it's interesting when you overlay all of them together, what it looks like.
And actually, we actually saw a pretty big drop in global net liquidity yesterday with the ECB.
The ECB, they said a few months ago that they're going to be increasing the pace of some of their QT.
And you can see that that's actually occurring now.
And I mean, it's, the jaws have opened, as you can, as you can see, if people actually can look at the,
I don't know if you got the chart up in the nest or whatever, but yeah, like you can see that the jaws have opened.
And so there's a divergence now between the S&P 500 and global net liquidity.
Historically, like we have seen the jaws open in the past.
So this is not the first time it occurred in 2018.
If I just sort of look at my screen and scroll back,
I can see that the jaws opened in about April or May of 2018.
And the process of clamping shut did not occur until October.
And the S&P climbed the wall of worry from essentially like, like March or April until October.
So you're talking about a half a year where the market climbed the wall of worry.
And it still put in a new low, right?
I mean, the S&P still put in a new low and the jaws clamped shut.
And what's interesting, again, is that, you know, the S&P took off from there for another like 14 months.
And then, but liquidity didn't go anywhere.
It was basically going sideways with maybe even a slightly bearish bias for the next 14 months.
And then the S&P and the global net liquidity, the jaws clamped shut again,
and it ended up being another lower low, right?
So we ended up getting a low in March of 18, a lower low in December of 18,
and then a lower low in March of 2020.
And every single time, the jaws clamped shut.
And then the rally that started in 2020, the reason it was, I mean, it took us to much higher highs,
net liquidity, which is going through the roof, right?
Like, I mean, it was tracking net liquidity.
And so now, net liquidity, the bear market was basically tracking net liquidity.
And it even, you know, you can see that the S&P found its, you know, its recent low back in October,
around the same time that global net liquidity bottomed.
But really, the divergence here started in April, maybe even late March.
But really, as you get into April, that's where the divergence began between net liquidity and the S&P 500.
And so there's this idea, well, you know, if it continues, I mean, at some point,
one would argue that the jaws have to clamp shut.
Who knows how long that'll take?
I mean, this is one of those indicators where, like, it might, they might deviate from each other
for the next, like, two or three months.
Again, back in 2018, they didn't clamp shut until October.
And actually, they didn't even clamp shut in October.
That's just when the process began.
They didn't really clamp shut until December of that year.
And it ended up corresponding to, in fact, a lower low.
So yeah, I think that I think the liquidity is essentially everything, or it's a lot that
drives financial markets.
It's one of the reasons, like, if you were to overlay total three on the net liquidity
indicator, it actually tracks it almost perfectly, whereas the S&P does not.
And my rationale for that is I think that altcoins are more, they're more sensitive to liquidity
than, like, the S&P 500, okay?
And I actually have, like, a theory behind this as well.
I don't know if I've actually spoke about this theory as much, but you know how we've
talked a lot about how, like, altcoins, when liquidity is drying up, right, altcoins bleed
back to Bitcoin, and it leads to a Bitcoin dominance rally, right?
So it goes altcoins first, then Ethereum, then Bitcoin, in that order, right?
Alts get wrecked, then ETH gets wrecked, then Bitcoin gets wrecked.
But a lot of people don't realize that their altcoins are getting wrecked when Bitcoin's
going up.
They just, because they don't care about their Bitcoin valuations, they only care about
the USD valuations.
If you looked at the Bitcoin valuations, you had already known how bad the altcoin is getting
wrecked.
I also think that this same idea applies to equities as well.
I think that there are, you know, a lot of people might even leave riskier asset classes
like crypto when liquidity is drying up, and they might just put it in the S&P 500, right?
Like, they might just do some of that stuff.
Because they get so tired of getting rugged on, you know, whatever the most recent scam was
in crypto, because they're just, they refuse to just put their money into, say, the blue
chips.
They just keep going around and putting it into the riskiest things.
They keep getting rugged.
And then a lot of people will just sort of give up, and they'll just say, all right, well,
I want to invest, but I don't want to put it in crypto anymore, so I'll just put it in
the S&P 500.
So you could almost argue that, like, that we're at the phase where, yes, alts bleed to ETH,
ETH bleeds to Bitcoin, alts bleed to Bitcoin too.
But you might also say that the reason why the S&P can often rally longer than Bitcoin
can in a phase where we're climbing the wall of worry is that maybe the S&P isn't as dependent
on excess liquidity as Bitcoin is, just like Bitcoin isn't as dependent on excess liquidity
as the altcoin market.
So, yeah, I mean, I think there's a case to be made that, you know, the S&P just has
been climbing the wall of worry, and I'm guessing that it can continue to do that as long as
the labor market doesn't start to fold, right?
So if the labor market goes, that's where things would probably clamp shut.
The other idea, too, is, and I've been watching this for a while, the, you know, we're not actually
very far off from the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve going below where it was back
in March, total net liquidity with a recent drop at the ECB could be taking out the September
lows in the next few weeks.
And that, I mean, that would be an interesting thing to see happen.
Like, what happens when liquidity goes below the prior lows?
Like, does that lead to a sell-off?
If you look at the stablecoin market cap, the sell-off from altcoins that we saw where
they dropped like 30%, the major sell-off coincidentally started the minute the stablecoin
market cap went below the March low.
So back in March, the stablecoin market cap capitulated, it bounced back up, and then it
slowly bled back down.
And that week where the stablecoin market cap broke the prior range low in March, where you
could argue liquidity was drying up, that was where altcoins dropped 30%.
So I've been curious, you know, what's going to happen when the Fed, when the balance sheet
goes below the prior March low?
And it's probably going to happen here in about three or four hours.
Well, that'll be certainly something to keep an eye on, no doubt.
I appreciate you explaining all of that, Ben.
My next question for you would be in regards to what we're seeing with yields and the potential
course of the Fed.
It's all but almost 100% priced in at this point, actually.
Let me just check.
It's at about 92% likelihood that the Fed hikes at the end of July, the July 26 FOMC meeting,
and actually after the last pause issues another 25 basis point hike.
At the same time as core CPI remains relatively sticky, although headline is coming down, the
10-year yield recently just broke out of a multi-month long channel.
And of course, that's not been good for the long end.
Specifically, I know TLT is a ticker that you watch.
I'd love to get some thoughts from you here on this space about what you forecast or, and
I hate to even use this word, but predict the course of the Fed is over the next maybe six
to nine months, and potentially when you'd be interested in accumulating some bonds.
That's a good question.
So going into this year, my plan was to buy TLT before the summer started, so like before
June 21st.
The reason I was planning on buying some TLT before then was because I really thought,
like I really wanted to wait it out until we got closer to a Fed pivot.
History shows us that buying bonds is often the most ideal, as close to a Fed pivot as
you can get.
The issue is, you know, we might all go over to that CME website, the Fed watch tool, and
just look at it and say, all right, well, you know, the market says the pivot's going to
occur in May, you know, of 2024.
The problem is no one knows when it's going to happen because it happens so quickly.
Like, you know, you basically, everything's good one day, and then the next day, if the S&P
drops 5%, and then it drops 5% the next week and 5% the next week, right, like that's when
the Fed can pivot, and they can pivot very, very quickly.
It might not take until, you know, mid 2024 for them to pivot.
