Institutions keep accumulating Bitcoin and Ethereum despite bearish sentiment

Transcript

this the strategy here is to not try to be dogmatic about what must happen but watch what does happen learn from the market as it's as it's giving you information um not try to force your trades stay patient with stuff but if you pay attention like I say stay safe stay educated stay bullish you can capitalize on these opportunities and set yourself up to do very very well when all of the the you know euphoria frenzy speculation comes back um so now I think is the most important time to stay locked in and I'm really enjoying this this is just one of the most most this is like the best value to like riskreward opportunity on digital assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum that we will ever see and so it's just a great time to be in the markets and uh you know just being part of all of this. What's

up everybody? It's LGD here and welcome to the Milk Road Show, the daily crypto show that was going to let you escape into the bull market without hearing my voice again, but I decided to haunt you once a week instead. Today's July 13th, 2026. The market is unhappy today, but many were saying we actually bottomed a few weeks ago. Can crypto finally shake off these Iran war blues that we talk about literally every single week and finally break out? And why is there such low volatility on our dear tokens? And what does it mean for this fabled return to glory? This is what we talk about every week on the show. And today I'm back to grill your favorite crypto podcast host on what kind of week we're about to have. And a quick warning, if you love what you hear today and you want to see John's portfolio along with

all the insane AI calls our guys have made this year, that is in Milkroad Pro, which is 33% off until the end of the day. So run, don't walk, walk, don't crawl to Milk Road Pro in the link below. You got to lock in that discount before it goes away and crypto comes back, baby. Today's episode is brought to you by BitGet Stocks 2.0 with real liquidity, real dividends, and securitized, the regulated rails for tokenization. John, good morning. Who do you think is crawling to sign up for Milro Pro? >> Nobody because it's such a good discount.

>> Well, I'm glad you told people to walk and use their legs. I'm glad they got that reminder. That's important. >> Listen, when people hear those kinds of things, and I know you guys are at the gym or on your commute or whatever you're doing, it's they sometimes are like, "Okay, I'll do that later." They make a note of it, but it's like there's no later. There's no like catch up on it on Friday, okay? It's like you have to do it now. Uh so I just want people to know. I don't want people to miss miss out on that. Well, you're doing a lot of community service and I'm excited for the conversation today. >> I'm not picking up trash on the side of the highway, man. Uh, but John, you actually uh just just to sell a little bit more because we will talk about all

the great news and all that stuff today, but you've been you were on fire last week posting a lot of updates on assets that you are curious about, ones that maybe you're not jumping into yet, but you're writing about Suie others just exclusive for for for pro members. And it's something again, um, you know, people listen to your voice every day now. Uh, but you have a lot of fantastic insight on a lot of different tokens and what's going on. And you've got your trigger points for when you want to buy some of this stuff, whether we bought them again or not. And people can listen to the episode today to kind of hear about that. But I think even just having access to you almost 24/7, John, is is a great value ad. And then there's there's four more of you.

There's four other analysts in there you can chat to about about other stuff outside of crypto. >> Yeah, I think uh there have been a lot of really good questions from our community. One of the things I love about Milk Road is how engaged and wellinformed a lot of the members of our community are. And so, you know, you're talking about the things I've been writing about. A lot of what I'm writing about is just answering questions from our community and responding to them. Um, so yeah, it it kind of keeps me on my toes because I'm like I think, you know, just like you said, they can ask me questions anytime they want to in Discord and I think many of them have become aware of this and so they started asking a lot more. Um, which is fine. I love it. But, uh, yeah, so I've been

like fielding a lot of questions on the Clarity Act, on Bitcoin price levels, on where the bottom is, on things like, you know, SWE unlock schedule and and just different things like this. There's just a lot going on in digital assets right now. Even though it feels like no one's paying attention, there's a ton that's happening. And uh keeping on top of it all is, you know, it takes a lot of effort. So, I I I appreciate the questions from my community because it helps me like, you know, orient focus myself and like know where to research and things like that. So, um yeah, it's a really like mutually beneficial process. >> You've really championed that narrative and I think it's going to bear fruit very soon. And I feel like you when you know as the tides start to turn here, I feel like you're you're going to have a

lot of great insight, maybe some calls in there as well that that people can can look at and and get get excited about, you know, the next cycle or whatever whatever you want to call it. So again, you guys want to chat with John Milkro Pro. We're a couple minutes in, so we'll get right uh to the meat of the episode. John, um listen, I checked in last night. I was away camping all weekend, man. I was in the bush. Uh and the only headlines I saw were like, uh-oh, South Korea market selloff. Uh-oh, big big red day coming the next day. I'm assuming that's kind of what's happened. Seems like the markets are kind of red, unhappy. John, like just assume I haven't read any headlines. What's going on?

