← CRYPTO 101
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- [00:00]
TiVo
Foreign.
- [00:10]
Brendan
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the crypto market rundown where we talk about everything that's happening in the great world of cryptocurrency, 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. And this is the first episode of 2025. It's a new year for the crypto market. It's a new year for all the markets, but that doesn't mean that the trend has magically erased and shifted. We're still in an uptrend, we're continuing from what we built last year and man, we think 2025 has some really great things in store. And that's what we're excited to talk about in today's episode. So again, we're going to cover all the news, all the technicals, all the data that you need to know going into 2025. And man, is there a lot to talk about because volatility has been high. And guess what? We're expecting volatility to actually stay quite high. That means that we're going to have a lot of big ups. We're also going to have some big downs, but we're going to talk about what we think that can kind of happen over the remainder of this year as we still have pretty much the entirety of it ahead of us. But before we do that, I want to welcome my one and only co host, Mr. Thivo. Happy new Year, man.
- [01:25]
TiVo
Dude, this is actually going to be the last time I say it. Happy New Year to you, Brendan. You're going to be the last one that gets it. I think it's my rule, seven days. But this is our first episode, so it's January 8th and you're going to be my last official Happy New Year. So Happy New Year to you and Happy New Year to the listeners. We don't want to sell them short either. And feels good to be back. We were talking about it, man. It's been a well deserved vacation for the crypto101 team. You know, looking back to when we started doing these every single week a year ago, because we were pretty bullish on 2024, which turned out to be right. It's time to lock in again. I know me and you were talking about it. We definitely enjoyed time laying low, but it is time to dust off the cobwebs. And just like the crypto market, whether it's a holiday or a regular day, a Saturday or a Friday or a Monday, there's A lot going on while we were gone. So I know you're gonna cover that in the price action and then we'll do what we normally do here on the crypto rundown and kind of talk all things crypto that have been in the news while we were gone. And really just even this week alone.
- [02:28]
Brendan
Yeah, I mean, 100%. The name of the game here as we enter into this new year is volatility. We ended last year with a ton of volatility. We're kicking off this new year with a lot of volatility as well. I mean, if we just kind of give a high level overview of what's going on even before we throw up the charts here. You know, bitcoin hit that all time high of around 108.5k, so just over $108,000. Then it steeply fell about 16% all the way down to 91k. Tested that level a couple of times in recent days. We've gone all the way back up to nearly 103k. Now we're back down to 94k on Bitcoin and we're just all over the place, you know. But bitcoin's really not alone here. If you look at any of the risk assets, you know, we're talking things like stocks and indices, things like nasdaq, spy, Dow Jones, the Russell, anything like that, you know, they're all seeing quite a bit of red and volatility to the downside here. And the cool thing is that there is some correlation, there actually are some answers that we can give everyone. So if you're tuning in here saying why is this happening? Why is this happening now as opposed to maybe a month ago? What has changed since that rally that we had in November to the kind of downwards volatility that we might be seeing over the course of, you know, December and January? And we're going to actually be able to give you a pretty straight cut answer. And it's not just like a one size fits all answer. There's actually a little bit of nuance and a little bit of data that we need to throw into here to add some substance. But nonetheless, you know, we think that this is going to really kind of solve a lot of the questions that people have here. So again, all the risk markets seeing some red here, seeing some volatility. I know that, you know, even the stock side of things has been getting, getting hammered and it's not just crypto. And that's the main point that I want to make as we kick off Here, because it's easy for people who are specifically solely focused on crypto, say, why is crypto falling? When in reality it's not just crypto. You know, everything's taken a little bit of a breather. And again, think part of this does stem from that really, really strong rally that we had over the course of November. Now we're cooling off a little bit. We're probably coming back to a bit of a reality zone before we make a continued move to the upside. And that's kind of what I'm seeing on this approach here. Now I want to go ahead and, you know, just briefly throw up the charts. We'll probably circle back to this in a little bit. But I always like to kick off just kind of showing price action, especially at the start of a new year here, because that's the big reason why a bunch of us are in this in the first place, right? You know, we want to see prices appreciate, we want to see our assets increase in value. You know, that's why we're investing. And so this is that gigantic move, you know, through all time highs that we saw on bitcoin over the course of November, this just gigantic move from, you know, nearly what was this like in the 50,000 all the way up to 108,000, you know, nearly doubled in price. And ever since then, this is that consolidation zone. And the one takeaway that I want everyone to have here is that 90k has been a very, very strong support, you know, ever since the breakout. We've seen it test 90k here and here and here. And just time and time again, this has been an area where bitcoin is bouncing off this zone on repeat. And so as we start to come back down, we do have a big area of support down here. We have a kind of a lack of support, a little bit of a gap in between 90k and 75k. So that's a potential danger zone. But prices are still consolidating for the time being towards