Ivan on Tech gives a bullish Bitcoin market update amid regulatory and macro uncertainty
Ivan on Tech presents a live stream covering Bitcoin's price action, the US GENIUS Act vote, European sovereign debt concerns, the Revolut data breach, and various crypto industry news.
Broadcasting solo at a moment when Bitcoin is trading around $76,800, having recently flipped into its first weekly bull trend since 2023. He argues that none of the week's macro events — including the GENIUS Act (stablecoin clarity) vote, FOMC decision, or geopolitical noise — can derail the bull market, and that bad news is unlikely to cause significant dumps while any good news will act as an upside catalyst. He presents European sovereign debt data showing France and the UK paying higher borrowing rates than Greece, framing this as evidence of accelerating loss of trust in government finances that is structurally bullish for Bitcoin. He also covers a significant Revolut data breach in which a hacker impersonated an Italian government regulator over five months, obtaining customer KYC data that Revolut handed over without meaningful verification. He discusses Hunter Biden's memecoin ('laptop coin') being banned from X and down 99.3%, the Layer Zero private key loss affecting Wyoming state government assets, and conducts a Q&A covering trading strategy, risk management, and mechanical rules for protecting downside in a bull market.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Bitcoin price action and the current bull trend
Ivan: Oh yes. Oh yeah. Guys, welcome to another episode. Right now, Bitcoin is currently at $76,800. We are bouncing around trying to figure out whether we smash through the resistance, which is currently at around $80K — we are having big fat resistance at around $80K — or whether there's going to be a pullback. But as you know, we just entered a new bull trend for Bitcoin, which is the first weekly bull trend since 2023. We've been saying for a long time here, basically since June, that it is time to be more bullish than bearish. It is time to see the light.
While everyone is discussing PPI, Iran, rate hikes — this rate hike, that rate hike — I can tell you that with the highest likelihood we're going to go very, very high. Valhalla. Personally, I'm not even worried about this volatility at all. Why? Because should we go down, just buy more. We go down, buy more. We are now heavy bullish. Why? Because bull trend. Because one year of bear, and now it's time to see the big picture. The volatility is going to happen because even institutions are overreacting to whatever is happening day-to-day.
The GENIUS Act vote and stablecoin regulation
For example, a few days ago people said the GENIUS Act is going to pass. Now people are saying it's not going to pass, or maybe it's going to pass later. Who the hell knows? A final Senate draft dropped Sunday night with roughly 12 to 6 Democrats requesting changes. There's going to be a Tuesday vote — which is today. Yesterday some news came out that maybe it's not going to be passed. But who the hell knows? Let them vote. Let's see what's going to happen.
Senator Warner on the GENIUS Act says, "I don't think the ethics provision is near enough." Okay. What do you want? Trump already agreed to the toughest ethics restrictions on federal officials in American history to get this bill done. Now, to close the deal, he went further, giving state attorney general enforcement power. So if you are a state official and you do something shady in crypto — for example, you do a memecoin — the state attorney general is going to come after you. Back in July, Trump voluntarily put himself, the VP, and every federally elected official, judges, and spouses under strict ethical rules. Trump put everyone on the strictest ethical rules, and the Democrats still wanted more.
So yeah, let's see what's going to happen. There should be some kind of vote today. No vote tomorrow kills the toughest ethics reform this country has ever put on the books. Kills consumer protection. That's true.
Guys, today there's going to be this vote. Hopefully they vote correctly. Hopefully they vote yes. We want clarity. We want crypto to be regulated as soon as possible. We want to be here and leading the world. There is now a very low chance of it passing — 20% chance that the GENIUS Act is going to be signed into law in 2026. Let's see what other bets there are. Very low chance of it passing. But listen, it's higher than it was earlier in September — then it was 14%. Now it is 19%. It was even higher yesterday at 31% because a lot of bullish news came out, and now some bearish news came out.
All in all, this doesn't matter for us in terms of the bull market. But of course it would be a nice catalyst to bootstrap us. We're in a situation now where bad news is unlikely to dump us, while good news will ignite us to the upside. So we need some kind of catalyst — that would be fantastic. But whatever catalyst we get, whether it is the GENIUS Act, maybe something with the US Treasury having Bitcoin, maybe something else — there are all kinds of discussions happening. For example, the House Financial Services Committee will consider on September 16th a bill to establish a US strategic Bitcoin reserve. That can be another one. At the end of the day, whatever good news we have is going to pump us, and whatever bad news we have is unlikely to dump us in the position we're in right now.