>> Okay. So, you're aware of this big thing called artificial intelligence, correct? >> Yes. I happen to do a podcast about it five times a week, but yes. >> Yeah. Okay. So, yeah. So, what has happened here? uh two of the largest uh memory chip manufacturers in the world that particularly make a specific kind of memory called high bandwidth memory that's important for infrastructure to support um the data centers and the artificial intelligence systems that we all have gotten uh so familiar with. Um two of the biggest ones in the world are both based in South Korea. They account for most of the the Cosby which is the name of the South Korean the largest exchange there. um they come from most of the the market cap of that market, but it's Samsung and SKHEX. And a lot of

the huge leap in valuation that we've seen in the Korean stock market has come from these two stocks. Um because there's only one other one that like kind of competes with them at scale and that's Micron which is in the United States. Um but SK Hanix uh recently did a listing on on US exchanges so that US investors could get you know direct investment into that and I think a lot of investors in South Korea were using this as a sell the news event. So there is notoriously a lot of traders in South Korea. Um particularly uh speculative traders in South Korea. Um and they I think a lot of them had gotten very crowded into these two trades. And so there's been sort of like a general rotation or like fears of a rotation or not even a rotation but just like a

slowdown in the semiconductor trade. And so a lot of people were using this listing as an opportunity to sort of take some profits. It's a little bit like the analogy I would give is like a little bit like how when Coinbase finally listed for trading in the United States that kind of like marked the local top in Bitcoin and digital assets. So I think that's just what's happening here. I don't think that this is like a like a permanent end of the cycle like a top in memory or in the AI trade by any means, but I do think it's a moment where a lot of people have gotten really long and gotten a lot of leverage on SKHX and Samsung and they're taking some of that risk off the table and using this as a moment to to, you know, take some profits basically. Um, but because

SKH Highix and Samsung are so large, like I said, um, I think it was like a a 10 to 15% drop, something like that in SKHEX, and then that led to like a five to nine, I think it was 9% selloff in the Cosby, which hit the circuit breakers, and they like shut down trading for a little bit because it was so volatile. Um, but yeah, so that's kind of what caused that big sell off. >> Yesterday, like that was today or like earlier. >> Yeah, that's like what's been playing out here. Yeah. Yeah. >> [ __ ] >> So, yeah. So, if you missed that this weekend, that's kind of what's happened. And um I think it's yeah, it's it's one of those things when you get this much strength in a bullish bull market, in a bull run in some of these assets like

these memory conductor, memory stocks, uh semiconductor stocks. There's only so many of these companies in the world. So, the concentration is really strong. The leverage is really strong. The volatility is is elevated as a result. And so, you're going to see, I think, a continuation of this. There'll probably be another recovery. they've had to hit the circus breakers on the Korean exchange many times and it keeps recovering to new highs because for everybody who wants to like delever or take some profits or or you know rotate out of the trade, there's still a whole lot of people are trying to you know find an entry point and there's just like a lot of capital buying the dips on these things. So that's a little bit of what's happened there and like kind of like why we're in this sort of environment we're in. The other thing I

think weighing on all of this over all of this is that the Iran conflict has picked up again and so I think that there's some fears of geopolitical like tensions rising again. So I think that that's been one of the things that's contributed to the sell-off and just timidness I guess in the US markets this morning. So futures opened red and the markets are down. But I again I think this will just be a thing where the market buys the dip up. Like we might end today in the green before all this is over. But that's just where some of this volatility is coming from today. >> Got it. You know, it's amazing to me how sell the news almost never fails despite what people say. I mean, SpaceX maybe a bit of an exception, although it was more of a pop on the day or two after

coming out and then returned. But that was one that everybody was watching was like, "This is going to totally crater the market, man." And it didn't really like it's things have kind of slowed down overall. But this is one obviously probably catching a lot of people off guard that don't follow memory stocks and don't follow the Korean stock market. I guess anybody who follows the American stock market was aware of this last week, right? Because I think it launched on Friday um or Thursday, Friday. But uh it it's amazing how those those types of things whether it's in stock markets or in crypto as well. Same kind of thing. Crypto has the same like like you were saying the Coinbase example, right? It's like the same like you're planning this thing, everybody knows about it, you're buying the rumor and the buildup to this thing and then

time to get out when it finally hits, right? Um and and it's funny how that plays out so many levels. >> Yeah. Because it it doesn't really have much to do with the assets themselves. It has much more to do with human psychology, market psychology, market dynamics, trading dynamics, all these things. And so, it's kind of like a a repeated phenomenon, let's say. >> What What happened with Iran? I I we're sick of talking about this. I feel like 90% of my relationship with you on this podcast has been you giving me updates on which bombs have dropped and it's and it's sickening really, but I think that there's a new tariff in place on or a new uh toll now again on the straight to Hormuz. like is that is just some loose headline like what's going on?

