Ivan on Tech analyzes Bitcoin and Solana's bull trend signals and market positioning
Ivan on Tech delivers a solo market analysis stream covering Bitcoin's imminent bull trend confirmation, Solana's breakout, and broader crypto market positioning.
Summary
Ivan on Tech presents a live market analysis arguing that Bitcoin is on the verge of confirming a weekly bull trend close, while Solana, Ethereum, BNB, and several other assets have already flipped bullish. He contends that the current moment represents an early-stage bull market entry opportunity, not a missed one, and urges viewers to follow mechanical trading rules rather than emotional impulse. He critiques Kevin O'Leary's view that only Bitcoin and Ethereum matter in a bull market, arguing that assets like Solana and BNB have historically outperformed ETH significantly. He also addresses Ben Cowan's four-year cycle framework, acknowledging its merits while arguing the chart trend must take precedence — and notes that altcoin bull flips already represent a divergence from Cowan's more cautious outlook. A recurring theme is the underperformance of Ethereum relative to Solana, which Ivan links directly to the proliferation of L2 networks fragmenting ETH liquidity since 2021. Ivan also highlights Eric Wall's observation that Pulse Chain and Hex pumping serves as a reliable 'bellwether of dumb money,' signalling crypto spring has arrived — using this as additional confirmation that the broader bull market is underway.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Bitcoin on the verge of a weekly bull trend confirmation
Ivan on Tech: Bitcoin is right now on the border of flipping bullish. We're still bearish when you look at the trend, but literally we're on the dollar. We still have two days to go. Within the coming two days, before the end of the week, we could close the week bullish — and that would be the confirmation of the big fat glorious bull, because the bull is coming in a big, big way.
You look at something like Solana, for example — flip bullish now, keeps mooning and mooning and mooning. Yesterday it went all the way to $110. And with Solana, it wouldn't surprise me at all if we snap to $150 quite quickly.
Many people get so excited so fast. For them, even the fact that we went to $110 yesterday and now we're at $106 — they get so worried. In their brain, bull market starts, you have one millisecond to buy, you don't buy within the correct millisecond, you miss everything. The amount of FOMO people feel is quite insane. And then when you have some kind of a relaxation period — which we can easily have now, for example, where many things are bullish but maybe two weeks of relaxation follow — the point is the bull market will be fast. You need to know how to act, but it's not on the millisecond. It's not like, "Oh, you missed it, man, you missed it." I see it all the time on Twitter, in Discord. People are saying, "Oh, but I missed it." You didn't miss it. You didn't miss it. Many assets — most assets — are not bullish yet. And those that are bullish, they will have their ascent.
Ascent always looks very fast in hindsight. When you look at Bitcoin from 2023, it looks very fast in hindsight. But if you zoom in, you see there were weeks of sideways. There were weeks where it went down for two weeks, then up, then down for three weeks. So if you zoom out, it looks like it's up only. If you zoom in, you see that in reality all markets go up, and they maybe go down, and then they go up even more and they trend to the upside. A trend is not up only. It is mainly up — but sometimes you have down, as you can see in the counter-trend moves in Bitcoin in 2023.
That being said, you also need to realize you maybe have 15 months now from today, from when we flip bullish on Bitcoin. Maybe 15 months — then after that, no more bull market, bear market back. And that's why you really need to pay attention to what's happening here and ensure that you follow a strategy: how to deploy, what to buy, what to sell, when to sell — to capture the most amount of profit possible. That is the only thing we speak about in Bulmania. Literally every day for us is how we capture the most profit possible from this bull market, because 15 months, then it's done, then you have to wait until the next bull market — another four years or however long it is.
AI-generated IKEA sketch and community creativity
Now, we have entered the so-called AI slope game. By doing the AI slope videos, we have a guy on Twitter — his name is Small Peep — and yesterday he did something that you might call a masterpiece. This is from my old IKEA days when I was working at IKEA. The AI slope, presented by Small Peep. Listen to this:
Small Peep (AI-generated Ivan voice): "Buy the chair if you want, but buy Bitcoin first. 21 million fixed supply. That's it."
