← CRYPTO 101
CRYPTO 101
Crypto Rundown: Record Level Fear and Greed Index & How To Evaluate the Volatile Markets
00:45:02
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- [00:00]
Brendan
Foreign. Welcome back, everyone, to the crypto rundown, where we talk about everything that's going on in the great world of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, from the fundamentals in the news to the technicals on the charts. We spend the time doing hours of research so that you all don't have to. We look through everything that's going on, we break it down into a very easy to understand way, and then we present it to you to save you a bunch of time. And of course, it's all for free, and we love doing it. So we got a lot to talk about in this week's episode. We are post Liberation Day. We're about a week afterwards, and man, have things escalated since then. Now, this could. I know things are looking bad, but this could be a really, really big fake out. We want to take a look at the good news. We also want to take a look at some of the negative news. And we're going to kind of come to an agreement here about what is actually happening. Could we see prices go a little bit lower? Could things actually get a little bit worse? And where are those key opportunity zones moving forward? We also want to look at these big players, these whales, these institutional players. What are they doing behind the scenes? Are they buying? Are they selling well? Truth be told, and maybe a little bit of a spoiler alert, there's a mix of both. So again, we want to talk about how all this is actually affecting the crypto markets. We're going to have some tradfi news. We're going to, of course, have a lot of crypto and blockchain news. But our goal is to bring it all together and correlate how these two markets are just kind of moving at the moment. So before we do that, I got to welcome the one and only, my good old partner on these, Mr. TiVo.
- [01:46]
TiVo
Yes. Good morning, Brendan. Thank you. Coming out of the last week, I feel like there's, like, there's a saying, like sometimes, you know, a decade goes by and nothing happens. And sometimes, you know, a decade happens in a week. And that's what it certainly felt like the last, the last week here. But we've been with you, I thought, you know, credit to us. We, we put out two episodes last week. Tried to walk you through it, I know, live on our YouTube. If people are interested, they can go back and watch your emergency update from Monday. If they haven't seen it, I, Bryce, put together a video yesterday that's live if you haven't seen it. And then Obviously inside the community as well. It's been just constant interaction with the whole entire team. So, you know, we're not shying away. We're long term bulls and you know, still here we knew before we, before we just went live here. I know me and you were talking, talking strategies, maybe, maybe putting some money to work in different areas. It was pretty bullish. It was pretty bullish. I think the shell shock, you know, kind of like in, you know, if anybody's ever played sports, you know, if you took a big hit in football or hockey or you know, if you're, you know, maybe if you ever gotten punched in the face, you know, you kind of, you kind of get that shock value and your bells rung a little bit and then you shake it off and you kind of figure out, you know, what, what, what's going on. So I feel like that's where we were. I was definitely down in the dumps at points in time like we all were, but I feel like I'm coming out on the other side and, you know, you're just kind of breaking down the information. And my biggest thing is the shock value is wearing off of all this and now we can digest it and, you know, pick your strategies. So excited to break down our, our sheet today. I think it's a really good one. Have you ever wanted to trade bitcoin but haven't dared tried? With plus 500 futures, you can trade crypto without the hassle of opening a wallet. With just a few clicks, you can register and start practicing with their free and unlimited demo. See a trading opportunity. You'll be able to trade in just two clicks. Feel ready? You can move to real money with as little as $100 once your account is approved. And the great thing is that in addition to crypto, Plus500 gives you access to a wide range of instruments like the S&P 500, NASDAQ, gas and much more. Explore equity indices like Energy, Metals, Forex and beyond. With a simple and intuitive platform, you can trade anytime, anywhere. Experience the fast accessible futures trading you've been waiting for with +500. With over 20 years of experience, +500 is your gateway to the markets. Visit us. +500.com to learn more. Trading in futures involves risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone. Not all applicants will qualify and this is not personal financial advice. Plus 500. It's trading with a plus.
