Bitcoin's quiet setup: John Gillen on the cycle, Clarity Act and rates

Transcript

I like to say buying fear is a good deal at any price. So when everyone was screaming and crying and there were red candles and everyone was paperhanding their bags, that's when I was buying. >> What's up everybody? It's LG Ducad here and welcome to the Milk Road Show, the daily crypto show that will never fully shave because we wouldn't want the audience to realize that we both actually just look like little boys. Today is August 10th, 2026. I've been deep in the AI trenches, but I can't help but feel there's a renewed energy in crypto now that the Clarity Act is kind of dead and the charts look kind of good. So, naturally, I'm back to host the show today only so I can grill your favorite podcast host on why Bitcoin could see some short-term bullish action if he expects us still to bottom

sometime this year, just like everybody else is saying, and maybe get a little bit of macro intel after last week's jobs reports. All things that I have not been paying attention to. And I want to remind you that everything you hear today, our pro members heard it first. John has been on a rampage in our analyst updates section of Milk Road Pro, sharing his thoughts and analysis in real time. Plus, he's still sitting on like 30% cash in his Milk Road Pro portfolio, and he's getting ready to deploy it. I'm going to ask him again today when he's going to deploy it, but I think it's coming soon. I think again, it's going to correlate with this bottom. And a reminder that our podcast today is free, and it wouldn't be possible without our partners at saber.money, the stablecoin payment platform built for Asia. Keep an ear out

for more information about them later in the show. John, I I feel like I went like we both went away to summer camp and haven't seen each other in a while. >> I feel like you say weirder and weirder things in the intros to these podcasts. Like I I don't shave because I look like a little boy. Like I maybe that was what I was doing when I was 22, but now I just like having a beard. LG, >> now that you're 20 now that you're 23, now you can now you can just be a man. >> Well, welcome back to the show, LG. I've missed you. It's good to have you here. >> This is where I come to test new material. You know, this is where I'm like, listen, this is a crypto people like new weird stuff. You got to be open

to new ideas. Uh, it's bare market, things are slow. So, it's like, I got to come in here, try some new new material, see who you how you guys feel, uh, before I go back and, I guess, talk to Kyle on the AI show. >> Well, what do you want to talk about today? >> I want to know what's going on in crypto, man. Because listen, I you know, my old my old DJN radar has been going off cuz I was like Robin Hood chains going off and whatever, which is usually when that kind of DJ stuff picks up, it's because there's some kind of liquidity coming back into the system, at least for like super DJ assets. We're not going to talk about that today, but I want to know from you, John, I've been reading your pro updates. Um, and I want to know like you said recently that we

might have like short-term bullish action. Is that is that still on the table? Feel like you're going to pause and like restart from deeper back before just answering me. Well, I think I think there's a a nonzero chance of that happening, but let me Yeah, I'll do exactly what you said. I'll back up and give you a broader framing here. Um, I think that a lot of people have been watching closely to see what would happen with the Clarity Act in terms of uh short-term catalyst for Bitcoin to pick a direction one way or the other. For the last like I think it's 3 weeks, almost a month now, Bitcoin has been a stable coin between like 63 65K. I think at time of recording we're like almost 64K on the dot right now. Um, and this is not what you want to see from an

asset, uh, especially one that's alive and performing and and got volume in trading, which Bitcoin has none of those things right now, right? Like the volatility is dampened to historic levels. It's been lower than tech stocks for a long time. Um, and a lot of people are watching for clarity to get a firm yes or no for Bitcoin to pick a direction kind of one way or the other on these things. And I think we are getting close to crunch time, so to speak. um where like Bitcoin does have to kind of pick a direction one way the other like either confirm a bottom and go higher or or break down. So, what I mean by that short-term um bullish price action is that it seems to me like we're going to see Bitcoin retest some resistance, but because we haven't gotten the fundamental catalyst of the