>> Uh the ceasefire is over and hostilities resumed and as far as I know that that's that's just like what's going on. I don't know if the United States is going to take control of the strait. I don't know if they're going to take control of Car Island. I don't I don't really know what's going to happen there right now. But to me, it just seems like for the moment um the ceasefire is over, conflict has resumed and there's going to be more bombing. I I don't really know beyond that. >> Okay. Okay. And it doesn't seem like the market is is overly concerned about that right now. What um I have a question for you. Like we haven't we haven't chatted in a couple weeks uh at least on this podcast and talked about crypto prices.

You had a fantastic week on the show last week. A lot of really great guests. Some of our best guests came on um as well as as Joe Luben and Joseph Shalom and and like just just an amazing an amazing week of podcast last week on this show. If you guys want to rewind and look through that and and the Bitcoin or the Bitwise guys as well gracing us with their presence. Um, what is the general vibe right now? If you can kind of catch me up. I've been in the AI weeds. I know we had I kind of hinted in the intro. We had a bit of a bottoming a couple weeks ago or at least it felt like everybody's saying this is kind of the bottom rally kind of slowing down today, but like you're saying, we might end the day green. Like what's the

current status on on the the bottoming situation John? >> The current status is that the co-founder of Ethereum, Joe Luben, came on my podcast and told me that he'd read my wartime Ethereum essay. And so everybody everybody, you know, we we we've all achieved our hopes and dreams and everything is going great. Um, so there literally could not be any better news than that possible. No. So, okay, so here's what happened. So, last week was really great for a number of reasons. On Monday, you know, we usually do our episodes on Monday. We moved that because we got the opportunity to bring on the CEO of Sharlink and the CEO of Consensus. And so, the CEO of Sharp Link is Joe Shalom. Everyone, he's Joseph Shalom, but I know him as Joe Shalom because I worked with him at Black Rockck and like everyone just referred

to him as one word, Joe Shalom. Like Madonna, it was like Joe Shalom is just what everybody called him. So I still think of him as Joe Shalom. Like I he's calling that for six years. Um and then Joe Luben is like I said the the CEO of Consensus. He's also the chairman of uh Sharplink. So both of these Joe's work together at Sharlink, which is the second largest Ethereum digital asset treasury company. And Joe Luben is also the co-founder of Ethereum. So both of these guys have been very very active in the Ethereum ecosystem. Like you know Sailor has been selling uh Micro Strategy and Bitcoin to raise his USD reserve this week and last week. Um but Bitine has been buying Ethereum and Sharlink also started not only buying

more Ethereum but they bought back $10 million of their own shares. Um and so then they also have announced just in the last couple weeks two new organizations that they're helping to fund and like you know support. Um which are these nonprofit organizations ETH Labs and Ethereum Institutional. And so we talked for over an hour about that. I kept them honestly LG I almost got in trouble because I kept them longer than the time. But I just had so much prepared and there's there's two of them. There's so many questions asked both of them and you know they they know everything about Ethereum. So uh we talked a lot. There's a ton of alpha in that conversation. One of the things that stood out to me that I didn't get a chance to I didn't press Joe Luben about this because I thought that would be

rude, but he said like if you knew what I knew and had the insider alpha that I was picking up at some of these conferences like he was just at London for an event, he was like you'd be wildly bullish. Um he's very bullish on the Clarity Act passing which was you know a little bit out of consensus for the market but that's positive. Um so yeah so Joe was Joe Luben was basically saying that Ethereum is the highest powered money in the world. People who are laughing at this ultrasound money thesis are going to be proven wrong. There's way more bullish momentum on the clarity act than most people realize or expect. And there's a lot more happening behind the scenes than can be announced right now. And Joe Shalom has this like huge pedigree of, you know, experience, executive presence, the best role at X

on Wall Street, and has been having non-stop conversations about Ethereum and this ecosystem and trying to unlock new points of contact, new conversations, and make new introductions across Wall Street. So, it's just like a lot of alpha in there and that was really bullish. Uh, there's several other great podcasts we did last week that performed very well, but the other one that did really great was the one with the Bitwise guys. Um, that performed really well. People really like that conversation because we were talking a lot about how Wall Street institutional investors are going to be taking over as the biggest buyer of Bitcoin from Michael Sailor and the digital asset treasury companies that were like kind of the big theme last cycle. Now they're anticipating that the big buyers are just going to be institutions themselves. And one of the like, you know, things we talked about