- [04:27]
Rene Haas
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- [04:39]
TiVo
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- [07:19]
Brendan
Yeah, no, I think you make a good point. The shock value is starting to wear off and a lot of the emotions that were associated with that have started also kind of playing out, right? Everyone's calming down, the adrenaline is settling in, it's going away. And a big part of that emotional reaction is out of the way. So now I think everyone's viewpoint kind of going forward is what is going to be the responses to the actual situation instead of this emotional sell off? Because I do believe that the actual emotional sell off in response to tariffs and a lot of these tradfi catalysts that we've seen, a lot of that is actually priced in at this point. Now I think the only thing that sends us lower is do things escalate, do things get worse? What are the responses? Responses to what has already happened so far? I think that's the big thing that we need to kind of keep an eye out on here. So like we said, Liberation Day was just about a week ago, in fact exactly a week ago. And things really did escalate after it happened. The initial response wasn't too crazy. Then we started to see Thursday, Friday, over the weekend, on Monday, a really, really sharp move to the downside. I believe it was the first time that we've seen things like NASDAQ and the S and P have three back to back to back days of 5 to 6% downwards each one of those days. So overall around a 15% plus move to the downside there. And the last time that we saw something like that was I believe around the time of the Great Depression. The only thing that could have come close to that were some of these Covid crashes in the 2008 crisis. But even then we, we didn't see like a, that kind of a move, right? Three back to back days of, of 5 to 6% in the red. So it was a really, really shocking thing for a lot of people. It was concerning thing, and I think rightfully so. However, what we saw that, you know, in light of this, bitcoin held up surprisingly well. And that's a really good thing to understand. And I know that we're going to, you know, we see it bleeding a little bit right now, and we're going to look at the charts in just a second. But last week especially we saw bitcoin go around 4.8% to the downside on the weekly close. Now, if we look at Nasdaq and S and P, Nasdaq was nearly 10% to the downside last week. S and p was around 9.1% to the downside last week, which means that bitcoin has been half as volatile. Last week, bitcoin was half as volatile, saved 50% more value than the traditional indices, than these equities. And usually it's the opposite. You know, usually they are two or three times more, or bitcoin is two to three times more volatile than them and they are, you know, a fraction as volatile. But now we're starting to see the opposite. And bitcoin is actually acting as a preservation of capital. And again, we're starting to see it come down a little bit here. But that's a really good thing that I noticed. So I want to go ahead and just kick us off by actually opening up the charts themselves and we can take a look at a lot of this data and kind of just see what bitcoin has been up to since all of this has transpired. So what we have here is that move that I was talking about where we dropped around 16% on NASDAQ and we dropped around, you know, almost 15 plus percent on something like the S&P 500. And the reason that we bring this up is because the crypto world is correlating a whole lot more closely with the tradfi markets, right, Those traditional financial markets. And so we see a pretty close correlation between bitcoin and US equities at the moment. And that's why we're bringing this up in the first place, because we think that a big reason why everything is down is because of pretty much what's happening with tariffs. Right. You know, there's a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt that's associated with that. People are saying, hey, if we are going to go further to the downside, then I might need to preserve capital, I might need to sell off some of these more risky assets. And when we look at risk on assets, you know, cryptocurrencies are certainly still inside that, that pool. And so that's why we're seeing a little bit of a sell off here is because people are just saying, hey, if things do escalate and get worse, I kind of want to get rid of my most risky assets first. And so that's why we're kind of seeing the sell off happen in the first place. And so as we're looking at bitcoin over here, again, as these things are kind of going down, bitcoin is holding for the moment right around 74k. It's climbed back up to around 77. But what we did see last week is that bitcoin held on to 81K. It held here for the entirety of last week. And it wasn't until around Monday that we started to see the real kind of turnover point. Sunday, Monday. And this is where we started to see it break through support kind of come up, retest this previous support level as a resistance here. And then we started pushing back to the downside. Now the big level that we have been talking about, TiVo is saying, hey, look at this. In fact, we have a big old arrow here that's pointing towards it saying, watch out for this previous all time high. Watch out for this previous consolidation zone from last year on Bitcoin. The 2024 consolidation zone is a massive one that started in February and went all the way up into November. It is this huge stretch where the bulk of the year we consolidated in here. And I think that is the most attractive place to really be. I'm adding, in fact, we were just talking before this about, well, you know, what our plan and our strategy is. And you know, again I'm saying, hey, I want bitcoin to kind of at least peek its head in there. Maybe I'm too greedy with that. I'm already DCA full transparency. I am like just constantly adding a little bit of bitcoin as it's under 80k here and around that 80k level. But what I'm really hoping for, some of the bigger orders is for us to kind of just like prairie dog, peek our head into or below 70k and come into this previous consolidation range. And I think that's where I get really, really excited because not only is this last year's consolidations consolidation zone in a big area of support, this is also where we have that volume point of control as we can see from over in here. So you can see that the bulk of the volume was right here around the mid 60,000 level. And I think any kind of touch point near that could signify a potential bottom in bitcoin. And the way that the volume point of control works is that we tend to consolidate around these areas. So since we're coming to the or from the upside to the downside on this move, I would look at this as an area of support alongside this previous all time high. The other thing that I've noticed here, TiVo, and you've probably seen this too, is bitcoin dominance is climbing. I mean, look at this thing. I just, the other day it hit its second highest point of the cycle. It just closed at its highest candle body close of the cycle this week as well. And this now marks, you know, the highest level of bitcoin dominance that we've really seen since February of 2021. And historically, we see this thing kind of boomerang or bouncy ball in between 70% Bitcoin dominance on the upside, around 40% on the downside. And then it kind of just goes in between here and we're on a path back to 70% before what could lead to an altcoin market. So for all of the altcoin investors out there that are looking at this saying, when in the world could an altcoin rally happen? It's probably going to be after bitcoin dominance gets closer to 70%. At least that's what we saw in the 2018 cycle. That's what we are the 2017 cycle. This is what we saw in the 2021 cycle. And that could be what we see over here again around four years apart from 2017 to 2021 to 2025. That could be something that we see again over here maybe just a little bit later on. So bitcoin remains dominant, and a lot of this really comes from bitcoin preserving value on some of these red days. We can see it on a green day like today. You know, some of these are green, 2, 3, 4%. Bitcoin's green around 1 1/2 to 2% on the day. So it's not like there's a huge disparity there. But it's on these red days where bitcoin's falling 1 or 2% and altcoins are falling 6 or 7%. That's where we really see bitcoin dominance climbing, which is why it hasn't been climbing too much here in the last day or two. So, you know, another big thing to kind of keep an eye out on here. But that's what I view on the chart of bitcoin. It's just saying hey, we are coming back to a huge area and I think everyone needs to be watching out.
