Bitcoin rallies above $70,000 as hosts discuss market drivers, ETH strength, and macro conditions
A panel discussion on the Digital Asset News NFA Live show, with hosts Ben, Guy, and Rob analyzing Bitcoin's move above $70,000 and the broader macro environment.
Summary
Ben hosts Guy and Rob on NFA Live to discuss Bitcoin's rally above $72,000, driven largely by a massive short liquidation event of $2.6 billion in a single day, alongside a US Treasury announcement of expanded bond buyback operations. Guy suggests the bottom is likely in but cautions that sustained gains require spot buying rather than short squeezes alone, pointing to ETF inflows of over half a billion dollars as encouraging. Rob and Guy both discuss Ethereum showing relative strength against Bitcoin, driven by institutional interest in staking yield, positive ETF flows, and buying by firms such as Bitmine. The panel also addresses the US national debt crossing $40 trillion, gold's rally driven by central bank buying (289 tons added in Q2, a 62% year-over-year jump) and geopolitical risk from the ongoing US-Iran conflict, and the ongoing question of whether the Federal Reserve may still raise rates before year-end. Guy notes that the most recent FOMC minutes leaned hawkish and that Fed Chair Walsh's upcoming speech at Jackson Hole could either confirm or derail the current rally depending on his tone.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Bitcoin rallies above $72,000 — is the bear market over?
Ben: Hey everyone, and thanks for jumping back into the cryptoverse. This is NFA Live, coming to you on a more bullish day than we've seen in quite a while. Bitcoin's back up to about $72,000. We want to go through several different questions with Guy and Rob. First, let's just check in. How's it going, Guy?
Guy: I'm well, thanks, Ben. How are you?
Ben: Doing pretty well. How about you, Rob?
Rob: I'm doing pretty good. I like these green days. Everybody seems to be happier, even though we're still down a little bit, but I'll take these days. These are good days.
Ben: Hopefully it's a sign of more green days — maybe later this year and next year. What I want to do first is talk about Bitcoin being above $70K. When I was thinking about asking this question, I was thinking, "Alright, it's rallied to $70K, what next?" Well, now it's $72K. A lot has happened since I went to sleep last night. What are your thoughts on that? Rob, why don't I start with you. What are your thoughts about $70K, $72K Bitcoin? It's August of 2026 — is the bear market over?
Rob: I sure hope so, but we'll see where we go from here. We've heard a lot of different times where they say the bear market is over, just to kind of fall down even further. If you throw up the screen real quick — we've got $72K looking pretty good. It's interesting though, over the last seven days, things have been pretty much flat and then a little pump right there. The S&P 500 is down just a little bit over the last five days. So maybe there is this magical rotation of capital. I know some people laugh at that, some people say it's going to happen. But whatever it is, these are our prices.
It's pretty interesting that we just had a massive liquidation event as far as shorts go. 2.6 billion in shorts liquidated in just one day. My heart goes out to the traders out there, but you had it coming. With these shorts happening, this of course buoyed the price. I don't know what's going to happen, especially if we're talking about Iran and America — we can't escape geopolitics. Donald Trump just announced that they're going to do a crushing economic operation. We'll see if this is just another blowhard type of thing or actually comes to fruition.
I'm glad I was dollar cost averaging below the 200-week moving average, and actually a little bit above it. We can see that over time we've been down below the 200-week moving average, but look at that spike — pretty nice, pretty beautiful. But like I said before, I think it's not a bad time to accumulate, because who knows — if the four-year cycle plays out like it's been doing so perfectly, we could see it go down even further. But right now is a pretty good day. So if you're in a little bit of profit and you want to take some off the table, that's not a bad idea. That's what I did this morning.
