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Sweet.
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Well, welcome back everyone to the Unbiased Podcast.
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Today we're joined um by David Puell, really just kind of a legend in the space.
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So we're super excited to talk to him, especially this week in particular, has been pretty eventful for the markets.
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Yeah, David, welcome to the pod.
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Hey guys, thanks for having me.
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Yeah, super quickly before we get into some of the market details.
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I was hoping you could give us a slight background about how you got into the space and then some of the projects you're working on right now.
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Yeah.
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So I've been with Arc, Arc Invest for about I think four years more or less, uh in the industry for nine more or less.
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And um yeah, what I'm working right now, it's you know a lot of focus on market analysis, of course, uh as as one does, but also you know, assessing the quantum threat on Bitcoin.
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Uh have published a piece on that and have a few others coming up.
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Um and yeah.
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Great.
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Yeah, uh today we're also joined by Julio, who I think you've spoken to um a decent amount.
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Um yeah, I think we should just hop right into the recent price action.
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I think um, yeah, this week is a super interesting kind of turn in the classic bear market um timeline.
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So yeah, curious on your take on the recent moves.
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Um interesting, very interesting.
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Um, in the sense that let's start with the the momentum of the move.
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Um highly driven by by a short squeeze, clearly, in the markets, a lot of long liquidation uh in that open interest.
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Um but so that gives me like a lot of um hope for the price in the in the long term.
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The for the the fact that it was like the first big upward momentum we've seen in years, basically.
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Interesting also in in the sense that relative to a lot of technical and even like on-chain analysis that uh if you go back in the past, you can see that Bitcoin in this case, if this were to be the bottom, uh it was an atypical bottom.
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First off, you know, it corrected not as much uh as the prior cycles.
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Uh I think it, you know, the roughly 50% versus the 70 to 90% range with bottom before.
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Um that's that's uh an important aspect of the equation.
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And also the fact that we didn't fully revert back to the realized um realized price or investor price or whatever cost basis that becomes a floor or near the floor um when you uh assess Bitcoin cycles um over time.
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That was also interesting.
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Um but uh conversely, we we did see a few on-chain metrics that gave us the usual markers that you would see in uh in a Bitcoin bottom or or about bottom, right?
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Like so, for instance, uh if you get a sense of the percentages of supply and profit versus losses, usually you want to see supply and losses surpass supply and profits as percentage of the total supply.
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And we clearly got that marker this time around.
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And a few others like that.
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You we had you could say we had a very robust capitulation, which is what you want to see in seller exhaustion.
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But at the same time, at the very least, as of now, we haven't seen a full mean reversion, which is the other factor that you want to see.
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You know, uh going back to the mean, the cost basis of the market.
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But you know, the the way up was very atypical in the sense that we didn't got that typical parabolic run.
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At the same time, you you can say that the expectations on the downside is for the market to or market actors not to be uh punished as severely in terms of price and time.
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Yeah, David, um one thing that you mentioned that I also noticed that we we didn't go exactly to the realized price, right?
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That's what you said is some something that had never happened before in previous cycles.
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We always go to that um to that mark or even lower than that.
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Uh given that do you think that there's still a possibility to to go to to that to that mark, or is something that we just you know we just uh left behind?
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Um in in our view, in our I think uh we we as of now we leave it as uh as a downside risk.
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Um like nobody catches the bottom exactly, like we we couldn't say, but at the very least it's a downside risk for the moment until you know there's a clear clear signs of uh a trend upward being developed, meaning higher highs and higher lows very clearly on the chart, at the very least.
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And then a few other markets, uh, markers like um I mean you already saw some uh increased transaction volume and and stuff like that.
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So you want to see that sustain a few other metrics like SOPR staying above one, so uh real realizing profits consistently without price going back to a new low is important, um, and so on and so forth.
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So we need a uh we we would need a a few uh
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more months to to be like very sure that the trend is strong and continuing.
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Um at the same time, you know, coming September risk on assets always suffer, especially before the midterms, uh, and so on and so forth.
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Like historically, September is always a down month before the midterms for the last I think 40 years or so.
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So you have a lot of uh factors still of uncertainty that may suggest at the very least some range here uh wouldn't wouldn't surprise me, especially after a short squeeze, right?
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Um at the same time, you know, a downside risk to the actual mean on the market makes a lot of sense right now.
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Yeah, I've seen um, yeah, exactly.
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Like September is not a good month, but also after this run, uh what I've seen on chain is a lot of you know, there's some some profit taking, um realizing profits after the move.
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Like you say as uh SOPR, it's really you know at the high levels.
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Um so it's that also we we are close to the one year moving average with also um it's uh it's a resistance historically before we we uh start a bull market.
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I don't know if you that that that um left me led me to to believe there there's uh at least one more correction.
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Uh but what what are your thoughts on that?
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Um well when you say correction, that that correction may come in uh may may look in the may be something like okay, we correct, but we correct into a higher low, which would be consistent with you know the trend is still up.
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So that's perfectly reasonable, especially since we're facing a bunch of resistance here, uh technical and and and some on chain.
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I think it's mostly technical, and just looking at the price action a little bit, you know, what tended to be support, resistance uh become support and so on.
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So yeah, at the very least, range bound would make sense here.
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Um but you never know, bitcoin is gets going, gets going so um um, but yeah, we're we're we're in a um it wouldn't surprise me to have uh develop into a let's say local correction here and and and confirm the trend by having um higher low.