- [16:08]
TiVo
Question. Can we scroll back to the 20, 20, the pandemic, just to look at it? I just. Because I thought you kind of teed it up in the beginning. I thought that was a great. You know, obviously you can't compare Covid and a pandemic to this, but if you just take her out, take out the cause, the panic is. Is similar in a sense. Right? Just like pure panic.
- [16:28]
Brendan
Yeah, I mean, we saw about a 60% retrace in Bitcoin there at the pandemic. We fell from around ten and a half thousand all the way down to 3.8k.
- [16:39]
TiVo
This is about how many. How many. What was the time frame there?
- [16:43]
Brendan
33 days or around a month? Around a month.
- [16:47]
TiVo
Okay.
- [16:49]
Brendan
So, you know, you know, I think if we correlate this a little bit longer, but, you know, maybe this is a. You know, I guess depending on what side of this. The side. Depending on what side of the argument you're on, you know, similar scenarios, maybe one is more extreme than the other. Here we're only down to about 33%. But I think that the other thing that you have to factor in here is that bitcoin's market cap has drastically grown from when it was at 10k versus 100k. Right. It's 10 times the size it was in market cap. And the larger that something gets in market cap, the less volatile it tends to be. So I think there is an argument to say, hey, this won't go down 60% because it's just too large of an asset these days. And yeah, I would agree with that narrative, actually, that I don't think we are going to see like a 60% drop. And I think that's pretty unlikely.
- [17:46]
TiVo
Awesome. Yeah, I just thought. I was kind of thinking that you mentioned it, like, comparing Covid to what happened there as, like a huge event. But the panic, again, I don't think you can compare the actual event in the sense of a global pandemic versus this. But, like, the pure panic from Thursday, Friday to over the weekend was. Was interesting. And, you know, obviously we just kind of here to. We put out a lot of content around it, but, like, at some point it was like we were just so consumed with every tweet and every talking head and, oh, we're going to push ourselves into recession and the system's going to break. And it's like, all right, when you start hearing that, you know, the world's ending as we Know it. Some people were putting it. It's like, all right, yeah, we kind of, we've kind of heard that before. So I just thought it was interesting to compare that. But so where else? Where else? You're our, our fearless leader, Brendan, on this stuff. Where else are we going today? What do the to know? I think diving into the charts and seeing it is huge. But also there's plenty of other story lines for us to break down. So where are we going next?