the Clarity Act through I think sometime in the next month in August here, we could see Bitcoin go up, test that 68 72K level somewhere in the the low 70s, high 60s, and then maybe see a rejection. Um, and then that could result in uh you know, a retest of 60K or back into the 50s. So, we we'll kind of see. These are not big swings in price action by any means necessarily, but I think without the the Clarity Act coming through, that's kind of what I see in the charts right now is like painting another bare flag, right? Like this is a a common thing that happens in a bare market is the market will climb the wall of worry. They'll paint a bare flag that's trending up. The bears will look silly. The bulls will think that the bull run is back, then we'll hit up

against resistance, um get rejected, and go go make a new low. So, that seems to be like what I would expect for the next couple of weeks from Bitcoin here. um unless we get some, you know, major shift or announcement or something or like Trump comes out and suddenly decides to say we've started buying Bitcoin for the strategic reserve, something like that, right? But that's just kind of what I see in the short term here. Hi everyone, this is John. Listen, our Milk Road Pro analysts nailed this AI bull market. They we had dozens of calls pay off in a big way for our community. If you want to see how our entire team of analysts are positioning for the crypto bull market that's going to come after this bare market finally ends, you can join us now at Milkroad Pro. It's just a dollar.

Link is in the description. And you'll get access to all of our analyst trades, their watch list, and see how they're navigating this in their portfolios and get access to ask us questions in Discord anytime, day or night. It's just a dollar links in the description. Milk Road Pro. Join now. I'll see you there. What why does why does Bitcoin need to pick a direction from here? Like wouldn't the most frustrating scenario, which again relates back to your your quote of Ben Cowan, which is uh bare markets make fools of bulls and bears. Wouldn't the most frustrating scenario be that it just continues to chop? Like it just stays between 60 and 65 for like another 3 months. Wouldn't that be the worst but also be like the most unexpected outcome in a sense?

>> Yes. And I think that there is some some ways of looking at things where you could say that that might continue, right? the low volume of trading, the low amount of open interesting speculation, the uh just yeah low volatility in general might continue for a while until we get to the other side of this this bare market activity and we see bulls come back with size and just see some renewed interest in um activity in the asset class overall. Um but I don't really think that's what's going to happen or well it might happen and but I it's not what I would like to see. I my preferred outcome would be some kind of direction picking here. And then the other thing too is like Bitcoin has done just what you said for several weeks and it has done that before and it ultimately does always resolve in some

kind of breakout one way or the other, right? Like eventually the volatility comes back, the price does move. Um but trying to like um anticipate which direction you're going to see that break is is something that's important to do if you're invested in the asset class or if you're trading the asset class. So that's kind of what I'm paying attention to here. Um, another thing that you missed is the Clarity Act getting postponed and uh this actor Ben McKenzie posting I this is one of the most frustrating things I've ever seen in crypto. this guy's drinking a beer out of a whiskey glass telling me we beat crypto with this like look on his face like he's some kind of hero or something when he completely does not understand that this is a bill that's been through more than two years of bipartisan legislative efforts to try to

collaborate on a framework that gives clarity to an industry while also maintaining consumer protections and is designed to prevent and preclude this the exact kinds of market abuses and uh unhealthy behaviors in digital assets that he's celebrating stopping So he's like in his own way what it's like the ignorance is is profound here. But all that said he's like clarity is dead. We beat clarity. That's not true. Uh the the Senate Majority Leader John Thun has scheduled a vote on clarity for the first steps for closure which is ends debate which moves the bill towards a vote um for September 15th after the summer recess. The odds of this passing have dropped very very low which is why so many people are scary berry and sad about clarity right now. Um but Ben

