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Our weekly show is hosted by Michael Nadeau (The DeFi Report) and Ryan Sean Adams (Bankless). Each week, we discuss how we approach managing our own portfolio and the data, research, and analytical frameworks that inform those decisions — for educational and informational purposes.
Ryan Sean Adams:
[0:09] Hello, everyone. Welcome to the report. On today's report, Mike deploys all
Ryan Sean Adams:
[0:14] his remaining cash into gold at $4,700 per ounce. Mike, unbelievable on the week. Why'd you do this?
Michael Nadeau:
[0:22] No gold, no gold just yet in the portfolio, but a lot to talk about. A lot to talk about. Macro is all about oil right now, so I'm sure we're going to get into this and get into what's going on in Iran today. And, you know, a lot of the work that I'm doing right now is just kind of trying to resolve the tension of like, where is the downside potentially for Bitcoin? And it kind of reminds me of similarly to the period when we were kind of at
Michael Nadeau:
[0:50] the top of the market where we were assessing risks of going up versus going down. Now, it's kind of flipped, but there's still risk in both directions and we're going to get into sort of where we think things could potentially land later this year.
Ryan Sean Adams:
[1:03] I love the professional response that Mike just gave because I surprised him with that April Fool's Day, April 1st, 2026 headline there. Mike has not deployed into cold at all, But he gave me a professional response and got us back on topic. All right, the real report today. We are forecasting the Bitcoin cycle low. Okay, I think the Bitcoin cycle low is probably the most interesting number in any crypto bear market. The bottom price, what is it? And the question today is how low could Bitcoin actually go? We're in the 60s now. Could we go? Could we see 50s? Could we see 40s? Is it lower? We're down 47% from cycle highs. What's the on-chain data say about where this is going? We'll get into it. Mike's got the realized price, the 200-week moving average to compare, and the full TDR suite of deep value KPIs. We're also going to be looking broader, Mike, as you just said. We're five weeks into the conflict that was supposed to be over by now, and we've got to take a look at the energy shock. I've heard analysts call this an air pocket that's moving from Asia toward the west, and we'll see where that air pocket ends up.
Ryan Sean Adams:
[2:11] Stick around to the end. As usual, we get into some prices, some deep value price calls. Before we get into the episode, though, Mike, I know you're a big Buffett fan. There was a Buffett interview on the week, and I came across this clip. It reminded me of you. Let's play it. Well, let's talk about that. The market has come down substantially.
Michael Nadeau:
[2:30] Not substantially.
Ryan Sean Adams:
[2:31] Well, you've got both the Dow and the NASDAQ in correction territory. It's the worst performance on a quarterly basis for stocks in about four years. Do things look cheaper to you?
Michael Nadeau:
[2:42] No. Three times since I've taken over Berkshire, it's gone down more than 50%. I mean, if you look at the markets of... The worst probably was the 2007-8 period, although it was that one Monday when you had 21% in a day. I mean, this is nothing. I mean, it...
Ryan Sean Adams:
[3:11] This is nothing to make you get excited and think there's huge valuation drops.
Michael Nadeau:
[3:15] If they're 5% or 6% cheaper, that doesn't... We aren't in it to make 5% or 6%. They're 5% to 6% cheaper.
Ryan Sean Adams:
[3:25] Yeah, I love this. I feel like the interviewer every week I get on and I'm like, hey, is crypto cheaper yet, Mike? And you're like, nope, not yet. It's slightly cheaper, but we're not in it for the five to six percent. We're in it for the deep value for the home runs here. Buffett is like sitting on a lot of cash right now, isn't he? And I know you're a big Buffett fan. I think you told me you watched this interview almost in total. What do you think he's waiting for?
Michael Nadeau:
[3:48] Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, it's really it's always like refreshing just hearing Buffett talk and just the clarity and the consistency with how he approaches markets. So him saying, him sort of like scoffing at this idea that markets are cheap right now was very refreshing to watch. Down five or 6%, he's seen, I think he mentioned 50%, three plus times in his career. So this is nothing. And we talk about fat pitches all the time. And we try to kind of take his framework for buying things when we think they are oversold and the probability of positive future returns is just like really, really strong. And so we're taking a similar framework to crypto and we've kind of felt the same way, even though prices are down, it's not like... You know, screaming, screaming buy just yet.