I think that, yeah, so in general, the time to buy bonds, in my opinion, right, I'm backing
this up with what I've looked at in the markets over the last several cycles, is that the time
to get them is as close to a Fed pivot as you can get.
It's hard to know exactly when that's going to occur.
I mean, it's also possible that TLT already bottomed, right?
Like, there's a chance that it's already bottomed and that it just ends up being a higher low.
But with yields, I mean, you said it yourself, right?
Like, the 10-year broke out from its downward channel.
Even the 30-year is back above 4%.
And by the way, the two-year yield is over 5% as well.
And what's interesting about the two-year is when it reached this level in March, this
is when things started to break, right?
And normally, when you see the two-year yield going up, like, quickly, it's a risk-off signal,
right?
So, like, if the two-year is going up very, very quickly, that generally would imply that
people are getting out of equities and they're going into other safe havens.
I think one of the reasons why things like TLT and other bonds have struggled to catch a
bid is because inflation has just remained stickier than a lot of people thought it would.
And, you know, I mean, when we started out on this rate-hiking cycle, most people did
not think the Fed was going to get anywhere near 5%.
You know, it's interesting.
Like, my prediction back then was that the Fed would stop somewhere between 5% to 5.5%,
right?
This was back when it was at, like, 1% or 2%.
I thought that they would stop somewhere between 5% and 5.5%.
And what's interesting is, you know, I really did think they were going to get there because
if you look historically, they normally have to go above where inflation is to actually
bring inflation back down.
But the funny thing today is that, you know, the risk...
So back then, the risk always seemed like, okay, do we actually make it to 5.5?
Now the risk is, what if we go well beyond 5.5, right?
Like, what if we go to 5.75?
What if we go to 6%?
I think there would be a case to be made that if the Fed goes to 6%, it would be a policy
mistake.
I think that we are probably in sufficiently restrictive territory where we are, especially
if they go to 5.5.
Like, I think 5.5 is probably sufficiently restrictive.
Um, I just think that they, they do, they just have to give it time.
Like, it's not about just where the, where the, where the rate is.
It's about how long are they willing to hold it there?
And if they can hold the rates at 5.5% for the rest of the year, then that could do a
significant amount of damage, I think, to the economy.
We're already seeing, I mean, liquidity, liquidity is drying out.
There's, there's two, there's two parts to it too.
I mean, it's not just higher interest rates.
It's also QT is that, it's that net liquidity indicator that we showed earlier.
So my guess is that the Fed, they're probably going to raise this month.
And by the way, the reason why I was initially thinking I would, I would get TLT before the
summer is I wasn't really anticipating a pause, uh, or a skip, I guess.
Like, I just thought they would go until they needed to stop, um, when I was thinking about
this, but I, but then when it became more apparent that they were going to skip, uh, sort
of kicked the can down the road.
But I think what we're likely going to see is we're likely going to see them hit 5.5%.
Um, and then try to hold it there.
I think they'll probably skip in, in the next meeting as well, or sorry, they'll, they'll
raise the next meeting, I guess, skip the one after that.
And then the one after that puts them in November.
And I would, I would think that by November, um, all this draining of liquidity should have
some negative impact on, on the markets.
And so that would probably make it so they don't have to hike again.
Um, so that could mean that the terminal rate is in fact 5.5%.
Um, but I, I, I guess what will eventually happen is they'll either, you know, they'll
either stop at 5.5 and hold it there or they'll go to, maybe they go to 5.75 or 6, but regardless
of, of how high they go, it's all about how long are they willing to keep it there.
And I, I think they're going to keep it there until they see the, uh, the labor market soften
up because they're not going to get a handle on wage inflation until they, until they actually,
um, get the demand more in line with, with the supply of available jobs.
And I mean, for so long, we've just had so many job openings that it's hard for people
to get, to get, you know, a lot of good workers without having to pay so much for them.
Um, because everyone's now expecting, you know, very, very high salaries.
They also want to see it, you know, they don't want to see their salary go up, uh, you know,
to match inflation at the very least.
And I mean, it's a reasonable, a reasonable place to be, right?
Like you don't want to work somewhere and, and, and feel like you're getting core each
year just because your salary isn't keeping up with inflation.
So the only thing the fed can really do is hope that they make things sufficiently restrictive
as quickly as possible, because, you know, I mean, time's not really on their side on this
one, right?
Like the longer, the longer that inflation stays elevated, the more it's going to hurt people.
You know, I mean, no one likes going to the grocery store really anymore and spending,
you know, $300 for what used to maybe cost you $120.
It's hard, right?
Like life is more difficult today than it was probably a year ago just because of how expensive
things are.
So the sooner they get it under control, the better.
I'm guessing that, that they get it under control, uh, in the next six, 12 months.
But the last thing I'll say about it is with regards to inflation is that the one issue is
that there's this like, this is sort of this like base effect.
Like if you look at, if you look at oil, like oil topped out in, in June of, of 2022.
And so the, the, the positive contribution or sorry, the negative contribution from oil,
uh, in terms of CPI has basically helped keep CPI down.
But now when we look at a year over year change of things like oil to where they were a year
ago, what was, what was sort of like a, um, a headwind could now become a tailwind and
it could lead to inflation going back up temporarily, which if it did, that would really, uh, I think
like make the markets, um, uh, jittery if, if we did see something like that, regardless,
I think there's a good case to be made that in the next six, 12 months, uh, inflation
should be, you know, should be still on its path, uh, to 2%.
And, and the fed will, I'm guessing the fed's not going to pivot this year.
I'm guessing it'll be sometime next year.
Uh, Max, I'm not sure if you had anything else to say, but I did want to interject here
and, um, throw something at Ben's way, uh, Ben during the Volcker era, right.
When, you know, he was just hiking up the wazoo, um, even though inflation did start coming
down, prices did remain elevated.
So do you think the prices that we're seeing at the grocery store and housing market, things
of that nature, do you think this is going to be the new normal and we're just going
to have to deal with it and, you know, potentially wages, maybe they catch up, um, in the next
three, four years or so.
Um, and my second question would also be, you know, should CPI, uh, next month, right.
I believe it's next week, actually.
Um, should we see a three handle, right.
Maybe like a 3.5, 3.6.
Do you think the fed will surprise the market and not raise rates?
Or do you think, uh, these, uh, projections that, you know, are factoring a 92% uh, likelihood
that they'll raise rates.
Do you think that's, that's going to happen instead as it always does?
Because these projections have been, um, right a hundred percent of the time, but, you know,
I, I do kind of feel that a curve ball might be thrown at the market for the first time,
uh, in a while, similar to how, uh, you know, the reading from the CPI in October did right
where it actually came in higher and the market was wrong and the market tanked.
Perhaps we can see a reversal, um, in that, but, uh, I wanted to know your thoughts, uh, on,
on, on those two questions, brother.
I would say if the, if the fed does not hike at the next meeting, that would probably be
very bearish for risk assets because it probably means they went too far.
Like it's probably them kind of admitting that like, oh crap, like we've done some more
damage than we meant to do.
If the issue, I don't think it's headline inflation, it's core inflation, headline inflation could
easily keep trending down.
But like, if you look at core CPI, uh, it's actually been at like above 5% all year.
Like it started out the year at, um, uh, 5.55 in January and February is 553 in March.
