The DeFi Report

Bitcoin just completed the longest bear market rally of the last two cycles, but under the hood, the data still looks eerily similar to 2022. Mike and Ryan break down the battle between shorts and spot buyers, why $85K may decide the market, what ETF flows and Saylor’s bid are really signaling, and the setup that could trap both bulls and bears.

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TIMESTAMPS

0:00 Intro
3:03 Market Dynamics and Institutional Influence
5:53 Trader Sentiment & Market Positioning
10:04 Spot Market Analysis
15:10 ETF Flows & Institutional Demand
19:06 Market Structure & Cycle Analysis
21:09 Bitcoin's Correlation & NASDAQ
26:05 Critical Price Zones for Bitcoin
30:12 Mike's Investment Strategy & Market Outlook
33:17 The Marshmallow Test 
34:17 Closing & Disclaimers

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Not financial or tax advice. For educational purposes only.

What is The DeFi Report?

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] Welcome to The Report, The Question This Week. Bitcoin is nearing an inflection point. What is Mike thinking? It is May 6, 2026. The market is up 36% from some of the lows. This is the longest bear market rally on record. You've looked at the previous two. Mike, you're still heavy cash, not fully deployed in crypto. But we got 80k Bitcoin looking like a magnet in that 80 to 85k range. We're also going to look at the 2022 charts, what we see in funding cohorts, how this compares to 2022, because I think you are broadly and have been talking about on the TDR, this looks a lot like 22. I want to check in with you today and see if that is still true. We're going to look at NASDAQ correlation, all sorts of things. Stick around to the end, listeners. We're going to actually talk about the scenarios that Mike is watching and the trap for both the bulls and the bears that he foresees and the price points that he is looking at next. Mike, I feel like listeners who've been following your work and the TDR podcast are dialing in this week and they are seeing Bitcoin above 80K and they're wondering, what is Mike thinking right now? Like, is he getting a little bit nervous? Do you feel like you've got some explaining to do in today's episode?

Michael Nadeau:
[1:39] Yeah, a little bit. So I would say, you know, where's my head at right now? I would say that we've been on the right side of the market here for a long period of time, and I'm starting to feel like I'm on the wrong side of the market. And the reason for that is this bear market rally, you know, kind of how we hinted at the intro of today's report, this is the longest. So like kind of since really over the last month or so, we've extended into a period that is longer than you would typically see a bear market rally. And really what I'm doing is going through the process and just kind of like looking under the hood of everything that's happening in the market to try to get a better grip to say, okay, is this actually like a new regime? Did we bottom in February, which would be like the earliest period that we've ever hit a low in a cycle? Is there something that's like showing me in the data that This is durable and it's not a bear market rally. And I think that's really what we're going to kind of go through today. Because, yes, I think it's fair to say like, you know, a typical bear market rally would last around, you know, two months or so. And you'd probably get a 30 plus percent move out of that. We are starting to stretch to higher on the actual move and in terms of length now. And so we're now just like coming right into some really interesting price points and interesting inflection points. So I think the next few weeks are going to

Michael Nadeau:
[3:02] be very, very telling here.

Ryan Sean Adams:
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Ryan Sean Adams:
[4:01] Okay. So this was the key point here. You said that this is the longest bear market rally in terms of days recorded over the last two market cycles. So you're talking about this is longer than from February, I suppose, February 5th to now, we've been in bull market territory. Let's say, mini bull market territory inside of a bear market. And this has lasted longer than it did in what, 2021, 2022, and also longer than what, 2017, 2018?