Ryan Sean Adams:
[4:41] All right. We'll see if we can find the screaming buy, the fat pitch price in today's episode. Before we get in there, got to shout out our friends over at Galaxy. We've been talking about Galaxy since the beginning of the TDR podcast. There's something special, though, on the week for TDR listeners. Galaxy One is launching staking for Solana. If you have not heard of Galaxy One, it's their consumer app. Galaxy has a consumer app. And if you're already holding Sol, that is the ticker of course of solana pretty simple you got to put it to work you got to earn your 6.5 percent variable staking rewards on soul there's no platform commission fee through the end of this year so no commission fee you get all of that back in your pocket it's all integrated too you can buy soul directly in the app or transfer it there and once you stake it it's beautiful just compounds automatically so you can check that out there's a link in the show notes start staking Sol. I think I got that out. It's a tongue twister. On Galaxy One, there's a link in the show notes. All right. Positioning, I'm going to round it. You are 50% cash, 50% crypto. And I think we said last week, ready to nibble. Bitcoin price in the week is a 68K, down 4% since the last report. Also, S&P is down 6.7%. I think that's from all-time high. Is that correct?
Michael Nadeau:
[5:58] Correct. Yep.
Ryan Sean Adams:
[5:59] Okay. NASDAQ down 10%. It reclaimed its 200-day moving average this week after a rally that was on Tuesday, 3.8% rally. I don't know. Is it down again this morning, though?
Michael Nadeau:
[6:12] I think we're up a little bit on the NASDAQ right now. So actually, another follow-through day after that big move yesterday.
Ryan Sean Adams:
[6:18] Good to see a follow-through day, I guess, for the bulls. Although, we'll talk about whether that's going to last or not. You've got six assets
Ryan Sean Adams:
[6:26] on the watch list currently trading within fair value and three assets in deep value territory. Okay, let's talk about the war because it seems like that is driving markets right now. We're in week five of the four to six week plan. What's your read on this? Are we getting closer to resolution or not?
Michael Nadeau:
[6:46] Yeah, definitely preface this with we're not experts on this. We're trying to just have clear eyes about what we know and also what we don't know out there. This is important just because oil and just how that impacts the rest of the economy right now. So I think if you're thinking about macro, it's really all about oil right now and obviously what's going on over in Iran. You know, I think just the kind of high level from my view is there is significant disruption, right? So roughly 10, 10 and a half percent of the oil and gas, you know, that comes out of the strait is impaired right now. So that's significant. The other piece is that this mostly impacts the Asian markets. So this graphic here that we pulled up from J.P. Morgan Commodities Research, it kind of just highlights the amount of oil that is going to be sort of shut off here as time goes. And it looks like it's sort of going to move from, you know, east to west with, you know, the U.S.
Michael Nadeau:
[7:49] Has a very small impairment, less than one million barrels per day, which will stop on April 1st, which is today. And so, you know, that's kind of like what's happening. I think boots on the ground, you're starting to get into a situation in places like Japan and South Korea where they're starting to put in some like emergency measures, potentially tapping into some of their strategic reserves, you know, rerouting supply lines, things like this. So it hasn't reached like a emergency shortage fear just yet, but it's like we're getting those measures into place. And the longer this goes on, the worse, you know, that it obviously gets. So that's kind of what's happening on the ground right now when you kind of look at how this is impacting markets.
Michael Nadeau:
[8:38] We've seen interest rates rising. So, Treasury yield on the two-year up about 42 basis points since this conflict started. This is putting pressure on the Treasury. You need to refinance a bunch of debt. Real rates are rising. We've seen volatility in equities as a result of this. And, you know, kind of what I'm looking at here is we've seen the two year actually roll over a little bit. And what you tend to see is the scare of like kind of higher oil prices, how that impacts inflation and how that and then that bleeds through rates, equities. But but but sort of the second phase of that is kind of demand destruction, you know, actually in the economy where consumers just have less cash to deploy because they're spending a lot on oil. Oil is a big input into a lot of production. So then, you know, typically what happens later on is you get a growth scare and a slowdown in the economy. I think that will ultimately push rates down. Maybe that's what the bond market's starting to see as rates start to roll over. So, you know, if we kind of zoom out on just the situation here, it's really hard to tell what's going on with all the different mixed messages that we get from the White House and also from the Iranian side.