as like a a signal of what's to come there is how Vanguard, an 11 trillion asset manager who swore they would never do anything in crypto, is now hiring a head of digital assets. And Ryan and I joked that Matt was going to apply for the job because he's clearly been reading the the job description. Um, but Matt assured us he's going to stay a bit wise and keep doing our podcast. Um, but in any event, so that was kind of the things that we talked about a lot last week. There's just tons of alpha in all these conversations and like I'm not going to go into all the like a summary of everything that we talked about because there's just so much in there last week. Um but yeah, really great conversations and like just I think I feel really fortunate um to be able to

to host this podcast for Milk Road because we get consistently some of the best, most involved, most connected, most like um I guess respectable, credible voices in the digital asset space to come share very candid and sincere takes and and a lot of alpha with us and our community and our audience. So yeah, it was just a really great uh week on the podcast and I'm just yeah, I'm proud and excited and very bullish. And you know, your question I think was really about are we bottoming? >> Wait, hold on. Wait before you wait. That's that's a whole new that's a whole new that's on a whole new segment. The bottoming part about you you just answered the the commentary part that I put that was the plug for the show.

What? Hold on. What is What's Joe Luben's alpha? Where's that? That's what I want to know, man. Cuz listen no I got to tell you why, man. Cuz everybody including you like you got your wartime thing. Every like Ethereum is easily the most contentious asset in crypto. like without a doubt in my opinion I haven't done this for a long time like there's Bitcoin which is is just Bitcoin Bitcoin is crypto in terms of like market cap like 60 70% and then there's Ethereum of like the actual application of crypto this is the main thing and then there's the rest of the [ __ ] you know what I mean yeah hyper liquids and salanas and all the Robin Hood chains all that crap but no but I mean that and like the rest and then okay there's a layer of like some good stuff and then the rest is

just doesn't matter and what I'm saying is that Ethereum is is is there's more debate about Ethereum I feel than about Bitcoin. You know, the Bitcoin debates are black and white, right? It's just like, oh, can quantum get it or not? Who is Satoshi? Will his tokens unlock? We don't know. Will this replace the US dollar? Like there, okay, there's five questions. You're done. Sorry, Bitcoin people. Ethereum is like, oh, bankless guy ditched it. You debated him. you have your thing, you know, to the point where it's like you can still I think it's what's amazing about Ethereum is that John you like you can go out and write some essays about Ethereum and then the guys literally running the show will read it be like yeah you made some good points. You know what I mean? Like we're still at that point 10 years on

where new perspectives can just be added constantly through these contentious times. So I think I think that that's very interesting. What do you think he meant? What do you think is coming for Ethereum that sounds so exciting? I don't know for sure, but I do think that that information is going to become public soon. And I think that that has been something that's encouraging to me is how quickly these things are turning around. So like ETH Labs and ETH institutional didn't exist even as like a concept up until I think a couple of weeks before they were publicly announced and and publicly like funded basically, right? So I think you know to your point Ethereum is highly decentralized. There is nobody who runs Ethereum. Same thing with Bitcoin. It is a highly decentralized network. But Michael Sailor is kind of the deacto

spokesman for the asset and for the the network the ecosystem in Ethereum. Uh Vitalik has made it very clear he doesn't want to be the emperor of Ethereum or the dictator. And so there's a lot of decentralized activity that happens and a lot of these things are organically evolving. So it's hard to know exactly what Joe is referring to. But I do think that it will become public sooner than people expect. And I think that they're they're not trying to keep these things like gatekeep. there's just like a certain amount of like, you know, you can't announce something before it's ready to be announced type of thing like that. Um, but um, yeah, so I'm not sure exactly what he meant by that. I don't know what deals have been reached that he heard about in London that he's talking about with the Clarity Act. I'm not sure what all that looks

like, but you know, I don't think he's like making it up either. Like, you know, like they told us they were going to try to solve this like these these problems with these nonprofits and then like two weeks later, boom, here are the nonprofits, right? So, like I think that uh we'll we'll find out sooner than later, probably later this summer. um or maybe even before the end of the month, but I don't know. We'll see. Um but it just like there's just a lot of bullish momentum. This gets to the whole thing I think has been a major theme for crypto for the last nine months. The institutional bull run has never been stronger. The fundamentals have never been stronger. The capital that is going to carry us into the next bull bull cycle has never been more determined, more like um focused and and uh

invested. The the momentum has never been stronger. It's just the sentiment is terrible. And so as long as the the price and the the fundamentals are dislodged and dislocated like this, there's going to continue to be frustrations and a lot of debates, but I do think eventually this resolves to the upside because it's just I mean that's just the trend that's happening and it's it's it's a bullish divergence situation that will resolve higher. Um but yeah, it was just it was really exciting and I didn't I didn't feel like it was appropriate to be like come on Joe, leak something, you know, I didn't want to be rude about it, but like yeah, so some people noticed that they were like hey this guy said he knows something like big and he's just not saying it yet. So yeah, we'll see. Real world assets like