Michael Nadeau:
[4:34] Correct. Yeah. So it's pretty typical to see these moves down. We came from 126 down to around 84K or so and then rallied up to 97. So that was, you know, roughly two month period, very standard bear market rally. Then we, you know, came down off of that. And what you would typically see is, you know, okay, another bear market rally, roughly two months or so. And then, you know, that's kind of when you start to see the cycle start to play out from there. This is different. We've extended an extra month here. What's not different is we've had periods in past bear markets where it took longer to hit, to go to a low and then go to a lower low, right? So that can still play out. We've seen periods where it took six months in bear markets for that to play out. But I would say what is different is to see, you know, things sell off and then to have more of a, what looks like a more durable, starting to look like a more durable rally over a longer period of time. So I think that is like the main thing that's, that's different. And I think what we can go through today is really like, is what's happening under the hood here? Has the cycle, has a new regime started?

Michael Nadeau:
[5:49] Or is it still really just a bear market rally is kind of where we're at, I think.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[5:54] Let's talk about all these things then. So to get a sense of how strong this price move is to the upside, you've taken a look at the perps open interest. You've taken a look at the funding rates. And we did some of that last week as well. and you indicated that the traders were still shorting this market. We got to check in on that, see if that's still true. And there was the question of whether that's smart money. And then you're also looking at liquidations and you're also looking at the spot volumes. So put some of these metrics together for us and tell the story of what you think the market's doing.

Michael Nadeau:
[6:31] Yeah, so leverage is increasing in the markets, right? So this is the chart we're looking at here. This is perpetual futures open interest. And we can see we kind of had a brief, you know, flush kind of after the October highs. And we've been in an uptrend since that time and starting to get closer to all time highs in terms of open interest.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[6:52] And leverage can either be short or long, right? It's just leverage.

Michael Nadeau:
[6:55] Correct. Correct. Yeah. So this is, you know, a similar move to what we saw last bear market back in 2022. too. And yes, exactly what you're saying. This is just telling us there's more units of risk that are now entering the market. And that sort of looks similar to what we saw in the last pair market. So that's one thing to look at. Now we need to really understand how are those units of risk positioned in the market? That's what this funding rate data is giving us. We talked about this last week, we've seen traders consistently positioning for weakness, paying to be short the market, paying a premium to do that at the highest rates that we've seen so far in this bear market. And that hasn't really changed. We kind of came, we saw like a little, you know, brief spike into, until funding rates going long over the weekend. And they're now back short, significantly short again at these kind of higher elevated levels in the early 80s. So to me, like, you know, we kind of zoomed out on the funding rate data just to sort of get a higher level view.

Michael Nadeau:
[8:07] And what's interesting is, you know, traders are actually have been positioned more negatively so far in 2026 than in any other bear market of this data set. This is only going back to 2021. But almost 39% of the trading days this year have had negative funding rates attached to them. So, you know, it's telling us that the trading community, people that are, you know, in the perfs markets are positioned, you know, for weakness. And, you know, the question there is like, is that the smart money? You know, what's really going on? We're not making a claim that it's a smart money. We're just saying that positioning looks very similar to 2022. And I want to understand, okay, how severe is that positioning? And then what is that, you know, what is that doing to the market? Is there actually a durable bid in the spot markets underneath this that's creating these short liquidations and then that's just like feeding reflexive move on the price? How much of this move should we be attributing to... Kind of like this just positioning in the market versus like a real organic, durable kind of new regime.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[9:20] Okay. So the traders are still thinking that this is like 2022. In fact, they're even more convicted on this being like 2022, sort of short than they were in 2022. And the question that you have in this report is the price rise of Bitcoin above 80K. What explains that? Is that explained better by some sort of a short squeeze of some of these highly convicted traders getting liquidated? And do we see that in the perps and funding rate activity? Or is this actually some new buyer, some secular bullishness kind of driving the price upward? I think that was the first core question of the report. So what did you find?