Michael Nadeau:
[9:56] But my base case is just kind of a messy situation. You know, we can kind of try to game this out a little bit. But I just think there's a lot of parties involved here, potentially conflicting incentives.
Michael Nadeau:
[10:10] The, you know, Gulf states that are closest, you know, to the action in the Gulf. And then you've got other parties like, you know, what is China thinking? What is Russia doing? You know, there's just a lot of moving pieces here. You know, Trump has been talking about potentially pulling out of the conflict, leaving this mess, I guess, for someone else to clean up. You know, what does that even mean? I think the markets are looking at that as potentially a good thing. To me, like, I don't think that's a good thing just because it still leaves all this uncertainty there. And I think markets are really forward looking and really need some sort of assurance that the strait will be opened and that, you know, oil will be flowing freely. So, yeah, I mean, I just think it's messy in my base case just to say, okay, this looks very complicated.
Michael Nadeau:
[11:03] And, you know, it's probably going to take longer than the market thinks. You know, it's very interesting to me that oil prices, we just talked about potentially 10.5% of the global oil demand being disrupted by this. Yet, you know, oil prices are still below where they were in 2022, when the disruption was about less than a third of what we're seeing today. So it's telling me the market thinks this is short term and this is going to be resolved. But when I just look at the messiness of everything, it's hard to see how this is short term.
Ryan Sean Adams:
[11:36] I see how you're saying that. So you're connecting the dots from the war to the markets. You're basically saying there's an energy crisis. that's the air pocket you're talking like you were talking about the Strait of Hormuz and first it bleeds into Africa and Europe and and also Asia and then eventually makes its way to the United States although the United States is much less affected because uh you know well 10 percent of world demand goes through the Strait of Hormuz uh that represents I think you said uh 80 percent of all that the the oil uh through the Strait actually goes to Asia so Japan and South Korea are the most exposed. This is also hitting internationally, you know, quite significantly. And that's being reflected into some of the Treasury notes and the bond market starting to reflect that. Now, it's interesting that you pulled up the two-year Treasury note this time. We've been looking at kind of longer duration U.S. bonds, like the 10-year, etc. Why the two-year note? And does this have to roll over? Is Besant going to have to kind of like roll the short duration bonds over at a higher interest rate? Is there a lot of them out there?
Michael Nadeau:
[12:45] Yes. So, you know, the Treasury is funding the government primarily through T-bills. So on the short end of the short end of the curve, I'm focusing right now more on this two year note, just because this is what typically leads the Fed funds rate. And so when I'm seeing this rising above what the Fed fund's target range is right now, that's signaling that the Fed might actually have to hike rates. So this is an important point because we've seen this, you know, historically when oil prices rise, that can can be an outcome of this. So that's why I'm focusing on the two year right now and then looking at how that's getting priced through the CME. And there are some chances of rate hikes. I think it's getting priced. Last time I looked, it was 10% chance of a rate hike in June. I think my view of this is hikes are very unlikely. I think the Fed will look through any inflation that's potentially short term from higher oil prices and start to look at the potential, the second order effect of that, which is a gross slowdown. And you need to get interest rates down. But that's the key thing. I'm watching that just because it's signaling to me
Michael Nadeau:
[14:01] what the Fed might have to do.
Ryan Sean Adams:
[14:03] Okay, so we've got energy costs. We've got what the Fed might have to do as a result of bond markets and what that's telling us. And then you're thinking this leads into a negative growth story. And you've got a chart of polymarket, which I think is pretty accurate on this, or as accurate as markets can be. the chance of a U.S. Recession by the end of 2026, now there's a 36% chance. And that has spiked since the beginning of the war from about 22% all the way to 35%. That's some of the growth slowdown that you're talking about. And do you think that would obviously, if we were in recession type territory, the probability has increased as a result of all of this, that's going to impact labor markets at some point as well?
Michael Nadeau:
[14:48] Yeah, and I think, you know, that's ultimately kind of where we're going here is, you know, the labor market is already in kind of a fragile state. It's not, you know, screaming, you know, we're not seeing tons of unemployment claims and the unemployment rate going up just yet. But that typically comes after there's trouble in the equities market. So to me, like the path forward here, I think the Fed has to cut rates. I don't think they're going to do it immediately when they're seeing some inflation and the labor market isn't screaming at them to do it just yet. And stocks are 6% off, you know, all time highs. So I think, you know, it looks to me like that's the ultimate outcome. And then you have to say, well, what what gets you there? And I think it's just, you know, more more pain in the markets. We'll see. I mean, we're recording this on Wednesday, April 1st.