The four-year cycle and institutional timing
Also, as you remember from yesterday, the four-year cyclists are now not bearish. They're doing their cycling. I just see them in front of me — cycling, cycling, cycling. They're going to be cycling into the bull in October because, according to their alarm clock, that's when it's going to be bullish. The cyclists are going to be bringing in massive bullishness to us as well. That's going to be in two weeks.
Bitmine loads up on ETH
Bitmine — Tom Lee is loading up on ETH. 27,000 ETH he bought. The company now holds 5.69 million ETH, roughly 5% of total supply — 4.9% to be exact.
The Revolut data breach
Also, guys, very important — if you are a Revolut customer, there is such a drama happening with this Revolut stuff. The hacker is now leaking one KYC record after another, basically to prove that they are serious and that they have the data. What happened here is that the hacker impersonated an Italian regulator. Somehow they hacked an Italian regulator's email.
Our investigations team is in contact with the Revolut hacker and found out a lot more about how he did what he did. The hacker got access to government employee accounts using an info-stealer. After gaining access to an employee email, they would log in, add their own recovery email, and start logging everything — silently listening in. So first they got access and started to listen in, to understand how these regulators work. Just starts listening, reading emails, understanding the format, understanding how they communicate, so he could then emulate that.
Then he actually started to send out emails to victims, including Revolut, trying to get the information. To not get caught, he would instantly delete any emails he sent that were not intended for the original employee. So the original employee — the plebe in the government office — clocks in at 9:00 a.m., checks the email inbox. The hacker has already deleted the emails he sent from the outbox. So the employee comes in, working, working, working, sees nothing unusual. Goes home. Hacker sends email, sends email, sends email, removes, removes, removes. There are no local copies. Employee comes in at 9:00 a.m. — nothing to be seen. Everything is good.
The inbox was checked 24/7 for any new response to the hacker's sent emails. Upon receiving one, the hacker would instantly download the file, the email, and delete it before the original employee noticed.
The hacker says that at first he used to forge court orders but quickly realized that this wouldn't work for Revolut. After some research, he decided the best entity to target was Revolut's Lithuania-based Revolut Bank UAB, which would respond to a European Investigation Order. With this stolen email, the hacker sent one request originally five months ago. Revolut believed it, thinking it was the Italian government, and complied with the order. From the hacked email, the hacker was able to control emails that looked like they genuinely came from multiple Italian government email addresses. The hacker continually sent out requests over the course of five months. Not once did Revolut ask questions or fail to send over the information.
In one incident, the hacker accidentally sent the wrong document. Instead of realizing what was going on, Revolut support guided them on what to change.
I mean — for this kind of stuff — all the victims, very sorry if your info is leaked. But actually the hacker here is doing something I don't want to say is good, but it's slightly in a positive direction, because everyone now understands you cannot be this reckless with KYC. Okay, KYC is good, but maybe use your brain. Maybe double-check. Maybe don't comply so fast. Maybe ask for an actual court order. Maybe have a lawyer double-check. Maybe ask, do you really need all the data? Where is the court order? Where is the legal paragraph in the law book that says I have to follow it? Use your brain. At least protect your clients a little bit.
But no — they just send everything. Zip file. Done. All good.
It seems that if this is correct, Revolut deserves this hack 100%. They should pay the ransom. They should protect their clients by paying the ransom, because if you get — well, it's not even a hack, they literally just gave out all their data. They should be punished heavily as a company. They should lose profit. They should lose trust. It's crazy, guys. It's crazy.
I hope that all the victims sue Revolut as much as possible and get as much money as possible. Revolut needs to learn a lesson here, and all their peers — like Wise and other new banks — should watch and learn what's happening here.