We can see that in 2022, we went below the 200-week moving average many a time — even the 250, even the 300-week moving average. But then, as a reminder, in 2018, we never did. And that was another midterm year, I believe. Going from here, it seems like it's the same thing — we just drop and drop, we chop sideways, and then we go down. If this does actually happen and we actually get out of this market into bullishness, it'll be great. Hopefully people have purchased a little bit along the way. But if we just look at last cycles, it's pretty much matching up except for this last piece. And this is where the rubber meets the road. Are you going to buy? Are you going to wait for it to go down below that magical 200, 250, 300 moving average and just wait? Or are you actually going to get in there? It's up to everybody who is watching. Me personally, I didn't want to be in that position. That's why I dollar cost average every Monday.
Ben: Yeah, I think that makes sense. Normally, buying Bitcoin in the second half of midterm years tends to work out pretty well, especially if you can have a one to two-year time horizon. So hopefully this time is not different and it ends up working out. Guy, what do you think? Are we back in business here? Is it premature?
Guy: I'd be cautious about saying we're back in business. What I would say is that it's probably safe to say we have bottomed now. I would be very surprised if we went much lower from here. So it looks like the bottom is in, and this could be the first leg up of a much more drawn-out rally.
What's really important to note about the rally we've seen over the past 24 hours or so is that it's been driven by short liquidations. We had this announcement from the Treasury which kind of kicked everything off, but the big catalyst was shorts getting blown out. A lot of people saw the initial pump, went short on that, and also got blown out. We've seen this work in the other direction many many times, and now it's working in everyone's favor — certainly anyone who's long.
What we need to see, if this is going to be sustained and not a fakeout, is spot buying. Because eventually a short squeeze will run out of steam. The shorts will all get blown out and then we'll chop sideways while people reallocate and rethink their positions. So we need to see more spot buying, increased spot buying, if that's going to be a thing. Can you share my screen? On the spot buying thing, it's certainly positive that ETF flows have really picked up. Over half a billion dollars collectively into Bitcoin ETFs yesterday. That is very, very encouraging. That's what we need to see. But I think we're going to need to see more days, more big days of ETF inflows before we can get really excited about this possibly having legs going into the last quarter of the year.
I think the bottom's in. Things are looking good. My best guess is that probably we will retrace a bit eventually — in the next few days perhaps — and that $65,000 to $67,000 level, which was resistance for so long, where we've been chopping below and occasionally challenging and getting rejected, I think that could well flip into support now and give us a bit of support for the next leg up. But my best guess is that we eventually give back these gains before too long. It's certainly a step in the right direction, and yeah, I would say the bottom is likely in now.
Ben: Well, there you have it. It seems like you guys are leaning more in the bullish direction right now, which is certainly nice to see Bitcoin do something different than it's been doing for the last several months. Volatility was being compressed to basically levels it hardly ever sees, so normally when we get to those levels, we do see volatility in at least one direction.
Ethereum vs. Bitcoin — is ETH turning the corner?
The next question is about the ETH/Bitcoin valuation, which is at around 0.03182. The ETH/Bitcoin ratio has actually been showing a little bit of strength over the last few weeks — I think ever since June or so. What are your thoughts about Ethereum? ETH going up on its Bitcoin pair is something we haven't really seen a lot in the last four or five years. Do you guys think that ETH has turned the corner against Bitcoin? Guy, I'll start with you on this one.
Guy: Yeah, you're right. ETH/BTC has been showing signs of strength in recent weeks. The ETF flows for Ethereum ETFs have been largely positive. We're talking nothing like the numbers for Bitcoin, but there is a sense that institutional flows are moving towards Ethereum. We did a video on this recently, and a lot of that is just to do with staking and with yield. Institutions especially want to earn passive income, and ETH is the high market cap crypto that offers that. Meanwhile, exchange balances of ETH are declining as well. Sentiment is improving around Ethereum itself. Obviously Ethereum is in this constant state of flux and change — there's a new upgrade, a new hard fork coming soon. I think that's Pectra. So sentiment definitely seems to have improved.
I would remind you though that I think last time I checked, ETH/BTC was still down 12.8% year to date. So although —
Ben: We take what we get, Guy.