- [18:52]
Brendan
That there is. And the big question on everyone's mind is, why is the market down more, you know, what else has happened, what else has transpired since we last chatted? And there's a couple of things. So let's, like, break. Let's go back to the macroeconomic environment, because again, that is one of the big driving forces here, and we're not macroeconomic experts. So, you know, I just want to clarify there. You know, we're using our, our financial analyst background and, and we're making sense of, of all of this, but what's happening here is we saw Liberation Day. We saw the tariffs go out. We saw, you know, things crashing. And now that a week, about a week has gone by, only two countries have retaliated, and we have seen some big escalations from one of those countries. So the two countries that have retaliated have been China and Canada, obviously, two. Two very, very different countries there. And what we see, what we have seen from the Chinese side is that's where the most retaliation has been. You know, they retaliated against us. We then said, okay, well, we're going to raise our tariffs from 34% to 84%. And then less than a day later, really just this morning at the time recording this, on April 9, they came back and said, oh, yeah, well, then we're going to come back at you in less than a day's time with, now, you know, we're going to raise our tariffs against the US to 104%. Or, excuse me, we raised them to 104%. I got that backwards. So quick rewind. We raised them to 104%. They then came back and said, okay, we're going to take you from 34% to 84%. And so now it's just a continuation of this trade war. And we, you know, have it on the screen here. For anyone that's watching on YouTube, I suppose we can use this as a reminder to say, hey, anybody that wants to see all of the charts and pictures and articles that we're talking about, you Got to go over to our YouTube channel, which is the crypto one on one podcast. But yeah, you know, like the image says on screen here, there is a back and forth here where we went at them yesterday, they're coming back at us today. And yeah, I mean, we're just seeing things escalate. So that's why we started to see a little bit more of a spillover. It looked like a lot of countries, I think last time I saw, maybe we can find a graphic on this. But I think somewhere between 50 and 70 countries came and said, hey, we want to negotiate, we want to come to a common ground, we want to get these things solved out. And so it looks like just about everyone out there saying, how can we get this solved? Which I think is a positive thing because I very much have the stance that as soon as these things start to get figured out, as soon as they start to go away, I think that the markets are in for a rocket ship move back to the upside. And we got a, we got a hint of this, we got a hint of this. Just the other day. What we saw was, I think it was on Monday or maybe it was yesterday, but we saw that there was fake news that came out saying, oh, we've reached agreements, you know, there might be a 90 day kind of pause on the tariffs. It looks like we have terms that are good on the table for both parties that came out and the markets ripped. Bitcoin went up 9% from its low of day. Nasdaq went up 10% from its low of day. And it was a monumental day in history. Yeah, we have another headline here. And then it came out that it was fake and we plunged back to the downside after that. And so it was the, the biggest turnaround day in history. And it was a pretty shocking one at that. However, the good that came out of this was that there was a lot of, of people theorizing, hey, what will happen once this gets figured out? And now we know the answer because we saw unfortunately through a fake news event that, hey, at the first sign of a potential solving of this, this fiasco, the markets like just tore back to the upside. 9%, 10%, some more, some a little bit less, but we saw like a double digit recovery immediately. So what's going to happen when there is an actual recovery? What's going to happen when there's an actual resolution? And well, now we have an answer. You know, we know how the markets are going to respond once that happens. And the good news is that just about every country, every group that we, you know, that, that have these tariffs on them, most of them want a resolution, almost all of them want a resolution. And there's only two that are actually retaliating here. And you know, one's definitely going to be a little bit more extreme than another. And you have to ask yourself at the end of the day, like especially on, again, not a US Chinese macroeconomic expert, but you have to look at this thinking, man, do they get the short end of the stick and is it worth it for them? Because last year the US imported approximately 438 million or billion worth of goods from China While exporting around $143 billion worth of goods to China. And so this indicates that the US Was importing or that the US Imports from China were roughly three times the value of its exports to China. So are they not getting the short end of the stick by all of this? Again, it affects them almost three times more than it would affect the United States. And you have to look at that just saying, you know, how, how do you win? How do you win by, by doing this? And again, there's way smarter people that are, that are working on these numbers than me. But that's where my brain goes to. Again, I'm just trying to walk everyone through my, my mindset here because at the same time we saw the Chinese one crashing. I mean, it's pushing its lowest point since we, that since we've seen, since the 2008 crisis. So, you know, some people are saying that's intentional, other people aren't. But again, a lot of stuff going on here and again there's, there's resolutions on the table for the majority of this. And I think that once this happens, bitcoin, which has been performing really, really well, you know, minus maybe a day or two here on Sunday, Monday, I think that it is, is just set to rocket back to the upside. And I can't remember if we talked about this last week, but I saw an interview with Tom Lee and I think we mentioned this, but Tom Lee, who is the head of Fund Strat, a legend in the financial space, he was being pressed on cnbc and they said, tom, do you still think bitcoin can hit these crazy upside price predictions of, you know, 150, 200 plus thousand dollars? And he said, absolutely, he said, I think that by the end of this year, bitcoin can still hit $150,000, if not higher. And I would agree with him on that. I think that as this stuff starts to get solved, bitcoin has a ton of upside potential. Again, we saw that with it moving almost double digits at the first sight of a resolution. But I think more so than that, a lot of people have looked at bitcoin here and they've said, how is bitcoin going to be able to survive a Great Depression? How is it going to be able to survive a 2008 like crisis, a 2008 like depression? How is it going to be able to hold up during those kind of, of circumstances, that kind of market volatility? And now we have our answer because we're seeing, you know, downwards days that are the equivalent of the Great Depression or that are the equivalent of 2008. And what do we have? Well, we have bitcoin. Again, not perfect, it's not ripping 100% to the upside, but it is existing, it's holding value and it's doing quite well given all of those, those market conditions. And so now I think this whole argument, oh, you know, bitcoin couldn't survive a true depression, this and that. Well, we're seeing statistics that are in line with, with both of those 2008 and the great Depression. And bitcoin's holding up just well. In fact, you know, on a lot of this data, it's holding up better than the indices, better than the equities, better than the Mag 7. So again, I do view it as a good thing for bitcoin. I'm not saying that the bottom's in, I'm not saying we can't drop anymore, but I think it's here to stay. And I think that when the recovery happens, it is going to be at the forefront of that recovery.
