Ivan on Tech analyzes Bitcoin's sideways price action and argues a bottom is forming ahead of a Q4 bull run
Ivan on Tech presents a solo live stream covering Bitcoin's price consolidation at the 200-week moving average, bullish signals across US equities, regulatory developments in crypto, and AI-driven earnings growth.
Summary
Ivan on Tech delivers a live stream arguing that Bitcoin's prolonged sideways movement at the 64K level and the 200-week moving average is characteristic of a bottom formation, not a bearish signal. He draws parallels to historical bottoming patterns and cautions against expecting a V-shaped recovery. On the macro side, he highlights strong S&P 500 and NASDAQ earnings — with 10 out of 11 sectors showing profit growth — and argues that AI is now generating real revenue at the application layer, not just at the infrastructure level, which he sees as validating the broader bull case. On the regulatory front, he notes that the SEC, CFTC, and OCC are all moving in a pro-crypto direction under the Trump administration, describing this as historically significant even if the market has become desensitized to it. He also covers Miner Mora using Bitcoin as loan collateral, MoneyGram's Solana integration, and Strategy's plans to resume Bitcoin purchases. In an extended Q&A section, Ivan addresses questions on ETH's loss of its deflationary property due to L2 growth, long-term ETF allocation strategy (favouring a 70/30 S&P 500/NASDAQ split for 30-year horizons), Chinese stock market risks, and the mindset required to turn a small crypto stake into significant gains. He also covers Corewave's Q2 results — revenue up 112% year-on-year, a confirmed backlog of $104 billion, and an additional $25 billion in net new customer commitments — which caused the stock to flip from red to double-digit green and which Ivan reads as confirmation of sustained AI infrastructure demand.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Bitcoin Sideways at the 200-Week Moving Average
Ivan: Bitcoin is still at 64K. We're still at the 200-week Moving Average. As you can see, we're still exactly where we were yesterday, two days ago, three days ago, five days ago. We're just sideways.
It is the perfect time to think about the long-term picture of Bitcoin, because at the end of the day, you have sideways when there is a bottom formation. Always when there is a bottom formation, you have sideways. I've been telling you for a very long time — don't think in terms of a V-shape. Whenever Bitcoin dumps, people say, "Oh, it's going to be V-shaped," because we had one V-shaped recovery during COVID and now everyone says it's going to be V-shaped whenever something dumps. It's a bit of cope. It's wishful thinking. I always said it's going to take time. We need to bottom out. We're going to go sideways. Bitcoin has to become boring. And now it has been boring for quite some time, which is good. You need to see it as good. Boringness means good.
We're waiting for the bottom. The bottom is likely taking place either now — and even if we go a bit lower, it will still be part of the bottom formation because we're sideways. We're now one year into this whole story.
Macro Tailwinds: Trump, Citadel, and the AI Stock Rally
What's interesting is that you do have Trump considering cutting capital gains ahead of the midterm elections, which would fuel the stock market rally even more, which would of course fuel the crypto rally as well. Citadel is saying they believe systematic buyers are getting ready to load up on stocks again after a massive unwind. We did see a bit of AI dumping during the last few weeks. Citadel literally bought Leopold's fund when we did see the AI stocks collapsing for a few days. You could say Citadel created that collapse themselves by spreading FUD about rate hikes. And now, yet again, they're saying it's going to go very, very high. Systematic buyers are ready to load up on stocks after a massive unwind. So all in all, they scared everyone into a rate hike, then crashed AI, then bought the best names dirt cheap, and now they're pumping the AI trade yet again.
If you look at what stocks are now flipping bullish, you do see some AI names. Microsoft flipped bullish. Amazon flipped bullish — that was already a week ago. Then two days ago, Palantir flipped bullish, which obviously has to do with the AI trade as well. Shopify flipped bullish. BlackRock flipped bullish. Salesforce flipped bullish. All of these different stocks are flipping bullish. And this is important because the world is understanding that AI will not replace Salesforce. It will not replace Shopify. You will not vibe-code your online store — you are likely to just use the tools you have, especially if you have a real business. You're not going to vibe-code everything from scratch. Instead, these companies are going to be using AI to be more efficient.
Bitcoin Sellers Getting Exhausted — Big Wallets Are Buying
Now, looking at the overall situation, we have sellers getting exhausted. The Bitcoin sellers are getting more and more exhausted. They're trying to push us down. Everyone thinks we're going to dip lower to 50K, which may happen. Listen, it may happen — and we're going to buy even cheaper. But now is not the time to be a cocky bear. The time to be a cocky bear was back in October when we went risk-off, when we exited crypto in October. Now is not the time to be a cocky bear. Now it's time to be a humble observer of the market and see where it takes us. I wouldn't be super certain that we go so much lower. At the end of the day, we're almost one year into this. Don't be super certain about anything. Just prepare for all scenarios. If we go lower — good, buy Bitcoin. If we Valhalla from here — good. Both directions are good for us.