Mackenzie's wrong. It's not totally dead. It may never be totally dead, but uh yeah, that's Anyway, I'm frustrated about all this. >> What's What's this guy's problem? First first of all, people like him, why did that? First of all, that doesn't really matter because this guy, it's not like this guy, it's not like it's Vanek that you had that Yan Vanek that you interviewed on the AI show last week who is actually someone of importance who manages a lot of money or even Matt Hogan that we have on all the time you're going to talk to this week who also manages a lot of money or at least creates products where people invest billions and billions and billions of dollars. I mean, I feel like there's always just random H-list celebrities roaming to to dump on things. the same as same as when they

were launching, you know, the hawk to a girl launched a memecoin 3 years ago. Like to me, it's the same thing. It's like that doesn't it's a signal of a of a top or a bottom. And to me, some random actor from the OC from 30 years ago or whatever dumping on Bitcoin is like so that's so irrelevant. But why are you hung up on that? >> Uh because it's annoying and he's trolling me and he's drinking beer out of a whiskey glass while he's doing it. >> You It's you. It's for you. >> It's exactly. It's a It was a personal attack and I'm offended. Uh, no. Look, I mean, Ben Mackenzie fighting for relevance all aside, I think you make a lot of good points, right? Like, I did interview Yan Benck on the AI channel for Milk Road last week, and I did make

a point specifically to ask him about how he's thinking about portfolio construction because the 6040 stock bond portfolio is dead. There seems to be widespread agreement on that. But what replaces it is what people disagree on. And Jan has been saying, you want allocations to hard assets like gold and Bitcoin. And so, I thought asked him about like, are you accumulating this? Yes or no? I have Matthew Seagull from VANC who's their head of crypto on the channel on this channel tomorrow and I'm going to ask him about this because he and Yan are disagreeing about should you just fullport into Bitcoin right now should you wait till October should you slowly DCA should you DCA based on time or by price or by position size whatever right so that's kind of the conversation among serious asset managers and the major asset managers on Wall Street like

Black Rockck right manages 15 trillion they endorse the Clarity Act so everybody who's actually in the financial industry um understands the need for this bill, understands the need for this asset, understands the importance of both and the role that they play in an investor's portfolio. Um, and and so that there's broad consensus on. So, this is the thing I would say is the takeaway here is that the the question, the debate is no longer about should you buy Bitcoin. The the debate is how much Bitcoin should you buy and when should you start buying it, but almost everybody agrees that we are at the time in the market where Bitcoin is cheap, it's undervalued, it's mispriced, the the upside is ahead of us, not behind us. And there's this is a great time to start building your position. Everybody has to come up with a strategy that makes sense for them and

their portfolio, but that's really the only debate here. It's not about whether or not you want to get more Bitcoin or get back into Bitcoin if you've gotten out, but it's a question of what's your strategy for getting back in. >> What is your strategy for getting back in, Mr. like 30% cash position? >> No, no, no Milk Road Pro trade since July 1st to celebrate Canada Day. Where's your >> No, you're giving you're giving yourself advice right now. You're saying like L you can wait for 48K but it may not happen like so what are you waiting for man this thing if Bitcoin's going to 200 200K E's going to go to 10K what are you what are you waiting for trying to try to save an extra 20%.

>> Everybody asks me this question and they miss how I got into this position to begin with which is that I I like to say buying fear is a good deal at any price. So when everyone was screaming and crying and there were red candles and everyone was paperhanding their bags that's when I was buying. So, I was DCAing months ago. I was DCAing in January and February and November. I've been DCAing this whole time. So, you you talk about I've got a 30% cash position. I've also got very heavy crypto bags. Uh, and you know, Tom Lee has been buying for 58 consecutive weeks. He's been buying Ethereum uh like clockwork.

And I have been accumulating Ethereum as well, staking it. I haven't moved that. I've been buying Bitcoin. I plan to continue doing these things. But now I'm in a position because I bought the fear when we came down to these levels, not knowing exactly where the bottom would be or when we would find it. I just keep buying the new lows. I bought at 60K twice. I bought at 58K when we went below 60. If we go down to 55K, I've got a bid there. If we go lower than that, I'll set new bids. Um, but I think in general principle, if we get below 60K again, I'll probably just dump dump some more uh cash into Bitcoin. But I am not in a position of being forced to guess or to like, you know, force a trade here or get long on leverage or something