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Yeah, thank you.
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I did want to ask you um your I guess approach to using on-chain in the market, because I think for a while, um like a lot of investors, you could look at historical levels of these metrics like MVRV um and try and map out where a bottom might be, but every every cycle or year the the metrics don't act the same at peaks and and and bottoms in the market.
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So how do you like how do you approach the on-chain like
classic on-chain metrics and using them like across years and markets and cycles?
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Um that's a good question.
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So I would say there's three um topics there.
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One is you have to account for observer effects over time, the fact that not only everyone in retail and especially institutions now are looking at at metrics like these, and they may want to front run them, right?
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Uh so instead of waiting for the precise level below realized price and so on, they may just start investing um earlier.
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And that's what institutions do.
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They they assume that no market is uh is is fully perfect, that history may rhyme, but certainly not um to the T.
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So they average in, and sometimes that's enough to create enough of a bottom, right?
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Um the other the second um thing I look at would be looking at the ways price relative to the on-chain metrics has behaved differently this time around.
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To give you the big example, we went up not as severely or parabolically uh in this cycle.
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So you can, at the very least, in your mental model, create an expectation that maybe there will be something different on the way down, right?
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Proportional to how it went up.
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So if it went up not as severely, you can make make the expectation that maybe we won't go down as severely as well.
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Um, and that also keeps in line with the um the volatility uh of Bitcoin over time, which has been compressing uh very clearly.
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Um and not only the volatility, but the fourth moment, like the the kurtosis, meaning very high volatility and very short amounts of time.
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So that has also diminished compared to the last cycle, let alone 2013 and 2011 and so on and so forth.
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So all that keeps you in your toes in the sense that you have to account for what's different this time around and try to like frame a mental model that uh includes that, but also like the the on-chain information that you may be looking at at any given time.
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And and the third topic you have to assess is the uh if the metric is still if the metric itself still makes sense, right?
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Uh or account for some noise in the metric given something that changed in the market broadly.
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One example could be um if you have long-term holder supply versus short-term holder supply or something like that, something that you know cuts off uh the or segments the population of coins in in the network.
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Um maybe the ETF uh and and the DAD regime, that changed a lot.
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You can assume that maybe a lot of traffic that would have diminished long-term holder supply in this in this time around could um could not show up on chain and it's just a database change in some custodian.
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That could be one example of that.
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The other example is like if you see uh vaulted supply or long-term holder supply go down, maybe it's because of the the call card uh hack uh a few months ago and so on.
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So just keeping that in mind and you know keeping in mind the first principles that made it metric work or not work at all times is is very important.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, for example, something that we saw, I think it was late last year, November, is the Coinbase migrating uh to a to a new um cold wallet.
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So that was uh that was a I think it was a drawing.
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That was 2018, no, I think like the a big trend that no, and uh also happened again in 2025.
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Okay.
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Uh they they moved uh so they moved like 800,000 bitcoins, and you see that in some terror holder supply just went down uh a lot.
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So you have to adjust for that and some of in some of the metrics, or otherwise you will get in, you know uh not as good as a signal there.
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Uh so yeah, I agree with that completely.
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Um uh another thing, I mean you touched on this uh by uh I mentioned the ETF.
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So uh how how do you think that that uh has uh changed the way you look at on-chain data now that we have that those ETFs?
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Uh well first thing I'll say on that is like a lot of metrics that I was expecting not to work as well are are still kind of working, uh long-term holder supply included.
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Um so that's one.
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Um because you know uh ETFs and even custodians, ETF maybe work on the aggregate as a bulk.
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So if you see see actual outflows from the ETF, that's gonna show up um very very reflexively on long-term molar supply and coin that is destroyed and so on.
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So in that sense, um it still works in the aggregate if you take all ETFs as a single big entity.
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Um but in in terms of like the market dynamics more precisely, so forget about on-chain metrics a little bit, I and focus on market structure and price action.
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I think the biggest um difference between uh this and other cycles is volatility is gonna keep compressing, you know.
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Um most uh investors in this traditional uh cohort are uh long-term focused, but also they like to profit take uh when price has gone up too much without even getting into a uh um parabolic momentum.
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And at the same time, they average in.
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So that's gonna compress volatility over time.
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Um, I think that's just gonna be a nature of it.
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Um in that regard, Bitcoin is gonna look more like um maybe not like gold, and maybe it's still you know fluctuating enough, but it's gonna compress to a point where you know getting alpha even out of it uh is more complicated because you don't have as much um as much a gap between tops and bottoms to to buy and sell.
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Exactly.
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Yeah, one one thing that I did different this time is when I when I look at like large holders of Bitcoin, you know, the typical whale, your whales, right?
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Uh a lot of people like to to follow that cohort of addresses, right?
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To to see what they're doing and accumulating or distributing.
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But with the ETFs, they don't hold.
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I mean, the typical definition of whale is like 1,000 to 10,000 Bitcoin uh addresses uh hold that.
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But the ETFs don't hold uh, you know, if you just look at addresses, they don't they don't hold like more than 1,000 in in address.
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They tend to hold, I don't know, 300, 600, something like something like that.
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So I what I change is okay, I need to look more into that other cohort of addresses, for example.
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Uh is this something that also you are you know looking at differently now that we have the ETF?