It was five, six in, in April it was 554.
And last month it was, uh, 533.
So core inflation hasn't really moved.
So you could have a scenario where you get that free handle on headline inflation, but
if it doesn't come down sufficiently in core inflation, they, they're still probably going
to raise anyways.
And we got a jobs report today, the ADP, and they average, they added like half a million
jobs.
I mean, the, and the estimated was only like 200 and something thousand.
The labor market is still pretty hot.
All things considered.
Uh, it doesn't mean that it can't, um, it can't, uh, get soft.
I think it will.
Um, there is some seasonality to things like initial claims and continue claims, right?
I think they're probably gonna, uh, start to head back up more so after that around September.
Um, continue claims tend to bottom out, I think around that September timeframe and
start to head back up.
So that's kind of what I'm guessing.
I do think they probably will raise, you could be right.
Like if, if, um, if, if the fed comes, if the fed pauses again, like if they skip again,
then I have to imagine not only do you see headline at 3% or something with a three handle,
but you also have to see a big move in core inflation, uh, especially, you know, core services
ex-housing.
If they don't get that, I don't really think it matters what happens with headline.
I think they're going to raise anyways.
Um, but if they, if they see a big move there, then, then perhaps that would make them pause.
Like if, if, if core CPI comes out next month and it drops from say like, uh, like five,
three, three to the low fours in a single month, then maybe that would make them, um, skip.
And there's, there's always a chance that that could happen.
But again, if something like that happens, uh, there, there, there's, there's a fine line
between a soft landing and a hard landing.
And if something, if, if they get this, if they go too far, then it leads to a hard landing
or if they go too far and, and that's when you could get, um, you could even go into deflation.
Right now to answer your question about that, like, do I see prices coming back down or just
more or less staying where they are?
Most things if, well, if history is any indication, most things will probably not come back down.
Okay.
Now there, there, there could be some things that come back down.
Uh, some things even already have come back down.
I think maybe like the price of eggs has come back down.
Some, um, you, you can see some prices move back down, but I also think that there's probably
in general, there's probably a lot more things that'll just be at the, that their, their prices
are just going to be their new normal.
Like a lot of people are not going to lower their prices.
They've gotten accustomed to these new prices.
They're not going to lower them.
Um, and that'll just be the new normal.
And, and that's why, again, why it's very important that they get inflation under control
as soon as they can, because every month that passes by where you have core CPI at
like four or 5%, it's really hurting people out there.
And, you know, I mean, at some point savings is going to, is going to dry up, right?
Like people aren't going to be able to, to afford all these things anymore because everything's
just gotten so expensive.
And that's, and that's sort of the danger that could, that could push us into a recession.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I, I, I remember that whole, uh, egg craze at the start of the year prices were
extremely yoked and, uh, same thing with orange juice.
Um, the squeeze on those prices, uh, really affected my ability to concentrate.
Uh, but, uh, I'll stop with a dad joke.
At least I made you laugh, brother.
At least I made you laugh, man.
Yeah, I go.
I, I was picking up on him.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You got, you got to learn to have fun, uh, with these, man.
But, um, Ben, I, I wanted to throw your thoughts and this is coming from, uh, David Hunter.
We had an interview with him back in, uh, April, early May around that timeframe.
And he was, he was referring to a commodities, uh, super cycle.
And, you know, some of the, some of these, uh, some of these commodities, um, you know,
only a few of them have still been in an uptrend.
Right.
And I wanted to know your thoughts on a potential commodities, uh, super cycle.
Right.
It's, it seems that commodities every 20 years go into this paribola, right.
It happened during the Volcker phase, um, and happened, uh, 20 years after that in
the, I think it was like right around the great financial crisis, right.
Oil was going crazy.
Everything was going crazy in the commodities sector.
Right.
And typically, like, as you say, history never repeats itself.
Um, but if history is any indication, it's likely to repeat itself.
Right.
Right.
Or at least rhyme.
Um, so do you pay attention to, uh, to come on the commodities market?
I mean, I like some of them, especially like the precious metals, like gold, silver, palladium,
copper, uranium, that kind of stuff.
I mean, like I, I would agree.
I mean, I think like, I think gold and silver are in uptrends.
Like, I mean, they go at a snail's pace and I, I mean, I could see gold pulling back even
more, maybe even down to the mid 1800s, uh, before finally catching a more sustained bid.
But I think that you could make the case that, that gold and silver will do pretty well this
decade.
Um, normally they can, especially when you go into a recession.
I think one of the things that gold will need more though, is, is some QE.
Uh, it's not really immune to that.
I mean, it needs, I think if, if we get back to QE, I think you could see gold sort of take
off to that $3,000 range.
Silver could easily make a move as well.
Uh, for other things, I mean, you have, you know, you have things like, um, oil, you know,
oil has just been putting in lower highs and I mean, it, it doesn't really look like
it's, um, suggesting that it wants to break out.
I mean, if it, if it does go back up, then that would probably just sort of pull the recession
risk forward because I mean, the, the cure to high oil prices or high oil prices, right?
Like if oil prices go up, then people are not going to travel as much and then that's
going to reduce demand.
And then because the demand goes down and people lower the prices more because supply goes up.
So I think that, you know, you have things like oil that are probably going to continue
to slowly go down.
Um, you have things like gold and silver.
Uh, I think those are, are probably going to keep going up.
Although in the short term, they still could be in sort of a correction phase.
Note that in, um, in, uh, this is an important point here in mid 2019, in fact, we saw gold have
a pretty big correction and, uh, and then crypto had a big correction too, but the difference
is in the second half of the year, crypto kept going down, uh, but gold kept going up,
you know?
Um, so I, I could see something like that playing out again where like gold rallies into the
second half of the year because it was, it hasn't really done much over the last couple
of months or so.
Like I could see a rallying in the second half, um, I, and, and, and crypto kind of
struggling to catch a bit.
And I mean, I do think crypto will catch a bit again, especially the altcoin market.
I think they probably will, uh, sometime like next year.
I just think, you know, I think it's just too soon for, for a lot of them to sort of catch
that bid when liquidity is still being drained.
So, I mean, in general, like the commodity super cycle, I don't really know if I want to put
my name on anything that says like super cycle to be completely honest.
Um, but I, I do think there are cases to be made that things like, you know, some of
these like precious metals, in fact, are probably in, in some fairly bullish ones, but palladium
and palladium is not, palladium has been going down and I could see palladium continue to go
down for a few months before, before turning back around.
I'll pass it on over back to Max.
Sorry for interjecting, brother.
I see you posted something up on the nest and Max, I actually want to throw something in
your direction, uh, as well.
So the 30 year mortgage just hit a 22 year high of 7.22%, um, which is quite, it's quite
astronomical.
And home prices here in Miami had an uptick of 5% year to date, which is insane, man.
I feel that South Florida is turning into how Los Angeles was turning into when, uh, Schwarzenegger,
uh, was in office.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The, um, so the chart above, I just wanted to drop this in there.
Um, for those that rely on TA like myself, um, some people think it's tinfoil hat.
Some people, they live in and die by it.
Um, I probably somewhere in between, I think it can be very useful to spot certain historic
patterns.
And the one up in the nest is just the chart of TLT, which Ben and I were, were discussing.