- [27:28]
Scott Bessant
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- [28:28]
Ryan
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- [28:55]
Brendan
No purchase necessary DGW prohibited by law.
- [28:57]
TiVo
See terms and conditions 18 + yeah, I agree with you and I think it's the as an asset matures, right, you have more and more market cap, you have more and more holders, more and more believers as well as more and more and we've talked about this over the last year, more and more people being, you know, outward saying I'm in on bitcoin, I'm trading bitcoin. I don't believe in bitcoin and there's plenty of people like that out there as well. And so, you know, again, in my opinion what happens during times like this is all types of leverage are clearly getting flushed out. So you know, you're having, I forget his name Weissman on the CNBC panel. He was a huge, you know, I'm trading bitcoin right now, it's going higher, blah, blah, blah. But it has no value. I do not believe in the thesis of bitcoin. I'm just using it as a trading vehicle. So right now clearly all those people are getting washed out. But you know, obviously Michael Saylor is the biggest long term bull that you know, is as vocal as anybody. But I think over time you're going to have more and more people with smaller and smaller amounts believe in it as well. And I think that's why we've seen some relative, you know, again the keywords, relative outperformance because everything's been going down. But you know, you have more and more people that on a smaller scale that believe in it. And so, you know, as the asset grows, I think that's kind of what you're seeing. Just to build off the point you made, I have two points I wanted to bring up on the macro level. And then we're going to close that chapter of the book for today and we'll, we'll move on to the crypto specific stuff. And I know me, and you've talked about this and the team's talked about this of like what's going on in the administration on a macro level. And I think you have a bunch of players, clearly the President's number one. And then in his inner circle you have Peter Navarro, Howard Lutnick and Scott Bessant. And I was talking with you and the team and I was trying to parse through the information over the weekend and I made it a point to watch the Sunday morning news shows and each one of them had an interview. Navarro, you know, Navarro was on abc, Lutnick was on NBC and you know, et cetera. And I thought the most upsetting point as just a trader, an investor, and maybe even an American citizen, honestly, was that these guys all had different narratives. And you know, you know, one person, Navarro was like, you know, we're not making any deals and we're bringing manufacturing back to America. And then, you know, Scott Besson saying, you know, like you said, 70, 70 countries have called us. You know, we're looking into it, we're fielding the phone calls, etc. So it's, it's hard to pick a, pick a side there. I guess from that. I, I personally, and I don't know if you have an opinion, I, I'm kind of leaning towards Scott Bessant because of this tweet right here and I'll pull it up. He posted and okay, here's, here's the point. So Sunday, after all these interviews and you know, the, the pre market opens and there's panic and everybody, there's more blood in the streets, Scott Besson flew down to Florida Sunday evening just to get on Air Force One with the President and fly back to D.C. and then after they landed, he went to the White House late at night. So my, my, my alarm bells started ringing off. I was like, okay, I think, I think this is the guy. I think this is the guy that might be the one to listen to. And then he posted this tweet on Monday. So I guess this is what they talked about Sunday about. And he wrote a nice thread here on X, really utilizing social media. You got to appreciate that. But Scott Besson basically said, you know, Japan remains among the strong, closest allies. I look forward to upcoming productive engagement. Kind of saying like, hey, look, you know, one of the big players has come to the table and we're going to welcome them. Saying that, you know, hey, a deal, a deal is the ability of, to get a deal is, is, is There and then this was, this was last night, so I'll share this tab. And then, I don't know, I just thought it's always good to hear, hear from, you know, the leader of the free world in the sense of what he's doing. So let's take a look at the.
- [32:43]
Michael Saylor
History of our country and don't let some of these policies go around saying, you know, because I'm telling you, these countries are calling us up, kissing my ass. They are, they are dying to make a deal. Please, please make a deal. I'll do anything, I'll do anything, sir. And then I'll see some rebel Republican, you know, some guy that wants to grandstand, say, I think the Congress should take over negotiations. Let me tell you, you don't negotiate like I negotiate in the history.