the highs, you know, even though we are seeing a little bit of rejections and stuff. So a couple of key levels to keep an eye on around the low end of 90ks. If we break that, maybe some more downside. But to the upside, the only real resistance levels are Yesterday's high of 102k and then the all time highs of around 106, 107, 108k. And that's the only real like big levels to keep an eye out to the upside. Because past that we're back in price Discovery Mode on bitcoin and, you know, that represents the highest price that we've really ever seen this thing. So, you know, we can look at some of these other players as well. Just kind of real quickly. If we look at bitcoin dominance, this thing has started to kind of remain strong again, be a little bit back on the rise. You know, things like Ethereum seeing some decent red here. I think it was down about 8 and a half percent yesterday. Solana even seen a little bit of red down about seven and a half percent yesterday. It wasn't too uncommon to see altcoins across the board see about a 10% pullback. You know, you look at Avax, which was down 11%. You had, you know, maker, which was down 8%. You look at optimism, which is down just over 10%. You know, render another one down about just over 9%. So altcoins down around 9, 10, 11% across the board, which is pretty normal. You know, they move at about 2-3x the volatility of bitcoin. So nothing unforeseen there. Right. You know, nothing out of the ordinary. There's been a few outliers, you know, like radium, which has been kind of holding value. All right, I'm only down about 2% yesterday, and then sui, which actually just hit a new all time high on Monday. So there are a few outliers of altcoins that are moving, but, you know, even those have started to see a little bit of pullback here. And I do think that we're kind of coming back to what could be an opportunity zone again. Don't really want to catch the knife on this, but I am watching some of these lower levels to potentially do some buying on crypto because I think that, you know, as we'll kind of talk about and discuss here, TiVo, I still think the future is looking pretty bright. And again, it might not be perfect in the, you know, situation that we're seeing at the moment, but, you know, there's some solid infrastructure and all that. The reason that we rallied right through October, November, December, the reason that we rallied is still very, very much there. There are probably a few wrenches that have kind of been thrown into the mix here, but I still think that the catalyst and the pros very, very much outweigh all the cons that we'll kind of lead into in just a second. But, you know, I know we've been feeling it, I know the listeners have been feeling it. And you know, rest assured, you know, these things happen and we've talked about this and we've shown historical examples before, but you know, we see these double digit pullbacks on bitcoin where we do pull back 10, 20, 30%. And it's a fairly normal thing inside of these parabolic bull markets. So what does that mean for altcoins? Well, that means that they tend to pull back, you know, 30, 40, 50% sometimes. And it's a normal thing to see before continuing a rally to the upside. So that's kind of the name of the game with crypto. It's part of the, the plan when you come in here is that, hey, there's going to be a lot of upside. There's also going to be some really volatile downside moves and you just have to have the stomach to, to weather it.
- [09:27]
TiVo
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- [10:54]
Brendan
Hey, you sold that car yet?
- [10:57]
Carvana Representative
Yeah, sold it to Carvana.
- [10:58]
Brendan
Oh, I thought you were selling to that guy.
- [11:01]
TiVo
The Guy who wanted to pay me.
- [11:02]
Carvana Representative
In foreign currency, no interest over 36 months.
- [11:06]
TiVo
Yeah, no. Carvana gave me an offer in minutes.
- [11:09]
Carvana Representative
Picked it up and paid me on the spot.
- [11:11]
TiVo
It was so convenient.
- [11:13]
Brendan
Just like that.
- [11:14]
TiVo
Yeah.
- [11:14]
Brendan
No hassle.
- [11:15]
TiVo
None.
- [11:16]
Brendan
That is super convenient.
- [11:18]
Indeed Representative
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- [12:21]
TiVo
Yeah, man, great. Great intro. I think that something that we talked about when we were kind of having that, like you said, that November into December, you know, awesome rally. Everything was rallying on, on really the Trump trade, which we. In August. And then if you. Actually the most interesting thing is if you take the rally from when Trump won the election, we're talking all indices from S&P 500 to the Russell 2000. You know, everything had a huge pop. And then, you know, and we're going to cover this next FOMC decision. Kind of rocked the Santa Claus rally. Santa didn't seem to visit this year for the stock market. But the most interesting price action was the retracement of the S&P 500 of the Russell 2000. And it gave back all the gains that it had. So it was basically a big round trip from election day until the end of the year. Except for bitcoin. Bitcoin held up stronger than, than the rest of them for, you know, it's, it's higher, you know, higher pricing. So I thought that was, thought that was interesting. But yeah, just, definitely the digestion period. And like you said, just a lot of, I think volatility is the name of the game this year. I know. I said, you know, I felt a little euphoric when my mom called me and finally asked how she could buy bitcoin. So those people that, you know, bought between 92 and 108, you know, need to be tested. And so I think that's kind of where we are in the process. But something that, that you brought up here, I think this is a perfect segue is nobody is. Is expects a decline on Wall Street. And I think you can kind of take that two ways. Obviously, I'd love to hear your thoughts. But, you know, we say this on the show a lot. You don't always want to be on the same side of the boat. So people coming out here and. And being super, super bullish, you know, as exciting that may be, that may be for me, I kind of take a pause and be like, oh, is everybody on the same side of the boat? Do we need to shake some people out here? So what are you seeing on this?