Guy: Let's not be too negative. But yeah, it's definitely showing signs of improving, and obviously that bodes well not only for ETH but for the wider altcoin complex as well, certainly if we look at it in terms of past cycles. The sentiment seems to be improving and I think that's a really important thing to note.
Ben: Rob, what do you think about ETH? It's kind of been down and out for a number of years. What's really interesting if you look at the nuances of it is that ETH is going up against Bitcoin on this recent rally, but the rest of the altcoin market is going down against Bitcoin right now. So what do you make of all this? Is Ethereum showing strength in sort of the riskier parts of the market relative to Bitcoin?
Rob: Guy said it perfectly about what's going on and the inflows with the ETF, and he's also correct about Ethereum being down against Bitcoin — 12.8% somewhere around there year-over-year. Right now, everything just comes down to what is a distressed asset. Is this one of those? Will it actually improve? And it looks like it's actually happening.
I will say it's pretty amazing that Tom Lee from Bitmine kept with his thesis and kept buying and buying. I wonder where we would be with Ethereum if it wasn't for Tom and Bitmine buying up all that Ethereum. It's almost like in the 80s when PCs became prevalent and businesses would buy those and then put Microsoft on them, because no one got fired for putting Microsoft on, even though it was kind of expensive and a little bit clunky. It's the same thing with Ethereum. I think that's what Wall Street is choosing. Some of the institutions are like, "Well, I don't want to get fired. Let's just go with this one. This is the future of finance and we're going to DeFi this way." So I look at it like one of those.
As far as altcoins, you're right, Ben. First of all, most of them should go away because they're worthless. I think the ones that actually have utility are kind of holding up, especially stablecoins and the rails. I always talk about the best being Binance, Ethereum, Solana, Tron. If you have those four and then maybe a little Hyperliquid to round it all out, things will do pretty well for altcoins. But I think the days of everything going up are gone, and it would probably behoove a lot of people to get into safer things like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
US Treasury bond buybacks — signal or substance?
Ben: So one interesting thing that happened yesterday is that US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant announced that the Treasury Department would at least double the size of liquidity support buyback operations for long-term debt by the government. The purpose seems to be to suppress the long end of the yield curve — try to keep the 30-year down, try to keep the 10-year down. Do you think they will be successful in that? Today the long end is right back up, but it's hard to know if that's just a dead cat bounce before it continues back down. Guy, do you have any thoughts on this?
Guy: Yeah. So this was the announcement that kind of set everything off yesterday. Crypto got the extra boost from the conference at the White House, but this was the big economic news. And this isn't QE. This isn't yield curve control. They are not printing money. They are still borrowing — that hasn't changed. I think the national debt crossed $40 trillion yesterday or the day before.
I think really the more important thing is the signal it sends to the market. The administration is basically saying, "We will intervene and do what we can to keep the bond market quiet, to keep yields under control, to keep stocks going up, to keep volatility under control." The problem is that the efficacy of intervention is pretty questionable. Look at what they did with the yen recently. We had this unprecedented, or almost unprecedented, joint intervention on the yen from Japan and the US, and it didn't really do all that much. It stabilized it for a bit and then the yen started creeping up against the dollar once again, and that problem has not gone away.
I think this is kind of the same thing. These macro forces are arguably stronger than what any one player can do, even if that is the biggest player in town — the United States. That said, markets have got a lift off it because they see that the administration is intervening, and that's enough for them. But it doesn't change the fact that there's a $40 trillion wall of debt that is growing by the day. And maybe that's one of the reasons Bitcoin has performed so well — this is serving to remind everyone of this complete debt situation going on. Not just in the US — Japan, France, the UK, so many of these countries are just drowning in debt.