- [33:14]
TiVo
So again, there's from the horse's mouth that, you know, nobody negotiates like I negotiate, meaning that negotiations are on the table. So there's a lot, you know, depending on what news channel you listen to and whatnot, you're going to be hearing differentiating opinions and at the end of the day these are just people talking. So, you know, politicians have lied to us before as well, so you got to parsed all the information and that's what we try to do for you here. But that will tie a bow on the macro level. And let's, let's continue on for Crypto101 fans, for the crypto specific stuff because again, I feel like last week it was just pure macro panic that we had to break down. But there's a lot of crypto, crypto headlines here for us to break down. So I know that we saw an Ethereum whale capitulating. Brendan, what, what are you seeing in the Ethereum side of things?
- [34:02]
Brendan
Yeah, you said it right. We got an Ethereum well that is selling some eth after almost three years of, of holding it. And people are saying, hey, is this World Liberty Financial? Are they selling some of their Ethereum at a loss here? Have they had enough? And a lot of this looks theoretical at the moment, but this, this Ethereum whale was holding around 10,000 Ethereum for the last 900 days and you know, they didn't take a lot of profit. So now what we see here is that it looks like they are selling some off. People are speculating about who this is. Is this World Liberty Financial? You know, are they losing hope in Ethereum? And again, just some of this is speculation. I think also some of this, I've seen people talk about it saying, you Know, is this just in regards to tariffs and what's happening? You know, are they selling because they're losing hope in Ethereum? Are they selling because of the macroeconomic landscape? Are they selling to cover their positions? Like there's all these different reasons that someone could be selling. And yeah, you know, this is something that kind of came around. Another thing I saw is that Michael Saylor's microstrategy has not continued buying. They've kind of halted their buying here despite bitcoin breaking down below some of these key levels that we have that we've looked at. And he's getting a little bit of flack for this because we have bitcoin now breaking down below 80,000, you know, around 77,000. And people are saying, you know, hey, the price is falling, you know, why are they not buying? And he's starting to get a little bit of heat for it. And again, this is another thing where people are trying to assume the worst case scenario. They're saying, hey, is everything okay? Is something wrong? Why isn't he buying? You know, and they're looking at like what could be the worst case scenario. And you know, again there's, there's all these possibilities. Maybe they think it's going to go lower. Maybe they are preparing, preparing a buy as we speak. I believe his average cost is about $10,000 below the market price around I believe, believe it's $67,000 or somewhere around there. But just another thing that we are paying attention to but in light of all of this. Yeah, go ahead.
- [36:26]
TiVo
I was going to say the Bitcoin 100k New Year's Eve party was a top signal for sure. I know he's a long term holder and believer but like, I don't know, just, it's just gotta feel tough to be like if he broke, went down to break even. That's gotta be a, it's gotta be a tough one. But I agree, I think you wanna see some, some buying. But I know like the strategy for I guess microstrategy now called strategy is you know, they were, they were doing the, you know, the bitcoin backed bonds and selling that so it's easier to do that when the price is higher. So maybe that you know, clearly like everything else with risk and leverage has kind of dried up a little bit. But it would be, yeah, it'd be great to, for, for the, the number one holder and vocal holder for a public company. It'd be great to see a buy down here. We need to add some more dots to the Michael Sailor buying thing, because that was going on. Dude, he was doing it every week. Every Sunday night he would treat tweet out the Sailor Tracker. So, you know, I'm sure he. He knows what he's doing, so we'll see.
- [37:34]
Brendan
Yeah, and I think he was getting. He's getting flack because it was like, dude, you were buying it like 80k, 90k, 100k, a hundred plus k, and you're doing all these buys and you were showing the dots and it was so, you know, bold, right? And vocal. And it's like, now it's at 75k and it's like, all right, well, where's that Same level of aggression. And I understand he probably has less capital and a bunch of other things, but that's where he's getting a little bit of heat. And again, I understand where it's coming from, but it's not like he's some highly leveraged hedge fund. Right. I think that's another thing. Thing that we have to understand is that from my understanding, they don't really use any leverage. They do look at convertible notes and selling stock and stuff like that, or converting stock, but when it comes to actual leveraged positions, I don't think that they really dabble in that at all. Now they talk about selling credit spreads and other things, but it's not like they're over here 10x long on Bitcoin or anything.