- [14:17]
Brendan
Yeah, you know, this is from our. Our good buddy Tom Dunleavy. We've had him on here before. He's a really solid financial analyst of. You know, he does a lot of work in crypto, but he also does work in the tradfi markets. And this is from some data that he was pointing out saying, you're right, no one, literally no one is bearish about 2025. And he shows some of the biggest, like hedge funds and asset managers and all people and what they're thinking. And seriously, I mean, he's right. When we look at their 2025 projections for things like the S&P 500, which is, again, a risk market much like the crypto markets are. You know, we can look at Oppenheimer, Wells Fargo, Deutsche bank, bank of America. We have. Who else? Barclays Fund, Strat, Citigroup Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Cantor Fitzgerald. Like, the list goes on. There's all these big names on here, and every single one of them is saying, hey, we think 2025 is going to end the year green. And it's not just green. Almost every single name on this list, with the exception of a few, are saying, hey, we're going to push around 10 to 20% higher for this year. You know, around, you know, on average, 10 to 15%. That's where most people think that we're going to end the year for the s and P500. Now, again, crypto is a risk market as well. And this is essentially saying, hey, these risk assets, they can do very good in 2025. And that's a lot of what we've been saying here, but not a single one of them is bearish for the end of the year. So, you know, we're having these ups, we're having these downs, we're having some economic uncertainty. However, all the big names, all the smart money players, they are all making their bets. They are all betting their money saying, we believe that we are going to end higher. And I agree with them. You know, I think that the market is overall looking good. Yes, maybe we haven't gotten quite the news that, that investors wanted to hear from rate information from the Fed. However, the markets are still strong. And you know, it's always funny because whenever a new year runs over TiVo, there is this imaginary idea that because the number flipped from a four to a five, right, 2024 magically rolls over to 2025 as if everything resets, we're back to square one, we're back to zero. When in reality it doesn't, it didn't at all. You know, the number changed, but the reality and the state of the market just rolls on over like nothing happened. So, you know, we are getting a little bit of a shift here with the new year. We're getting a new presidency and a new administration and there is some bumps in the road maybe with that, right? Just with, with that changing. There's going to be some shifts and I think people are just accounting for the potential uncertainty. But again, zooming out here, I think that regardless of whatever kind of shift happens with the administration, it looks like it's going to be a positive one. And that's what everyone's betting on. And you know, that's what I firmly believe as well here is that, hey, everyone's betting on positivity. And I'm agreeing with them. I am, yeah.
- [17:26]
TiVo
And I think out of the gate, you know, another thing we wanted to highlight was, you know, obviously Bitcoin's back below 100,000, but that first couple days of the New year was, you know, a little bit of a rally back to 100k and the ETF flows. As soon as the markets opened up after the New Year's were, you know, flying into Bitcoin and Ethereum. So, you know, something to consider where, you know, the, you know, the first week of the new year, a lot. There's a lot of statistics out there about the first five days, especially with the S P500, of how that could project. You know what? I guess it's more of a statistical thing of like, you know, I, I have the data. The fifth trading day is actually today. So I was going to go and collect that data and bring it back for us next week to kind of break down for the first five days of the S P500. But I don't think we really have any information around that for bitcoin per se. But again, TRADFI is here and I've definitely been on the stance as I would love for bitcoin to break out and leave the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ behind. But I think it's going to be more correlated this year than an anomaly. What do you think?
- [18:35]
Brendan
Yeah, I would agree with that. And even looking at the inflows, I mean, you make a great point. Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs seeing over a billion dollars in combined inflows as bitcoin pushed over there. And you know, originally I was thinking, hey, maybe all the buying pressure that we saw was coming from Michael Saylor because he came out and said, hey, we've been doing all this buying worth hundreds of millions of dollars. And I was like, oh, you know, maybe that's just him buying, him propping up price. But I don't, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think he really buys the Bitcoin ETFs he prefers to own. I think bitcoin itself. So if we're seeing a billion dollars in bitcoin ETF inflows, that's probably separate from the buying that Michael Saylor has been doing. And I think that that's a clear and kind of good distinction that people need to understand is that there's retail and probably some institutional buying through the Bitcoin ETFs and then there's Michael Saylor doing his own buying through probably OTC deaths or maybe even spot trading. So there is still a lot of buying pressure. And we know that when bitcoin gets lower, people have been eagerly buying it up because that idea of the, of the strategic bitcoin reserve is still very much in play. This idea of clearer, better crypto regulation that would promote growth, that's still very much in play. And this whole practice of the year after the halving being one of the best years for bitcoin historically, that's still very much in play. And so I think all the positive catalysts are still there. I think we are seeing a little bit of profit taking and maybe just a little bit of a breather after that crazy rally we had to the upside. But that's normal, that's all normal. So I mean, still all good things.
- [20:23]
TiVo
No, definitely we're still, still positive. I think just we really got blindsided by the, by the Fed. And I know this is our next topic was we recorded our end of year show before we took break. And we were saving it to release, you know, while we were on holiday. And I actually, I actually called out, you know, what was my 2025 risk? Right. And I'll play that for you now. But we did. We recorded this basically the day before the FOMC meeting. And this is what I said, pretty strong. And so I think that whatever the Fed stance is going into 2025, hopefully it is dovish, but I think there's going to be a lot less cuts than people thought this year into next year. And so that's something that the market is just going to need a digestion period for as a whole. Not necessarily specifically bitcoin, but it's a risk asset play. And now that TRADFI is here, I think bitcoin could get caught up in that digestion period of figuring out what the Fed's going to do while we digest PPI and cpi. And that could give you some, some nasty chop and some volatility where like. So I would like to say that I was Nostradamus and predicted the future. This was recorded one day before the FOMC meeting in December. The next day he came out and literally did exactly what I said and spooked the market lower. And I think we're still digesting that now. With that said, I got caught up in that as well. I did not think that that was going to happen the very next day. Yeah, we were talking about. We were all. Brett and I were pulled up, you know, on a bunch of different trades going into the end of the year. You know, you can't win 100 of the time. And a lot of people were caught off sides. And I know you have some strong opinions of that. That was my thought for what was going to happen maybe the next FOMC meeting in, in. In the new year, the first one or the second one. I thought eventually we were going to have to deal with this type of scary. Less rates and digestion period. It just came literally 24 hours after I said it. So I personally was not ready. I got, you know, I got clobbered in that as well. And Brendan, I know that you might have some strong words for friend of the show, Jay Powell.