Altcoins — we don't touch altcoins yet. It's too early for altcoins. But Bitcoin, it's clear in both scenarios what to do. We're ready for down, we're ready for up.
Institutional Bitcoin Use: Miner Mora, MoneyGram, and Strategy
Miner Mora locks $1.2 billion in Bitcoin as loan collateral. This is interesting. Basically, they're moving into AI. They need money to expand their operations into AI and they are using Bitcoin as collateral. The reason why it's important is because it creates a track record where Bitcoin is used as collateral in the financial markets for financial transactions. It's not a new thing, but good to see this kind of size — that the financial markets accept Bitcoin as collateral. Very, very good.
MoneyGram launched on Solana, giving wallets and developers access to cash deposits. This is quite interesting. If you have a wallet, you can integrate MoneyGram and then someone can come with their dollar into a MoneyGram store, convert to crypto, and get it into your wallet. MoneyGram has all of these different locations worldwide, so it's quite a nice onboarding into crypto. Otherwise, let's say you're in the Sahara Desert — how are you going to onboard to crypto? But maybe there's a MoneyGram nearby.
I think they see it as a kind of last play, because they charge a lot. MoneyGram remittance charges so much, and they know they're dying. But they're thinking: if we use our infrastructure to allow people to onboard to crypto, where we become fully relevant, we can still take a last fat cut on that transaction. They're not going to use us in the future anyway — no one needs MoneyGram if you have a stablecoin. But we can take one last bite at the apple, get them into crypto, be the on-ramp, take a cut, and maybe survive somehow. I think it makes sense. I mean, I would probably do the same. The use case is there. Otherwise it's very hard to onboard, especially in underdeveloped regions. Banking the unbanked — that's exactly what we're all about.
Strategy plans to resume buying. Actually, it's not Saylor himself but the Asian CEO saying it is time to buy back. They buy high, they sell low, and now they're going to buy back. Fantastic.
Short-Term Holders Moving Bitcoin to Exchanges — Big Wallets Accumulating
Short-term Bitcoin holders are moving a lot of Bitcoin to exchanges. The short-term holder who just bought something is getting nervous very fast. Big shout out to Eric Crown — he's saying: who is selling Bitcoin right now per the tape? Strategy selling 108 million this week. ETF selling. And whoever got liquidated at the rejection. Who's buying? Wallets over 10,000 Bitcoin are buying. The big fat wallets are buying. It is time to be bullish. It is time to see the big picture and to be bullish and see that the tide is shifting. The tide is shifting very, very much, and that's fantastic.
ETH Transaction Volume and the US Government Debt Context
In terms of trading volume — this is an interesting stat. ETH has basically crossed $8 trillion in transactions since its birth. That's crazy — $8.5 trillion. Now, you know what's more crazy? The US government debt, which is now above $40 trillion. So in all of its existence, ETH has not transacted more than the whole government debt. And that's bullish, because the debt is very, very high. The debt is massive and it is growing every day. And that's the only thing you need to know to be bullish long-term on the markets, to be bullish long-term on crypto — because that's not going to go anywhere. We're just going to keep growing the debt, and that means more liquidity, and that means more pump into our assets.
US Corporate Earnings: Broad-Based Growth Beyond AI
Ivan: Now, new clouds — Corewave — let's keep an eye on that. But let's look at the broader earnings picture. S&P held bullish throughout this whole narrative change. NASDAQ held bullish throughout this whole narrative change. And now you have more and more people coming out saying that actually it's not super concentrated in AI.
You remember how during the last few weeks everyone was saying the stock market is a bubble? Now the new narrative being pushed is that actually it's a bit more decentralized. Let me play a clip here.
"I think part of the optimism is just a function of how far through earnings season we now are. We've basically heard from almost all of the most important earnings growth stories and we're just getting such a panoramic, virtuous cycle. It's everywhere you look — we beat, we're raising, we're raising the lower end of the forecast. We're through 80% of the S&P 500 by market cap. Even if you pull tech out, you're looking at 28.3% earnings growth."
What he just said is very, very key. The reason why the stock market keeps pumping is because based on the recent earnings data, we do see earnings growth even outside of tech. The whole economy is doing well — at least the companies are doing well. AI is getting implemented and can deliver growth and earnings without the headcount, which is kind of the promise of AI. So this is where even if there is an overinvestment in AI, the bubble can just sustain longer if it kind of also makes a bit of sense — if it has revenue, if it actually has economic output.