because I've been accumulating on the the way down. Now, the reason that most people don't do this is because number one, it's scary and people trade on emotions, which they should not do. Um, but I like to get Bitcoin when everyone's afraid to buy Bitcoin. That just makes me feel more comfortable. Everyone's panic selling. I like to buy. I don't really care what the price is. The the opportunity cost is is what I'm paying for, right? Like because I'm putting my capital into Bitcoin at a time when it's in a bare market, I'm making an opportunity cost with that capital because I could be chasing other things or shiny objects or speculating or getting long on leverage and getting liquidated like all the cool kids named Leopold. Um but instead of doing that, I'm just buying the Apex financial asset and waiting for the market to come to me

because it is going to come to me. And that's the advantage that I have is that opportunity cost is what I take as the cost of patience of the cost of buying a sure thing more or less, right? Like obviously not financial advice, you know, past performance is not indicative of future results, but I think Bitcoin's going to trade over 100,000. So I'm kind of doubling my money with very little risk and just the cost of the patience and the opportunity cost of not getting wrecked in other markets while I wait for that the market to come to me. So that's how I play this myself. I've been buying on the way down. I've bought in these dips. I'm going to keep buying the dips. If we get more dips, I'll buy the dips. But if we get a confirmed breakout, right, and Bitcoin does flip

back into a technical bull market. Then I'm also not in a big panic rush either, LG, because like I said, my bags are packed. And then I just deploy because I know I've got three years of upside. So I don't really have to care so much about the price that I get in it once I get a confirmed flip back to a bull market. So this is how I play these things. And I don't outsmart myself. I don't overthink it. I don't overtrade my book. I have the fewest number of positions of any Milk Road analyst. at the largest cash position of any milkard analyst and I have the highest degree of probability that I'm going to outperform everybody just because it's hard to beat somebody who does 100% upside. So we we'll see see what happens from here.

But I'm buying the best assets on the market at a time nobody wants them. I'm going to do fine. I just have to be patient. >> You know, I think also what I ask you the opposite is true as well, right? that instead of waiting, you could wait for this bottom, but you could also, it's also smart to wait for that actual true bullish signal, even if you miss on an extra 10%. Right. Better to be more confidently right hopefully than guessing that you've been right. Right. So, I think I think what you're saying also makes sense and I think that that's clearly what you're waiting for that it doesn't Yes, you'll for now you're buying fear and until those signals are green, that's when you will buy excitement, right? But until but but until while we're still in a uh recurring fear environment which is what

the bear is is like regular rotations of well scary again we're selling off again all these negative all the markers like negative outflows and sailor blah blah selling all that kind of stuff that's what drives those and that's that's what you're looking for I want to circle back John to the clarity act is again the news kind of came across last week I was busy in you know talking about memory stocks um which which uh don't don't care about the clarity Um, but on that side, I'm, you know, Ben McKenzie is saying that it's dead and he's celebrating that, but I don't think that that's true because even on Poly Market, it did dip to a 14% odds of um being signed in 2026, but even today it's already back up to 26, right? So, it's not it's not dead. It's just I think it

at this point it's just delayed, right? >> Yes. And I think it's been delayed so many times that people think it's dead. And you look, I I grew up in the DC area. I worked in Washington DC on Capitol Hill for a little while and there's a saying in Washington which is that a bill dies nine or 10 times before it passes and the Clarity Act has been declared dead at least nine or 10 times at this point um and it's still not dead and I think that this is something people don't understand about Washington is that people who negotiate these bills this is a long-term negotiation these people are professional hag hagglers this is not like buying a counterfeit Rolex on Canal Street this is long-term term multi-deade horse trading with people who have been negotiating with

each other and fighting with each other over policy and legislation for sometimes decades in in some cases between the leaders of these parties like Chuck Schumer has been fighting with Republicans and negotiating with Republicans for for decades, right? So that is what's going on here. There's a lot of uh calculus behind the scenes going on, deals being made and they take all the time they can possibly take to try to push each other further towards one outcome or the other. But Trump has been Trump has already made historic people like in the crypto industry give Trump a lot of crap for holding up this bill. But he has already made historic concessions that no executive has ever agreed to in this bill. The Democrats are still pushing for more. He sent a response to those concessions, demands for concessions. They still didn't agree