Ivan on Tech: That is brilliant. And he got the voice now — he got the voice more accurate. I've never seen anything like this. This freaking AI — it's mind-blowing. I think we have AGI. With this kind of stuff, it's very close to AGI.
And then we also had Mooncat. Mooncat did another one. Listen to this:
Mooncat (AI-generated): "Buckle up, crypto bros. The bull market is about to start. We're launching the big fat spaceship. Don't miss out. I'm telling you — enter the big fat juicy spaceship and get ready to launch with us at Bulmania."
Ivan on Tech: I love this detail — is it Elon Musk doing the high five? Fantastic. We're entering cinematography. This is the cinematography of the 21st century.
And yes, just like the movie is saying here, we are entering the big fat juicy spaceship. We are entering it. If you have a week of down in Solana, don't worry — it's bull trend. In bull trend you can have a week of down. Don't be so neurotic. People are so neurotic. It's crazy. I get it, because we've all been wrecked. I write in my book — big profits, lost a lot of money in crypto before I learned how to trade properly. But the emotion — we're emotional. "OH MY GOD, I MISSED IT. I missed the bull market." Then it goes down 2%. "Ah no, I bought too high." It's insane. Follow the system. Follow the trend.
Bullish assets: Solana, ETH, BNB, ENA, Hyperliquid
Now that we are in bull trend in Solana, bull trend in ETH, bull trend in BNB — you have a few assets that haven't pumped too much. BNB, for example — it's bull trend, meaning there is bullish energy. If BNB does what it has been doing in the last cycles, this thing is going to be insane. BNB in all cycles is very strong. Even in the bear market, you see it did not go below the 200-week moving average while Bitcoin did. So you can say BNB actually outperformed Bitcoin — it did not go down as much in comparison to its long-term average, and it pumped more.
Obviously it's super centralized. I mean, we're not Satoshi Nakamoto here. It's obviously super centralized as an exchange coin. Some people are concerned about MiCA because they're not really MiCA compliant — they are outside of the EU and cannot get MiCA compliance for some reason, which is maybe a bit strange. Maybe it's going to have an impact. But I don't think MiCA is going to have too much of an impact on BNB, because these guys can pump the coin even without MiCA. They don't need the Europeans to pump the coin. So yeah, I think BNB is a good one to keep an eye on.
Then of course you have ETH. ETH flipped bullish here. Hasn't pumped too much since the actual bull confirmation. ETH, as you know, is one of these assets where the upside is very capped in my mind. In Solana you can speculate that it potentially goes to $300, which wouldn't even be that much of an all-time high — the all-time high was $294. So just going there is a 3x. In ETH, this is one of the slower horses for me. There are too many other horses. So this is not the priority for me. ETH needs to go to $7,500 to go to the same extent as Solana going to $300 from current levels. And I can see Solana going to $300 before ETH goes to $7,500.
You have to choose which bull trends you participate in because you have a few of them. We don't have infinite capital. So based on upside pump potential, I'm prioritizing slightly more Solana, slightly more BNB. BNB — once this thing starts really going above this resistance, you have a 100% pump. In all bull markets, BNB is crazy. You see here from this bull market to this one it did a fantastic all-time high. Most coins did not do all-time high. BNB — no problem — did a very, very good all-time high, from around $700 to roughly a 100% all-time high. It's like if ETH would have gone to $8K in the last cycle. So that's very important to realize — the strong horses. We need the strong horses.
Many coins are going to do okay. It's all about which is the strongest horse — where is the stallion. The analogy I make a lot in Bulmania: you have a harvest and you can have scissors — click, click, click — you cut the wheat with a scissor. Or you have a big fat combine harvester. If you're just buying back your crap from three years ago hoping that this time it's going to work out, you're using the scissors. If you follow the trend, you have Bulmania, you know which assets are strongest — it's totally different.
Now let's look at what's happening with ENA. ENA is another one of these assets where if they really get going, they get going. It's now bull trend. If it continues, you have to this resistance 40%, then to this high right here, 400%. So this is more of the risky, more volatile stuff — smaller allocation, but the upside is bigger.