This is where you see why trying to predict a bubble is so hard. Many people said, "Oh, it's a bubble, so I'll just sell and sit on the sideline." We said it's very possible it's a bubble. But we just followed the downtrend — NASDAQ bullish, S&P bullish, everything bullish. Very clear example: we cannot analyze and make conclusions whether it's a bubble or not. It may be a bubble today, then earnings happen, and suddenly it makes sense. Apparently now with earnings, it's less of a bubble. Probably still a bubble. Who the hell knows? But the trend is your friend.
"Pack back. It's 32%. It's outrageous. The net income margin has been revised up during the course of this season to 15.6% from 15%. So margin is ahead of expectation. Sales growth is better — 15.2%. That's 300-plus basis points above what was expected as recently as two months ago. Ten out of eleven sectors are getting profit growth. So a lot of the narratives about it being all AI or so narrow and concentrated — throw them all in the garbage. They're money-losing narratives. The reality is corporate America — the current management of companies in every sector — look at what they've had thrown at them over the last five or so years. Whether we're talking about the record inflation spike, the pandemic itself and all the difficulty in hiring people, and then the tariff stuff — these are absolute warriors, the people running these companies."
Isn't it crazy? If you look at US versus EU GDP and stock market performance, it was kind of equal twenty years ago. That's crazy to think about — that the EU and the US in terms of economy size were kind of equal. Now where's the EU? The US just keeps chugging along — growing revenue, getting the client, growing the economy. And the best consumer in the world is still in the US. If you want to sell anything, there's no better market. Even if people in the US are struggling, trust me, Europeans struggle more. There's no money there.
"Why would the multiple on this particular crop of companies be 16 times earnings because it was in 1994? It makes no sense. These companies are the Michael Jordan of every sector. There are great stories everywhere."
"Let's play the other side of this for a second. Let's say inflation comes out much hotter than anticipated and you have to begin to price in a rate hike. Let's play the bearish argument."
The reason why we're not going to watch the bearish argument is because we're in a bull trend. Even if there is some bearish argument, we're going to watch it when it's a bear trend. We're going to react on the bear trend. Right now we just look at bullish — because S&P bullish, NASDAQ bullish. Don't worry about bearish. Don't worry about it. Even if there is something not on the chart, it doesn't exist. As soon as we go bear — S&P goes bear, NASDAQ goes bear — then we need all the bear scenarios. But right now: bullish, bullish, bullish.
Year-to-date, S&P 500 earnings estimates are up 15%. It's pretty amazing. JP Morgan says the S&P is going to pump to 8K on AI payoff. The market was worried that all of these investments in AI weren't going to go anywhere — the AI bubble concern. But now that they are going somewhere, that you have income from them, the market says, "Holy crap, we can relax. Put in a few more billion." That's what's happening.
AI is directly and indirectly a factor driving the valuation of approximately 60% of the S&P. AI investments are estimated to contribute one-third of S&P earnings in 2026. It's good that it's not more — I would be worried if it were more than one-third. Hyperscalers are turning massive GPU and data center spending into faster cloud growth.
But here is the most important thing. The reason we can say the AI bubble is not as bad as everyone thought just a few months ago — including us, though we did not act on it because we were in a bull trend, and the bull trend actually stopped us from acting on our fear — is because revenue is now coming into the application layer. Before, revenue was coming into infrastructure, and who paid for it was the hyperscalers. Everyone said, "Holy crap, they're investing so much into this infrastructure — will they get a payoff or not?" And now we have the answer: yes, it is paying off. Palantir, Salesforce — companies that are not just building AI but selling AI to the end client, to the end consumer — they are profitable. They're profiting from their AI. That's the big thing that makes the market say: fantastic.
Corewave Q2 Results: AI Infrastructure Demand Confirmed
Ivan: Corewave just dropped their Q2 report and the tape flipped hard. The stock went from red into double-digit green. Revenue of $2.6 billion, up 112% year-on-year. Co-founder backlog of $104 billion, not including $25 billion in net new customer commitments. They beat expectations. Demand surge — Corewave revenue more than doubles as AI infrastructure demand surges. Watch out for the bull flip in Corewave. That's going to be the signal.
SEC, CFTC, and OCC Go Pro-Crypto Under Trump
Ivan: Switching gears. We are now looking at the SEC pumping us even more, because Trump is controlling the SEC and the SEC is saying they will release major crypto plans. Why? Because the Clarity Act is not getting passed. They need to figure out something else in the meanwhile so Trump can continue to do business. So yeah — bullish. They're going to have new plans. Bullish, bullish, bullish.
CFTC says it is prepared to advance crypto regulations even if Congress fails to pass the Clarity Act. So the SEC and CFTC are basically coming together saying we're going to pump regardless of the Clarity Act, because Trump is controlling us and we can pump a lot without the Clarity Act. Very, very nice.