You see the problem. This over-compliance has to end very, very quickly. I understand why they're overly complying. If they get any kind of smallest request, they instantly comply. Why? Because Revolut has been under big pressure overall as a bank — they work across borders, they do everything digital, they have no in-person meeting with the client — meaning they have massive heat from regulators. So whenever they get some kind of court order or email, they're instantly complying because they know they're going to get heat from regulators, maybe lose their license, etc. But yeah, it's good that the hacker taught them a lesson. You need to put in some effort. Protect the data. At least a bit.
But no — they write to the hacker, "We immediately initiate internal audit." They say, "Oh, Mr. Hacker, we immediately — everything immediately." It's crazy. It's crazy.
European sovereign debt and the macro case for Bitcoin
Getting back to the big picture — what's happening with European sovereign debt. This is the macro case for Bitcoin. As a reminder from Tim Draper:
Tim Draper: "We're about to go through a major anthropological change as big as when currency was invented. It's that big. And it's going to make the world much, much wealthier. But those of us who have Bitcoin are going to be the ones who basically are going to help steer the world after this cataclysmic event. So go out there, buy Bitcoin. Tell all your loved ones to buy Bitcoin. All the businesses you're related to, tell them to buy some Bitcoin. Tell governments to buy Bitcoin. So that we don't have this cataclysmic event — that really scares me. And I don't get scared easily. I am almost fearless. But that event — that's a little scary. So go out there. You're in the right place right here. You look around — these people are seeing the future."
Ivan: What he's speaking about here is that the trust in government debt and the overall financial system is disappearing very, very fast. For example, you have such a high interest rate now for 30-year bonds — look here, 5.3%. It's very, very high. It's extremely high. So there's low demand for government debt.
And as we're going through this, you see that it's not only the US — it's also Germany, it's also France. Look at France's debt yield. France is more or less bankrupt, guys. If you haven't noticed, if you haven't heard — France is more or less bankrupt. I don't understand how you can be bankrupt when you have such high taxes. How can it be bankrupt? There's something wrong. You take so much tax and you're still bankrupt. How? It's crazy. But look here — the French 10-year bond yield is going up a lot. They borrow and they borrow and they borrow, and they don't have any other way to finance their budget except borrowing. And they cannot raise taxes because it's already so high. They cannot do anything. They cannot increase the pension age because they're going to have a revolution. Look here — it's the highest in over 10 years. So this is France.
At the same time, Germany — it's not like Germany is better. Germany is very, very bad. Germany bond yields — very similar situation. It is also the highest in over 10 years. It's over-borrowing. And when the interest rate is this high, it means that the market is worried about inflation, worried about the country itself, because it demands a high interest rate. When you have a debtor that is risky, you demand a high interest rate so your risk is compensated. Germany is having the same problem.
Now, the interesting thing — you guys remember Greece? I heard the other day that Greece actually has a lower yield than France. Let me actually check. Greece 10-year bond yield. Let's see if it's correct. Exactly. Look here — Greece has better finances than France. Greece — the thing that almost collapsed the euro. Everyone was laughing at how bad the Greek economy was. Look here: France's 10-year yield is 4.5%. Greece's 10-year yield is 4.3%. So Greece can borrow money at a cheaper rate than France, because Greece is more stable and more promising than France. Fantastic.
And Greece has done many great things. For example, they're now attracting a lot of millionaires from many countries by having low tax, by having a good attractive visa, by having a good tax regime. A lot of European countries — including Greece, Portugal in the past, and Italy — offer very low tax to wealthy people. Normally when you look at Greece or Italy you see high taxes on salary, yes. But if you move in as a foreigner and you have a lot of money, you can get a lump-sum taxation. Let's say you pay 100K per year — I think Italy has now increased it to around 300K. But listen, if you are a billionaire, you pay 300K and you're done. They don't care about your assets, where you have your assets. You don't have to report foreign assets. You don't have to report anything. You just pay 300K and that's it. That's very attractive. So they're smart.
The UK, on the other hand, is removing non-dom status. They had a similar arrangement — they had non-dom — and they removed it. And UK's 10-year yield is 5.4%. Oh my god. UK is the worst of the bunch. UK is doing the worst. The higher it is, the more expensive it is for the government to borrow. Greece has 4.3%. UK has to pay 5.3% per year on their 10-year debt if they want to borrow money for 10 years.