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Uh I honestly um in terms of the size, this the number of coins in a given address, I've never used that metric personally that much because of this, because I think it it it's it there's a lot of noise in there, and there's a lot of uh well, noise in the sense that sometimes it's tough to decide is this a whole exchange or a single actor, which may be like a big whale uh from 2011 or something.
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So it becomes hard to distinguish one from the other.
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And also like gauging the addresses, like I've actually looked at the charts for a long time.
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Um and just looking at what what happens over time with you know addresses with less than one Bitcoin versus addresses with more than 100 Bitcoin, 100 or 100,000.
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I don't see a pattern that to me becomes appealing over time, uh, to be honest.
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Uh for me, the where I've found most value in terms of determining fundamental or economic changes in the Bitcoin network is time of holding.
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Um I have uh so, or the multiple of time of holding times the volume or the number of coins involved in
that that uh duration period.
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Um that I like the most.
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I think it gives a lot more signal um than whatever a whale is doing because you never get the guarantee that a whale is actually smart.
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You know, a whale may be someone that just got lucky and bought early or mined early and was uh technically savvy in the way that it just saved the Bitcoin, but as opposed to being like market savvy and not selling at a bottom, for instance, right?
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So there's some merit to the smart money versus dumb money thesis, but um I haven't seen a clear pattern on in those metrics as of now.
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I I have what we do is you know, we try to filter out some of the noise that you say, like filter out exchanges when we look at this type of uh metrics.
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Um, or like you say, filter out like the time of of like new whales, for example, like new accumulation, something like that.
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Uh and then I don't look at the like the balance per se, um, but look at the growth of of the holdings.
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So I I think that there's more signal in the growth than in just looking at the you know the level of balance or something.
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So yeah, uh something something to go think about.
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But I I do what the message is that it it changed, like the ETF changed the way that you analyze on chain because they they behave differently.
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Um I did quickly want to ask uh David if he places any uh importance on seasonality.
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I I guess you know the last cycle the it did peak in October, and there are some theorists that think you know a year after the peak will the bottom will happen, which would be in just a few months.
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So I'm curious if you like place any importance on seasonality.
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Um honestly, yes.
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Um and and the way I rationalize that is like even if it's you can say it's the four-year cycle, you can say it's um interest rate cycles or or uh something more nuanced like that.
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Uh or even presidential cycles, I've heard.
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Uh-huh.
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So it could be a bunch of stuff or all of the above.
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But so far, to be honest, it has stuck to that.
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Even when people are saying, you know, historically we're top tier, and everyone's saying that therefore it's not gonna happen, and then it happens.
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So it's it's been very consistent um in that sense.
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I think perhaps it's when Bitcoin has been the most consistent, just keep it that rhyme over time, um, roughly from you know plus plus minus one or two months um or so.
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So I think there's some seasonality.
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Maybe it's not related to to having day at all, maybe it is, but um the seasonality so far has stuck there.
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So you always have to allow for um other, you know, exogenous factors changing that over time.
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But until you see the evidence, I I think there's a good case for it, until it stops working at the very least.
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And Julia, do you do you share that?
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Because I guess that would put today's, I guess, this week's price action um a little a little complicated that maybe you know we do have some time to bottom out later in the year, despite some of the reversal signals.
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So I guess some investors might be a little cautious right now given that seasonality.
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Well, that's where you have to factor in all all the M uh uh all the elements.
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And markers in the equation.
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So one is seasonality for sure.
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And from that perspective, I mean it goes even to from where are you measuring?
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Anton sensitivity is a big part of the equation here.
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Are you measuring from last halving day, uh last cycle high, last cycle low?
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Um, which one is it?
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Um honestly, if you say roughly speaking, we are in like a bottoming season when when you have the bear market, then you can just go into other metrics.
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Okay, we had a few markers, and then you wait one seasonality being early for a couple of months and not having reached realized price versus okay, we did have more losses and profits, and um the momentum behind the move was as strong as you know the first big move after FTX, which started the bull the last bull market.
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So you weigh that in and and hedge or position accordingly.
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Yeah, I I don't um think that there's a like a cycle seasonality.
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Yeah, I mean it it has been right, it it has been it has worked like that, but I tend to to look into like David said to the to the data to what are the metrics telling you, right?
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So it may be that we uh uh you know get an another low and in exactly in like in October and and that that will uh be the case again, the seasonality.
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But I mean I I don't do the analysis with that in mind.
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I do the analysis with just the data, and the data tells me you know you know what what is what it is, what what to expect, not not with the seasonality in in mind.
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That's what I what I do.
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I I would agree with
that.
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Like I think um data uh is more important than a season or the expectations of a seasonality.
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Um even if you actually use seasonality.
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Like I think data, regardless of that, is more important.
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Cool, yeah, and then uh yeah, kind of switching topics.
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I think today, I'm glad we got to do this today because I saw that um today was the first quantum resistant Bitcoin transaction.
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Um, not sure if you guys saw that on Twitter, but um, I think it kind of raises the general quantum talk because we have had other guests also um speak on the importance of it.
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So yeah, David, I'm curious your general um kind of view on on Bitcoin and and quantum and how how important is it right now, I guess, in the market.
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Um yeah, I think it's the the most important topic.