- [22:28]
Brendan
Yeah, I mean, I've got, I've got some choice words for our buddy J. Pal, as he's been slowly turning into his. His villain arc, going from. From hero to villain. But yeah, I mean, what we basically saw was exactly that. I think people were expecting that more hawkish approach to maybe come a little bit later and he came out holding no bars. So to catch everyone up to speed, I want to explain, like the numbers and the data and how this relates to all risk assets, especially Bitcoin, because we have started to see, you know, a little bit of correlation here between like the tech sector, Nasdaq and what we've been seeing in Bitcoin. And so Jay Powell essentially came out, Jerome Powell, the head of the Fed, we call him Jay Powell for short. He started off 2024, and we were looking at the Fed to cut rates around maybe five to six times. And in reality, he kept pushing it off and pushing it off and remaining hawkish and only ended up cutting rates two times at 25 basis points, which is really low. You know, we had been used to rate cuts of 50, 75 basis points. And he came out with two from the expected five to six. And it was pretty much the lowest amount that, that he really could have done. So that was frustrating for a lot of these risk investors. Then we are leading into the next year 2025, and we, they had previously expected 4 rate cut. So people are like, okay, you know, he didn't do as much this year. We'll, we'll ramp it up next year from 2 to 4. And then he came out and said, actually, we're not going to do four. We're expecting that we're only going to do two again in the following year of 2025. And that sent people kind of spiral, spiraling down. And the big reason for it is that the Fed's job is to balance inflation and, you know, unemployment in the job situation. And so we have this, this battle between, you know, interest rates and inflation and jobs and the economy. And the Fed's role is to play the healthy balance there. And Jay Powell's main goal right now is to say, hey, I would rather get inflation from 3% to 2%. Because if you remember back in the pandemic, I mean, inflation skyrocketed to almost 10%. Now we've gotten it back down to a much more realistic, achievable standard number of 3%. But he's still not, he's still not satisfied with that. And 3% is a pretty, it's a fairly normal inflation rate, but he's still not satisfied. So he's saying, hey, we're going to do more. And typically by remaining hawkish, you do end up hurting the economy, you end up hurting jobs, you can increase unemployment, you can do stuff like that. You can even lower PMI and which is, you know, manufacturing Data, which is a huge part of the U.S. economy. And he just again, is erring on the side of, hey, I don't really care about that. And specifically when it comes to Bitcoin, you know, when we see interest rates being cut in the DXY or the US dollar currency index falling in the 10 year yields curling down, you know, that is when we see Bitcoin and typically most risk assets start to do really good. And because of this hawkish approach that he has, which I think is a little bit, you know, it's a little bit crazy for me, it's a little bit too hawkish and I think a little bit unjustified, you know, that's hurting these markets. Now the unfortunate thing, and maybe fortunate and unfortunate here, is that TiVo yesterday at the time of recording this, you know, on January 7th, so just a day ago for me and you, we had two important pieces of data come out. We had the Volts data and the ESM data. And ESM represents manufacturing, which is again, a huge part of the US GDP and economy. And then Volts relates to job openings and labor turnover and stuff like that. So the job markets and both of these came in way better than expected. Ism, which is that, you know, Services and Purchasing Managers Index, IT rose to 54.1 from 52.1 and it beat forecasts of 53.3. So again, a huge increase overperformed expectations. And then the, the jolts for jobs came out overperforming as well. It came in at 8 point, around 8.1 million, and it was expected to be around 7.7 million. And it's up, you know, 7.83 million from what we had just a month ago. So jobs and, you know, the, the ISM both came in significantly better. And you're probably saying, Brendan, you know, how in the world does this relate to crypto? Well, it all goes back to the Fed. It all goes back to the Fed because if jobs and manufacturing are doing better than expected, well, then, you know, Jerome Powell is going to come in here and say, hey, I have less of a reason to cut rates. If, if we're going hard and we're staying hawkish and we're trimming inflation and manufacturing's fine and jobs are fine and all this stuff's fine. I have no reason to cut rates. You know, I will remain more hawkish to get inflation down and there will be not as much of a punishment for it. So then the risk markets, again, Bitcoin, you know, traditional stocks, indices, NASDAQ, S&P stuff like that, they all started tumbling because this is giving Jerome Powell more fuel to the fire of remaining hawkish for a longer period of time without seeing negative consequences, without seeing things like jobs and manufacturing and other stuff tumble. And that's when we started to see the 10 year yields curl up, hit almost yearly highs. We started to see the DX Y do very similar behavior, which is traditionally inversely correlated to Bitcoin. And that's why we started to see the pullback across the board here. So, you know, is it frustrating? For a lot of people it is, because it just gives him more fuel to the fire of his argument and it gives him more of a reason to remain stubborn on these rate cuts. And I think the frustrating part is, you know, yeah, they can do what they want. But I saw even, you know, Donald Trump was, was tweeting about this saying, hey, this stuff's getting too far. Interest rates are staying too high, you know, yada yada. And I think even he's getting frustrated with it. So people are speculating that maybe once he gets into power we could see a little bit more of a, of a, a shift. But, you know, time will ultimately tell. And I think the big frustration point here is that we have been led to believe one thing and in reality we're getting another for the second straight year. And that's why people are getting frustrated with the way that borderline Jerome Powell is manipulating the market, saying, hey guys, we're cutting rates six times. Actually, we're going to do it too. We're going to cut rates four times in the next year. We're actually going to only do it two again. And it's that kind of whiplash that is causing these moves because it's a pretty, it's a pretty significant shift to say, hey, we're going to go from six to two and then four to two back to back years. It's a frustrating things for these risk investors, especially when it comes to bitcoin, which is so correlated to things like, you know, I hate to say it, but it is kind of correlated to things like the 10 year and interest rates and the DXY and all these big economic data points. So yeah, I'll stop my rant there, TiVo, I'll stop my monologue, I'll hand it back to you. But you can hear my frustration with all of it because we don't want Bitcoin to be correlated to any of this stuff. We don't want bitcoin to be correlated to US Economic data. And unfortunately that's what we are seeing at the moment.