Michael Nadeau:
[15:41] Trump is doing a big announcement tonight. We don't know what this is going to be about. There's going to be an address to the nation at 9 p.m. This evening in the U.S. And, you know, we have no idea what this is going to be. And we can speculate a little bit on it. But I have no idea. The only thing that I think could be happening tonight, I don't think we're pulling out of the war tonight just because there's been more and more troops that are actually going to that area over the last week or so. So more warships, more troops, paratroopers, which paratroopers are used for ground invasion. So I don't think we're pulling out. I don't think you can just leave leave that mess there. So then like, what are we what are we announcing tonight? There's a chance, you know, I may, this may look totally ridiculous in a week, but there's a chance that he may announce that we're pulling out of NATO is where I.
Ryan Sean Adams:
[16:40] What I think might be coming.
Michael Nadeau:
[16:43] He's been kind of hinting at this for a while. He tweeted last night that, um, the, that he's, you know, he's upset with the UK. They didn't want to support, uh, coming in, coming into the conflict to open the strait. And if they need oil, they should go get it themselves. And Hey, we just decimated their Navy. Like it's go take it is kind of what he said. You know, he's been, you know, kind of hinting at this ever since even in his first term, you know, that he's upset about, you know, the U.S. Really supporting NATO financially. and this sort of like maybe the final, you know, the straw. So we'll see. What I think if he does that, if that's sort of what he's talking about, I think he's doing that to develop leverage to then get them to come into this, to support opening the street. I think that's what he's doing.
Ryan Sean Adams:
[17:33] We'll see. That would be crazy. And, you know, I would love to see how Bonds would react to that. We just had a financial historian on, Barry. Eichen Green on the Bankless podcast. And one of the points he made is that a world reserve currency gets that status through allies actually buying the world reserve asset themselves. Right. And so if you sort of disconnect from your old alliances and the NATO and the security guarantees, do these central banks and do these sovereigns decide to hold fewer U.S. bonds in the future? Will that be reflected in rights? Wow. That would be crazy times.
Ryan Sean Adams:
[18:12] Okay. So That's the story. I guess the summary there is you think Buffett could be right. This is still a time to keep some cash to buy deeper dips, let's say, even in equities markets.
Michael Nadeau:
[18:27] I think so. I think, you know, this, the sort of distribution of outcomes, I think, is still quite broad. And when you just think about all of the different parties that are involved in this conflict, if, you know, if we are sort of going to be changing alliances and things like this, we don't know, we're totally speculating on these things. And I have low confidence in this. But if that were to happen, then all of a sudden you are going to see a changing and lots of movement and lots of things happening. So it could create quite a bit of volatility in markets. And we're only down 6% right now. And I think that's actually giving Trump probably more confidence to be more aggressive at this stage of the conflict. I don't think people would have thought we'd only be down 5%, 5%, 6%, five weeks into this and the straits still closed.
Ryan Sean Adams:
[19:17] May you live in interesting times. I guess we do. So let's talk about what that means for Bitcoin in particular. So what we're trying to get at, we've talked about Bitcoin a lot. This analysis is in particular, what could the lows actually look like? You've given us fair market value, price for Bitcoin. I think your range on the watch list is between 55K and 65K. But it could go into deep value territory. And you take a look at previous cycles and some of the key metrics and compare them to prices today. So let's start with realized price. What is realized price showing us right now? How does that compare to previous cycles? And what does this mean for the possible bottom tick on the Bitcoin price this cycle?