Michael Nadeau:
[10:04] So, you know, it looks to me like there's definitely, you know, plenty of short liquidations, right? When you have that much positioning short and the price goes up, obviously those shorts are getting liquidated. The exchange has to buy back the Bitcoin. And so this is like reflexively pushing the price up. So my conclusion is like, yes, this is definitely playing a role. And again, pretty typical for what we would look for in bear market periods. And I think the next level of that analysis is to say, OK, let's look at the spot market. This is where price discovery tends to be a little bit more durable. And let's look at what's going on there. And what I see there is just weak spot volumes. That doesn't have to be necessarily bearish. But as you can see in the chart, like when you come out of a bear market, you do get like a pretty big spike typically in actual on-chain volumes, trading volumes on centralized exchanges and on-chain. And we are not seeing that right now. So to me, like the way I think about this is...

Michael Nadeau:
[11:13] There's not a ton of sellers, right? So when we were back in the early part of the bear market, there were not a lot of buyers. It was clear there weren't a ton of buyers in the market. And we started to see the sellers just kind of take over the market. And now what we're seeing is like there are more buyers in the market. Is it the type of buying that we would expect to see in like a true regime shift going into a bull market? I'm not sure about it because I'm just not seeing like that kind of on-chain trading volume that I would like to see. This chart that you just pulled up here is giving us a little bit of a deeper view into this. This is a spot volume delta, and it's just measuring the difference between buying and selling activity. And it's really highlighting periods where either sellers or buyers were more aggressive. And we're looking at a 14-day moving average of this. And we can see on the far right side there, we've gone into the green zone, which is telling me that there's more, buyers are more aggressive than sellers at this stage. And the question is like, is this a new regime? Because it's not uncommon to see this flip green during a bear market.

Michael Nadeau:
[12:31] And really the question is, again, is this a new regime? If it is a new regime, it would be kind of like, you know, the earliest period that we've seen that type of move happen.

Michael Nadeau:
[12:44] And that's kind of my view on what's happening, I guess, in the spot markets. There were like, as you can see in this chart, there were some major flushes in 2022. There were six of them that reached like down to 3,000 or so Bitcoin of a flush. We've only had about three of those so far in this current bear market. So again, to me, what I'm seeing here is... Not a lot. What's happening at the margin to me is that there's just not a ton of sellers at these price points that we've been we've been hitting over the last few weeks. Do we start to see sellers as we push into you'll get closer to the 200 day moving average, which Bitcoin, you know, does typically retrace to during bear markets? That's kind of the next question to be asking. That's an 85K, the 200-day movement, which we'll get to some of these numbers later. But this is, to me, the setup. You have a lot of speculative positioning. Shorts think we're going down. And on the margin, it just looks to me like there's more buyers and sellers, but it's not a ton of activity in the market just yet. We can also look at the ETF flows to kind of get a better-

Ryan Sean Adams:
[13:57] Before you get there, okay, so just to summarize where we are, so we've seen these flushes in 2022, the same flushes that we're seeing now. Now, this one does appear to be longer than the 2022 ones, to your point, but you're still not seeing the new regime change, bull market energy, that you'd expect to see in spot markets if this indeed was a new regime. But let me ask you the question. This gets into the other charts that you pull up with respect to ETF flows and Michael Saylor. What if the bull market energy is actually coming from ETF flows on the institutional side and also the Michael Saylor stretch perpetual buy? And so that's why we're not seeing that same energy on the spot volume. It could be that it really is the story of the institutions that are bolstering that demand, and that's where the beginnings of a bull market actually are. So when you look at ETF flows and when you look at what MicroStrategy is doing, does that change your opinion at all? Could it be that this is institutional-driven demand that's the undercurrent of these bull market forces?