Then of course you have Hyperliquid — another all-time high, went to $86. Very strong. I love Hyperliquid since the bull flip back in March. It's up 116%. It's been a fantastic journey with Hyperliquid. And strength begets strength. If something is strong, if the chart is good, you want to be exposed to the chart. Don't buy crap that hasn't pumped because you want to buy cheap — because then you buy Cardano and it never pumps. Many people have done that in the last cycle unfortunately.
Zcash — super strong, new bull trend. We want new bull trend. It went into new bull trend now, actually a bit below the flip, so you get even a discount. Very, very good.
Tao is below the flip level. So it went bullish, it's bullish, but I am not touching it before it goes above the flip level again and proves to us that it wants to continue.
Pudgy Penguins and cross-exchange bull confirmation methodology
Let's check Pudgy Penguins. Right on the border. On Binance at least. On other exchanges they may already be bull-flipped, but we need most exchanges to agree. For example, on Coinbase you can argue it's already a bull flip, but Binance is still bearish. For us, we need most exchanges to agree on something. In this case, I would like for Binance to close bullish as well. It needs about a 10% pump to close bullish, then we'll go Valhalla. Let's see.
Kraken is also bearish. So sometimes, because the charts are slightly different, you may have different readings across different charts. The way to handle it is to look at the top five, top ten exchanges, and ensure that most pairs across most top exchanges are bullish. In this case, we just have to wait until they go bull.
Bitcoin resistance levels and Fibonacci targets
Looking at Bitcoin — which is also right on the dollar — hopefully we can close bullish across the major exchanges. Let's see the different resistance levels that Bitcoin will face once we clear this all-time high. The easiest way to see resistance levels is of course the Fibonacci. Currently we are at $83K. So $83K is going to be the next important one, then you have $91K after that. So if we clear this flip to bull trend, you have $83K as number one, then $91K number two, and then $100K. This journey to $100K could be quite quick actually.
Then once we go to new highs — as soon as we clear all-time high, here I'm measuring from the weekly close — let's say we clear all-time high at $123K, which is the weekly close, then it's going to teleport towards $162K. And then should we clear that, $226K. So just based on the Fibs — simple Fib, simple humble Fib — that's if you measure from the closes.
With technical analysis, I mainly look at the trends. This Fib stuff is a bit too discretionary. You have to make a bit of a judgment call with the wicks. Some people do with wicks, some people do without wicks. If you do with wicks it's basically the same — it changes slightly because the wicks were not that big.
Solana Fibonacci targets and the all-time high breakout thesis
Looking at all resistances for Solana — currently at a big fat resistance due to the 200-week moving average, number one. Then should we break that at $110, which we tried yesterday, the next big resistance based on the Fib is going to be at $137, and then $159–$160. Then should we pump above $252, you have big fat numbers unlocking very quickly.
The main goal of all assets is to first go to all-time high. Some assets never do — most assets will not in crypto — but the good ones will. I think Solana will do it. ETH likely will do it. Bitcoin of course is going to do it. The big struggle is to all-time high. Once you break all-time high, sky is the limit. As you can see, Fibs become very sparse — the distance between them becomes very big — because once you go above all-time high it's price discovery.
That's why the best way to buy is when you buy a new bull trend, like Solana here on the 24th — this Monday. That's the best way to buy. The second best way to buy is when you clear all-time high — then you see you have basically a teleport, normally, just based on Fibs. Fibs are a good approximation of how assets behave. It's never exact, but approximately you can see what normally happens.
The problem with ETH is that in the last bull market it didn't really clear all-time high. Technically it did go above it, but it did not close. It did not establish itself. It just peaked and collapsed very, very quickly.
Ben Cowan, the four-year cycle, and chart-first methodology
We're talking a lot about the new cycle here, and people are asking: what about Ben Cowan? Because Ben Cowan has said that it's just going to be a lower high and that we're going to be sent back to the basement.
He said the following — I remember in May when Bitcoin rallied up to $82K, thinking, "Okay, I hate how everyone is dunking on me. So next time we put a new low, I'll tell people the accumulation window has started and that DCA is the best strategy. That way I don't keep getting dunked on." Did he say that it's time to DCA after the previous low?