Michael Nadeau:
[20:04] Yeah, so the realized price is we use this. It's a proxy for the cost basis of all coins on chain. So this is not going to be capturing the ETFs, about 6% of the supply. You've also got the coins that are held on exchanges. That's about 14.5% of the supply. So roughly 80% of the coins on chain, that's being tracked through this realized price. And this is, it's at 54.2K right now. So on average, the holder cost basis is 54.2K. And we typically hit that in bear markets, as we can see in the chart there. And so I'm sort of taking the view that we likely will come down to that level. We're close to it right now. We're still off of it, but we're close to it. We have not actually touched it. And I'm kind of going back and just looking at if we think it's going to hit, But what is the realized price going to look like later in the year, potentially, if we do come down to that level? And this is a moving target, but it is dropping because as coins are moved on chain, as people buy coins at current prices from people that previously held them at higher prices, that brings down the realized price, the average cost basis of the network. So it's coming down a little bit.
Michael Nadeau:
[21:30] And in the 2022 bear market, it came down about 19.2% from the point that Bitcoin peaked in the cycle to when we actually crossed it and bottomed for the cycle. And in the last cycle, it came down 14%.
Ryan Sean Adams:
[21:44] Is that what I'm reading?
Michael Nadeau:
[21:45] Yes, 14%.
Ryan Sean Adams:
[21:47] And we're 4% right now.
Michael Nadeau:
[21:49] We're down 4% now. So we're kind of looking at it and saying, okay, if this plays out similar to what we saw last cycle, we could, the realized price could potentially come down to like 48, you know, upper 40s, 48.7K or so is what we have there.
Ryan Sean Adams:
[22:05] Okay, that's if we have, so if we have a further 10% decline, which would put us lower than the 2018 14% decline and lower than the 2022 19.2% decline, that gets us to about 48K or 49K.
Michael Nadeau:
[22:20] Yeah, well, that's using pretty much, that's pretty in line with a decline from 2022. So we're kind of like modeling 2022 forward.
Ryan Sean Adams:
[22:27] Oh, I see.
Michael Nadeau:
[22:27] And yeah, if we had a similar decline, about 14% down from it this year, we'd get to that 48.
Ryan Sean Adams:
[22:36] Well, what's this one? A further 15% decline would put realized price at 44K.
Michael Nadeau:
[22:41] Correct, correct. So it gives me an idea of like, okay, that's where we think realized price could be heading. And then the next question to ask is, what are the chances that we actually drop below that realized price? And we did come down below it in the last few cycles as well. And so in 2022, we were down 16%. We actually came 16% below the realized price when Bitcoin bottomed, and we came 30% below the realized price when we bottomed to 2018. So again, we got to factor that in. And now if you factor that in, that takes you potentially down to the low 40s as where we think this could go if we're modeling where we think realized price is going and then potentially dropping below that, similar to what we did the last few cycles.
Ryan Sean Adams:
[23:31] That's what this table says, right? This is in purple. Current cycle projected decline in realized price peak to trough if you projected 13.6%. Where do you get? You get to?
Michael Nadeau:
[23:43] That gets you to the 40.9K. Wow. And then if the Bitcoin price drops below that, that's the 0.84. So you're coming down below that. You're potentially getting to like a 67% drawdown for the entire cycle. I think most people think that that's unlikely. This is not my base case that we're going to go that low. But when you see the symmetry between where we would land there, 67% down, And, you know, we were down 75% of the lows in 2022. We were down 83%. There's somewhat some symmetry there and you could see it happening.
Ryan Sean Adams:
[24:19] So that's one- It is a shallower dip, I suppose, a shallower bear market than most if it's 67%. But, you know, those numbers, when you get to the 40K range, that feels pretty eye-watering. Yeah, it does.
Michael Nadeau:
[24:31] It does. And again, you know, we just talked about sort of Buffett and, you know, when he's really excited to deploy. Yeah. You know, that's the type of scenario where like Buffett's like, you know...
Ryan Sean Adams:
[24:44] Yeah, Buffett's the kind of guy to get excited in 2008, isn't he? Yes. He's that kind of guy.
Michael Nadeau:
[24:49] And then hold forever, right?
Ryan Sean Adams:
[24:51] Yeah, exactly. Let's cross-examine that with the 200-week moving average. What does that tell us?
Michael Nadeau:
[24:58] Yeah, so just taking another KPI here and running basically the same exercise where we can see the chart. We typically come down to the 200-week moving average, the longer four-year long-term moving average. And same exercise. So instead of this number dropping as the realized price drops, you know, as the year moves on, this number is actually rising. So it's up about 10% so far this year. When Bitcoin price peaked back in October, it was at about 53K. 200-week moving average is now around 59K. So again, I'm trying to forecast where that is going to potentially move to because I think we are going to come down and hit it.