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Well, we got to get him back on the show when he's ready to when he's ready to talk. When the guy's ready to talk, you got to get his ass back here, man. We need the exclusive with wartime uh to give us that to give us to give us the the breakdown. Um okay. Well, thanks for the alpha man. I think that that's really helpful. Good recap. And again, you guys can find those episodes literally just just in the channel if you're on the pod podcast apps. Just scroll down a couple or uh or on YouTube. Uh just look through the channel. It's the last last weeks of episodes. Um John, another factor that I I know you mentioned I think in our in our creator huddle this morning um was about low volatility on Bitcoin. And we're kind of changing gears here because we talked about Bitcoin and

Ethereum. um and the great bull case for Ethereum. So, you're listening from where hot Ethereum takes. Maybe there'll be some. But for this part, I want to talk more uh in the weeds like short-term right now. I was asking you about the bottoming process. I know that volatility has a huge part of that. So, I'll kind of give you the mic back to to take us through your thoughts there. >> Yeah. So on bottoming here, I think that there are periods in in Bitcoin's price action where it starts to find these ranges and channels and buller bare flags. And then usually what happens is, you know, the market is a a means of collective intelligence in a way for a lot of different people to sort of help collectively make up their minds about how to properly value an asset and like integrate a bunch of information that's

in public and like resolve that in in price action. But what happens is that while Bitcoin is is figuring that out while the market is working, usually what happens is Bitcoin will try to like like find it'll end up somewhere in the middle of a range as it's trying to pick which direction to go, which way to break out, break down, whatever. That's what we were kind of seeing around 64K. And that's what one of the things I was writing about last week. I was like, hey, this is a pretty key level here for this this um downtrend that we've been in and and see which way this breaks here. A lot of people were expecting Bitcoin to go up to 68K and sort of like use that as a next test of resistance.

Um, to me, I think if we clear 74K, I think that is confidence from the bulls that they're back in control and that the market's going to see higher prices and we can see a recovery. But what I was writing about was like this looks to me like the money flow momentum and a lot of other indicators are trending in the wrong direction. We're not seeing a lot of follow-through from the bulls here. And so this 64 price level to me seems like it might be a spot for some continued local weakness. Now you mentioned volatility because Bitcoin has been painting so many like long-term trends like bare flags and then breaking down and then long-term bare flag and then breaking down. Some of them have gone for over a 100 days, right? And it stays in like this pretty consolidated range. Not a lot of volatility there.

What that's an indicator of is that there's not a ton of capital. there's not a lot of uh just momentum, attention, trading volume happening and so the the price is sort of stagnating and going sideways and so the the ranges on these things are kind of getting tighter because there's not a lot of big swings happening. So, you know, we were sitting at 64K and I was like, well, 68 might be the next upside target and then if it breaks down, we'll maybe see 58K, right? Like it's just like tiny little wiggles on the chart. And that to me is is kind of like the summer doldrums where we are, right? And like I think that probably continues for a while. And one way or another, right, I would like to see that end with either like a big breakout to the upside or like a flash

crash down, something to like really like clear things and like unlock the market and bring back some of this tension and um and that'll start get things moving again. But I think for right now, we're in these tight little ranges and and bare flags and downtrends. And I'm kind of expecting the continued weakness to continue until the market proves otherwise. It's like if we get a reversal where we go over 68K, over 71K, over 74K, then okay, maybe the bulls are back and maybe it's time to like start deploying more capital. But in the meantime, if we're in this like long-term short-term downtrend within a longer term downtrend, I'm just staying patient, letting the market come to me. Salana's at $75 and Ethereum is a little bit under 1,800. If Bitcoin is at 62, you know, it's just fallen off of 64. Like I

said, it was I thought it was going to come down. It seems like it has. We might go down to 58K. we might go down to 57K. So, we might see some continued weakness from some other alts. And I think that, you know, you're going to be looking for sometime late July, August as some kind of a bottoming process here because I do think that everybody expects Bitcoin to start going higher in Q4. So, like this is a great example of this. When I say everybody, I mean like this is a consensus from the highest levels on down. Like there was an interview with a guy named Yan Vanek, who's the head of VANC, which is a $200 billion asset management firm. He did an interview this weekend um on on a podcast and he said that the debate in in his firm about Bitcoin is not whether