What's also quite interesting is that this program, these bond buybacks, the buying back of these longer, older, less liquid bonds, goes on from early September to the 4th of November, which I think is the day after the midterms. I don't know if there's any coincidence in that at all, but I thought it was interesting. The mantra for politicians should just be, "What's a few trillion dollars among friends?" I mean, $40 trillion is nice, but it does make me wonder what $50 trillion is going to feel like. And really, they probably shouldn't call it the debt ceiling — it should be more like the debt target, because every time they have the ceiling, they just raise it when we get to it. And we always reach it.
Rob: We should call it the debt suggestion, because that's pretty much what it is. I will say, Guy, your compatriot Nick had a good post on X this morning. He says America's debt problem now has three exits: cut spending, let yields run, or let the dollar weaken. And it looks like he says Washington just picked door three, because I think it's like two to four billion dollars that they're injecting into the market. As a reminder, Treasury issuance is up 10%, with $31.5 trillion outstanding as of July. So two to four billion — I think it's posturing. I think Guy made a pretty good point there about the midterm elections and President Trump and Republicans saying, "Hey, this is the fiscal responsibility we're going to pump in there, we've got your back." But don't worry, because we're going to just start spending and printing the M2 money supply. And I think the thesis is good for us — everybody here who holds Bitcoin. If you keep printing, that's fine, because we have hard assets and we'll take those to the bank.
Guy: Anywhere but the bank.
Rob: Anywhere but the bank. They won't cash that check.
Guy: They might look at you a little crazy.
Gold's rally — same reasons as Bitcoin or different?
Ben: What are your thoughts about gold? Bitcoin's been moving up recently, but gold has also been moving up. Do you think gold is rallying right now for the same reason that Bitcoin is, or do you think it's a different reason? What do you think's going on with gold?
Rob: Gold — it's not just retail ETF flows and investors. It's a whole plethora of different reasons, and one of those big things is central banks. Going back to 2024, we can see how much was purchased. But it's also that in Q2, the World Gold Council stated that central banks added 289 tons — a 62% jump year-over-year and the strongest quarter. To put that in perspective, the entire ETF inflows for 2023 don't match that dollar amount. So yeah, gold is a great hedge against inflation. We all know that. But on top of that, we also have that beautiful response by central banks to just go, "We'll buy gold." And that's a big thing.
I think if we can remember the promise in 2017 — if we get a Bitcoin ETF and the government behind us, it's just to Valhalla and we're going to keep going — well, we hit that in 2025. I think the next big thing is more institutions, more sovereign nations and central banks putting Bitcoin on the balance sheet. We get that, then of course we go well up and to the right. But as far as gold, I think it's doing what it's always done — sniffing out inflation as a hedge and central banks buying it like crazy.
Ben: So maybe slightly different reasons for gold being up than Bitcoin then?
Rob: More of a hedge. And of course, like Guy talked about, we have the benefit of all those shorts being liquidated and a little pump right here. But August is known for a little bit of pump, and then September, October — we'll see.
Guy: I think gold is similar in a way. I think gold is sniffing out that $40 trillion in US national debt as well. As Rob said, central banks are hoarding it on a massive scale. And if you look at the geopolitical risk premium, that just doesn't seem to be slowing down.
I read a very good article just yesterday saying the Iranian regime now has much more of an incentive to keep this thing going than it does to end it. Because if it allows the war to end and comes to an agreement that opens the strait again, then they've got to confront the absolutely diabolical situation at home — rampant inflation, an economy that's in the toilet. Whereas if they can keep the war going with the United States, they've got something to focus the population on. A perpetual state of war actually works for them. So any idea that this whole situation might come to an end, that Hormuz traffic might get back to normal, that inflation might go back down because of oil — I don't think that's going to happen. That is looking less and less likely because one side just does not have any incentive to finish it. In that situation, I think that makes the case for gold quite strongly.
Ben: It all points to assets. Well said. I mean, it's always all pointed to assets, right? Because inflation will eat you alive if you're not invested over a long period of time.
Federal Reserve rate hikes — is the next move up, not down?