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Well, whether even even whether quantum comes soon enough or not, I think regardless of that, since it imposes um a big um risk for Bitcoin, I think it will be the most talked-about topic um in the next five to ten years, or at the very least, until we get like actual post-quantum signatures in the network, and they're highly adopted.
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Um I also think that um there there may be some like quant quantum discount uh on price since perhaps a year ago or so, um, where a lot of people are waiting in that risk factor.
00:25:31.039 --> 00:25:50.640
Um anecdotally, I I've heard a little bit of that, of you know, just people deciding to stay away from the investment because the the the quantum risk, especially taken to the existential level, um, is not worth the the reward.
00:25:51.200 --> 00:25:54.400
Um, so I do think it's uh affecting price enough.
00:25:54.559 --> 00:26:15.519
That being said, for the most part, in my personal opinion, I think it is what what the threat represents now, meaning after Willow in 2024 and after the shorts algorithm optimization by Google and then ECDSA.fail earlier in the year.
00:26:15.759 --> 00:26:21.440
Uh, I think most of that is already priced in and digested by the market.
00:26:23.119 --> 00:26:37.599
That being said, you know, you can have um some innovation either on the hardware or software sites uh in the quantum computing industry that may uh spook the price either on a short-term or long-term basis in the future.
00:26:37.839 --> 00:26:38.960
That could happen for sure.
00:26:39.039 --> 00:26:45.279
But as of now, with the information that the market has distributed, I think it's priced in.
00:26:45.680 --> 00:27:02.319
And apart from that, it it becomes kind of like a futures curve in the sense that you're weighing in whatever incremental information the market receives related to quantum innovation versus the innovation coming from the Bitcoin security side.
00:27:02.640 --> 00:27:14.319
And I think what we saw yesterday, which was kind of like a uh a triple news of it, one, the first post-quantum transaction, me but at a level of it doesn't solve quantum.
00:27:14.480 --> 00:27:32.480
This is just a um fail-safe emergency mechanism where if you can pay actually directly to a miner, you can take your transaction and protect it, permeated against a quantum attack in the in transit to get to a safer, non-reused address, let's say.
00:27:33.119 --> 00:27:38.079
Uh so that's a a great, great initiative and a great first step.
00:27:38.559 --> 00:28:00.400
Um I also think the first shrink, like formal proposal on GitHub of the shrink uh BIP is crucial and very important to get the conversation going on what is the actual signature scheme uh that we're gonna use in the future, whether it's hashes, lattice, one of the two, or a combination of the two.
00:28:00.640 --> 00:28:02.160
That's crucial and important.
00:28:02.400 --> 00:28:13.599
And the third news of Blockstream actually looking into lattice-based cryptography and properly evaluated, evaluating it and giving it its its time and due.
00:28:14.079 --> 00:28:19.839
Um, so you have like triple news over the the last day or so, which are crucial for this.
00:28:20.079 --> 00:28:21.599
I'm very glad to see.
00:28:22.079 --> 00:28:34.640
Um I think what happened is like regardless of what the expectation on one Q day is happening or not, even if it's three to twenty, forty years away.
00:28:35.200 --> 00:28:42.960
Um as long as we're incrementally go working towards a solution without panicking, I think that's the way to go.
00:28:43.519 --> 00:28:53.839
Um and and we'll, you know, whatever however that affects prices just gonna decompress the the discount uh over time.
00:28:54.000 --> 00:28:56.319
So all good news in my opinion.
00:28:57.279 --> 00:29:07.759
So do you think the the the talk on quantum risk, like in terms of actual risk, is it a risk of like some actor actually using quantum to hack Bitcoin?
00:29:07.920 --> 00:29:15.920
Um or is it more of like investor perception of like network security that is more important as opposed to like an actual actor risking?
00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:20.319
Like they want to know that Bitcoin will be quantum proof in the future.
00:29:21.599 --> 00:29:31.039
I think as an investor, especially since uh uh it's you know uh trillions of dollars uh invested in this um not only a Bitcoin but in the whole asset class.
00:29:31.440 --> 00:29:37.920
Um I think it's a very pertinent uh uh question from investors of all sizes.
00:29:38.160 --> 00:29:43.920
Especially because it's um you know a risk that takes it's a two-fold risk.
00:29:44.079 --> 00:29:49.279
One is existential, which is uh short-range attacks on the mempool.
00:29:49.440 --> 00:29:50.960
That's existential.
00:29:51.440 --> 00:29:59.440
But perhaps given the way quantum computing architectures are pro uh are scaling over time, more far ahead in the
future.
00:30:00.319 --> 00:30:17.279
And then the other one is uh the lost or you know, likely the highly dormant likely lost coins, including Satoshi's, um, some estimate have it at uh 1.1 to 2.6 million um coins.
00:30:18.000 --> 00:30:35.200
Um that's not existential, but it's um a big debate in terms of what happens to those coins and also what um um how the attack can be performed over time.
00:30:35.359 --> 00:30:41.200
If it's a slow attack, a fast attack, what's the performance of the quantum computer behind the attack and who's the actor doing it?
00:30:41.440 --> 00:30:45.920
It's either a company in the US or um or the CCP, right?
00:30:46.400 --> 00:31:01.599
So even within that um context, I think the worst case scenario is like worse enough to get you know to to find a solution.
00:31:01.839 --> 00:31:09.279
Um I think it's a real threat, whether it's now or or later, that's up for debate.