and sent back stuff and he is now even entertaining this. that he's allowing himself to be held hostage and pushed really really far, much further than any other president has been because he knows that he in some sense, not owes, but he really really wants this bill to come through because he knows how important it is for America and for the industry overall. So, he's allowing himself to be bullied by the Democrats on something um quietly. I mean, he's not being a making a big deal out of it, but he is getting pushed really really far in this negotiation. Um, and I think that that's a sign that there's a strong will in the White House in Trump himself to get this passed. That to me indicates that it's not dead. They're just making a compromise and he's fighting it as much as he can. But I do think that

there's a non-zero chance. Look, okay, LG, I I'll say this, right? If this passes, right, if this actually passes, the entire market is pricing in this failing, right? That would be a huge bullish surprise to the upside and that could send us into the high 70s which could flip us technically back into a bull market. That could cause people to panic sell and it gets reflexive at that or panic buy rather rush back into the market and price could get reflexive quite quickly. This could be a very significant catalyst especially because there's so low volume there's so low leverage there's no speculation the Bitcoin has just been a flat pancake for a long time. This could really cause a major catalyst to the upside just because almost everybody is pricing this in to fail. And I don't think it has failed. It's not dead yet until until

this Congress like actually adjourns and ends. There's still a chance that this passes. That is a very nonzero short-term strong bullish catalyst if that happens. So I I look I think that the the risk is to the upside on Bitcoin here. That's why I have such a large position in it. why I'm watching it so closely because uh at times when everyone like completely tunes out, you could get these surprises that could flip the markets on you really quick and then you could be instead of being like, you know, we had a whole month to buy at 60K, suddenly you're looking at trying to chase the price over 80K and trying to get a position, an entry that never comes. You know, one thing we've talked about a lot on this show is that crypto is quickly becoming a huge part of the global payments infrastructure and

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>> What's going on with rates, John? I think we haven't we haven't chatted macro in a while. I mean, I'm following obviously the, you know, S&P and everything else, which seems relatively happy today. Um, or at least to start the week. Uh, but I guess there's this notion going on that rates will not be raised anytime soon. But that seems like it's something that changes every week despite what Kevin Worsh has said. >> This whole year I have been saying that I don't think the Fed is going to raise rates. And the reason for this is because Scott Bessant, Donald Trump, Kevin Worsh are all playing on the same team and they all have the same plan and they've all been saying that they're not going to raise rates. And the market has been like, I don't believe you. I think

inflation is going to blow out. I think the Iran conflict is going to cause energy prices to to rise and you're going to have to raise rates to control inflation. Um, we got a jobs report that shows I mean we could go into that more if you want to, but the jobs report kind of shows that the jobs situation, the labor market in the country is weaker than people had thought. The inflation blowout hasn't materialized. Um, and I think we're likely to see a cooler uh CPI print in this next round. Uh, so it seems like the inflation fears have kind of passed. The Federal Reserve has been kind of targeting and pricing in oil at around $115 somewhere in that range and we're well below that. We're not going back to that range. So there's there's reason to believe that inflation is cooling, the labor market is softening.

Both of those things would suggest that raising interest rates wouldn't be something you'd need to do in this environment. And Kevin Worsh has these six different task forces at the Federal Reserve to completely re-evaluate what data the Federal Reserve is looking at to make decisions about monetary policy as well as changing the reaction function, meaning what they do to change monetary policy once they get that data that they're bringing in. All of those things taken together, right? those six different tax forces f one of them I think will be hawkish in other words in favor of higher interest rate policy but five of them five of the six should be more dovish in favor of lower policy so I think that there's the market has been pricing in up until July I think it was like three rate hikes this year and I've been saying that the market was wrong

and that that was going to come down after July after this jobs report after you know what we've heard from Kevin Walsh the market is now pricing in one rate hike I think by the time we get to September it'll probably say no hikes or maybe a cut. I think the next move from the Fed will be a cut. It's just going to take us a while and frankly take Kevin Wars a while to sort of persuade the market, persuade the board, massage the the way he's he's evaluating these things, change the data he's looking at so forth and get to that decision point. But I do think that's where he is paddling the boat and that's the direction of travel right now. So I think this is all bullish, right?