You remember we had Gary Gensler not that long ago. He was basically calling this whole industry a big fat scam. And yet we survived. And yet we're here and going stronger. Now we have the SEC, CFTC, and OCC all actively pro-crypto.
US regulator OCC actively pushes for crypto firms to receive national bank charter licenses. Are we in a fairy tale? Trump has many flaws. Trump is not an angel. There's a lot of questionable stuff — the memecoin, Melania went to zero. It's not all great. But we have the SEC, CFTC, and OCC actively pumping us, while before everyone was de-banking us, removing access — Operation Chokepoint 2.0.
We're apolitical. We don't do politics. If you are left, fantastic. If you are right, everyone is welcome. But there is a clear change. And we humans, we're a bit pleb, meaning we get used to the good thing very fast. If someone had just shown me three years ago that the SEC, CFTC, and OCC are all pro-crypto, I would have said, "Wow, that's amazing. Thank God." Now it's like, "Ah, Trump, corruption, you know..." We don't appreciate it. It's kind of like the first time you used ChatGPT — you were like, "Wow, thank you very much for the answer." Now it's like, "WORK FASTER. WHY ARE YOU SO DUMB?" We get used to things so fast.
Just keep in mind what has happened here with the SEC, CFTC, and everything. To us now it seems like not a big deal, but historically it's a massively big deal.
SEC could unveil a token stock trading exemption as soon as Friday. That's good. Solana data transactions hit a record. Very, very nice.
Q&A: Claude Watermarking, ETH Deflation, China Stocks, and Long-Term Investing
Ivan: Let's go to Q&A — questions, answers, debates, discussions.
On Claude putting watermarks on your work to claim your IP: Whether you own the result of using any AI tool is governed by the agreement, not by whether they put a watermark. As far as I understand, no one would be using Claude if there was a risk of ownership issues, and in the Claude agreement I think it's pretty clear that you own what you do with it. The watermark is — my guess would be — due to some EU regulation. They need to be able to show that they're responsible, that they put a watermark so it's possible to identify what's AI and what's not AI in case there's some regulatory issue. I would guess it's more like that than them trying to steal your work, because they would have zero users if there were any question about who owns the work. And Gemini has had watermarking for a very long time. This whole thing with watermarking content has been around for quite a long time, mainly because of regulation. It's not really a new thing, even if it became a new thing on Twitter.
On whether ETH is still deflationary: When there is no L1 demand, ETH is not getting burned and so it's not deflationary. ETH is only deflationary when you have a lot of L1 use. When L2s became big, ETH stopped being deflationary. So unfortunately that old song — "ETH is deflationary, it goes down in supply and gives yield" — it did not age well. Maybe it will be correct again in the future if they fix L1 so that L1 is used again. But right now, it's not correct.
On long-term ETF investing with a 30-year horizon: If your time horizon is 30 years, I would probably do something like 70% S&P 500 and 30% NASDAQ and just forget about it for 30 years. If you said 10 years, then more global diversification would make sense — a bit of gold, a bit of developing markets. But the problem with developing markets is they're supposed to develop but often don't, because of corruption and other issues. And the US has all of the AI, so the US grows with more return than any of this. It only makes sense as diversification if your time horizon is shorter and you're worried about being unlucky — like if there's an AI bubble and the US goes down for five years, that could impact a 10-year horizon too much. But for 30 years, I'd just go 70% S&P, 30% NASDAQ and don't touch it.
On investing in Chinese stocks: Our Chinese quant has been saying that even Chinese people don't really trust the China stock market. If you're a good Chinese company with a big brain, you list in the US — like Alibaba, which is on the New York Stock Exchange. If you're not quite that good, you go to Hong Kong. And if you can't list in Hong Kong, you go to Shanghai or wherever. So the only exception for Chinese exposure that makes sense is companies like Alibaba that are listed on US exchanges. Alibaba is back in conversation — cheap China AI, cloud plus model plus cheap AI stack. The narrative has shifted from pure China risk discount to Alibaba as a cloud and AI play. Those companies on the New York exchange make sense. For anything else, you probably need a special broker to even get access, so just be more careful.
On turning 10K into a million this cycle: You basically need to 100x. It's possible — believe it or not, it is possible. To do it, you need to follow mechanical rules and take risk in a smart way. When you enter, you have a stop loss, you have a take profit, you don't waste the cycle. But what's also going to happen as you grow as a person and as a trader is that you're going to realize you can make money in any market. It doesn't have to be a crypto bull market. Wherever there is a market, you're part of it and you make money. It becomes a freeing realization — that you can trade full time and you're not tied to any particular asset or any particular event that has to happen. You transcend the pleb mindset of needing to make money fast from one specific thing.