Um, an observation that I made a while back was that every single global bottom in long
duration treasury bonds in the past two decades has been a double or even a triple bottom.
Um, we're basically, we, we put in that big sort of high timeframe low, we bounce a little
bit off of it.
Um, and then we come back and slightly deviate the previous low.
And then from there, um, it's sort of like confirmation or maybe a stop loss run for like
the really serious traders.
Um, and then, you know, potentially moving, moving past there, um, significantly higher.
Now, of course there, there's a lot of moving parts, um, in this, you know, why TLT
would move up or move down as, as Ben already went into, but, um, you know, it's just, it's
an interesting observation.
It's a, it's a 20 year long trend, um, of how bottoms have typically formed.
So I think it's at least something to keep an eye on.
I wouldn't, I wouldn't say it's anything to necessarily die by or, you know, stake a reputation
on, but certainly if TLT comes back into that low nineties level, um, if you again, click
on the nest, you can see the chart that I posted for visual.
Well, I think it's worth keeping a serious eye on there, but also something that Ben
noted that I think is a really salient point is, um, it doesn't, it, you know, it could
have bottomed already.
Nobody knows for sure.
And nobody knows when that pause is coming.
And another thing that Ben mentioned, um, is that the two year actually, as of today
just made a new high.
We, we slightly wicked above, um, the previous high that was set in March before the, uh,
Silicon Valley bank collapse.
So, um, will something else break?
I guess time will tell we'll certainly be watching, but.
Um, yeah, I just wanted to, to put that out there as a visual and, and comment a little
bit further on TLT.
Um, yeah, Wabi, in regards to the single family housing market, um, I will say this, it's definitely
a point of contention.
I think that, um, we're not going to see some sort of, you know, widespread contagion or,
you know, global collapse in the housing market because, you know, what brought the single
family market to its knees back in 2007 to 2009 was predatory lending.
It was issuing mortgages to people that, I mean, for lack of a better term, we're simply
not even close to being qualified, um, to pay back that debt.
And they were, there was also a variable interest rate, um, attached to that net, that note.
Um, so we're not seeing that, but we are, we are seeing other back doors into buying
homes right now.
Some of which worry me, some of them don't one sort of backdoor into getting people that
typically could not afford to purchase a home.
Uh, the option to buy a house now is, you know, lowering the, uh, the down payment requirements.
So, you know, there's, I mean, I was for, for first time home buyers, I was speaking with
a friend, um, who's in the industry, you know, you can put down, I believe as little as like
1% now for a first time home buyer, there's special programs for young first time home buyers.
And then I think conventionally, you know, it's, it's closer to three and a half percent,
but there is, you know, again, additional back doors because the banks are recognizing
that it's become completely unachievable for young people to, uh, to even consider owning
a single family home.
So, I mean, look, it really comes down to this.
Um, two years ago, you could have bought, um, a $600,000 house and had maybe a $3,500 a month
payment.
Um, right now you could probably buy a $400,000 house or slightly less and have a
comparable monthly payment.
Um, I don't believe that the single family market is going to imminently collapse.
I do anticipate single family home prices pulling back.
Um, and I think it will be healthy.
I think there was no doubt in my mind that what we saw back in 2020 was a single family
housing bubble.
But until we see an influx of additional supply hit the market, which I do believe is going
to be tightly correlated to the jobs market or the labor market, um, upticking or unemployment
upticking.
Um, then I think the housing market's probably safe because look, I mean, even the people
that overpaid for their homes and if they got it appraised now, they might be 10 or 15%
underwater on that home.
They're not subject to an adjustable rate note.
So yeah, so what the bank's not going to mark to market the value of the home.
They're not going to have to issue additional collateral.
So who cares if they're planning to stay there for a decade, they're going to be fine.
The value of their home should appreciate, um, the bank's not going to call any more principal
due or anything like that.
Um, so I think that they're fine, but yeah, I mean, I, I think that if the, if the labor
market starts to take a turn for the worst and we start to see unemployment creep up above
4% later this year, you are going to see people start to maybe capitulate and sell their homes.
And I don't think it will necessarily be the people that locked in a sub 3% interest rate
on a home at like the pico top of the market.
Um, but it'll be interesting.
I mean, right now that, that there's still a pretty relatively low supply on the market.
So we haven't seen home prices drop.
It's like people have basically just, instead of, uh, buying ultra nice homes, they've sort
of, because of the higher interest rates, they slide down a tier.
They buy a slightly, uh, less nice home.
So we'll see what happens.
But again, I don't think it's in, it's about to imminently collapse, but there are some
signs, uh, that I would be concerned about.
And me personally, I sold my house with my wife in, uh, you know, last April at pretty
close to the top of the market that was planned.
Um, and we're hoping to rebuy sometime in 2024, assuming that we can get a better deal.
But right now, my opinion is, is not the time to buy a single family home.
Not even close.
Good stuff, Max.
Good stuff, man.
Um, I want to give the floor to Tucker and Snorlax.
They haven't had a chance to speak.
Uh, Tucker, if you want to throw anything at Ben's way, feel free to do so, man.
Great to have you on the panel.
So, yeah, man.
And great to speak with you, Ben.
Uh, Tucker, Tucker, Tucker.
I'm sorry.
I didn't, I didn't properly introduce you, bro.
So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Uh, all right, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to have big tuck, big country, the six
foot two, 260 pound monster.
The man, the myth, the legend, the individual that's going to upload his 2020, his, his,
uh, 225 bench press and rep set.
He's going to bench press 225 for 40 reps.
He's going to at least give me 40 and each rep is going to pump the Bitcoin price by 1%.
So needless to say, the fate of the market for the second half of 2023 is in his hands.
So big country, Tucker, Hagrid, the floor is all yours, man.
Wow, man.
Quite the intro.
Quite the intro.
Um, yeah, appreciate you, uh, coming on the panel, Ben.
Um, I just wanted to, and I know this is kind of almost, you know, impossible to speculate
on, but, um, I guess I'll preface with this.
Like, you know, I, I just, from looking at history, expect some sort of decent correction
in Bitcoin and crypto and Q4, just given that in every pre-having year, we have a, I think
20 to 40% correction, excluding COVID, um, about 150 to 200 days before the halving.
Um, so that puts it somewhere around Q4.
So I am expecting that.
But, um, I guess my question is with all, with, you know, the macro things we've been
talking about and unemployed, we've seen NFP, we, we've got the hot ADP print, right.
But NFP in my mind is more important.
We've seen it tick up slightly in recent weeks.
Um, you know, I'm just, I just want to kind of get your speculation on, you know, if we
do see labor start to roll over, if we do see these jaws start to clamp shut, if we do
get a Fed pause that is, you know, inevitably bearish, um, I guess timing wise, do you think
it pushes back the up only having blah, blah, blah, Bitcoin bull run, um, because Bitcoin
is, and obviously, you know, this time is different is our famous last words, but this
time is materially different than any other time in Bitcoin's history.
Um, it's only existed in QE and Zerp, right.
So, um, you know, obviously considering lengthening cycles and, you know, the, the up only environment
bull run starting about six months post having, um, do you think that these, you know, conditions
that I've kind of laid out could delay said bull run, or I guess, I guess where, where
are your thoughts on kind of that environment?