00:31:09.440 --> 00:31:17.680
But I think it's it's worth addressing without panicking um as soon as reasonable and possible.
00:31:19.279 --> 00:31:22.160
A question uh about the Satoshi coins.
00:31:22.400 --> 00:31:28.400
I know there have been you know proposals or people talking about you know freezing those coins.
00:31:28.640 --> 00:31:57.200
Uh or I mean I I think I mean I'm curious to know your your uh your opinion on that, or if you have talked to you know investors and and it that is something that they also think about, you know, what to do with those coins that haven't moved in a while, um, or never moved, because it's a potential you know selling pressure, right, for for for investors.
00:31:57.519 --> 00:32:01.200
So what what are you is your opinion on that?
00:32:02.160 --> 00:32:08.880
Oh I've heard everything from investors and and uh just observers and different market actors in the industry.
00:32:09.039 --> 00:32:23.599
I think it's it will be the most contentious, contentious uh debate uh in the near future, perhaps even more contentious than what signature scheme we should use, um, which will be another one for sure.
00:32:23.839 --> 00:32:27.039
Um yeah, it's a big trade-off.
00:32:27.279 --> 00:32:43.599
Um even in ARC, like Brett, our chief features will tell you like we we we need to let those coins be and and stick to whatever property rights in embedded in the network, and that's it.
00:32:44.160 --> 00:32:58.720
Uh my personal opinion uh would be I don't know, I think an hourglass solution then then redistributes that supply into the security budget could be more strategic and and and rewarding in the long term.
00:32:59.200 --> 00:33:08.480
Um hourglass solution makes more sense with some time lock, incremental time locks, um as opposed to just freezing them up, right?
00:33:09.519 --> 00:33:15.039
Um I think there's uh a good case for the salvage solution from Nick Carter.
00:33:15.200 --> 00:33:17.200
That's also interesting to me.
00:33:17.599 --> 00:33:20.480
Um because what's that solution?
00:33:20.640 --> 00:33:21.039
Sorry?
00:33:21.359 --> 00:33:28.720
The salvage solution, uh uh there's a few details on that, and he has a short story, like a fiction, fictional short story on it.
00:33:28.880 --> 00:34:01.200
But basically the the idea is that you have an off-chain legal recourse where the US government with some quantum one or several quantum companies takes that those coins into escrow, uh, allows the legal system to the legal recurse to give um the coins to uh approved owner if the approved owner shops shows up in any given time.
00:34:01.440 --> 00:34:07.519
Otherwise, those coins stay in the uh in the US government um as part of the strategic reserve.
00:34:07.759 --> 00:34:12.159
And maybe there's some hourglass into that uh that uh time horizon.
00:34:12.239 --> 00:34:27.360
So let's say after 20 years of you know, or a lifetime or something uh of no um you know, no redemption or reclamation of the funds, um, the US government uh is free to sell or keep or whatever.
00:34:27.599 --> 00:34:54.239
But it's pretty much an off-chain solution that pretty much gauges the incentive between US government, quantum companies that you know want the marketing and maybe some percentage of the uh of the coins and so on, uh while keeping the property rights at the protocol level, at the network level intact, but also allowing weakers for the right owners of those coins to claim them if they want to.
00:34:54.960 --> 00:35:02.079
And it's offshore, but you know, in Bitcoin you have it's on off-chain, but in Bitcoin you have to account for the whole game theory, right?
00:35:02.239 --> 00:35:03.119
Every single time.
00:35:03.360 --> 00:35:09.119
It's not like the cleanliness of Bitcoin is not, oh, if it didn't happen on chain, it didn't happen.
00:35:09.280 --> 00:35:17.440
No, you have to to see what's actually happening in reality, like the whole equation, including the legal system and and everything, no?
00:35:17.760 --> 00:35:26.000
So that may be a a realistic solution without foregoing a lot of the you know sacredness of the property rights in Bitcoin.
00:35:27.360 --> 00:35:31.599
And um yeah, we'll see what happens.
00:35:32.719 --> 00:35:36.480
But Satoshi is not gonna claim them.
00:35:38.719 --> 00:35:40.639
I I don't expect Satoshi to claim them.
00:35:40.719 --> 00:35:42.800
I I think those points are are lost.
00:35:42.960 --> 00:35:45.119
Uh that's my personal opinion.
00:35:45.440 --> 00:35:47.280
But yeah, we'll see what happens.
00:35:47.519 --> 00:35:48.159
Yeah.
00:35:50.239 --> 00:35:57.519
And uh yeah, I also wanted to ask um generally about macro and how it fits into your kind of investment thesis.
00:35:57.760 --> 00:36:09.599
There's always, I mean, there's always talks on you know, either viewing crypto in a vacuum or viewing it as kind of a a larger part of the broader market or or equities or or tech markets.
00:36:09.760 --> 00:36:18.800
So I'm curious how you kind of factor in all the macro data in other traditional markets
in into crypto, or if you view it kind of in isolation.
00:36:19.280 --> 00:36:21.280
Uh both, uh a little both, to be honest.
00:36:21.360 --> 00:36:33.679
Uh, I mean, we have a weekly discussion here here at Arc with Kathy every single time um on macro uh and speak broadly about not only Bitcoin, of course, but the whole equity space.
00:36:34.159 --> 00:36:40.880
Um you know, our assets are are um to some extent highly highly correlated or correlated with each other.