- [38:33]
TiVo
No, for sure, for sure. And there's a lot of people on both sides. It's an interesting argument to follow. Next. It's like, oh, Saylor's gonna get liquidated and he's gonna have to sell his bitcoin if it drops below this price. And then everybody jumps in and goes, that's not true. That's not how these, these deals have worked. Like, a lot of the bonds don't mature until 2027. He has plenty of time. So it's a fascinating saga in the world of bitcoin, specifically that. Yeah, we'll keep following. And it's always, you know, when Sailor buys, it's always good to add a dot on the Sailor Tracker.
- [39:06]
Brendan
That it is. Well, in kind of opposite news, Cathie woods is back adding $4.8 million worth of Coinbase shares. I think we talked about this around two weeks ago, she was buying over there, and now she's back and she's saying, hey, I see Coinbase sticking around and she is adding almost $5 million more to ARK. So that's a good sign. And another thing I Guess another positive catalyst that we saw was that the Department of Justice, they are axing part of their, part of their crypto unit and they're pulling back on this saying, hey, and I quote, the Department of Justice is not a digital assets regulator. What better news could we hear than that they're reducing the size of it, they're axing it. And this is just a continued theme from what we've seen in recent weeks that, you know, crypto regulation is changing. It's doing a complete 180 from what we've seen in recent years to the point now where even the Department of Justice is axing their crypto unit. So I think they said it best. They said, hey, we're not a digital assets regulator. This doesn't make sense. And this just gives me hope that a lot of these companies, you know, potentially even like Coinbase, right? But anyone that saw these lawsuits, whether they were US based companies or not, you know, I think we're gonna see a sharp reduction in that and then be treated, you know, almost like the opposite way kind of going forward. So I like that. I think that was a really, really good sign. And the last thing that stuck out to us, one of our last bullet points that we need to talk about is the Fear and Greed index. Now traditionally we just look at the crypto one, but I think we need to look at the, the stock market, the More Tradfi Fear and Greed index and the Crypto Fear and Greed index because Tebow put me on this one and it is, it is shocking. So TiVo, I'll let you take it away and I'll come back here.
- [41:06]
TiVo
Yeah, I gotta give credit to friend of the program. Not really, but wish she was a friend of the program. Love to have her on. Her name's Stephanie Link. She's, she's a, you know, TV personality, you know, fund manager. And she said this the other day and I, and I yesterday. And I was like, I, I was like, did I hear that wrong? So I had to go, I had to go look it up and confirmed. So the Fear Greed index for the stock market, as I pull it up here on the left side here, currently four. It was three when we were making the chart. Brandon, remember that like an hour ago it was three, it's four. And if you compare this fear and greed index to when Covid happened, the bottom of COVID it was two. And it can't get much lower than that. So kind of tying back the last topic, tying back to the beginning of the conversation when I asked you to show us what was going on with bitcoin during COVID just to, again, just to see it and compare it. Because like I was saying earlier, while you can't compare a global pandemic to this necessarily for, for the reason why the panic is, is similar on a lot of levels and fascinating to see the Fear and Greed index this, this low, I guess, this early too, right? Because when you're saying the low, when you pulled out that bitcoin, you said, oh, this was like 33, 34 days. This is, this is three, four trading days, you know, a week total from announcement to today. It's like, man, the pan. The panic is there. And if you're following Warren Buffett's, you know, buy when you know others are fearful and sell when others are greedy. I mean, this is extreme fear. It doesn't get much more. Which, which is another interesting point because Warren Buffett has, we, again, we don't talk tradfi all the time, but like, he was raising a ton of cash going into this year and there was a lot of speculation around, you know, oh, is this a, is this a testament to the markets? Is he bearish on the markets or, you know, a lot of people came out and said, oh, well, he's so old that he's getting ready to transition the company to the new leadership. And he wanted them to have cash make decisions. Whatever it was, they were right, clearly. And it'll be interesting. I think that's what everybody is. Kind of not everybody, but everybody would be really interested in seeing if they start buying some things down here. You know, I can't speak on behalf of the oracle of Omaha, Mr. Warren Buffett. I know they have their, they have that big yearly conference. I believe it's, I believe it's the first weekend in May, first or second weekend in May. So that's coming up. And he addresses and does his yearly letter and takes questions that I. So I mean, what better timing than that? You'll probably get a lot more clarity around what's going on with the tariffs and, and see if they buy anything and hear hear from him. So that'll be interesting. But yeah, extreme fear. A4, Brendan. A4 on the, on the Trad 5 fear and greed index. And then I'll, I'll tee up. Let's see, do I have it up here? I'll tee up the crypto one, which we looked at last week, and I'll hand it off to you for the Fear and Greed index for crypto, which is at an 18 yeah, it's at.