Michael Nadeau:
[25:45] And we went up, so this is again, moving target. It's increasing as the year goes on. It increased 176% back in the 2018 cycle from the point that Bitcoin peaked to when it bottomed for the cycle. And in the last cycle, that number went up 43.4%. I just mentioned we're up 10% already. We're roughly five and a half months into this bear market. So I think it's reasonable to expect that to go up about 20%. And that gets you to about 65K for where the 200-week moving average could land sometime later this year, possibly in Q4. And so that's a pretty healthy number. That's kind of where we've been eyeing fair value. And the question here, again, is are we potentially going to dip below that?
Ryan Sean Adams:
[26:36] Because it has in previous cycles.
Michael Nadeau:
[26:38] It has. It has. We did dip below it last cycle, actually significantly below it, came down 32% below the 200-week moving average. That happened kind of at the final flush, you know, FTX, you know, when that was going on. And so, again, same exercise. If we sort of extrapolate this out, so we started the cycle at 53K as the 200-week moving average. We're up 10%. We think that's potentially going to about 65K. That would be a 21% increase, 21.7% increase. And if we end up, you know, coming down 15%, so half of the decline below the 200 week moving average from last cycle, if we come down half of that, that gets you to a 55K. So that's a more reasonable sort of, you know, target for sort of deep value. But it's just, these are kind of some scenarios that we're just putting out there so that we're prepared for kind of what could play out here. And, you know, we just talked about, all of the uncertainty, you know, with macro and, you know, Bitcoin's never lived through a recession. So that's the other variable that I think we have to, you know, factor in here.
Ryan Sean Adams:
[27:50] That's because we don't get recessions anymore. Recessions have been eliminated, haven't they? All right. So you got these two key numbers. And the one is, again, if you just use your projections and listeners can adjust these projections as they wish. With realized price analysis, you get a cycle low at 40K or 41K.
Ryan Sean Adams:
[28:06] And then with the 200-week moving average analysis, you get a 55k number as the possible cycle low. So what do you do? Do you just smush these things together and split the difference? Like what do these numbers ultimately mean for where you think deep value is for Bitcoin?
Michael Nadeau:
[28:24] Yeah, it kind of just gives me conviction that, you know, we have not bottomed. I know this is, I actually put a poll up yesterday to get a sense of where people's heads are at. I know my followers, if people are subscribed to our views, they probably agree with me. So those results may have been a little skewed. But it was about, I think it was about 25, 75 in terms of people.
Ryan Sean Adams:
[28:47] Yeah, I voted in that. I said we haven't bottomed. But that's because I'm, you know, with you every week.
Michael Nadeau:
[28:53] Right, right. So, you know, our polling is probably not super representative of the full market. But I do think there's a growing faction that thinks we've already bottomed. There's now a lot of talk about the MicroStrategy product and the demand for that product. And that's allowing him to buy more Bitcoin. So people are sort of attaching to that. For me, you know, I just think this gives me confidence of like where I think, you know, real deep value potentially is and that we haven't hit the bottom and just helps me prepare a little bit more for if we do see another move down, you know, just kind of planning ahead. I like to really do a lot of work and I think this is similar to what Buffett does is he's just doing research all the time and getting ready for what he's going to do when he sees what he wants to see. So I think he's always ready. And then he's kind of just waiting for the fat pitch, basically. That's right. That's what we're trying to do.
Ryan Sean Adams:
[29:50] The research builds convictions. Let's touch briefly on altcoins and kind of crypto equities. So you put up a chart here. We have a 45% decline in total crypto market cap, which represents Bitcoin, but then is also weighted into altcoins as well. And that's interesting because we're five and a half, or are we five months into this?
Michael Nadeau:
[30:10] Five and a half.