00:36:41.039 --> 00:36:42.559
Um, we're risk on.
00:36:43.199 --> 00:36:45.760
So it does factor in.
00:36:47.280 --> 00:37:01.119
My role within that a little bit is isolating that and sticking to uh the middle point, what I want to call the middle point between the macro and the final price, or between macro and technicals, which is on-chain, right?
00:37:01.199 --> 00:37:22.639
Like basically you can see that whatever decisions are being driven uh from investors based on the macro will show up in the on-chain uh space before it hits price, and that's you know part of greatly my contribution to the space and and the company.
00:37:22.880 --> 00:37:26.880
Um, so both you can make make the case for both.
00:37:31.039 --> 00:37:42.239
Yeah, I also it's really interesting what you say there that you know investors may be acting, but it it that it reflects on chain, right?
00:37:42.320 --> 00:37:43.679
And then on the price.
00:37:43.840 --> 00:37:45.760
So that's is is that correct?
00:37:45.920 --> 00:37:53.920
What I uh yeah, yeah, basically uh the claim is there's enough, um it's not random what happens on chain.
00:37:54.079 --> 00:38:13.760
Uh and you see enough of a signal, especially when you clear out the noise, like you know, um there's enough of a signal to to get an estimate of you know if there's high holding behaviors, strong hands versus um a lot of profit taking and selling activity.
00:38:14.159 --> 00:38:26.800
Very, very few first principles that allow you to get a sense of okay, uh directionally there may be uh more upside versus downside here or the or the other way around.
00:38:27.440 --> 00:38:41.920
I think that that you know that way of thought thinking uh it helped me a lot to you know spec the bear market in 2026.
00:38:42.079 --> 00:38:54.880
Like I see an on-chain and not a lot of people were thinking, you know, on the macro side, because the macro side was you know bullish, uh it was constructive, right?
00:38:54.960 --> 00:39:06.159
But I was just of course, because we what we do here in cryptocoin, I was looking at the on-chain and I was not not seeing that bullish uh 2026, right?
00:39:06.320 --> 00:39:14.719
So um I I don't know if how I was there on on Mark it was a similar analysis for 2026.
00:39:15.920 --> 00:39:17.440
2026.
00:39:17.760 --> 00:39:22.239
Um yeah, um uh agree, agree on that.
00:39:22.320 --> 00:39:32.400
Uh and even like sometimes uh because you sometimes you you decouple in terms of correlation and you go from being highly correlated with SP and then go going back to golf.
00:39:32.639 --> 00:39:49.920
It's part of the value proposition of Bitcoin so far that you know correlation is not as sticky with other assets as one one may think, even though broadly speaking, I don't know uh uh sufficiently enough time horizon, you can say it's a risk on asset for now, but that may change.
00:39:50.159 --> 00:39:57.920
Um, yeah, you you have to account for those little intricacies of Bitcoin where you know the correlate.
00:39:58.320 --> 00:40:05.119
Yeah, the Aunchi shows you another story, or uh at least another version of of the macro narrative at the time.
00:40:05.440 --> 00:40:06.079
Yeah.
00:40:07.599 --> 00:40:18.719
Yeah, that that actually leads me into, I guess, my favorite question of all the uh each podcast is um what advice you would give um to like a new a new investor just joining crypto?
00:40:18.960 --> 00:40:34.000
Because I think there there is a lot of talk about um on-chain data, the on-chain data that used to work in the hit in the past, and now you have to look at differently, and then you have macro and normal markets, and I think it gets quite confusing on what to actually focus on.
00:40:34.159 --> 00:40:40.239
So I'm curious if you had to like give advice on a framework for a new investor, what what would you what would you tell them?
00:40:40.800 --> 00:40:45.519
Oh take take your time, um do your own research.
00:40:46.079 --> 00:41:04.960
Um if you want to uh more specifically on the on-chain side, um take your time in digesting the metrics that actually work for you and that give you the information that that works with your trading style and your time horizon and risk profile.
00:41:05.599 --> 00:41:10.719
And um yeah, um beware of scammers.
00:41:10.880 --> 00:41:14.800
We don't have as much of them anymore, but you know, they're still out there.
00:41:15.199 --> 00:41:20.079
And um yeah, do what works for you and take your time.
00:41:20.239 --> 00:41:20.800
Don't rush it.
00:41:21.119 --> 00:41:23.119
Be aware of influencers, also.
00:41:23.440 --> 00:41:24.159
What's that?
00:41:24.559 --> 00:41:26.719
We be aware of influencers.
00:41:27.679 --> 00:41:36.159
I think it depends on the influencer, uh but yeah, just do your own research and have your own calls, uh have your own conviction.
00:41:36.320 --> 00:41:37.920
That's always healthy.
00:41:39.119 --> 00:41:48.800
Yeah, and Julio, I think um some of the work we do at CryptoQuant, we um like compiling metrics to make it to simplify things.
00:41:48.960 --> 00:41:53.519
So I think Julio's done a decent amount of work in like kind of simplifying the approach as well.
00:41:53.679 --> 00:42:01.119
Um, so I don't know if you have any kind of themes that you you follow that David might be able to uh have his take on.
00:42:02.159 --> 00:42:04.480
You mean on the for on the data side?
00:42:04.800 --> 00:42:07.519
Yeah, on the data side, metric side or technical side.