or not it's going higher but when and how much to allocate to it because it is going higher. That's a foregone conclusion but basically their firm's thesis is by Q by October of Q4 of 2026 you want to have your full allocation because the market's going to move away from you and Bitcoin is just absolutely certainly going to go higher. But that is kind of everybody's consensus. So, I think everybody's going to start front running that and building into a position in September and August because everyone expects October to be when the pico bottom is and then we're up to the races from there. So, this is a lot of rambling thoughts on this, but just my view on this is that we're still seeing weakness that's continuing, but I don't think there's too many more months of this ahead. So, I'm looking to start

building my positions here. If we do get a dip of Bitcoin into the 50s again, I might just start, you know, like really going in on some of these things. But, I don't know. That's just some thoughts around that. Why the low volatility makes me feel like Bitcoin is is in the bottoming process and sort of like how I'm playing this as as Bitcoin finds its bottom here. >> John, a year ago, did you think that Q4 2025 was going to be this blowoff top? >> That was the direction of travel that everything seemed to be heading. Yes. >> Yeah. I you know what I'm asking about is like this consensus idea, right? And that's that's something that always worries me. It worries me on the AI side as well, right? When when we're doing that show and I asked I asked the analysts the same question. I'm like,

"Listen, everybody's saying this part. Does that not mean it's wrong? How does that play out for Bitcoin this time?" Because I agree with you. That's where it seems to be pointing. And I did this show for months and I was like, "Sounds good, man. Time to accumulate. Every bottom you see, buy some more." Because everybody and including one of your favorite analysts, Ben Cow, is is is kind of pointing to this. And that would also suggest some continuation of the four-year cycle. But a year ago, everybody was saying that Q4 2025 was going to be was going to be the the fabled quarter, right? And and we were wrong. We had one day you and I did a live show that day and we got smacked.

So I'm just wondering like what do and and again something like consensus views that's also like witchcraft. You know what I mean? Like that's also male astrology of like well what do you think like I'm just tying together like stupid patterns you know and you and I'll regurg. But what is your >> view on that? Is there not too much consensus on the fact that bot we're going to bottom in 3 months and we're taking off? >> Yeah. So I I I'm not going to say the the bare market I think is played out. I think the bare market is relatively exhausted. I think that um my view on this is that that consensus is uh borne out by a lot of people. There's a lot to

back that that thesis and that may well be what happens. But my theory is that because everyone expects that to everyone's going to be to happen. everyone's going to be front running that. It's the same thing that happened last year. Everyone thought Q4 was going to be this explosive blowoff top in 2025. So, so much leverage got built up expecting it to run higher that when the October 10th flash crash happened, we got these huge amounts of cascading liquidations and it just sort of like basically meant that crypto never really rejoined the party. We had so many different traders and so many positions just liquidated on one day that the digital asset space never really rejoined the bull run. Now, I think that what I'm expecting to have have happen here is that because so many people are expecting Bitcoin to keep going lower

until October, people are going to start DCAing into their positions. So, we're not going to see that like huge collapse. And I think that Bitcoin is going to start moving higher sooner than people think, which is kind of like what happened like in 2024 when we got the ETFs and everyone started front running the having and we made a new all-time high before the Bitcoin having, which had never happened before. So, I think that we're going to see more front running because more and more people think that all of this is going to play out the way it has historically. Another thing I want to say here because I think this is very important. A lot of the smartest analysts and the the the people who are paying most close attention to this have already noticed this and are already doing this. They're already positioning for this. Like Yan Vanek,

what he was saying was not whether or not Bitcoin's going higher, not whether or not we should have a position, but how much of a position we should have and when we should start building it. Um, Jordy Visser, who is a a guest I've interviewed several times, who's former head of of macro for Morgan Stanley and an independent research analyst focused on digital assets and artificial intelligence. Great guy, good guest of this program. I got to get him back on honestly to talk to him, but he called Micron at like I think he was buying Micron at like $60, like under $100. And Micron went to 1,200 bucks and is now trading around $1,000. So he picked all of this memory trade like long before anybody was even awake to this being a huge bottleneck in artificial intelligence. Now what Jordy is focused on is Bitcoin and Ethereum. And I when

he's doing his weekly updates every week, he's talking about crypto, about Bitcoin, about Ethereum. He's watching price levels. He's watching price targets. And he is saying that a year from now, Bitcoin is going to be the crowded trade. Ethereum is going to be the crowded trade. That's where all the capital is going to go. And just like he was early to Micron, I think he's early to figuring this out as well. And I'm not gonna like regurgitate his whole thesis here because it's a little different than mine and everyone can have their own and that's fine. But the point is this is like a foregone conclusion. Most of the smartest analysts are already aware of this, have already started positioning for it. And I think that retail is usually the last.