Ryan Sean Adams:
[30:11] Yep. Five and a half. Okay. And we had in the previous in 2022 bear market, we're about close to the same 40% declined five and a half months into the bear market. Now, you have a general framework for approaching crypto bear markets that we've discussed, which is an order of operation here. First, Bitcoin rolls over, you want to see those lows. And then altcoins sell off and follow them. Bitcoin grinds lower. Altcoins remain weak. Bitcoin has a final capitulation. Altcoins, that's everything else. Bottom around the same time, only slightly after Bitcoin. Then Bitcoin leads the initial recovery on the other side. Some select altcoins might outperform Bitcoin. Maybe we're seeing this with something like hype right now. It's outperforming. But that's the general framework that you approach things with. And that's just informed by history. It's because Bitcoin is such a large flagship of both market cap and size. And it represents kind of like risk on-ness of the crypto industry. So is this your expectation that it'll just follow this path? And so, again, you're reconfirming that you're waiting for the Bitcoin bottom first, and then you'll look at all the other crypto assets?
Michael Nadeau:
[31:27] Yes. And some people have been asking about this a little bit. Some of the assets on the watch list have fallen into what we had listed down there as fair value. These are rough estimates. Nobody can predict the prices and all this stuff. So we're putting that out there as sort of a rough estimate of where we think things are going. And some people have been asking, you know, hey, is it time to buy some of these altcoins that are oversold and in this zone? And my answer to that is, you know, not necessarily is kind of my view. There's no law that says, you know, all the altcoins have to follow what Bitcoin is doing out there. But Bitcoin is kind of the dog that wags the tail here. And I think it's too much risk in my view. It's just not worth taking the risk to go in there and try to buy stuff before Bitcoin bottoms because my general view is that everything will be weak if Bitcoin has another like sort of significant leg down. And we know that when Bitcoin does fall in bear markets, it tends to be like these rapid, you know, falls. It could sort of base and chop for a little while. And then you get these quick sell-offs. And altcoins typically sell off more during those periods. So that's kind of my approach to this is like have a plan. We're constantly doing the research and we have a good idea of what we want to get into when we see the fat pitch.
Michael Nadeau:
[32:54] But let's focus on Bitcoin. Let's focus on macro. Let's focus on where that's going to land and then act on building out the rest of the portfolio at that time. This also works for crypto equities. And the reason for that is things like Coinbase, things like Robinhood.
Michael Nadeau:
[33:13] Coinbase is 100% crypto. Robinhood is a growing portion of their business is their crypto business. And so, you know, they're relying, these businesses are relying on, you know, speculative interest in the crypto markets, confidence in crypto and liquidity conditions. So it makes sense that they would also bottom, you know, sort of after Bitcoin bottoms.
Ryan Sean Adams:
[33:36] You also remind listeners in your closing thoughts that you were actually bearish on assets in general, risk on assets before the war even started, just based on liquidity conditions. And that hasn't changed. In fact, if you follow Michael Howell's work, you will say it's continued to deteriorate. And that was, of course, before the war began. So maybe leave us with some thoughts here. In your end note, you say, we continue to believe any entries. You're talking about Bitcoin,
Ryan Sean Adams:
[34:03] of course, in the 50s, the 50K range. If we do go there, we'll be seen as fantastic buys in the year to come. Ultimately, the Fed has to cut rates, interest rates, the path to that outcome. In our opinion, it's further weakness in equities, and that will bleed into the labor market. That's where you end things today. So what's an investor to do? Is it still like last week? Remain patient? Wait for these fat pitch opportunities?
Michael Nadeau:
[34:28] That's my take. Also, be on your toes, right? I don't know what Trump is. We just were speculating on what we think is going to play out with this conflict. There's a, you know, you never know with Trump. And so you definitely need to be on your toes for things to change. But that's my view is that, you know, the economy, the conditions for risk assets were already not good for this year. And this to me is just adding to that. And so it's really building conviction that Bitcoin hasn't bought up. It's a good time to just be patient, have a little bit of cash on the sidelines. And observe the market. Don't get too caught up in all the different headlines out there.
Ryan Sean Adams:
[35:06] We'll leave it there and want to make an ask as we do at the end of this episode. The ask this time is if you have a friend that keeps texting you, keeps asking you questions about, is it time to buy Bitcoin yet? I think you should send them this podcast. We talk about that just about every week on the TDR. Of course, they need to be someone who is reasonably informed about these things because we get into them in some depth. But send this to a friend. That's the ask at the end of today's episode. And of course, if you're not already subscribed across channels, do that too. YouTube, Spotify, even X will include links in the show notes. Got to end it there. Of course, you know, none of this has been financial advice. This is an investor journal that we are outsourcing. We're on the journey right alongside you. Until next time, stay curious.