With Ben — listen, I love Ben. I think Ben has mainly been doing a good job. What I don't think makes sense in the way he works — and this is just professional, respectful criticism — is that I don't really see any strategy here. The four-year cycle, as you know, we don't follow the four-year cycle. We follow the trend on the chart. It happens to overlay with the four-year cycle pretty darn exactly right now. But now it's bullish. You see here is where it deviates. People have been asking me all the time, "But Ivan, how can you believe in the four-year cycle?" I always told you I don't believe in the four-year cycle. But it seems to work now. And when the chart says something different, you follow the chart.
Four-year cycle says yeah, still a few months of this and that. We follow the chart. When the chart happens to overlay with the four-year cycle, then by definition we're also followers of the four-year cycle because the chart overlays. But listen — four-year cycle, five-year cycle — if something is bullish, it's bullish. Will the four-year cycle on the clock be the same for all eternity? Probably not. You will have to follow the chart.
I love Ben. I think Ben is doing a great job — he's been doing a better job than everyone on Twitter who has just been bullish. But humbly, very humbly, I think we do a slightly better job because we understand that it's all about the chart. You don't have to look at NASDAQ from 1999 to see what's happening today. Chart is number one. Then yes, as secondary confirmation, you can check what NASDAQ did in 1999. If the trend agrees, I'm all for it. If the trend disagrees, we follow the trend.
Here is where maybe we deviate with Ben. Bitcoin still has to close. Right now, Ben and I are like this — brothers in arms, following the same trajectory. We still haven't closed. Where we deviate is the altcoins, because altcoins are now flipping bullish. Solana, ETH, BNB — they're flipping bullish. Hype has been on a tear. So there is already deviation. With Bitcoin, we're also going to deviate in case we close bullish — we're going to go Valhalla very, very fast, no matter what NASDAQ did in 1999.
Big shout out to Ben. But I love Ben. Ben is amazing. There are many people who are — I'm humble and I don't really want drama — but most crypto Twitter people who are saying they called it are gaslighting. They've been bullish in October, in November, and now they say, "Oh, I called the bottom." I don't know what the hell you called. With Ben there is no gaslighting. He's honest. He's following his framework — looking at March here, March four years ago, September, October, NASDAQ rally into July. Good. I like it.
If Bitcoin closes bull, we're going to deviate. But it's fine. And also, if he just follows his clock, he's going to be good too. I think our strategy is going to be better, but his thing is going to be good also — better than all of the people who've been bullish only into shitcoins in October. Those are the ones you have to be careful of. The ones that just bull, bull, bull, and then, "Oh, I called the bottom." Yeah, exactly. You lost 99%. You were bullish every day. Yeah, at some point it's the bottom. Obviously.
Ansem confirms bull market; revenue-driven assets and the fundamentals thesis
Let's look here. Ansem is saying the bottom is in. For many altcoins that go bull trend, I agree. Let's listen to what Ansem is saying.
Ansem: "Crypto's up. Are we in a bull market, brother? Bro, we've been saying it. We're in a bull market. The bottom is in. We are in a bull market. I think we finally got some confirmation from majors last week — a really strong pop on Bitcoin, right around $80K right now. Strong weeklies across the board. Hyperliquid's at all-time highs. Zcash is at all-time highs — well, not technically all-time highs because Zcash technically traded at $5,000 per coin on its launch day — but above its high from January 2018, which is crazy. A lot of coins are doing really well. Onchain is heating up too. You can see with Pump.fun's revenue numbers, they're just making—"
Ivan on Tech: And this is what he said at the end — very important. Because now when you look at bullish assets, there are many things that are going to go bull trend. You need to pick what makes sense to be in, because many things are going to go bull trend. But what are the strongest horses? How can you see that? One way is what he just said at the end — the revenue. With Pump.fun, they have a lot of revenue. They are buying back the coin in real time from the revenue in the protocol. And as you can see, Pump.fun also has an insane chart — flipped bullish right here some weeks ago, on the 10th of August. Since then, up only — a bit of a pullback now, but the revenue story is there. The same thing is with Hyperliquid. Hyperliquid revenue is leading all revenues in the whole market. There are few apps that can come even close.