- [30:05]
TiVo
Yeah. And I think we both agree and I don't want to put words in your mouth, eventually one day the, you know, Bitcoin will take off, you know, probably from that correlation on its own principles. But I think for now we are stuck in that kind of storyline. And here's some data from that I've seen going around is, is CPI is actually for inflation wise. CPI has actually been coming down precipitously. The only reason why CPI is a aggregation of a bunch of different data points and the thing that's keeping CPI the highest, the top three things are housing. The only thing that's going to get, you know, housing down is lower rates. And then the other two are used car prices. And car insurance. Yeah, and car insurance. And so, you know, you know, Fed, the Fed definitely has their pulse on housing for sure but there's not much, you know, a quarter point if they want to raise. Like I don't think they're going to raise. Right. But there's this argument from, from some people coming out like oh well maybe we're looking at a raise in 2025. All the other numbers are trending downwards or are steady at least. And, and you know a hike is going to bring down your car insurance. Like I don't. Or used car prices. Like I don't, I don't believe so. A hike would actually increase used car prices because of the loan amount. Right. So you know, I think everything's fine. It's just like you, you, you set it up perfectly. Was we're actually in the same movie that we started out in last year.
- [31:32]
Brendan
Yeah.
- [31:33]
TiVo
You know, where we're, I think it was the beginning last year was 8, 9 cuts and then it went down to 4 and the market lost its cookies.
- [31:41]
Brendan
Yeah.
- [31:41]
TiVo
And then you know, we still rallied to all time highs on the back of the end and the market loves to crawl a wall of worries is, is a great saying I hear all the time. But yeah, I think it's just something you got to be, you got to stay on track. But I think there's also multiple. Again, I am no economist by any means but you know, in today's societies where does this number one, where does the 2% number come from? And, and are they really going to force us down there? Because if inflation's not rising and it's under control, some people might call that stagflation, but other people might call it inflation that's under control. And if we have a strong growing economy Then we can, you can technically grow yourselves out of it, which is what Larry Fink, you know, talks about and many others. So, you know, it just does seem like this political game to a point. And yeah, I'm with you that, you know, the way he came out in that meeting in December and absolutely rocked the markets, you know, seemed a little political. You could have forecasted that a lot more through your Fed minutes and your, you know, the people, all the other Fed, you know, members that come out and talk and nobody, nobody led on to that. It was just a bombshell at a meeting during a press conference. And I don't think that's how we should run markets. That's just my.
- [32:57]
Brendan
Yeah, no, I agree. And I think again, that's the frustrating thing here, is the uncertainty that was associated with it is that there was really very little indication of this all. And it was just a bombshell. And you're right, this could have been discussed more in the minutes. And it just felt like it was a slap in the face, out of nowhere, whiplash. And the other part, you know, you kind of just mentioned this, but I believe on that, that FOMC call itself, he even brought up and started alluding to the idea of potential hikes. And like, that was just, that was such a slap in the face to everyone being like, what in the world? You know, we're thinking we're going to get cuts today. We're thinking we're increasing cuts, all this stuff. And then he's more hawkish talking about potential.
- [33:40]
TiVo
He did, though. He did. We cut. That was the thing. It was like, we cut at that meeting. He's like, oh, well, we maybe will raise. Like, it was so, it felt so uncalculated. And everybody is nervous, I guess, about Trump taking office. Not, you know, not everybody, but like the FOMC and some economists like, oh, tariffs, tariffs, tariffs. There's this fear around what tariffs are going to do, the economy or things that, you know, the Trump administration is going to do. How will it digest into the economy? That's a fair point. The markets don't like unknowns. But that doesn't mean you can go out and say we're going to have to hike. Like, that's, that's the opposite of following the data. The whole thing that he's preached for two years as we're following the data, we're following the data, we're following the data. And then he comes up and says, hey, the data says we should cut, but hey, maybe we'll hike. And that doesn't make sense. That, that doesn't make sense. No, it doesn't.
- [34:32]
Brendan
And, and that's like the final thing. I know we're, we're, we're ranting here, everyone, but we're going to, I promise we'll wrap up.
- [34:38]
TiVo
People could tell we did not have a good end of year with ruining the Santa Claus rally.