Let me check the US. US 10-year bond yield — 5%. So here's how you can quickly see how confident the financial market is in different countries. This rating — the higher it is, the worse. And I love that Greece is like the best here.
All in all, the financial industry is now in a position it's probably never been in — where trust in government debt is disappearing, where inflation fears are high, and Bitcoin is just now coming out from a big fat bear market. Fantastic.
This week's macro events — and why none of them matter
Guys, this week is going to get heavy. Look here — we have Tuesday, today: the US GENIUS Act vote. Hopefully it's going to get passed. Wednesday: FOMC decision. That's tomorrow. Thursday: Japan rate decision. Friday: Fed announcement. Heavy, heavy week. But none of it matters. It's still a bull market. I can tell you — none of it matters.
I know you guys are probably worried. You're monitoring. You're thinking, "Ivan, what's going to happen? We need to monitor this, we need to monitor that." I can tell you — none of this matters for the Bitcoin bull market. Nothing matters. Higher interest rate? Good. It doesn't matter. The last bull market also started with higher interest rates. It doesn't matter. Iran? We've had Iran since March. Look here — interest rates went up one, two, three, four times right after the last bull market started. Doesn't matter.
GENIUS Act — if it passes, catalyst. Good, good, good. To the downside, none of it matters. To the upside, any of it can trigger a pump. GENIUS Act passes — pump. Interest rate hike and Bitcoin does not dump — that also means pump. You understand? An interest rate hike would be bullish if Bitcoin does not dump, because then everyone knows it doesn't matter. Like, I know with the highest likelihood it doesn't matter, but imagine if you also have proof — they increase the interest rate and Bitcoin doesn't care. That would be bullish. They keep the interest rate the same — bullish. So everything is bullish, guys. Everything is bullish now.
Hunter Biden, the laptop token, and crypto ethics
Now — Hunter Biden. Hunter did the laptop coin. Laptop coin got banned by X. Elon Musk banned the laptop coin page from X. Now Hunter Biden is begging Elon Musk to unban laptop token, insisting he's not a scammer. Hunter quoted Elon Musk referencing AI extension warnings from Dario Amodei from Anthropic and said, "Any chance we could get laptop token back up?" Laptop token is down 99.3% since launch. Amazing, guys. Amazing.
See — Hunter needs to hurry, because if he ever wants to be in politics, he needs to do his coin. Well, he did it. Okay, he already did it before the big ethical package from Trump arrives, because Trump being the most ethical guy, he did add a big ethical provision into the GENIUS Act. So if it passes, Hunter cannot go to politics. The X page, the X page got removed.
Layer Zero loses Wyoming's private key
Guys, look here — Layer Zero, this cross-chain tech, they just lost the private key to Wyoming's government's assets. Fantastic, man. What's happening?
So Layer Zero somehow lost the private key to Wyoming government assets and then proceeded to lie to them about what happened. A new blog from the chief information officer of the Wyoming stablecoin has revealed a whole new cesspit of issues with Layer Zero. Layer Zero's repeated pattern of operational security failures — for example, there were even more security failures beyond the North Korea hacking incident.
You guys remember the Layer Zero hack that affected — what coin was wrecked when Layer Zero got hacked by a North Korean hacker? I don't remember now, but there was some coin that got majorly wrecked. And Layer Zero said, "Oh, it's not our fault. You configured Layer Zero incorrectly." So you see a pattern here where Layer Zero is failing and they blame the client or they blame someone else.
Next — lost control of the private key for the state of Wyoming. How do you simply lose control of a private key that controls government assets? Was Wyoming's token contract being entrusted to a single employee rather than a set of signers? If so, what kind of employee?
Next — inadequate disclosures about the incident. This is a polite way of saying that the Layer Zero team then proceeded to lie to the state of Wyoming about what was actually happening with the safety of their assets. If Layer Zero is willing to cut corners on security and then lie to a government-level partner, how could anyone trust them for anything?
Wyoming government meets crypto bros. The two worlds collide. If they will lie to a government, which could cause serious legal issues, why wouldn't they lie to other integration partners?