Yeah, I mean, it, it certainly could, uh, I'm, I've, my focus, I guess my hope has been
that, that all this stuff would get resolved before the having, um, because we have to remember
that, you know, even if we do get a recession in 2024, like asset classes, like, like a risk
assets can often bottom, um, you know, well before the recession is over, right?
Like, like I would expect like crypto as an asset class as a whole to find whatever low
it's going to find, whether that ends up being like, say like a higher low or a lower low
or a double bottom, obviously still remains to be seen.
But like, I would expect that process to actually occur before like, say like the end of the
recession, right?
It's like a lot of people will say things like, well, there's no signs of a recession.
Therefore, like, you know, why isn't the altcoin market doing better?
Like, why are, why are some of these names getting, getting hit so hard?
But you have to remember, like, by the time it's obvious to everyone, um, you know, asset
prices can, you know, can, can be on the rebound, right?
So it is certainly possible.
I mean, like you have to imagine that if, if the COVID drop had, well, let's say, let's
suppose that the pandemic could come six months later, right?
Like after the having, like, it still likely would have led to a sell off, you know, like,
I don't think anyone's under the illusion that like, just because it happened before
the having, um, you know, Bitcoin still was able to do well.
Like if, if, you know, Bitcoin's having last time was back in May.
So if, if the pandemic had actually started in say like July, we probably still would
have had a sell off after the having.
And actually in one having, uh, I, I believe the one back in, um, in 2016, just after the
having, we actually did have, I think about a 10 to 20% sell off.
I don't remember exactly what it was, but you know, the, the, the market is of course, more
complicated than just the having, right?
Like it does depend on QE.
It does depend on a lot of other things.
With that said, there's also this cyclical behavior as well that I think contributes to
the way it works.
So like, if you think about it, yes, 2015, 2019, 2023, 2011, they're all pre-having years.
You know what else they are?
They're also pre-election years.
Um, and, and a lot of times, you know, pre-election years for the S and P, the S and P just goes
up for, for most of the year.
And oftentimes you can, you can get a pretty big correction sometime in like the early part
of, of a, of an election year.
Um, we actually got that in 2020.
We got it in 2016 as well.
Uh, if you go back in history, you'll find plenty of examples where the, the market rallies
in the, in the, in the pre-election year and, and get some type of scare in the election
year.
One of the reasons for that secondary scare that we, we often get with Bitcoin, but arguably
with, with equities as well is because the markets don't like change.
So like, you know, when you're talking about an election year, um, like one of the nice
things about a pre-election year is that like, there's not really going to be a lot of change,
right?
Like it's like, and, and also when you have a split Congress, a lot of stuff can't get
passed.
And the market likes it when things don't get passed a lot of times, because it means that
the market is predictable and you're not having to really guess like what new policy is going
to take place tomorrow that the market's not considering.
So I think that, um, there, there is the narrative of course around the having, but you could
also argue that it, it also fits in with the, uh, with other cyclical behavior of, of the
stock market, um, and how, you know, oftentimes during the first half of, uh, you know, during
the first half of the year, and it can go into the second half as well.
The stock market will climb the wall of worry and not face the music, uh, to whatever it needs
to face until like sort of the end of the year and, um, and or, uh, early, early part
of the next year, you know, another, another year, another case study that might be interesting
is from 1987, because in 1987, the fed was raising rates.
Um, the market was climbing the wall of worry and the S and P just kept going up.
Uh, the market kept, you know, just kept climbing higher.
And then in October, the market collapsed and, and it put in a new, a new yearly low.
Um, and then it also corresponded with a fed pivot as well.
So is that all going to happen this October?
Probably not.
But again, it's, it's all about like the, the cycle as a whole and not, um, exactly when
it plays out, right?
Like, it's not that, you know, a lot of these parts of the cycle, it's not that they won't
play out.
It's just that predicting exactly when we transition to a new phase of the business cycle, that's
of course, what's harder to predict.
It's not that it won't eventually reach that.
It's not that the labor market won't eventually fold.
It's just that it's been more resilient than it normally has.
And therefore it's taking longer for the fed to achieve, uh, you know, achieve their objective
of bringing down that wage inflation.
So, you know, my guess is that yes, like if we do get a recession that starts after the
halving, it would probably be negative for Bitcoin.
But, um, I, I still think that, you know, you're still going to come out of the recession.
Uh, and, and we still, we still would likely have some form of a bull run.
I mean, whether we put on a new high or not, obviously remains to be seen.
But, um, I, I still think it would, it would do very well coming out of a recession.
All right.
We'll pass it on over to Snorlax.
Snorlax, what's going on, brother?
Great to have you on the panel, man.
What do you've got for us and Ben?
Thanks for having me on, Wabi.
You just caught me like in between bites of my, uh, my Chipotle burrito.
I'm getting, I'm getting those gains in, man.
You have to, man.
Dude, your arms, man.
And, man, Snorlax has some killer arms, guys, believe it or not.
But Snorlax, what's going on, brother?
No, thanks for coming on, Ben.
Um, I wanted to ask you specifically about Ethereum because I feel like the price action
this year has been, uh, you know, it's been very different than the Ethereum price action
that I'm used to trading.
And a lot of that has to do with, you know, how institutional players are kind of positioning
as it relates to like staking yields.
But, uh, you know, I know that your bias is that we're expected to have another scare
in the market.
So I wanted to ask you what that looks like for Ethereum because I am, you know, in addition
to being bullish on, on Bitcoin dominance, I think Ethereum dominance looks, I mean, it
looks better than most altcoins.
We can at least say that.
So, um, do you think the low for Ethereum USD is in, um, you know, kind of based on the
capitulatory event that we had in 2022?
Um, or do you think that's, uh, you know, a level that we could trade back towards if,
you know, things really hit the fan, uh, before the halving?
Yeah, I mean, I think certainly we could go back to those, to those levels or lower.
I would also say that, you know, there, there exists a scenario where, where Ethereum could
take out its low, even if Bitcoin doesn't take out its own low, right?
Like you could have a scenario where Bitcoin puts in a double bottom or a higher low and
Ethereum puts in a lower low.
Um, that would be sort of in line with the theory that Ether Bitcoin needs to bleed, right?
Like, again, I mean, like, you know, whether all these theories turn out to be true or not
is, is anyone's guess.
I, you know, not all these theories pan out.
Um, but I mean, if you, if you believe in the idea that Ether Bitcoin needs to drop,
um, and, and the Bitcoin, you know, sort of leads, leads out, then there, there, there,
there has to be a way that, you know, Bitcoin could drop and go back below its 20 week moving
average and spend six months down there and, and Ether goes down.
And, you know, if you, if you measure out like the sort of the drop that Ethereum had from the,
from June of 2019, it dropped 75% in, you know, over the next like eight or nine months.
Um, now there is the idea of course, of diminishing losses from one cycle to another.
So I'm not suggesting that it has to drop 75%, but I mean, even if it drops, you know, 60%,
right?
Like that gets you back down to the lows.
Um, and I, I, I do think that if, if, you know, if the economy does slow down, which I think it
will eventually slow down, I think the Fed will keep going until it does.
I think that could bring Ethereum, um, uh, you know, back down.
Um, yeah, I mean, I, I, I think that there is still a risk that we could, we could go back
down to those levels.