Because an interest rate hike would throw cold water on the markets. Um he doesn't want to do that. The the flip side of that is that JP Morgan raised their target on the S&P 500 this year to 8,000. The markets are going to go higher. And I don't want to say like if we're not in a bubble, we're going to get into a bubble, but that's kind of what the Trump administration is saying they want to do. They want to run the economy hot, which means generally speaking that the uh business cycle will continue to accelerate. asset prices, risk assets, markets will continue to to rise in valuations and we'll see these things get more stretched and more extended and the bull run will continue.

Um, so it it's bullish. There's a risk on the other side of this if they don't navigate that carefully, let's say. Um, but that's that's what's going on with rates. They the Federal Reserve did not raise interest rates even though some people were expecting them to. It seems like they may not and uh they may actually even end up going to a cut before a hike. Um, and it's generally bullish for for risk assets. And um, yeah, that's kind of the the update on that situation. >> Would they try to is there a world where they wait until after midterms? Cuz like you're saying, they're all working on the same team whether you believe it's all one big, you know, uh, conspiracy effort to just, you know, make the economy look beautiful at midterms, right? Uh, to try and combat that that expected Democrat win. is that and not

to talk bullet because what I'm just saying strategically it would make more sense to not raise premidterms and then if you have to go through that pain to raise you would do it afterwards. It's not that linear. Uh it's not that simple naturally but that also seems it's like after that you've got two more years to kind of you know you know fix things and get it get it into a healthy spot but also run it hot in time for then the next election. Yeah, I think that there are some people who think that there might be one hike in September kind of like far enough in advance of the midterms to where it's like, okay, maybe they did get serious about inflation. They raised rates once.

Yeah, we'll see. I I I don't know. I I don't know if it's like something I have a strong opinion on yet. I think we got to get a little bit closer to then to kind of sus out what what I think is going to happen. Um but yeah, the the market people are expecting or not expecting but some people think that we will get that hike in September, just the one um with like dovish guidance kind of being like, "Hey, yeah, we're hiking rates here, but it's just to make sure we're, you know, taking inflation seriously, but we're not going to go higher, blah blah blah." We'll see. I It's kind of hard to predict and to figure out the game theory of all of this in terms of what their strategy is going to be or what they think is going to be the right policy choice at the

time. But I personally just I still don't see a rate hike happening. I just don't think that there's a lot to support that. I think also the jobs surprise on the jobs data weakens the the likelihood of of worse doing a rate hike just because the the numbers were really different. So I wrote about this too. It's like the the jobs data that came in wasn't just weaker, it was much weaker and it surprised everybody. It was like a five sigma I think um outside of the degree of normal variation event. um meaning that almost no forecasters, no no analysts of any kind were really accurately predicting this. Um so it surprised everybody which means that like people don't have quite as good a

read or handle on the labor market as they thought they did which means you should probably be a little bit more careful because if you're if you're misreading the market that badly you probably don't understand how soft or how weak the labor market could be and a rate hike could really um really damage the labor market in the country. So I don't think he wants to do that and I think that makes the likelihood of a of a hike in September much less. >> How does this how does how does crypto react to all this? >> In general, it should be constructive for risk assets, but this has been the thing the theme of the whole year. Constructive for risk assets has has historically meant crypto has historically meant altcoins. Now, in 2026, it means speculation on semiconductors, on AI stocks, on things tied to that trade because that's where

a lot of the leverage, a lot of the speculative capital is. And this is because of this thing. We've I' don't know if we've talked about this before or not, but this rise of mimetic investing. There's always the hot new thing that everybody's trading. And sometimes it's Bitcoin, sometimes it's gold, sometimes it's Micron, sometimes it's SpaceX, whatever it is, right? It keeps shifting. But a lot of capital, a lot of uh uh speculation, leverage concentrates uh in certain assets. And you know, Jordy Viser has been talking about this a lot. We get these like compressed market cycles almost in these assets because it's it's mimemetic trading. It's like it it goes up really really fast, comes down really fast. Um and then it moves on to another speculative asset, another asset to speculate on. Um, and because there's so much consensus, because everyone's