Michael Nadeau:
[15:11] Yeah, so the ETFs definitely have been strong. I would say strong in the sense that we're not seeing a ton of outflows. And I think this chart kind of shows what's going on here. This is just showing the net flows over each 30-day period, each 30-day trading period since the ETFs have been trading. And we kind of segmented it by year as well. So you can see 2024 was like by far the strongest period here. That was the first year the ETFs came out. There were no 30-day periods where there were actually net outflows. 2025 was a little bit weaker, but we had some strong periods in there, especially coming out of the tariff sell-off last year. And when you move to the right side of the chart and you start to see 2026, yes, there's been some returning flows into the ETFs. And we're not seeing a ton of outflows, but it still just looks kind of, it's still pretty, pretty like subdued in my opinion. So, so from the ETF perspective, like, I don't necessarily think that's, you know, that's not like the, the burst of kind of like flows that I, that I'd be looking for. It's also not, not weak, right? It's not super negative. We know that, you know, Sailor's been in the market with that, with the stretch product.

Michael Nadeau:
[16:31] And that's, that's also a new thing. So like, these are all the I think the new things this this bear market is okay, now we have a longer, you know, bear market rally three months versus typically around two months. And we know we've known that there's a new buyer in the market Sailor, and then you have the ETF. So those are these are kind of the three, the three things we did have something with Sailor yesterday, where during their earnings call. Hinted at selling Bitcoin to fund some of this. So that'll be interesting to see.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[17:01] For the first time ever, right? There was some crack in the I will never sell Bitcoin narrative that he's been talking about for so long.

Michael Nadeau:
[17:07] Yeah. And it's kind of an interesting thing because... I think the narrative and the perception is he's able to raise cash by issuing shares of Stretch. Well, he also has to, if he's able to raise cash to buy Bitcoin, well, now he has to actually sell Bitcoin to pay the dividends on those. That can still work. It doesn't mean, you know, it does have this like sort of Ponzi-like structure to it, which can work if Bitcoin just keeps going up and you don't get caught up in that. So we'll see. I think it'll be interesting to see how the market starts to receive. I think it's sold off a little bit when that kind of like hit the, hit the newswire. And we'll see kind of going forward. And also like, it's just hard to project, project, what the demand for that product will be and to try to model forward. He has been buying a lot, but it's difficult to kind of model that forward.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[17:58] So you summarize it this way, you're struggling to find clear signs of durable strength in the bull market energy right now because you got perp interest. It looks like it's 2022, the same sort of thing happening. Spot markets subdued, Bitcoin ETF, putting in some decent numbers, but still not strong numbers. They're just 2.8% off their peak AUM in Bitcoin, but they're lacking the burst here. And it does seem like maybe strategy, I mean, it can't sustain the bid forever on these stretch type products. And with Michael Saylor hinting that maybe they have to sell some Bitcoin actually in order to give funding back to dividend payments. Maybe that's kind of cracking. That's eroding. So you're seeing weakness there. You're not seeing a sustained bull market here. I mean, pair that with some of the market structure data that we've been talking about in previous weeks.

Michael Nadeau:
[19:00] Yeah. We've just been updating this really on a weekly basis and trying to monitor

Michael Nadeau:
[19:04] how coins are rotating out there. It's been my view that this is playing out, but it hasn't really played out the way you would expect it to play out to kind of hit that you know, durable macro low for a cycle.

Michael Nadeau:
[19:18] My view has been that this cohort, we highlighted the, you know, the 10% decline in the 92 to 108K holder cohort And it's down about 10% right now in terms of the coins held by the people that bought at those levels from where it was when Bitcoin peaked. And I still think that cohort needs to, the coins need to be recycled a little bit more there. It doesn't have to play out this way, but the catalyst for that would be for Bitcoin just to kind of continue to chop up or come down from these current levels and really just kind of chop up both bears and bulls. You know, in this process is typically what you see during bear markets and people get kind of caught in these moves. So that's the question for me is like, is this just really a bear market rally and somewhat of a trap for these bulls? You know, if we come back down again, you know, are the people that didn't want to sell, is that sort of the thing that gets them to kind of release the coins and start to kind of create that churning process again? That's really what I'm focused on. What we've seen play out so far is similar to 2022 again, in that the holdings are concentrating in the 66K to 78K cohort.