And I, I would still say that the most likely outcome for me is for it to, you know, for
the, for the price of ETH USD to, to go back, to go back down in the second half of the year.
I mean, that doesn't mean that it has to start today, but, uh, I, I would, I would expect
it, um, to go back down because in the same way that Bitcoin has been held up by, by
altcoin liquidity, I also think the same thing could be said about Ethereum.
Uh, but note that the Ethereum Bitcoin valuation is slowly trickling down.
And at some point people might just throw in the towel and give up and say, well, we're
not going to ride this down forever.
There's, I think there's only so many, like, there's only so many lower, lower highs and
lower lows that, that people will take before they just finally say, all right, like, you
know, it is going down.
Um, and that could lead to that, to that capitulation.
I also think that, you know, if you think about where some of the demand for Ethereum comes
from, I think some of it comes from the NFT market.
Like, you know, if you want to go buy an NFT, you're most, you're most likely going out
and buying ETH first and then going out and buying that NFT.
Uh, but even the NFT market has been sort of liquidity in the NFT market has been drying
You could go look at, at, you know, like a lot of different of the, uh, um, I don't
know if you want to call them blue chip NFTs, but whatever, you know, the safer NFTs, the,
the ones that are more, you know, more so considered to be the safer ones.
They've all, most of them have been dropping very quickly over the last two or three months.
And so as, as interest wanes in that sector, I, I think you could have a scenario where,
uh, you find yourself in a position where Ethereum struggles to catch a sustained bid.
Um, because the, you know, the liquidity is just drying up.
And yes, so because of that, I think there's a risk that we could go back down and, uh, go
back to those levels.
All right, cool.
Uh, we also have Matt on the panel, Matt, what's going on, brother?
Quite the nice surprise.
What do you got for us, brother?
Yeah.
Um, um, I think this was largely in line with what we've been talking about all year.
As long as you keep seeing month after month, uh, CPI inflation cooling off, uh, and jobs
market, at least for the U S as long as the jobs market is hanging in there and hang, uh,
and looking strong, then, you know, equities can rise.
Assets can, assets can catch a bid.
Bitcoin can climb out of this, uh, wall of worry, as Ben said.
Um, I agree with your point, Ben, that Ethereum is a unique, has a unique issue.
Um, unless NFTs are catching a bid, there's, there's a problem with like, well, why do I
need to hold a mass amount of, of the, uh, of the asset in which to buy it?
And, uh, you, you said, uh, NFT blue chips.
I like to look at, uh, Bitwise's NFT fund where they literally call it NFT blue chips.
And whether you're considering the one month, the three month, the year to date, 12 months,
or since exception, it's all negative numbers.
It's all negative 25%, negative 40, negative, uh, 75 and, and, and worse.
Uh, so like, uh, no matter how hard you squint, it doesn't look like that, um, that demand for,
you know, whatever you want to call them, the blue chips or the go-to or the, the names
you recognize NFTs is back.
And so, um, Ethereum might literally switch from deflationary to inflationary for a brief
bit, uh, until that happens.
Yeah.
I mean, like, I think like board apes are down, they were like trading in the high sixties,
uh, 60 ETH, like back in April.
And the last I looked, the floor price was below 30.
You know, you're, you're talking about three months pass and, and, you know, the, the floor
dropped almost 50% or more than, maybe more than 50% for some of them.
Like for board apes, I think it dropped more than 50%.
You saw the, um, I think the Izukis, uh, they basically capitulated almost right after launch.
Um, there's a lot of, and I think the issue is that a lot of, a lot of people are just kind
of tired of it.
You know, they're, they're tired of people, um, they're, they're tired of, of, of all
these, you know, of all the different things that you can go by.
And, and when you have, when you have some projects that are basically just sort of regurgitating
the same JPEGs they used in their last release, like it's going to make people think that they're,
they're, they're not doing, um, you know, they're, they're, they're more so just doing
it as a cash grab, right?
Like, I mean, and how could you not think that if, if, you know, you're not coming up with,
with new stuff, right?
So I think that there are people that are just getting tired of, of all, and I'm not
saying it's any specific project, right?
I'm just saying like, in general, there are a lot of projects over the last two years that
sort of just regurgitate the same stuff over and over and over again with sort of these
empty promises.
And this goes with altcoins as well, right?
These empty promises of what they'll eventually do in the future.
But I think the bigger issue is that now that we're out of, um, you know, uh, zero interest
rates right now that we're out of that policy era, it's going to force these projects to
actually find utility, right?
Like there's only so far that promises can go.
Um, you know, when you're at zero, when you're at 0% interest rates and cash is cheap, like
these, these sort of promises of what tomorrow brings will get people coming back to the table.
But, uh, you know, when you're, when you're in a phase where the risk-free rate is five
or 6%, it's not going to be as attractive to go, to go bet on something that, that doesn't
actually seem to have a use case.
Uh, but it's just constant promises of, of what the next thing will be.
So yeah, I, I think that, um, Ethereum will likely struggle to catch a bid, uh, at least
a sustained bid.
I think the only reason that ETH could go up from here on its USD pair is if Bitcoin goes
up, right?
Like if Bitcoin goes up, then of course it can drag Ethereum up with it.
Um, but whenever Bitcoin stops going up, um, that's where, you know, that's really where
Ethereum, I think will struggle to catch a sustained bid because, um, I, I think it's,
I think it's very overvalued on its Bitcoin pair.
And I mean, I think a lot of people don't like to hear that.
Um, but look, I mean, it, it can drop, it can drop a lot.
And, you know, we saw it go from 0.02 to 0.08 really quickly.
It can drop from 0.08 to 0.03, 0.04 as well.
Like it, it certainly could do that.
Um, so don't be, I certainly wouldn't be surprised to see something like that happen.
Ben, I did want to ask you something, uh, that has been in the back of my mind.
Uh, I know I haven't really thrown any price predictions your way, but, um, where do you
think price is going to be at the end of, uh, next year?
Typically, um, you know, six to eight months after the having, we tend to see Bitcoin, uh,
rally towards all time high.
Do you think the next cycle is going to be an extended cycle?
Like we've been, uh, throwing, I know Tucker through that, uh, scenario in your head, or do
you still think we're following the, uh, the four year cycle?
I mean, I don't know.
I mean, like there's also a bit of randomness to it as well.
I mean, like last cycle we, we did peak out at the end of, uh, 2021, but there's also this
element of like, you know, most of the move actually was over with by April, you know,
like, like if you had just gotten out of crypto in April, um, like, you know, all the indicators
that I use, like the risk metrics and everything, they basically said the market was extremely
overheated in April.
And, and that's when, you know, that's when I got out of, of, I, I sold like 87% of my
Bitcoin, uh, back in April of 2021.
Now I reaccumulated some of that and some all it's back in the summer.
And I was hoping it was going to go higher beyond November and it didn't, um, my general
thought process is, is not to assume that it'll extend because I, I sort of assumed that
last time and it didn't, um, it doesn't mean that it can't.
Um, but I, I, I think there, there is a case to be made that the cyclical behavior could,
you know, could just continue.
Right.
And I, I, I think, uh, you know, to support that claim, let's see what happens in the second
half of this year.
I mean, if, if in the second half of this year, Bitcoin drops back down, you know, like
it normally does, then I think that's just more evidence that it's just repeating the same
cyclical behavior that it, that it always repeats.