00:42:07.920 -->
00:42:08.480
Yeah.
00:42:08.800 --> 00:42:20.320
One thing that I you know over I would say over the past two years we focus more on is to try to estimate the demand for Bitcoin.
00:42:20.400 --> 00:42:38.639
I mean a lot of the metrics are supply, you know, looking at supply, looking at the distribution of supply by age, by value, by um, you know, different different kinds of metrics, but I I always try to estimate the demand side.
00:42:38.880 --> 00:42:45.599
Well, okay, you know, um long-term harmholders are um you know are they're selling, right?
00:42:46.480 --> 00:42:52.719
We saw a lot of selling in in 2025, but sometimes that selling was absorbed by demand because there was demand.
00:42:52.880 --> 00:42:58.159
And by the end of 2025, we saw that selling and it wasn't absorbed.
00:42:58.320 --> 00:43:00.559
It was absorbed, but not at lower prices, right?
00:43:00.639 --> 00:43:04.800
Because there wasn't as much demand or or much growth on Bitcoin demand.
00:43:04.960 --> 00:43:15.920
So that's that's that's the metric that I tried to been trying to build more of that by estimating the demand or the demand growth.
00:43:16.159 --> 00:43:23.519
And not with David, uh is something that is you also uh try to do is like estimate the demand for Bitcoin.
00:43:23.679 --> 00:43:28.239
Of course, we have ETFs and we can see that also on the ETFs purchases.
00:43:28.639 --> 00:43:36.719
But I'm curious if you if you are doing or have done something in that in that side, or how you how do you see it?
00:43:37.599 --> 00:43:39.440
That's a good question, actually.
00:43:39.599 --> 00:43:41.760
Um and it's very hard to do.
00:43:42.639 --> 00:43:53.519
In fact, like if you have an actual metric that you know clearly captures demand, like pure actionable live demand at any given moment, it it's it would be fun to see.
00:43:54.719 --> 00:44:09.360
The the main reason why it's hard to do is because the only way you Can guarantee or like confirm scientifically, let's say, or formally, demand is by to some extent by holding period.
00:44:09.760 --> 00:44:23.119
Because even if you have what okay, you had a lot of volume at an uh let's say you're there's a market and the marketing is bottoming out or looks like bottoming out, and a lot of people buy there.
00:44:25.119 --> 00:44:34.800
The way you know retroactively that that was the bottom is because okay, the people who bought at those prices, maybe in bulk, didn't sell after.
00:44:34.960 --> 00:44:37.360
So they were like, okay, I'm gonna be long term.
00:44:37.519 --> 00:44:51.599
And how do you guarantee on chain that someone was long term is by just measuring and measuring that the coin is not moving over five, five months, a year, two years, whatever that is, right?
00:44:52.719 --> 00:45:03.360
Otherwise, it could be as simple as you know, the a market actor decides to buy the bottom and he says, or he or she says, Hey, I'm gonna be long-term, and then panics after three months and just dumps everything.
00:45:04.000 --> 00:45:04.639
Yeah.
00:45:05.280 --> 00:45:14.559
The only way to gauge that demand is like wait a little bit and say, okay, finally we have more voltage supply, long-term supply, whatever you want to say.
00:45:14.639 --> 00:45:40.079
Like we have strong hands in the market that are just not selling relative to local corrections, uh, a new all-time high, a return to a break-even, a perceived breakeven, if it's the yearly SMA or the 200-day SMA or whatever that is, um, and don't get spooked by it and want to hold it, that's like the best guarantee uh in that sense.
00:45:41.119 --> 00:45:49.119
Otherwise, you can make inferences around when demand activates, which is one is very clearly mean reversion, right?
00:45:50.559 --> 00:46:18.480
Uh or losses being greater than profits and so on, like capitulation in the sense that for the most part, you can correlate from first principles that if there's panic, pain, could great losses in the market, and the market is still liquid enough, which for Bitcoin is has been increasingly the case, you're gonna have buyers on the other side absorbing that seller exhaustion, right?
00:46:19.199 --> 00:46:27.280
So you can have like a few inferences, but like actually confirm that hey, this guy is just buying and not selling in two years, right?
00:46:28.480 --> 00:46:29.920
Scientifically, you never know.
00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:36.639
Uh the guy may panic or get an illness or get a kid or something, and that may change over time.
00:46:36.880 --> 00:46:54.320
So I think holding period is still sticky, and the rest is just very highly educated guesses on inference, where you get mean reversion or great losses and capitulation and and correlate that to you know um demand periods in the market, not only in Bitcoin, but every single market.
00:46:55.599 --> 00:46:58.159
Yeah, we have some metrics on that on the man.
00:46:58.320 --> 00:47:01.920
I'll I can share it with you uh uh later.
00:47:02.000 --> 00:47:05.760
Uh one is apparent demand, which is the one that I use a lot.
00:47:05.920 --> 00:47:19.199
Uh but there I I use uh because before uh uh working on Bitcoin, I was working on as a commodity analyst commodity researcher, and we use that term apparent demand to estimate demand.
00:47:19.280 --> 00:47:28.880
And have you what you said is really true, like estimating demand is really hard because you uh, for instance, we you can't observe demand directly.
00:47:29.039 --> 00:47:32.079
Um, you can observe production, for example, for commodities.