getting their information from Claude or or wherever they're getting their information, they're all trying to get leveraged on the same thing and um, trying to outperform, there's like this cassinification of all these asset markets. Um, it just kind of keeps happening and it keeps moving quickly. So, you can either play that game or you can ignore that and try to be a value investor. But either way, you're going to probably have a rough time in the markets whichever way you go on that. What I think I feel like uh you know and I alluded to this in the in the intro is that there are a lot of relatively positive signs as well for crypto right now and you were pointing to um I don't know where you wrote this I think maybe we're chatting before and I've seen this on the timeline as well

the the net inflows to Bitcoin are really good in the last like what couple months right like and so we're seeing like a lot of money coming in uh and very little leaving as well right so clearly there's somebody there's a lot of people out there a lot of big money that is not playing this bottoming game, right? That's what I would assume that means. >> I think that's only only in like the last week or so have like we saw about $800 million of inflows into Bitcoin ETFs in the last week. And so it seems like and hedge funds are now starting to get long positions on Bitcoin open for the first time in years in size. Um and so I think you know Michael Sailor bare markets usually end on bad news, not moving the markets down. And Michael

Sailor has been selling Bitcoin here pretty consistently or selling strategy stock to to raise his USD reserve, but just specifically not buying Bitcoin, right? And he's been selling his Bitcoin position and the market hasn't reacted, hasn't gone down. And so, you know, when he first sold a few Bitcoin, whatever it was, like 30 Bitcoin, I remember his first sell was very small and that got a big market reaction. But then after that, there he's been selling a pretty decent amount of his position, but he hasn't moved the markets. And so that I think is a signal that there's capital coming in. There's capital that's coming in even though one of the biggest whales is is selling a little bit or at least not buying. And that's a sign that the tide may be turning or at least a bottom may be forming. Um we'll see how durable

that bottom is. But those are some recent signs we've seen that yeah maybe maybe Bitcoin is starting to show some strength here and put in a bottom. Um, but it's uh until it like gets, like I said, until it gets a sizable move in one direction, like a break down into the 50s or a break up back into the the the lower mid70s, it still feels like it's just ping ponging in a very tight range right now. So, it's trying to make up its mind. >> John, what are you watching this week then with all that in mind? Uh, clearly it's no longer something that's like super super top of mind. I feel like it's it's still kind of just it's a waiting game, but what what is on your mind this week?

>> I'm just going to check in with a lot of people this week. I'm going to talk to some very smart people about what they're doing. I think the whole thing right now for me is uh if you're in AI, pivot to crypto. This is where you should be putting your attention. This is where you should be thinking about how you're building your positioning for the next cycle. This is where you should be allocating your capital. Formulate a strategy that makes sense for you. Talk to a lot of smart people. See what they're thinking. See how they're playing this. Um and then come up with a plan that makes sense for you and your strategy because now is the time to make those decisions. not in November when everybody has frontr run you and everybody is is into their positions. Um I'm talking to the guys at Bitwise about

how they're advising their clients around this. I'm talking to Matthew Seagull also from Vanek about how they're advising their clients on this. There's uh many hundreds of billions of dollars of capital that is not trading on emotion. They are not trading based on attention or vibes or you know what's hot in the Discord chat right now. They are allocating strategically into Bitcoin because they want a long-term position in this. And if you uh don't get ahead of them, you're going to be chasing them and uh chasing them into a trade that they've already been in um long before you should have been. So, I think that's what I'm I'm doing right now this week is just talking to a lot of people to get their thoughts on this and and how they're advising people because I think having that forward-looking outlook right now is is