Right.
Like if, you know, if it revisits something and then starts to trend up into the, I think
that there's a good case to be made that it'll just do the same thing that it always has.
I think the bigger issue is, well, how high is it actually going to go?
You know, um, like, is it, is it going to go to new highs or is it just going to put in
a lower high?
And I honestly, like, I don't know the answer to that question.
Um, you know, I, I feel like the, the optimistic side of me would like to think it's going to
go to new highs, you know, but there's also this other side of me that thinks like, well,
you know, like what if, like, what if the housing market rolls over, you know, right around
the time that it's about to hit new highs and then the business cycle, uh, sort of kind
of comes to a completion around that time.
Like there, there's reasons to be, I think, concerned.
And so I would say like, rather than putting out a price prediction, I would probably say
like, you know, like, especially after the having, like we, we might, and I look, it
depends on what happens between now and then, right?
Like if, if Bitcoin just rallies between now and then, then obviously the bias would have
to change, right?
Like you'd have to, you'd have to reconsider like what would be the most likely outcome.
Um, but if, if Bitcoin does get a sort of a secondary correction, like it normally does
before the having, then I would say, you know what?
It probably is just going to rally until maybe the end of 2025.
And then, and then, and then that's probably it.
Like, I, and I, I don't know what price that would correspond to.
It could be a hundred K could be 150 K might only be 50 K, right?
Like it, it, it depends on a lot of different things.
I would say it's more so what's more so interesting is like, not to say at what price it goes to,
but at what point does it roll back around?
And I think to understand that you have to just look at like, what can like the conditions
in the market, right?
So like Bitcoin will certainly rally under favorable conditions.
Like if we go back to QE, which is probably what's going to happen.
Um, you know, because another thing too, is like what going back to sort of the, the, the
pre-election year stuff, a lot of times in the election year, you'll see, I think you
might actually see policy that, that might become a little bit more intervention focused
because the people that are in power might start to really want to stay in power.
And so there might, they might do certain things to, uh, you know, to provide that liquidity
to the markets because look, if the stock market's going down in November of, of next year, that's
not a good sign for the, for the incumbent, right?
So the idea would be to, to have some type of policy that might make it, uh, make, make
people a little bit happier, have a kick in their step because the market's going up.
Uh, some, perhaps, perhaps a lot of that is where the cyclical behavior comes from.
Like, you know, you, and the, the political stuff, uh, not just, um, not just sort of
the cyclical behavior of, of Bitcoin.
I mean, like, think about it like this, like had the Fed not printed $6 trillion, do we
really think Bitcoin would have gone to 70 K?
Uh, probably not.
Like it, I mean, you know, if you, if you look at two, two scenarios, like if you were
to run a simulation and say, all right, in this simulation, we're going to print $6 trillion
and in this simulation, we're not going to come to the rescue.
Like, do you think that Bitcoin would have gone to 69 K in this scenario where they don't
print?
Probably not.
Like, right.
Probably not.
If I can hop in on that point, I think, but then you'd have to also, uh, allow the possibility.
What if we never had a worldwide economic shutdown and suddenly millions of people upended from
their previous jobs, maybe forced to find new jobs, new careers like that, that what if
can get really complicated?
Yeah, for sure.
For sure.
I mean, like, uh, no doubt about it.
Um, my point though, is to say that like, it, it does depend on to some degree on liquidity.
And, and when you, when you print trillions of dollars, the riskiest of assets are going
to do well, right?
When you don't print trillions of dollars, it's not to say that risky assets can't do
well, but they're probably not going to do as well.
Had you printed, had you, you know, if you had printed, say that all that money, um, I
mean, you know, you can go back and look at all the different cyclical behavior for, for
Bitcoin and it's basically just existed during QE.
Now there have been periods where the fed was raising rates.
Uh, there was a period where the fed was lowering the balance sheet, like back in, um, like 2019.
In fact, you can see, but all in all, I mean, we've been in fairly loose monetary policy for
the last decade.
And, um, and I'm not saying that we won't go back to loose monetary policy.
We probably will, but I don't think it's going to happen this year.
Great stuff guys.
Great stuff.
Uh, if anyone else on the panel has something to throw at Ben, uh, feel free to do so.
And for those of you in the audience, if you guys are enjoying this conversation, feel
free to give us a follow here because Bitcoin, we want to thank everyone that's, uh, in the
space and has managed to stick around for the last hour and a half truly means a lot
for us guys.
And, uh, want to give big Ben, uncle Ben, the man himself for taking the time out of his
day to come up and talk some shop with us here in this, uh, lovely Thursday afternoon
or Thursday evening.
If you're on the other side of the world or Thursday morning.
So feel free to give us a follow.
If you guys are enjoying, uh, this content and, uh, turn on bell notice so you guys can
get a real time market news and also to keep up with all of our shows and also feel free
to follow the speaker panel.
Feel free to follow Ben, Max, Matt, Snorlax, Tucker, and Tangle.
So want to thank and give a special shout out to all of our speakers here on the panel
and for you guys here in the audience.
And, um, I see, we do have, uh, one person that's requesting to speak, but, uh, before
I bring you up to speak, uh, just want to set a few, uh, rules.
You never really know what Twitter space is before you come up, uh, please, uh, no loud
obscenities and, um, yeah, please keep it, uh, cordial and, um, yeah, that's specific to
the conversations that are taking place.
So I'll first bring up, uh, FK.
Uh, is FK speaking FK?
Go ahead, man.
What's going on, brother?
FK speaking FK speaking FK speaking FK speaking
Go ahead, brother.
You're on the panel.
Do you hear me?
Yeah, you're good, man.
You're good.