But once retail does catch on to this this rotation that's coming, they are one of the strongest drivers for that bullish momentum and the overvaluation, the leverage, the speculation, and the the real strong um profits and returns on these trades. So, I'm very patient right now on Bitcoin and Ethereum. I think the smartest people on Wall Street have already started to figure this out and are positioning for it. And that's what I'm trying to do for our community is to help them see this coming, position for it, stay ahead of it, and benefit from it rather than be left chasing and missing the boat when when it kind of, you know, runs off and and gets away from everybody, which I think is going to happen much sooner than people expect. That's what I'm saying. I don't think you have until October to build your position. I think this starts

to move much sooner than that precisely because everyone expects Bitcoin to keep going down until October. John, in your Milk Road Pro portfolio, you are 25 and a half% cash. What is the plan for that? >> Deploy the cash into crypto when I think the time is right. And I'm going to be like, >> that's very soon. It >> is very It's I'm When I think the time is right. It's going to be based on the market. It's going to be based on price action. And it's going to be >> You're going to time the bottom. John is going to time the bottom. That's what you're telling me. That's >> That's what you're saying. I'm not saying I I'm Look, I've already been deploying it, right? Like a couple weeks ago, I bought when Bitcoin went below 60K, I bought some when bit when I also

bought some alts. When Bitcoin went below 60K, I think Bitcoin could very well go below 60K here again. It might today before we end this conversation, it might be below 60K again. I'm going to be looking to to take positions. I still have bids on. Um so I I think that, you know, if Bitcoin proves to me like if it gets above 74K, I'm like, "All right, maybe we have seen the bottom. Maybe I'm being too greedy here." But as long as we're continuing to see this downtrend here for the short term and I'm getting bids filled at 60k and below 60k, I'm going to leave them on and let the market come to me and not chase this yet. Um, but you're right, I'm I'm not trying to time the absolute bottom. I'm perfectly content buying below 60K even if it goes to 30K. But so

I'm not trying to like absolutely time the pico bottom, but I do think I'm going to get some better opportunities here in the short term and I'm going to take those opportunities. That's why I have the dry powder. I want to see just one last like late August people are enjoying the last bit of summer. No one's there. Everyone's tuned out. one last like like just dead candle like drop weight that just sits there for like a couple hours and John shows up in the Milk Road Pro Discord and it's like attack deploy deploy by buy and it's we're send it's like it's like some ugly number like 47K or something like that you know some like like I can't believe it and freaking I don't know unis swaps at 10

cents or like I don't know whatever other things I don't you I don't think you're unis swap's on your watch list so I'm just saying other good tokens, you know, things that are going to unis swap has the black rock thing. That's what made me think of it. But, you know, all these other tokens they're going to do well in the institutional world and blah blah blah is like this is you'll never this is the this is the sal there'll be like a Salana $8 moment, you know, uh like there was last cycle. Maybe it'll $8 again. But I'm saying is like I think that that's one of the biggest trades from last bear to bear to bull last time was like Salana was at eight bucks for a couple days or a couple hours and it and it peaked at 300, you know, and I feel

like I feel like there's a point hopefully maybe in the next couple months. It's not going to rebound right away, but where like there's we're going to hit that. It'll sit there for like a day. John's going to be like spamming everybody like this is it, this is it, this is it. And um and then that won't actually be the bottom. There'll be another bottom a couple months later. >> No. If that happens, if that happens, that will be the bottom. So, to be clear, that has happened before several times in several different assets. It's happened in Bitcoin. It's happened in Salana. It's happened in other ones. So, I am prepared if we get one of those big like like uh nose dive like, you know, gut- dropping dips, >> but I'm not necessarily depending on that. I do think that there's a world where we just kind of like grind around,

form a bottom here, and then eventually start climbing our way back up. I think that's more likely to be what happens here. But in either event, I want to be able to to capitalize on both of those opportunities. But that's happened dude. I've seen that in XRP. I've seen it in Salana. I've seen it in Bitcoin. And that usually does, not usually, but that has marked bottoms before in in the past. Bitcoin spent a long time at 6K. And then when CO happened, it like dropped to 3K and that was the bottom and then we went up to 20. So um it could play out that way. >> Yeah. A day or two, man. I remember I remember I had a limit buy set for ETH at like 85 or 90 and it filled and I was like shocked. I woke up the next day

like, "Oh my god, I can't believe it." you know, and um but it's it, you know, and even that last dip, and again, we're getting really really hypothetical here, so there's a million different scenarios that could play out, but I feel like that last dip would come on some kind of news like the Clarity Act is officially dead, and it's like, you know, you know, and then it's like then the next day the market wakes up is like that doesn't matter, you know, but there'll be this like panic. Ah, I got to sell it. Then even people, you know, and hopefully not people listening will be like, "Fuck it. I knew it. Been holding for so long. I'm going to sell here because it's clearly going nowhere. I go buy some Micron and they'll sell the bottom, you know, like just one last like just shake strangle

everybody out one last time of hopelessness and then that's it, you know. Um, and we'll and you'll be covering it right here on the show, man. And I'll be grilling you about it every Monday. So, I'm excited. >> I don't know if you've seen this, but on the office there's a scene where Michael Scott says, "I declare bankruptcy." And I've got the meme that I'm going to use all ready to go. I It's It's a It's a picture of him and it says, "I declare bull market." And when I think we have bottoms, I will be posting that. I will be making a lot of noise. I'll be like, "Now is the time. All all systems go." I'm not gonna be like, you know, him and Han about it like, "Yeah, that's it. Go get all in now. Put everything."