00:47:32.159 --> 00:47:38.559
I'm talking you can observe really clearly production or you can observe inventories, movement in inventories.
00:47:38.719 --> 00:47:49.039
It's really clear there's a lot of data on that, but there's not a lot of data of demand, and and it's it's uh it's always indirect observation of demand, not not direct observation.
00:47:49.280 --> 00:47:58.719
But using production and inventory, we estimated that
demand, and what we call it is apparent because you don't uh observe it directly, so it's apparent demand.
00:47:58.880 --> 00:48:05.840
So I did a little bit of that for Bitcoin, um, you know, using uh um inventories.
00:48:06.000 --> 00:48:10.559
So I I come up with some definition of Bitcoin inventories, right?
00:48:10.800 --> 00:48:16.800
And then production is just the miners, and then but the change is important, the change in the inventory.
00:48:17.199 --> 00:48:19.519
That's how a way to indirectly estimate demand.
00:48:19.599 --> 00:48:27.440
And I mean, and it's really has been really uh correlated with the the price action and uh the returns of Bitcoin.
00:48:27.519 --> 00:48:33.440
So I use it a lot uh for when I want to look at you know demand growth.
00:48:33.599 --> 00:48:39.599
Uh in and yeah, and on on periods of bull market, you see that demand is growing.
00:48:39.679 --> 00:48:55.280
And then in the periods of bear market, it's it's contracting, or even not in the bear market, but even in uh at the at the end of the bull market, even we are we were at 100k, um it was already contracting, like demand was already contracting.
00:48:55.360 --> 00:49:02.400
So uh yeah, it's a it's uh some of the metric that I've been working on is more about demand, the demand side.
00:49:02.719 --> 00:49:04.159
Yeah, please send send it over.
00:49:04.320 --> 00:49:06.320
Sounds super sure, sure.
00:49:07.360 --> 00:49:14.960
Yeah, uh a final topic I wanted uh cover on was actually kind of I guess it kind of price price targeting.
00:49:15.119 --> 00:49:25.280
Um I think when the bull market starts, like newer investors will see these sort of reports either from institutions or or influencers and see these price targets.
00:49:25.440 --> 00:49:31.360
Um, and they're often pretty pretty drawn to them in terms of like I'll sell when it hits this.
00:49:31.440 --> 00:49:44.559
Uh, but I'm curious from like an institutional side, when you look at at targets, like what's your approach, or is it sort of just a nice like fundamental process to gauge where an investment might go?
00:49:44.639 --> 00:49:48.000
Like, how attached are you to like price targets in general?
00:49:48.400 --> 00:49:58.480
Uh well we we do have um uh a price uh estimate uh for 2030 going into 2021 and so on.
00:49:58.960 --> 00:50:04.559
Um and you can go to our website to to to take a look.
00:50:04.880 --> 00:50:09.760
But that's very long term in in the sense that and it's built very fundamentally.
00:50:10.000 --> 00:50:46.320
It's basically gauging the total addressable markets of different like utilities, quote unquote, or you know, um value accruals that Bitcoin can uh take over time from different market sectors, uh from you know, even gold investors, nation states, treasury companies, um, native on-chain activity on Bitcoin, um and so on and so forth, and then just trying to you know give assumptions on penetration rate of those times and you know aggregated that into a projected market cap and so on.
00:50:46.480 --> 00:51:02.239
So we have uh some analysis on that, and that stakes you know more in the in the long-term horizon, and and we just gauge current price action and event and news events, you know, like quantum against that over time and and see see how it develops.
00:51:02.559 --> 00:51:06.079
Um so that's on our website if you want to take a look.
00:51:06.159 --> 00:51:08.559
And um yep.
00:51:10.880 --> 00:51:13.360
And Julio, I'm curious to your your take on that.
00:51:13.519 --> 00:51:24.960
I think you're more of like a trend following system, um, as opposed to yeah I mean we we specifically don't say price targets, right?
00:51:25.360 --> 00:51:34.800
But it's more about looking at, you know, if you look at the realized price and then and there's then there's bands, you know, above that.
00:51:35.280 --> 00:51:53.360
And so you can have some reference price of like, okay, if we really enter into a bull market and have this bull run, you can expect this price as a you know a good, uh realistic uh expectation in you know the the following bull market.
00:51:53.679 --> 00:52:03.280
So I tend to do that more than saying, okay, my my prediction is this one for a specific year or whatever.
00:52:03.599 --> 00:52:16.480
So I it's more about that, about the you know, the possibility of where where is the like the realistic expectation based on you know the on-chain data realized prices or uh short-term holder realized price or something like that.
00:52:16.559 --> 00:52:17.840
So yeah.
00:52:18.000 --> 00:52:29.360
Um I I don't remember exactly where like I don't want to say my expectations too early in the world market, but you know, that that's that's the process, that's more of the process.
00:52:32.400 --> 00:52:33.119
Great, thanks.
00:52:33.199 --> 00:52:35.760
Yeah, I think that was um all the topics I wanted to cover.
00:52:35.840 --> 00:52:45.519
I think um we covered a lot, and no doubt it's uh an exciting time in the market, so it's gonna be fun to look back at this pod and see see where things go.
00:52:45.599 --> 00:52:48.239
But David, thank you so much for coming on and Julio.
00:52:48.480 --> 00:52:49.199
Thanks again.