It's one of the key things you need to pay attention to, because yes, your shitcoin may — if it's lucky — go bull trend. But what's the fastest horse? It's either your meme coin — no revenue, no nothing — or it is fundamental with revenue, with real adoption. As you can see, the market is rewarding real revenue, real adoption. And then everything else in the middle — this high-valued crap with no users, ghost chains, ghost protocols, useless governance coins — I think those are the ones that are going to struggle. They're still going to go up in some ways. It's a bull market. Even the crap goes up. But that vaporware — that's the hardest part to be in. You either want to be in the fundamentals that are great and bull trend only, or you want to be in the pure meme. The stuff in the middle — that's the hardest part.
Charles Schwab analyst pumps Solana, XRP, and Hyperliquid
This guy is from Charles Schwab. He's saying:
Charles Schwab analyst: "You've also got others like Solana, XRP — Ripple is another one that we've talked about — Hyperliquid."
Interviewer: "So when I think about what happens next, people are still focusing most on Bitcoin. A lot of the guests I have on really like to put a majority in Bitcoin because they question the big gamut of crypto. What say you about all the different crypto digital assets we can look at, especially on the debasement trade? Ethereum is in there and that's sort of different from crypto and has a lot of demand. Tell me about the big picture."
Charles Schwab analyst: "So there are obviously quite a few choices. Bitcoin has obviously been the classic — it is more the store-of-value play. If you do have some sort of debasement of the fiat currency concerns, then you've got Ethereum, which has a little bit more functionality. You've also got others like Solana, XRP — Ripple is another one that we've talked about — Hyperliquid. I think oftentimes what you want to do is maybe have some amount of your portfolio allocated to this asset class, a majority of it in the majors, and then maybe some other allocation within some of those other—"
Ivan on Tech: We know all of this — this is not new to us. But what is new is that you do have freaking Charles Schwab suits pumping Hyperliquid, pumping Solana, even XRP. And that's good, because all of these assets have ETFs — at least most of them. Even Hype has an ETF now. You go to PUR, you're going to have a Hyperliquid ETF. You can put your pension into a Hyperliquid ETF if you want, if you're able to invest. So that's very important.
Look here — Bitcoin and gold ETFs have accounted for a record $7 billion over the past five days. There's a lot of money going into the debasement trade. There are many concerns with what's happening with US Treasury — how Scott Bessent is going to deploy his one trillion treasury account into the bond market in order to buy up the bonds and pump up the price.
Top narratives: social trading, Hyperliquid cash flow, Nvidia earnings, gold miners, uranium
When you look overall at the different narratives, here are the top ones you need to pay attention to. Number one is social trading. We did discuss it in the last few streams — the meme season coming back, Pump.fun revenue going up. This notion of social trading is becoming big. It's not really about finding another L1 or another L2 like in the last cycles. Now it's more about being part of the social landscape, seeing the different runners, what's going on. That's a big ecosystem that is coming back — basically the trenches — and it's something that most people on crypto Twitter know about, especially if you follow the correct people.
Number two, the Hyperliquid cash flow story. When you look at Hyperliquid, when you look at Pump.fun — a lot of cash flow — and that is leading to the coins pumping. The market is rewarding fundamentals. If the trend is bullish and they have cash flow, very, very good.
Number three, Nvidia earnings. Trump actually congratulated them — Trump said Nvidia just announced record sales of $96.2 billion, forecasting a significant rise in revenue. For us, this does not mean buy Nvidia. Buying Nvidia, you should have done it last year. If we look at Nvidia, it is still potentially going to bull trend, but for us, crypto is the focus now. Most of my allocations now are towards crypto. But it is good that Nvidia and stocks report good numbers because it leads to more liquidity, more risk-on — the crypto cycle is playing out fantastically well.
If you are more into stocks, Nvidia is in a new bull trend — fantastic. But let's see the other AI stocks. SanDisk — actually going to go lower, continues the bear. Astera going lower. Intel going lower. Most things don't do too well anymore with AI. Micron going lower. So the AI trade as a whole is going to be way tougher. It's going to be more concentrated into the actual winners — sustainable winners like Nvidia. With Nvidia, they have so much revenue it's insane. But even with this record earnings, they're right on the flip. If they go below $225, they're actually going to close bearish. So let's see what happens. But for us, the signal here is that the crypto bull market is heating up even more.