>> Yeah. Not financial advice, of course. But I'm I'm all ready to go for when this happens. >> It'll be some weird ugly headline that was like, "Oh no, I can't believe this happened." Like Tom Lee is a Russian plant or something like I don't know. [ __ ] up. Like something makes no sense. or LG or we just do what we're doing and we have this apathetic grind and then it starts to apathetically grind higher and nobody notices and then before you realize that oh we've ground we're back up at 100K you know like so that >> also very likely yeah also just despair like it's been for months man like it's been since February since that dip in February down to 60k of just like god we just can't break out of this range right and especially after the you know went up to 83k and then we couldn't even get

through and now we're back in the same we're back in that low range right it's like god just sh just the the the apathy and the the the length will shake more people out than the than the crisis. Right? So that's that's the big >> this is this the strategy here is to not try to be dogmatic about what must happen, but watch what does happen. Learn from the market as it's as it's giving you information. Um not try to force your trades. Stay patient with stuff. I like I said, I had a bid filled at uh 58K like a week ago, something like that, which I set in February. And I watched Bitcoin go from 60K all the way back up to 84K. And I didn't chase it because I was like until the the the things I'm looking for for confirmation of a breakout fire. I'm still fading

this rally. I'm still expecting to go lower. I wanted it to break out. I wanted it to go higher. I was watching it to see if it did, but I didn't chase it. And and then as a result, I instead of buying in in the 80s again, I got to accumulate again below 60K and take advantage of that. So, I'm just trying to tell people like you don't have to be dogmatic, but if you pay attention, like I say, stay safe, stay educated, stay bullish. You can capitalize on these opportunities and set yourself up to do very very well when all of the the you know, euphoria frenzy speculation comes back. Um, so now I think is the most important time to stay locked in and I'm really enjoying this. This is just one of the most most this is like the best value to like riskreward opportunity on

digital assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum that we will ever see. And so it's just a great time to be in the markets and uh you know just being part of all of this. >> Beautiful. Beautiful. Well, that's wonderful. We'll track it here. And again, if you want to get that call, you want to get the gift from Michael Scott. You want to get whatever the hundred different movie analogies that we have in the in the hopper ready, you got to go Milk Road Pro, man. You want to be ready. No, but I mean, you know, this is actually a really good point. If people a lot of people really really love you, John, they really love the way you think about this. They know, they agree with everything you're saying. And a lot of that insight into action is going to be in Milk Road Pro starting now, right?

Starting now. Whatever the signal is that you're talking about, that's going to come soon. If there is a maybe there won't be one. Maybe it'll just be like you're saying a low grinding process at the bottom. But that listen, if if you believe that and you and you want to keep following John, you want to keep following the team as we work through this, like we don't give 30% off like ever. So that's pretty good if you want to lock that in for like a year. It's not very expensive. like just to be able to track this and you get we have also set up now and one thing the team's working on John that we haven't mentioned is we have we have real-time notifications by email right so if John buys something you can get a notification we're also adding text very soon so that to me is most important

because a lot of people don't like to like grind in Discord we all have inboxes that have like a trillion freaking emails we don't read so I think the text notifications for me are going to be really important um for these types of things as they happen not that not that b you know making your final buy of ETH at the bottom or whatever is is a matter matter of minutes by text. I just prefer text. So, to me, that's a great feature. We're working the team's working on it. Should be live pretty soon in the next couple weeks, next couple months. Um, and and a lot of other great things in Pro as well. So, a great place to get access to John. That's the the deadline is is tonight. So, you got until the end of the day to to to sign up. I mean, you can sign up

tomorrow, but it won't be 33% off. >> Excellent pitch. Really well done, LG. Nice, natural, organic. Just really, really well done. >> This is it. This is me. Uh John, pleasure to talk again, man. Thank you. Uh thank you for all the bullish talk and and congrats on all the great guests lately and uh you guys can listen to John every day here on the show and another great week of guests coming up and I'll be back on Monday to grill him on whatever's going on, new bombs, uh new crisis, new bullish takes uh right back here on Milk Road. >> Thanks, LG. It was fun. 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.