Michael Nadeau:
[20:39] That looks similar to what happened about six, seven months into the last bear market. Holdings were concentrating in the 29K to 34K cohort, but the cohort that actually picked up the most coins was like 18 to 21K. So the catalyst for that move is a drop, you know, it doesn't mean you have to have it. But to me, that's what would really help to set like a more, you know, solid foundation for us to then, you know, really kind of move into a new regime.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[21:06] Let's talk about this chart because this one actually surprised me. Bitcoin is the most correlated to the NASDAQ that it's ever been. And you go all the way to 2017 and we show 2026 as 0.48% correlated, which is, well, that's the coefficient, the correlation coefficient, I should say, which is the most correlated it's ever been. Bitcoin gets more correlated to NASDAQ during bear markets, doesn't it? It's almost like it performs as a worse NASDAQ, a worse QQQ during bear markets, but it still is correlated to them. So if stocks go up, Bitcoin also goes up just in a more muted fashion.

Michael Nadeau:
[21:51] Yes, that's historically what's played out. The exception is maybe 2020, which was a bull market year for Bitcoin. It was moderately correlated to NASDAQ in those years, But the years it's been most correlated has been 2022 and 2025. So far this year, we've been even more correlated in this year. And, you know, NASDAQ just made a massive move, like a 25% move or so here since early April. That is, you know, you kind of got to step back a little bit from that. Bitcoin has gone up 36% or so over the same period.

Michael Nadeau:
[22:31] We'll see. You know, if you look at like that, that big of a move for NASDAQ has only happened previously during, you know, coming out of like a major correction recession. So coming out of 2008 and also coming out of the dot-com bubble, we had that type of a move over, you know, this short of a period. But every other time that it's happened historically, you know, has been during a, you know, late cycle bear market rally.

Michael Nadeau:
[23:01] It's been very interesting because a lot of this is positioning as well. I think in the TradFi markets, you had hedges unwind. It's been a lot of like systematic buying and things like this. So it's also very much a moment of truth, I think, for, you know, the TradFi markets and where we're going to go here. What I've been kind of focusing on there is the MAG7. And, you know, for the bull market to really stay intact, I really think this is an AI story. And so the MAG-7 is something to watch for because it's been actually underperforming. There's only, I think, two or three MAG-7 companies have actually reached all-time highs as NASDAQ rallied back to all-time highs. That's kind of interesting to me because that's like 40% of the S&P 500, right? So basically, 40% of every passive flow that's going into markets is going into those companies. So you would expect there to be a little bit more behind that. And I think for the bull market to continue, it's an AI story. And those companies really need to kick into gear here. And we'll see. You know, we'll see if Bitcoin ultimately starts to lead things down from here. But it's just interesting to me that this correlation typically is stronger in bear markets. It's been the strongest we've seen so far in 2026.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[24:25] Yeah, I guess to what extent do you think Bitcoin right now is just being pulled up by the strength of the NASDAQ and, you know, just QQQ rocketing? And so at some level, you know, if you think that's true, if you think it's just the reason Bitcoin is moving up is just because NASDAQ is moving up, then you're kind of, to buy Bitcoin at these levels, you're kind of making a bet on NASDAQ continuing. Because if it doesn't, I mean, the correlation still stays intact, except you're going in the down direction.