- [44:11]
Brendan
An 18 and this is in that extreme fear territory. And we showed the other one where we could zoom out or maybe it's right below this, they have like a little chart for it. And if we zoom out to the max, at one point we were at a 12, a 12. And the only times that we saw us get down to that point or excuse me, it was a 10, even lower than, my God, pushing at 10. Deep in the extreme fear territory, the only times that we have seen the fear in greed index in the crypto market get to a 10 was around some of these historic bottom points. We're talking about the bottom of the crypto market back in 2022. This is where we are bottoming out, you know, around that fifteen thousand dollar mark. We also saw this happen in the 2021 pullback after an all time high. We saw that happen in around June of 2021 and some of these other points over in there. And I forget the exact data point but we saw it happen during COVID We pulled back during March and April of 2020 and we even saw it at the end of the 2018 crash around the beginning of 2019 at some of these other points as well. And yeah, that's a whole nother one I forgot to mention over there. But we saw, you know, a couple of other pullbacks where bitcoin was, was going up and down. But you know, again, historically speaking, when we get back to some of these times, this is marked some of the lowest points and some of the bottom points for bitcoin and its history. And when we see the fear and greed index, this oversold, this mode of extreme fear around the 10 again, I'm not saying that that marks the exact bottom price for the exact bottom at that point in time, but it does tend to signal, hey, we're probably getting close to that point and we've seen that across the board. So I am looking at it saying, man, I'm liking where we're at at the moment. Could we go deeper? Absolutely. Things could go deeper, we could go a little bit longer, we could see more downside. But we are getting back to the area where I'm saying, you know, is this not a valuable time to at least look at the markets? And I see value down here again, I see value down here. I'm doing some dca, I'm doing some buy in, I'm not putting it all in. I don't have a crystal ball but I do think the future looks bright once all of this is Said and done and behind us. And that's my main point here. That's, that's what I want everyone to take away. So, TiVo, any other thoughts from you?
- [46:46]
TiVo
No, just, you know, stay, stay vigilant for your own situation. You know, Brendan and I clearly aren't financial advisors. This is not personal financial advice for you. Everybody has their own situation. And so, you know, when we talk about our opinions and this stuff, this is, this is just for us. And we love to share it with you in the sense of just talking markets, just two guys talking markets. So, you know, you need to come up with your own strategy and, you know, plan your trades and trade your plans. But, you know, we hope you come to us to, to stay apprised of the markets and get all the information. We have fun, you know, delivering it to you. And thanks for joining us week to week, but it is a volatile time, so make sure that, you know, you're taking care of yourself and in your own financial situation because it can, it can get scary out there. But, you know, zoom out, as we like to say. And, you know, there's been plenty of, plenty of historical events. And I think that's the. Okay, my final point, besides the disclaimer there, is that this is a historical event. We're, we're in the middle of another historical event. Like history books will study this long after we're gone, you know, 50, 100 years from now. And from a market perspective, you know, again, do the zoom out and go find the, you know, the last five big events that, you know, are quote unquote crashes, and this is right there with them. And those, you know, in the past have all been buying opportunities. Is this time, is this time different? You know, that, that's, that's the decisions we all have to make. Right. But as, as, you know, a believer in, you know, America and the most powerful and wealthy country in the world, I think, I think we, I don't think we lose that stature over the next year. Two years, five years and 10 years. So, you know, I'm, I'm long America. And as we've seen with the DOJ pivoting and all the bullishness in the, in Washington, D.C. you know, crypto is the future here. So I think it really, truly belongs in the conversation with this correction and market crash. So we're excited to be here and deliver it to you.
- [48:47]
Brendan
Yeah, 100%. Could not agree any more with that. There's certainly a lot going on. We're going to continue to analyze the markets track everything, bring it to you every single week completely for free. And the only thing that we ask here is that if you like these videos, whether you're watching on Spotify or Apple podcasts or Audible or YouTube or anywhere, all that we ask is that if you like the content, hit the like button, hit the subscribe button. If you're on YouTube, leave us a comment. If you're on any of our other sources, leave us a review. We love to read through those and hear what everyone is saying and what you're all up to. And of course we have some other great places that you can get involved. You can check us out in some of the links below or you can check out some of our communities like Crypt Nation where we are talking with all of you on a weekly basis and you get to get plugged in with thousands of other like minded individuals. You get to talk about the current state of the market, what's going on, news trades, projects that are interested, that are interesting to you and so much more. So if you want to join that, check us out. We have some links in the description down below. Our fearless leader Bryce Paul also wrote a book called the Crypto Revolution Solution which is a great place to start in the crypto markets and so we have that as well. But thank you all for watching and until next week we're going to see all of you at the same time, same place.
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