Now, here is a quieter narrative on crypto Twitter. With gold, with miners, and with uranium, it's a bit more quiet. Although gold is bull trend, gold miners are ripping — absolutely ripping — and then you have the uranium trade, which you can argue hasn't really started. Jensen has been speaking about it — the move in nuclear, that nuclear is the next step for AI because all of the data centers have to be powered. There are many companies here that are all in bear trend now. As soon as they start flipping bullish, it's going to be crazy. But most people on Twitter don't know about it. So here's a bit of insight — it's a hidden gem story. For me, this is still a minor thing. My focus is crypto.
Next, onchain fintech rails — new coins that are minted. To me it's not really interesting, but keep an eye on it. And then you have the flips that no one really knows about — only those in Bulmania can see in their software what is flipping. I've been sharing a lot of flips here: ETH, Solana, BNB, ENA, and there are actually many others that have gone bullish as well.
XRP treasury developments and institutional adoption
XRP — what does this mean? EverNorth is building an asset-managed institutional-grade XRP treasury to accelerate onchain finance. Normally we don't follow XRP, but I said to Bulmania AI: give me more XRP. Here's the thing — historically it is vaporware, but man, it pumps in the bull market. And lately they are coming out of the vaporware — they have a stablecoin now, they're kind of doing something.
The SEC declared a registration statement effective. Armada Acquisition Corp shareholders will vote on a proposed business combination. So they're merging with some public listed company in order to do an XRP treasury. Your boomer uncle on Thanksgiving is going to ask you about XRP. EverNorth is designed to accelerate onchain finance. There we go. Fantastic.
Kevin O'Leary's crypto take challenged
Kevin O'Leary (clip): "It's actually has nothing to do with the midterms in my view. The oxygen was sucked out of crypto from AI in terms of an investment, and that's why it's stalled out. It's had a nice move in the last 48 hours, I see that. But the truth is — and even after, if we're lucky and the Clarity Act passes — the only beneficiaries are going to be just two positions: Ethereum and Bitcoin. All the rest don't matter, because the institutions that will buy it after it becomes legal have already looked at it and said, 'I get 97% of the volatility with just two positions, Ethereum and Bitcoin.' So the other—"
Ivan on Tech: Wrong. Very wrong. Very, very wrong. So wrong. Oh my god. He should stick to his watches. I love the watch. I love it. But this guy — I don't like how he reacts to watches. He cries over a watch. I mean, I would never cry over a watch.
Why is he wrong? Let's address ETH. ETH is the same price as 2021. You know what Solana did? Solana went from $8 to $300 in the last cycle. What did ETH do? It went from $1,000 to $5K. And it's not even a fringe thing — it's one of the biggest coins. You could buy one of the biggest coins and you would outperform. So what he's saying — only Bitcoin and ETH — man, ETH is like this. It's sideways. It's in a range. This boomer is giving opinions. I love Kevin O'Leary, he's great. But that video was not good. It's interesting — all opinions are welcome. He's saying you only need ETH and Bitcoin. I just disagree.
Kevin O'Leary (clip continues): "The other 10,000 coins aren't going to — they're in the toilet now and they're going to stay there. I just think there's a chance for two things to happen. Somebody is going to create a blockchain around quantum — which is, you've heard the word quantum as something that could break the algorithms—"
Ivan on Tech: Oh my god. I don't think it's going to be an L1. I just disagree. Maybe we should have a debate, Kevin and I. I will come to his studio, sit at this tiny table, and we're going to discuss that. You don't do an L1 for quantum. It doesn't work like that anymore. It's not 2017.
Kevin O'Leary (clip continues): "Where even Bitcoin is stored. So we need security there. And one of these blockchains — probably Ethereum right now — is going to become the standard for the S&P 500. So all of this stuff about contract management, inventory—"
Ivan on Tech: Kevin, Kevin, Kevin — I can promise you, the way it is, it's not going to be the standard for the S&P 500. Have you seen transactions per second? It's going to be an L2 maybe, but then it's not ETH. Base is not good for ETH. Robinhood chain is not good for ETH. They don't pump ETH. They don't give users to ETH. They don't do anything for ETH. S&P 500 will not be on ETH. Maybe on an L2, but then it's not ETH.