the right attitude. Bitcoin like it's maybe maybe found a bottom, maybe not, but it is forming a bottom for sure. So, I think the conversations about 30K aren't as um interesting to me right now as it is to start thinking about, okay, the the next cycle is coming. The next bull run for Bitcoin is coming. How are you positioning for that? When do you DCA based on, you know, how much capital you want to put in or what position percentage your portfolio you want or what time on the calendar or etc. Right? So, um thinking about that's what I'm going to be spending some time on this week. And then I'm going to be talking to some people a lot about the Clarity Act because it it is not finished. It is not over. Um, and there is a lot still happening there that's alive that that

people aren't paying attention to. Um, and I'm going to be doing some some conversations about developments in the the crypto ecosystem as well. New things are being built and shipped all the time. Crypto hasn't stopped just cuz no one's paying attention. People are still building and shipping really cool, powerful things. And it's getting it's getting really crazy how quickly so much capital is coming into crypto. Standard Charter put out a a report um I think yesterday or today, very recently anyway, where they were saying that they're estimating $4 trillion of assets being on chain by 2028. And you know, based on what the timelines the SEC has laid out and the the adoption that we're seeing of tokenized assets just exploding, I don't think that's too wild of a suggestion. You know, like stable coins alone might account for at least like half of that. Um so we'll see what

happens with all of this, but there's just a lot going on. It's a great time to be paying attention because you can invest with your dollars, but you can also invest with your attention, your education, and so that's what I'm doing this week. >> I love it. That's I feel like you do that every week, but I I like the conversations you got coming up. Uh, and it's a good way to frame it. And you know what? I think we literally recorded for 30 minutes and you didn't say Ethereum once. And that that is insane. And something >> No. Okay. Go ahead. >> You're gonna say Ethereum. >> I'm gonna say Ethereum. So, okay. So, Ethereum, last week I got to interview the co-founders of Ethereum Institutional, which is this new nonprofit that's doing direct to institutional outreach for Ethereum. And they talked about how they have like

four quadrants they divided up the whole globe into. And they are personally talking to the top 200 financial institutions in every single one of those quadrants and as well anybody else who reaches out to them. Um, and that episode got a lot of attention. Nobody's ever interviewed these people before, LG. Like these guys are literally helping move global finance on chain on not on chain onto Ethereum because Brian Armstrong has this hangup where he can't say the word Ethereum even though he keeps talking about Ethereum but Ethereum is winning and Ethereum institutional is making that happen. Nobody had ever done a podcast with these guys before. So I got them all together, sat him down and like was like, "Hey, who are you?" you know, and um it was really exciting and there's just like a lot of cool things that are going on. Um and yeah, I don't know,

dude. I'm super bullish on Ethereum and thank you for reminding me to say that because it's >> I wasn't I wasn't >> I wasn't implying that you were not bullish on Ethereum. Okay, don't get me wrong. That that was not the implication. I was just saying that we managed to talk about other things. Maybe next week we can do one entirely about Ethereum. Okay, like how about that? Let's just let's go back. People love it. People love when we talk about Ethereum. They want to hear more about Ethereum. They want to know your thoughts on Ethereum. You're like the hot new Ethereum bull. So, uh maybe next week we'll talk more Ethereum uh and whatever else is going on. But I think we can wrap there. John, great to see you again, man. Uh, I will be back next week. The plan is for me to be back next

week. So, we're going to make that happen. And, uh, yeah, I'll see you then man. >> All right, LG. Thanks. Glad to have you back. The European Blockchain Convention returns to Barcelona on September 16th through 17th, bringing Europe's digital asset marketplace to life, where the continent's fragmented markets converge into one room. 5,000 plus attendees, 300 plus speakers, 90 plus countries, two days, one deal floor. The institutions, capitals, builders, and infrastructure providers you need to be across all in one place, all at the same time. What normally takes months of crossber travel happens here in 48 hours. Use code milkroadpro_15 for 15% off your ticket. Link is in the description. Want insights on what's moving crypto markets and how we're

trading each event? Subscribe to our channel and join the Milk Road daily and pro newsletters and start investing like the top 1%. This show is for educational purposes only. Nothing we say is financial advice. Investing is risky. Never invest more than you can afford to lose.