I thought this was comic — it's like comic stuff that they lose the key to Wyoming's assets and then probably blame Wyoming. Is Cynthia Lummis from Wyoming? Probably Cynthia Lummis lost the key according to them. But anyway — now Wyoming is switching to Chainlink. There you go. For all you Chainlink Marines, this is very good.
Q&A — trading strategy, risk management, and the bull market
Guys, let's go to Q&A — questions, answers, debates.
Someone asked: "Ivan, I didn't get in at $65 to $90. Started buying at $94. Yeah, it flipped at like $94 bull flip. So you didn't miss anything. I've got a few Ks left to buy. Would you wait a bit or just buy now? More stress being on the sideline now."
When it comes to this — should I put in my K, should I not — it's very hard to say should you go all in. You're basically asking, should I go all in or not all in. It's like if you go to your gym and you ask me, "How much should I bench?" I don't know what your goal is. Are you a powerlifter? Do you want to get lean? What do you want? How much do you bench now? You want size? You want lean? It's kind of similar here. When you ask, "Should I go all in?" — man, I don't know what your goal is. Do you want to be diversified? If Solana drops 30%, are you going to be okay? I don't know anything about you.
I can tell you that now it's time to be bullish. Now it's not time to be bearish. Time to be bearish was last October. Now it's time to be bullish. If you have the question of whether it's too late — it's not too late. Bitcoin just now flipped bullish. It's not too late. You should still manage risk. You should set stop losses. But now is the time to be bullish. It's not the time to be bearish. It's not the time to be overanalyzing too much or being too concerned. But you should always manage risk. It can go down — always. The market is probabilistic. So it's not late. Literally now we see a bull flip in Bitcoin, a bull flip in Solana. It's at the early, early stages.
Whether you're going to go all in or not all in depends entirely on your strategy, what you want, etc. Mechanical rules help you save capital. They protect you no matter what. If you have downside protection, you know that you can take risk. When you have downside protection and mechanical rules, you know that you can take more bets at the market. None of them is going to be 100% success rate — that's impossible. But if you have downside protection, you can take many bets. If you have a new bull trend and it pumps like Bitcoin did in 2023, like Solana did, you just have to ensure that you're part of something like this and you don't get wrecked. You just need a few of these trends and you need to protect the downside. Once you know the mechanical rules, they work on any market. They work anywhere.
Watch talk and OG crypto YouTubers
Ivan, why Rolex and not AP or Patek? I like Rolex, guys. I think it looks good. I'm quite a big dude, so I need a nice size watch. I like the classic style. I'm open to other watches, but I don't want a watch just for watch's sake. I have my daily wear — I have the Submariner here for daily, for anything. I can go pick potatoes with this one. It's daily. Then I have the Tiffany one for occasions such as the daily stream. And then I have the gold Sky Dweller — that one, for example, I kind of don't have a use for now. I had it before I got this one, but now I don't have a use for it. I don't like having a bunch of them waiting for what. So when I get tired of this one, maybe. But how can you get tired of this one? I will never get tired of this one. I don't want stuff I don't wear. I don't want a big collection. What should I do with a collection?
And the Patek to me looks boring as hell. Maybe I'll change my mind. Let's see.
"Last other YouTuber from 2016 still running their channel like you. Deep respect for your dedication." 100%. We're always here every day with you guys. But to be fair, there are a few remaining, but some that don't. For example, where is Louis Thomas? You guys remember? This British guy — I think he deleted his channel. What happened? You guys remember Louis Thomas? Also, what happened to Crypto with Zero? That Indian guy from the US? He's not around at all. This was uploaded 2017.
Is Superman still here? Big shout out to Superman. Oh, he's still doing the same, man. He's doing the same. Where is Ian Balina? Ian Balina is not here. I think he's doing his Tokenomics. Crypto Daily — I think he came back and then didn't come back. Yeah, Alan Daily. Crazy stuff. Crazy 2017. It was crazy days, guys.
Wrap-up — the bull market thesis
Let's wrap it up. Today it's not too many news. Well, later today there's going to be news, but that's it for today. The zest of it is: it's time to be bullish. Even if we go down a bit, just buy more. Be bullish. Now it's time to be bullish. Now it's time not to be bearish. It's time to see the light. The four-year cyclists doing their tour — they're going to be cycling back in very, very soon. Enjoy your day.