Yeah, and I had a question too, and Polkadot ted their auctions in 2021 Q4, uh, when they
voted a lot of vcs and institutions and persons for akala a star fala and so on and
i think those tokens will be unlocked this year do you think that have an impact on the price for
polkadot i don't really think that stuff will impact the price that much i think it's more
so to do with the liquidity cycles uh more than that um i mean you know in fact maybe it would
maybe it would mark the bottom in fact um for polkadot you could i could see something like
that playing out where uh if people do come in and and capitulate that that could actually uh
mark the bottom for it i i don't tend to put a lot of weight into those events you'll you'll sort of
see all sorts of those things pointed out in all stages of the cycle and oftentimes it feels like
it ends up being a non-event um where like on the day of the unlocks not a whole lot happens
um so my guess is is that it'll be a non-event my my main guess is that any any type of um
price movements based on that would probably occur before that actually happens
all right cool next up we have sergio sergio what's going on brother what do you got for us
hey bitcoin just want to thank you thanks for letting me jump up on i just had a question for
ben um been following the content following kind of the narrative there and i'm curious what would
have to change in bitcoin's price action for you to kind of consider that that bottom might be in
that kind of 16k bottom um is there a technical level that you think we would need to hold i know
garrett soloway talks a lot about 31.5 is there a level or a price action pattern that you could see
bend that could say okay bottoms in and you know we're going to climb that wall of worry a little
bit more i mean yeah i mean the the bottom could be in for bitcoin like it's possible that it's already
in um i think that the the only thing that would really convince me to to not even consider it as
much would be like upon the un inversion of the yield curve i mean you know recessions are notorious
for putting in lower lows right notorious for making assets like risk assets put in lower lows
like we've seen that happen many many times in the past uh the s p can climb the wall of worry for a
long time for even over a year and still go on to put in a lower low in a recession so i still think
that until you get the resolution of the yield curve and and you kind of see what the damage has been
you still have to be of the mindset that it could happen um it doesn't mean that bitcoin can't climb
the wall of worry i mean i myself going into this year so that i i could see bitcoin going as high as
35k this year uh that's not to say that it can't go higher um it could but until it's not really a price
level um i mean like if bitcoin goes to thirty two thousand dollars and holds it that doesn't mean that
it can never go back down like it i mean like it's to me to me it's not about like what price it goes
to it's about the conditions that favor it climbing the wall of worry or capitulating right like it's
all about the conditions and and what happens there um i i think that you know if if if we get the
un inversion of the yield curve and and we do get a recession and bitcoin is putting in a higher low
low then yeah like i feel like you can say more definitively then that that the prior low was the
low but until you see that it's just i mean it's really hard to know you know again last cycle bitcoin
climbed the wall of worry it went up 4x you know and it didn't actually get its higher low at 3800
until over a year later um in 2015 it wasn't until it wasn't until august so the pre-halving year
these things can take a long time to play out uh just because they go to a certain price doesn't mean they
can't go back down last cycle bitcoin rallied up 4x and it still dropped back down to almost the prior
low so i think what i'm looking for is more so you know the resolution of the old curve going back to qe
and then figuring out you know how bad is it like how bad did the fed damage the economy and and until
we get to that phase we just simply don't know and you know whether bitcoin goes to 32k 35k or even 40k
it doesn't really negate the fact that the fed is going to likely continue raising rates um
or at least holding them at high levels and lowering their balance sheet until they actually
have a material impact on the uh on the labor market so i think once you see the labor market
start to move um well you know to soften up i think you'll get that that sort of that that retest uh
and then we'll figure out i mean at that point we'll figure out but i don't want to give you the
illusion that like it can't be the bottom it could be the bottom i've said for a long time i think
there's about a 60 40 chance uh but even in that even in that case like we we won't know the answer
to that until until we're done with sort of this rate hiking cycle and and then where the fed um goes
back into uh cutting rates again a lot of times the market doesn't drop significantly until the fed cuts
rates because again normally the fed starts cutting rates because the market starts dropping
because the fed went too far we're not at that phase yet so i think it would be premature to sort
of declare with like a hundred percent confidence that it can't ever take out that low like it could
take out that low um you know in a in a potential recession it's just i i don't think we i don't
think we're in a recession right now all right and uh last up we have pargali what's going on brother
great to have you on thank you man appreciate that as well and hope you guys doing well um
i just wanted to um just give a kind of a quick feedback on on the last discussion on unemployment
i mean i think we do think generically historically the right that unemployment has to pick up before the
kind of the end to the bear market but you know this could be one of those one-off kind of bear markets
where you see unemployment actually you know rise after the bear market has bottomed as well it could
be potentially that unemployment remains extremely low right and we might just get some kind of a
banking crisis or some form of an event of bankruptcy that the unemployment would not actually show up at
all during the bear market so i just want to keep um you know my options open pretty much because
unemployment might just be all always low uh over these levels so it doesn't have to be that you
know unemployment has to be the catalyst and we might just end up seeing unemployment always low until
you know something breaks and then we see unemployment rising and that could be just basically
an event where unemployment becomes not an important factor to the whole situation so those people are
watching unemployment it might just be a waste of time at this point because
we might not even see unemployment rising until that kind of final event that's all i wanted to say
basically about this issue
Matt you were going to say something brother oh i didn't want to interrupt but sure if there's a lull
um you know i think as we put the the worst of the bitcoin bear market behind us i i don't think it's a price
that you should start to feel more confident that it's time it's the longer time has uh elapsed you
know this time last year i remember us wondering like oh no how long is this bear market gonna last
we we just punched right through 28.5 and 20k like it was butter and i kept saying you know what the bear
market is not a certain price it's going to be time you need to set your watch to at least six months to a
year and that seemed to be pretty accurate and same thing this way you need to uh don't worry if we
reclaim 35k or 40k um because i'm in the firm camp that that's based on excellent jobs data and full
employment and everyone has you know everyone's still staying afloat of their credit card debt
because they're making a paycheck each paycheck each month if that jobs in the us if that jobs
they did if unemployment falls off the cliff i mean you know who knows where the where the bottom
could be but on the bright but on the bright side on a bright note um even with a global shutdown
millions and millions of people suddenly put out of work companies not sure if they had a business yet
uh business left uh bitcoin still didn't fall below uh 2018 prices you know you go go back and look
even that bottom wick candle it's still never pierced below 2018 prices 2018 bear market was the actual
low and 2020 was technically a higher low
great stuff matt always love having you up on these panels and uh shout out to everyone on the panel once
again and guys we do have to start wrapping up here uh we've been going for about an hour and a half so
if you guys are enjoying this conversation feel free to give this uh giant yellow square a follow
every single follow counts feel free to turn on bell notice to keep up with real-time data and to keep
up with all of our shows and if you guys want to explore uh what we have to offer for the community
feel free to check out some of our links in our bio shout out to ben cowen uh thank you so much brother
for coming off the talk shop it's you know really speaks a lot when you know you have an individual
like yourself to just uh take time out of their day to you know talk some shop talk some crypto
talk some markets and uh you know have some laughs here and there man always love uh the sayings that
you have right uh my favorite is honestly uh you know if you feel like if you're feeling some fomo
go ahead and take a cold shower and um you know brother i've taken a few cold showers and you know i've
gotten out of bed a few times but ben um i i do have one final question to ask you this is uh
a bit a bit dubious it's a bit of a dubious speculation on my end but um you know when you
feel that the time is right for you know the bull run to fully commence are you going to be making a
video that says i'm putting on my rally cap or time to schedule your forbes interview
i don't know if i thought about it probably not but um we'll see man you gotta love it man gotta
love it so thank you once again man thank you so much um you know thanks for having me no problem
man no problem uh looking forward to hopefully doing some youtube stuff uh with you and um it'd be
really interesting to see um like you know the man in action showing us uh you know the the charts
and like data points that uh that you typically show in your videos man i i feel that like content
like that is is a rarity right and you know from what i see most um like crypto youtubers do they just
you know they just show a chart on an exchange and they don't really put the amount of detail uh that
you do man so um you know the numbers speak for themselves man and uh you know you deserve it and
you know it was a pleasure meeting you in miami it was a blast and uh you know you study really hard
and you party even harder man that was a great event man great few great food uh with some pretty
cool people man so um looking forward to your next event um but speaking of that like you know the next
the next uh bitcoin conference um from the same individuals from bitcoin magazine is in nashville
are you going to be throwing that uh same party at that event or is there going to still be honestly
yeah yeah yeah yeah but uh does anyone else on the panel have anything else for ben uh slava tucker
snorlax max is anything else i actually um i have to i have to get i have to get running here pretty
soon so i can't really stick around much longer no problem no problem no problem all right guys
thank you all so much and uh we'll see you all tomorrow it was a pleasure hosting uh this show and
putting on um some great conversation for y'all take care and god bless you all thank you everyone