Michael Nadeau:
[24:56] Yeah. And, you know, you have to kind of ask yourself is kind of zoom out and ask yourself, okay, what is what has gotten baked into price discovery, you know, over the last month or so? And, you know, what, what is the future outlook of all the all of this look? Have we front loaded too much? And has the positioning unwind created a setup now where there's really no hedges in the market? Retail flows have been really strong. And are we kind of like set up here in a in a more of like a, you know, house of cards type of situation? Set up where everything good has been priced in, all of the war fears, people have sort of chased the move. Now, where's the next, you know, marginal buyer coming, you know, from this level? And I think you can apply that same framework to Bitcoin at these levels. We made a pretty big move. Fear and greed index is now into like a neutral territory. A lot of positioning with short liquidation. So it looks like there's somewhat of some of this is like a technical, you know, positioning, you know, rally. And so I think this is kind of the moment of truth. And we'll see. I think these next few weeks are going to be really interesting just to kind of monitor what's happening.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[26:06] Let's talk about the short run and the critical price zones for Bitcoin to keep an eye on. So you write this from a momentum perspective, Bitcoin is currently overbought on the 14-day RSI. The last time it was at this level was 97K. Folks probably remember that. That was on a brief bull market rally. And then the time before that was 126K, which was the top. So the RSI is saying, hey, like a lot of energy. We're not sure if it's totally justified. And then you've got some critical zones to keep an eye on. And I want to talk about those. And The overall trend, like the Bitcoin 50-week moving average here. But what are the critical zones in your mind?

Michael Nadeau:
[26:51] Yeah, so we're now above the short-term holder cost basis. Roughly, we think roughly the ETF holder cost basis, we're just above those levels. So that's a key level. And we've moved above that. The next one is $85K. This is probably like the major kind of line moving forward here. That's the 200-day moving average. And it's also where the largest cohort of dip buyers entered the market kind of early in this bear market. This was like during that period when we went up to, you know, from 84 to 97K or so. So there's like a lot of supplies, a lot of Bitcoin supply there. It's also the 200-day moving average. And then the third and final one, which I would say is like, you know, how you would get to like a confirmation that we've entered a new bull market would be the 95K, that's the 50-week moving average. And so 85K, 200-day moving average week, historically will touch that, you know, in bear markets, and we haven't touched it yet. So that's certainly possible.

Michael Nadeau:
[27:54] And then we'll see from there, the next big one will be getting back to that 50 week moving average, which, you know, we can see in the chart there, this usually takes much longer, you know, to play out. It plays out when we get that cross later in cycles. Obviously, the cross happens, you know, after you've already bottomed, right? So that's the hard part. But if you buy, if you buy at those levels, you're still buying, you know, typically at an early stage of a bull market. So that would be 95, 95 K. Um, and yeah, we'll see. I mean, like I said, this, the next few weeks are going to be really interesting. It feels very similar to me, like to the period where we went up to 97 K and the sentiment shifts, and there's a little bit of a reflexive move to that. There's, there's, um, You know, I'm keeping an eye on stablecoin, you know, supply as well that tends to like bring liquidity into markets and that can be a bit of an indicator. Stablecoin supply has been kind of roughly flat since we peaked in October. We kind of came down a little bit and then we did come up a little bit and we're now leveling off again. So keeping an eye on that as well. And we'll see, you know, like this is the battle of bulls and bears. We're right at the edge of it here.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[29:07] So 85K would cause you to pause if that was sustained for a while and you'd have to say, okay, this is maybe more bull energy than I thought. 95K, that would be above the 50-week moving average and that would be full out bull market confirmation, right, on the chart. That's how it's previously happened. So you're expecting it not to reach those levels and certainly not to sustain those levels. Let's talk about how you are playing it and a possible scenario that maybe is your base case for what comes next. I think in order to like, it would be inaccurate to paint you as bearish right now. Because like, look in the portfolio, we won't get into all the assets, that's for TDR Pro members, but you're basically 50% cash, right? Which means you're 50% deployed. And that's not exactly bearish, is it? Yet, you do have that dry powder. Waiting for a larger dip.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[30:07] You're not expecting that the cycle that we've reached bottoms yet for Bitcoin. So can you talk about how you're playing it and the scenario that you end with, which is the scenario where Bitcoin does trade for a while in this zone and then take a dip into some correction territory where it gets back to its fair value. How are you playing this?