The gap is so big. I don't know how we're going to teach all this. The gap is too big.
The ETH L2 problem: a structural analysis
Since L2 introduction, ETH has gone down. Let me ask AI — when did Arbitrum and Optimism launch? Optimism launched December 16, 2021. Arbitrum launched basically the same — 2021. Let's see if we can correlate the creation of the L2 industrial complex to the ETH issue.
Oh, L2s are so good for ETH. So good for ETH. It's literally somewhere here — the launch. Oh my god. You cannot make it up. I just spontaneously was curious when these L2s launched — and yeah, when they launched right here — oh, it's good for ETH. It's so good for ETH.
In a way, it's a bit sad. You guys remember — we loved ETH. We loved ETH all the way. Here at $300 when we were yelling to buy ETH — I remember it clearly, it was $300 and it went to $3K very fast. I remember this 10x like it was yesterday. And at this point, they discussed doing L2. In the beginning, I thought, man, L2 — maybe it makes sense. But I had a bit different L2s in mind. For example, you remember the early days of gaming L2? There was an L2 for gaming. I thought it makes sense — if you have a game on L1, maybe you put the assets and some stuff related to your game on an L2. Or you want to have high-frequency microp payments — put them on L2. That made sense to me.
But it became so dumb. Instead of doing an L2 for gaming with some cool features for gaming, it became: okay, it's an L2 that is like a copy of the whole ETH. Anything you do on ETH, you can do now on L2. So yeah, Uniswap — we're going to make a copy of it on L2. We're not going to make the main Uniswap better. We're going to just copy the thing. Now we have two Uniswaps. Then we have a hundred of them. Liquidity split, everything split.
For a while I was thinking maybe it makes sense — you know, cross-chain, everything cross-chain. But then you also saw the birth of Solana and the fact that you can make an L1 fast and great for the use cases of trading. It simply became uncompetitive. It's not competitive.
So if they now scale L1, maybe it's going to be great. But at the end of the day, this is more historical — some emotional venting. Practically, ETH is bull trend. So it's bullish. It's not Gala, it's not Enjin. Maybe on some L2 — Loom Network, was it Loom Network? I think it was Loom Network, guys, if I remember correctly. They were in 2019. There was also Plasma Chain for payments. Loop Ring came a bit later. Yeah. So guys, let's go to Q&A.
I need to watch the AI again. You see — AI, it can do fun content. People have been saying, "Ivan, AI will never do creativity." I don't know, man. The way it does this movie — listen to this:
Small Peep (AI-generated Ivan voice): "Buy the chair if you want, but buy Bitcoin first. 21 million fixed supply. That's it."
Ivan on Tech: Demonstrating the chair. Fantastic. Big shout out to Small Peep for this. And also big shout out to Block Scribbler who gave the idea for the IKEA sketch. If you guys have some ideas, go to Twitter, tag Small Peep and Mooncat — because Mooncat has also been doing these.
Q&A: Risk management, mechanical rules, and the plebe brain
Now, on this question — "If Bitcoin today dumps 45%, will you still be bullish?" Because the money line didn't swipe. So it's not bullish. Bitcoin is not bullish. Solana is bullish. ETH is bullish. And if you are in Bulmania, you know that all entries have risk management. They have stop-loss.
Risk management — you don't — I see that when you trade, you have no risk management. That's why you ask, "What's going to happen?" You have bull trend, you have risk management, always. We have step-by-step what to do.
Can Astera pull a big thing? It's too small. Be careful. If you still have Astera from the early days, be careful. Looking at the chart — since December 2025 it is consolidation, so it's building a bottom. Eight months of building a bottom — not bad. When it flips bullish, likely it's going to be quite good. If they really ensure to take care of the coin and not just dump into the rallies — that's another thing. With the small ones, you never know. With the big ones like BNB, Solana, and ETH, it's not going to be that some guy can dump into the rally. Although it's not fully protected — Binance can probably dump into the rally. But in the small ones, you just never know. So you have to be a bit more careful. But technically, after such a long bottom, if it goes, should be Valhalla. Technically. Practically, the smaller the shitcoin, the more risk that insiders dump into the rally. So it's risk-reward.