- [34:44]
Brendan
Yeah, exactly. You know, right down the drain. But, you know, that's the final thing here. TiVo is just the change of power, the fear, the uncertainty and the doubt that comes with that. Even though everyone's forecasting that this should be better and that this should be a good year, there is just the unknowns of, hey, we're transitioning from one group to the other, we're changing from one administration to the next. And that just kind of uncertainty there. Even though we're expecting it to be a good thing, there's just a little bit of uncertainty with the shift of power. We've had things for, for one way, for the last four years, and we've got into this routine of knowing what to expect, and there is just a little bit of uncertainty from one administration change to the other. And I think that's why we're seeing some of this pullback. You know, it's a mix between what the Fed's doing, the big rally that we had cooling off, and just a little bit of fear, uncertainty and doubt for what kind of could happen in maybe the final days of one administration and then the transition into the next. So, you know, we'll see after everything changes here towards the end of, of January. But right now we are remaining choppy and we're remaining volatile and that could continue on for a little bit longer.
- [35:52]
TiVo
We're also remaining bullish. I mean, we're, we can't, we can't pretend like at the end of the 2025 episode, we weren't calling for awesome price targets that we still believe in. And this, this is just again, one of those battles that, you know, and then when you zoom in, this is what you can get caught up in. When you zoom out, you know, everything is. Looks great, especially for whether it's regulation price action, all the above. And it was great to start off the year on Monday with Namil from Coinbase. And that episode is live now. And to hear all the things that he was talking about with the Coinbase developer team and all the stuff that they're working on and building on Chain and, you know, I'm excited to get us back into the interviews and getting back into Talking to people in the space. Because obviously when the price action comes, you get everybody and their mother wanting to come in and buy just to make a quick buck. When in reality you got to remember like, hey, we've been here for years, you know, studying and learning and building and all that stuff. And it's good to get back to talking to people in the community that, that this stuff is built on. And I know Namil had some awesome. Not projections necessary. Yeah, I guess they were projections of what he thought would be the hot topics for 2025. And one of them was AI agents and the AI agent takeover. And I know that you, Bryce, and the team that we have are really bullish on that stuff and diving in and studying it. So, you know, for 2025, I think this is a topic that we're going to be coming back to a lot. But what are you seeing in there, Brendan, to start the year?
- [37:22]
Brendan
Yeah, you know, the, the big, the big topic that I've seen to start this year, Thivo, I don't know if you've taken a look at it, but AI agents, they're taking over. They are taking over things like virtuals and AI 16Z and a few others as well. I mean, they're going parabolic. I mean, these things are up thousands of percent already and they just aren't stopping. They just continue to go. In fact, I want to just throw up the charts here so that people can actually see what I'm talking about with some of these. So let's take a look and let's see. There we go. And so if we go, we look at like virtuals and we look at this thing just rally over here, actually, that's the wrong one. Bear with me. But if we look at like virtuals to the US dollar and we look at this rally that it's had, I mean, it's just crazy. And you know, yeah, it's pulling back a little bit over here, but something that rallied, you know, 9, 10,000% in the last two months. And so when we look at what it's done since November or October to the start of this year, I mean, it's up almost 10,000% depending on where you bought, you know, even if you bought in later, let's just say towards the beginning of December over here, and you measure this thing up to its current run, that's still, you know, 300% in the last month. So these things have been ripping. If you look at like AI16Z and how, you know, this thing has been performing, let's look at this over here. And just another example of, you know, this thing being up almost 2000% in the last, you know, month, month and a half. So this whole AI and AI agent narrative has been a really, really big one. And I think it's something for people to watch out for because this whole AI push is happening and it's happening in a slightly different way than we've been used to. You know, previously people might have looked at some of those legacy AI projects like the ASI ones, you know, Fetch Ocean and Singularity Net or, yeah, Fetch Ocean and Agix, and they look at those and maybe a few others. But now what we're starting to see is a slightly different narrative when it comes to AI in crypto. And these agents are playing a really, really big role in that. So if you're looking for something new, something to kick off the year, that is the hot topic at the moment. Of course it can shift. And then the other big one is that we're still just seeing a ton of tension around Solana. When you look at what's happening with Solana and the ecosystem and Solana, Defi and Deepin and meme coins and NFTs and all this stuff, there's just a ton of activity that just remains to be happening over there. And I've just kept a really close eye there. And then I'd say the last one is the SUI ecosystem. We took a look at it a little bit earlier, but SUI hitting new all time highs on Monday is something that the majority of mid to large caps have not been able to do. You know, we've seen them pulling back, you know, 10% in a day and SUIs over here doing the opposite, hitting new all time highs. So that for me is a little bit of a standout. And there's a lot of cool narratives. You know, we're also seeing with these potential regulatory changes, DEFI is looking a lot better. You know, we're seeing things like AAVE and Uniswap, which have been seeing pretty steady moves to the upside, maybe pulling back a little bit here in recent days. And yeah, you know, that's just another area that I'm watching. So still a lot of opportunity, a lot of sectors that are booming. And I'm scanning, I'm scanning for what's next.