Ben: Last question, and that is everyone's favorite question — it's more about monetary policy. We've already seen some central banks raise rates. The Bank of Japan has been raising rates. Australia started raising rates in around February or March and has raised rates several times. New Zealand has raised rates already. Europe already saw a rate hike. Is the US next in line? There's a lot of speculation back and forth about whether we're going to get a rate hike or not. The markets seem open-minded to a rate hike before the end of the year. Are you guys on the same page with that, Guy? Or do you think the markets are worrying about something they don't need to worry about?
Guy: I think a rate hike is still very much on the table. Certainly it's retreated in recent weeks. But one thing that got a little overlooked yesterday in all the excitement around the Treasury announcement was the minutes of the FOMC from last month, which said — if I recall correctly — that they could still consider hikes, and I think overall the minutes leaned hawkish. When you factor in the Strait of Hormuz still being closed and the inflation picture remaining pretty dicey, I think there is definitely still a more than decent chance. Maybe not in September, but there are meetings in November and December — there are still three more FOMCs to come this year.
It will be very interesting to see what Kevin Walsh will say at Jackson Hole. I think he speaks there tomorrow. And actually, that's something I should have pointed out earlier for the first question as well — one thing that could derail this whole rally is if Kevin Walsh comes out tomorrow really hawkish. He's not afraid to do things his own way. He's cut this forward guidance business. So there's a lot more uncertainty around that. There is a chance he could come out at Jackson Hole tomorrow and just be really negative and spook the markets right out. But yeah, I think that hawkish tone from the minutes and the fact that the things causing inflation haven't been resolved means we shouldn't rule out a rate hike at all.
Ben: Didn't Trump recently — I feel like I heard, though the problem is I don't even know what to believe when I see things on Twitter anymore. I don't know if it's real or AI. But I saw a video of him talking where he basically said, in strong economies you would expect rate hikes and in weak economies you would expect rate cuts. It almost feels like he's trying to prepare people for a potential rate hike. But I mean, I don't know why he was giving Powell so much grief over this. What did we say like a year ago? We said, what if Trump gets the person he wants in and then the first move for that person is to actually raise rates rather than lower them? Right now that seems like a more likely outcome to me. The next move seems more likely to be a rate hike than a rate cut — not another full rate hiking cycle, but maybe just one rate hike.
Rob: The only thing is — Guy said everything perfectly — but Walsh has to decide if he's going to be Volcker or if he's going to be Burns. Which one is he going to be? The one who was remembered for pushing inflation to the moon, or the Volcker who brought everything down but it was very difficult — and then having to go against Trump and deal with all of that? So I don't know where it's going to go, but we'll see.
Property markets, New Zealand, and closing chat
Ben: All right. We've gone through all the questions for today. Let's see if there are any good questions in the chat. Some people are talking about property in New Zealand being down 30%. I'm going to New Zealand next month, so maybe I should buy some property there.
Guy: What's another conference, Ben, or what are you doing?
Ben: Yeah, I'm speaking at a tech conference in New Zealand.
Guy: Oh, nice. Hey, how's the conference in Miami? I think a lot of people should come to that. Be a nice little vacation for them.
Ben: Yeah, you can see NFA Live live.
Guy: Yeah. Maybe that should just be called NFA Live and this should not be called live.
Ben: Yeah. NFA not live.
Guy: NFA not quite live. Mind you, I think the New Zealand property market was ridiculous. I remember reading about that a while ago, and quite a lot of New Zealanders have left because the property market was so hot they just couldn't find anywhere to live. It's happening in the UK as well. There has been a decline in property prices there too.
Ben: I was talking to Jason Pizzino — he's in Australia — and he said real estate prices in Australia in some of the areas are just down a ton right now.
Rob: Yeah, there's a lot of — I know in Florida they're having just a massive influx of houses and the prices are going down.
Guy: But there's always — it's like we say, there's a bull run somewhere. There are some different places that are actually up, but not much.