Michael Nadeau:
[30:30] Yes. The way I'm playing it is, you know, we always want to be in the market. I don't think you ever want to just be out of the market completely. I just think that's really hard and it messes with psychology. The way I'm playing it is, you know, we came down, we bought some when we first came down. And my view at the time was that this is too early. And like, it looks like, you know, we're probably going to actually go into more deep value territory. This was, you know, back in February is what we were saying. Now that we have extended to a three-month rally, I think the way that the thinking is shifting here is that we may not see the deep value zone, you know, because we're consolidating and shopping in such a, you know, for a longer period of time, that is helping to create a stronger base for Bitcoin. And, you know, it would be very rare for me to just like take off from here. What I think where my sort of, where the probabilities are starting to point to me is that, you know, 85K or so looks like it's going to be really hard to clear that zone.

Michael Nadeau:
[31:34] And you mentioned, you know, Bitcoin on the RSI, it's already over, it's already overbought at 70 levels. You know, it's pretty rare to just like stay in that zone for like a really long period of time is usually a mean reversion. So where does that mean reversion take us? Does it take us, you know, back into like our fair value zones down below 65k or so? I think that, you know, we're going to test those levels again, you know, it would be very rare to me to like, just go to 60, immediately V bounce out of that, and then just take off. So I feel like the market will always go back and test certain zones. So that's kind of like my base case is like, you know, 85K or so. Let's keep an eye on that. Let's see, you know, what happens thereafter. We may not even get there. We'll see. And then, you know, how do we start to trade if we start to kind of mean revert? Is that like a vicious sell off or is it just a grindy type thing? If it's a grindy type thing, then I think you can start to build a case that we did bottom at 60. And we may kind of like get down to those, you know, get back into the 60s or get close. But I think that's kind of how my thinking is shifting now that this is like going on, you know, dragging on for a little bit longer.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[32:46] I'm just curious if we get there to the fair market value zone, which you have said from the beginning of this is a 65K and below, and you've made some purchases there. If we get there, is Michael Nato a buyer in the fair value zone? Or once we get there, if we do get there, are you going to wait for deep value territory?

Michael Nadeau:
[33:09] We will see. We will see. I wish I knew. I wish I knew and I'll get killed. It depends on the structure,

Ryan Sean Adams:
[33:15] Right? It depends on what you're seeing at the time. Is that how you assess it?

Michael Nadeau:
[33:18] That's kind of how I'm assessing it. I think, you know, something I've been thinking a lot about is, I don't know if you're familiar with the marshmallow test. This is like a psychology experiment with children. And for people that are not familiar with this, it's a psychological test with children. And what they're trying to do is like determine your ability to defer gratification. And it's an interesting test. They put a kid in a room, they give him a marshmallow, and they say, if you can sit for 10 minutes without touching the marshmallow, we'll give you a second marshmallow. And they leave the room, and then the kid will sit there, and most of these kids will just eat the marshmallow. I feel like we're in the part of the market where people want to eat the marshmallow right now.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[33:59] Yes.

Michael Nadeau:
[34:00] And typically, patience does play out and kind of waiting for a fat pitch.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[34:04] You want to be that second kid. You want to get two marshmallows rather than just one.

Michael Nadeau:
[34:08] You want to defer the gratification, I think. I think we're still in a market where you want to defer the gratification. You know, we'll see. I think we're at an inflection point here and we'll see how things shake out.

Ryan Sean Adams:
[34:19] All right. Well, hopefully, listener, you can pass the marshmallow test with Michael and I. Got to say, maybe let's do this as a call to action this week. We've been enjoying the comments. Of course, if you're not subscribed across all platforms where TDR streams, go do that. So if you're on Spotify, go subscribe to YouTube. If you're on YouTube, do Spotify, vice versa. Also, leave us a comment with how you're playing this. I think we'd be interested to hear how the audience is absorbing this analysis and how you guys are playing it. So let's do that on the week. Of course, got to end with this. None of this has been financial advice. This is an investor journal. We're on the journey alongside you. Until next time, stay curious.