- [41:04]
TiVo
No, 100%. And that was a good look under the hood of the crypto ecosystem, which you so thoughtfully and, you know, expertly do all the time. Time for us with Bryce and the rest of the team. And if People are interested in kind of getting that under the hood look, you know, check the links below. I know we always have some type of promo going on for people, new members. So if you're a new listener to this, check the links below to, you know, check out our community and get access to, you know, Brendan Bryce and the whole team, you know, every day, literally, instead of just once a week here with us on the crypto rundown, but zooming back out for a little bit of macro level, something else to keep an eye on. Obviously we've talked about the Bitcoin strategic reserve. You know, basically every week there's been some type of news on that, but I think, you know, where there's smoke, there's fire, right, Brendan? And we've definitely seen other nations talk about it. And then there's, you know, there's other nations that are coming out and basically saying the same thing, that they're considering it. And I think the, the Czech national bank is the latest, you know, nominee that that is coming out and saying, hey, we might be looking into considering a bitcoin strategic reserve ourself. And, you know, you know, it's all talk until it actually happens.
- [42:17]
Brendan
Right.
- [42:18]
TiVo
But you can kind of see this is the type of, you know, momentum of lining up dominoes that, you know, once one happens, I think there's a domino effect here, obviously, especially if the United States, the, you know, most powerful nation in the world, does it, the domino effect will be undeniable and quick. But I wonder if some other nation states do it before the U.S. you know, could that also have a domino effect? So the Czech national bank is the latest one to get on the board here with some talks about it.
- [42:47]
Brendan
Yeah. And I think that this is going to be something that we reference back to at a future point. Thibaut. I think we're going to look back. I mean, we, we talked about this exact topic last year in the ending months of last year saying, hey, if the US Goes through with this, there is going to not only be other countries that want to get on board that essentially have to get on board, but they're going to try to front run the US and we talked about that specific topic happening here, and that's already what we've been seeing from several countries, the most recent one being, you know, the national bank with them considering buying bitcoin as a reserve asset. And again, if this really does go through and it looks like the US Is going to do this, I think that this is just the start of what a lot of other countries are going to try to do here. And we're going to reference back to those episodes from last year with me and you on here, you know, for free for everyone live, telling you, hey, there could be a lot of countries doing this. And the more countries that try to adopt a strategic bitcoin reserve, you know, that makes other countries want to FOMO in that makes essentially companies need to adopt bitcoin for, you know, risk management. And we're not saying they're going to have the microstrategy approach of like 100% of their assets. We're saying, hey, maybe 1, 2, 3, maybe 5% in a lofty situation, maybe 5% of their reserve assets are going from things like metals and bonds and US Dollars and other stuff to, to bitcoin. And I think that that's a real reality. The more kind of this snowball or this domino set continues to kind of expand. And yeah, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if we see a lot more of this again. We're going to probably find out a lot more information about what the reality of this strategic reserve is in probably just a couple of weeks once we get the administration change. But if it goes the way we're expecting, you know, we could see a lot more of this and we could see crypto really recover.
- [44:42]
TiVo
Yeah. And it's not just us talking about it on the podcast. You know, we, we do the research and we bring it to you guys. And, you know, this is literally an article from Fidelity. Fidelity Investments is reporting that nation states might be the next significant investors into bitcoin. And this is an article by Matt Hogan, not Bitwise. Matt Hogan. I, I had to double check. I researched. I didn't know if he was writing for Fidelity Investments now. But no, this is a different Matt Hogan. Our Matt Hogan from Bitwise is H O U. So I, I got confused there for a second. But, you know, again, we're, we're digging, we're diving, we're trying to bring you guys the research every week here in the Crypto 101 podcast. And this is literally Fidelity reporting this type of stuff. So it'll definitely be something to keep an eye on. I didn't, I wasn't able to dig up the clip, so I have to verbally. A verbal clip here segment. But it was Anthony Scaramucci saying that, you know, he believes even if Trump doesn't do an executive order, and obviously if anybody follows Scaramucci, they know that he's not a big fan of Donald Trump, but he was saying, you know, if Trump wants to get something done, he's going to get it done. So, you know, whether it was executive action or through Congress, you know, Scaramucci thinks that the bitcoin strategic reserve bill is something that could get passed because you could, you know, could. Could easily get passed, I think, was his words. And, you know, because you have a lot of Democrats who would, you know, not a lot, but you'd have a fair amount that would hop on board, people like Ro Khanna and a number of others where, you know, maybe bitcoin, you know, can bring people across the aisle so that that's something to be interested, interested in and keep track of, you know, as. As this new administration takes office. And I agree. I think it'll be a talking point that's definitely not going away. So it will most certainly be fun to cover.
- [46:29]
Brendan
100%, man, 100%. And, you know, kind of along those same lines, keeping up with the theme of governments. South Korea's seeking to lift their institutional trading ban on cryptocurrencies. And again, more and more countries are becoming bullish on this stuff. They want to ease up on the regulatory side. And the US Is setting that standard with some of the regulatory changes that we're already looking at. And now what we're starting to see is that other countries around the world, the most recent one now being South Korea, are looking to ease in or ease up on regulation. And I saw, I think Japan was cutting the tax rates. I believe it was Japan recently cutting the tax rates for their cryptocurrency profits and stuff like that, cutting them in half. And again, I think that this is going to continue to be a reoccurring theme because these countries, they don't want to lose the. The upcoming projects and companies that want to build, they don't want to lose out on the investors. They want that tax money, they want that business to stay with them, especially if it is this in this industry that is very much up and coming. Well, the last thing that they want to do is sacrifice that and push it out of their country and lose out on the benefits of that. And so what we're seeing is kind of this global easing, if I can even say that, on the crypto sector.