There is a new L2 launching on HyperVM — Elysium. But for Hyperliquid it doesn't matter. Hyperliquid kind of runs like NASDAQ without any L2.
"I want to enter a position for Solana. Should I wait for the pullback?" Oh, the classic question. The classic non-Bulmania member question. "Should I form in? Should I not form in? Should I wait for a pullback? Pullback never comes. You're on the sidelines. Then — should I still form in?" It's a classic. The classic dilemma of the plebe. Not knowing anything, alone on the raft in the ocean. "Should I do — should I? What happens if I buy now? What happens if it goes to $90? Ivan, what if? What if? What if I buy now and it goes to $90? What? What if I don't buy and it goes to $200? What happened, Ivan?"
This is the most common thing in the bull market. Everything pumps, but you're outside of the pump. Because no, you didn't buy the bottom. No one buys the bottom. But now it's a bit higher than the bottom, so you feel FOMO and you don't know what to do. So you buy Cardano, which never pumps because it's cheap, and then it doesn't pump anyway.
What you're asking — should I buy now or not buy now — is answered by the mechanical rules. The holy mechanical rules, which are at the core of the Bulmania philosophy. What to do when things go bullish, what to do when things leave bearish. Solana is bull trend. Entering in bull trend is important in early bull trend. Do you have to go all in? You don't have to go all in. You can buy a bit here, then next week you can buy a bit more. You need to manage risk. You need to have a stop-loss.
The mechanical rules give you such calm. I don't know how you guys handle this feeling — "Oh, should I go now? Should I not go now? Should I buy here?" Such stress. And it's a solved problem. Should I buy or not buy? It's a solved problem. It's called mechanical rules. When things go bull, you're bullish. You don't have to go all in. You respect the power of the bull. "BUT WHAT IF IT DUMPS?" Risk management. It's already calculated. If it goes down, there is risk management. If it goes up, there are take-profit strategies. Any question you ask — I cannot teach you 101 for five hours here — but any question you have is answered in the mechanical rules, because your question is the standard plebe question. All plebes across the world have it.
On a big picture: be bullish in bull trend. You don't have to go all in on day one. But you need to be bullish in bull trend.
Pulse Chain as a bull market bellwether; AI stocks wrap-up
Yo yo yo — bull trend, bull trend. Even Pulse Chain confirmed. That's when you know the bull market is here. When Pulse Chain stuff is pumping, because when the retardio stuff pumps, you know we're back. You know we're back for real. Eric Wall said it — let me pull up what he said. He also noticed that Hex and Pulse Chain stuff has been going up. He said:
Eric Wall: "Pulse Chain is the bellwether of dumb money. The first signs of crypto spring. You can't say I didn't call the crypto spring. If you ever want to get good at this, you must study the dumb coins. To reach the upper echelons of true elite, you must first master the retardest of the dumb."
Ivan on Tech: Exactly. You are the bellwether. You are the signal. I agree. When things start pumping in this way, it was the crypto spring. Exactly. Thank you very much for bringing us this fantastic crypto spring.
Are memory stocks in bear trend? Yeah, many of them are in bear trend. So you have to be careful. The AI trade for us is more or less done. We've been in the AI trade since the end of last year, and for us it's more or less done. Crypto is the new bull trend here. SanDisk is in bear trend — tried to go bull trend, failed. Astera bear trend. Intel goes even lower. MU goes even lower. Marvel goes even lower. Once you are bear trend, you're bear trend.
AMD is still bull trend, so that one is still okay. Nvidia is right on the border. If it closes a bit lower, it may go into bear trend. But Nvidia potentially can create another bull trend because they did have crazy earnings. That may push them into bull trend. But let's see how the week closes. We have a whole trading day today.
Overall, you remember just a few months ago all of these charts were looking great. It was easy mode. All of the charts a few months ago were here — every day you open the stock market, these AI stocks all pump like 20% per day. People asking, "Where is bull season?" Old season — it's been in the AI stocks. So obviously now it's a different situation. That's why we have to be way more careful. Hope that makes sense.