- [47:49]
TiVo
No 100%. I think, again, it's just the worldly view of bitcoin and crypto are really just in the news and in the talking points, and you don't want to be left behind, especially if this thing really starts to take off. It felt like it got Everybody got put on notice, you know, with 100K and, and kind of everybody's debating, you know, whether they get back in the market on a personal level if they weren't in. But we all know how FOMO works and so it feels like we're at that next level of a decision point digestion. And when things start to fly, whether you're an individual or a nation state, you don't want to get left behind like Germany did when they sold all their bitcoin. Bitcoin and missed out on. Yeah, I think it's now like $3 billion. So. Yeah. And here, here's something to wrap up the show. Brendan, this is from Crypto. Russ. Let's see. Let's share this tab. So not a ton of data here, but something fun for the people. Are we bullish on Q1 after a having year? So here's our three instances of Q1 after a having year. We have 2013 at 539, 2017 at a measly and 2021. The last having or last first quarter after having year was 103%. So what do you think? We're, we're Q1 bullish? I think just basically in my opinion, the summary of everything we talked about, it's, it's kind of dependent on regulation and clarity and rates, sadly. But you know, there, there's, I'm still bullish. Still bullish on 25 for sure. Even if it's not Q1.
- [49:31]
Brendan
Yeah, I would agree. You know, I'm still bullish here as well. Looking for some positive stuff. I think those catalysts will determine how bullish we are in Q1. But you know, looking at the entirety of this year, especially Q1, I'm excited about what we have to see. I think that we have a lot of potential this year, a lot of potential for growth. We're going to have our ups, we're going to have our downs. But overall I'm bullish and I'm buying the dip and you know, could we go lower? Absolutely. But I still think that bitcoin has quite a bit of upside potential in this cycle. You know, I think that we can start pushing to new all time highs and that's very much still on the table. So my kind of approach here is, hey, I'm going to look at buying the dips and then potentially, you know, taking some off after we hit new all time highs. And that's the real zoomed out, simple approach that I have. Again, not financial or investment advice at all, but, but just What I'm currently doing is, hey, I'm buying the dips. I'm looking to swing this thing to new all time highs. And you know, it's a fairly simple strategy of just dcaing, especially on these bigger pullbacks.
- [50:35]
TiVo
Yeah. And I think we've kind of answered this question, at least danced around it in multiple ways, but great live today. Couple people in there. Deborah, she was, you're with us from the start. We had Bunny join. She's gonna, she joined a little late. She was worried she's gonna watch the replay. But Rob, Rob had a question, so this one's for Rob. Rob asked, you know, with our altcoins, you know, what will happen? You know, they're down. Some of the altcoins are down significantly from where they were. You know, what do we think is going to happen? And you know, again, without personal financial advice. It's never personal financial advice, but kind of what we just said, you know, the, the higher end on the risk curve you get is going to be more reliant on, you know, the rate story and the economy story. And you know, once, once all that releases, you know, I think we're going to see high flyers just like we've seen in the past. And even this year, like Brendan's talked about the AI agents and you know, we had some storylines back in, you know, a year ago, heading into February, March and April of some altcoins really flying and, and all that stuff. So you got to stay nimble and do your research. And that's, that's what we try to bring you here. That's what we try to bring you in the community. But you know, for, for Rob's question. Brendan, any final thoughts for a view into 25 for Rob's altcoins that are down?
- [51:51]
Brendan
Yeah, you know, altcoins are like Tiva said, they have increased volatility. And we typically see altcoins do the best when we are in that really strong uptrend, you know, when there's times of sideways and choppy activity or pullbacks, you know, that's where altcoins see the most risk. But we really start to see, especially those mid to small caps perform once we enter into euphoria, because those are the most risky, they're the most uncertain investments and people essentially need to make money in the larger caps and then they make all this money and they're like, oh, how should I reinvest it? And that's when they start looking at these smaller investments, these more risky investments that can be more volatile and you know, that's where we really start to see those assets do good. So we're not really in that stage right now. You know, we were maybe a month or two ago. Now we're cooling off and that tends to not be the best time for those smaller market caps. But I think that as we probably break out to new highs, see euphoria again, I think that's where we see a lot of those micro caps, small caps, mid caps start to really, really perform again.
- [53:00]
TiVo
Yeah. Well, dude, happy one final, like I said, the last happy new year goes to you, my man. And yeah, excited to get back into the saddle and do this every week with you.
- [53:12]
Brendan
Yeah, we got a lot more coming. This is the first of many. So if you're a listener out there and you like what we do, again, we make these crypto market rundowns every single week for free. And if you like them and you like all the information, well, I can promise you you're going to like all of our other links and material as well. So check us out on YouTube. We have all sorts of podcasts, market updates, tutorials, you name it, talking about the crypto space, making sure that you stay updated for free over on YouTube. And if you really want to get plugged in, then check us out and some of those links below, you know, check us out at Crypt Nation. It's our crypto community that we got. So if you want to stay plugged in, you want to get connected with a lot of other like minded individuals and talk about crypto, that's going to be the best way to do it. Again, I'm one of the analysts over there. Tivos are rock star producer. You got Bryce, you got Rohit, we got a lot of other people as well. And you can join thousands of other crypto members inside the community over there. So we got a lot of cool stuff going on, but we appreciate everyone tuning in. And until next time, we're going to see all of you back at the same time, same place next week.
- [54:32]
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- [55:02]
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