Bitcoin market analysis and crypto news from Digital Asset News
A solo presenter episode from the Digital Asset News channel covering Bitcoin's current market position, altcoin speculation, crypto scams, and political developments around crypto regulation.
Summary
The host of Digital Asset News delivers a wide-ranging market update, arguing that the current environment may signal the beginning of a new bull run, while urging caution about speculation-driven altcoin pumps. He uses Avalanche's recent 17% gain — following comments by Kevin O'Leary at the Avalanche Summit — as a case study in how speculation, not fundamentals, drives altcoin prices. He also covers the defeat of the Clarity Act in Congress, noting that Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado voted against it on the grounds that it would enable presidential self-enrichment through crypto. The host warns that without legislation enshrined in law, regulatory frameworks remain at the discretion of agency heads who can be replaced by incoming administrations. The episode includes warnings about 45 fraudulent wallet apps found on both major app stores, a hack of Charles Hoskinson's and Cardano's YouTube channel, and a Polymarket prediction that Democrats are favored to retake both chambers of Congress — which the host says would result in a legislative stalemate for the current administration. The host also announces the Into the Cryptoverse conference (November 20–22, Miami), featuring guests including Michael Saylor, and closes with a Q&A covering Bitcoin's utility as a store of value, the Lightning Network, altcoin prospects, and the SEC's move to allow equities on digital asset rails. An animal shelter fundraiser update confirms $51,000 raised and a lease signed for new land in Puerto Rico.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Opening Market Overview
Host: There's a lot of stuff to go over today, so let's just jump right into it. It seems like there is a bull run that wants to really get out there and start running. And when the bull run happens, you have to be aware of what's going on in your surroundings and the people that are partaking in it. We've been talking about altcoins recently — Bitcoin being the heavier of the ones we focus on here. But when you take a look at some of these alts that are being talked about, you start to think to yourself, okay, maybe there may be something here as far as the next big run. We can't say for sure, but when you've got people like Kevin O'Leary talking about Avalanche and being there, you might want to take a look and say maybe there are some gains to be had.
However, I will just say this — as I've said many times before, altcoins, crypto, digital assets, it is all about speculation. Roughly three parts speculation and a dash of utility. That's really all you need. If you don't think that's true, just take a look at Helium. What happened a couple of weeks ago: a little town outside of Dallas–Fort Worth, roughly 40 miles out, switched over everything for their Wi-Fi towers and their 5G, going all in on Helium. Because of that, it rose up 120% in roughly 24 hours. Why? Was it because of earnings per share? Was it because of new technology? No. It's because of speculation — people talking about how great it is. And as a reminder, that city was only 46,000 people, so it's not like there's a billion-dollar profit to be made there.
Kevin O'Leary on Avalanche — Speculation vs. Fundamentals
But I get ahead of myself. Listen to Kevin O'Leary as he's talking about what things will run. He's kind of a big bull on Avalanche, and if you own Avalanche, congratulations. This is what he said:
Kevin O'Leary: "Here's the big opportunity, and this one no one's cracked yet. Every time I talk to these foundations, I get the same — 'ours is the best because I, you know, yada yada yada' — and I say, 'What use cases do you have?' When you have an S&P 500 company with a multi-billion dollar market cap using your blockchain, now you're a player. Now you're a player."
Host: That sounds exciting, doesn't it? Oh, I should get into Avalanche right now. Just hold on — hold your horses. I don't know how long Kevin has been talking about Avalanche, but there is a pay-for-play type of thing, and I don't know if Kevin would disclose that. I'm not insinuating anything. I just think it's interesting timing as things have gone through, and yes, he is correct — Avalanche is being used for that.
Now, there are a lot of other different altcoins out there. The question you have to ask yourself is which one is going to be the big winner. That's going to take a lot of time, a lot of education, and a lot of sifting through the information we have right now. And again — speculation, three parts speculation, and a dash of utility. Avalanche has that.
Current Market Snapshot
Because of this, how is Avalanche doing? Well, today Bitcoin is up 2%, roughly $81,000 — pretty nice. Ethereum is up three. XRP up almost six, and so on and so forth. Looking pretty good across the board. A nice green day. Cardano is even up 5%, even though there was a hack on their YouTube channel — we'll go over that in a second. And coming down the list, where is Avalanche? In the last 24 hours, as far as the top 50 goes, it has outperformed everything — a pump of 17% in the last seven days. And why is that? Well, maybe because of what we just saw. Were there any fundamental changes? Did something happen? Was Avalanche adopted by another fund, or was it put forward as a world reserve currency? Obviously not. These are the things we have to look at, and these are the things that drive the price. So don't be fooled. Just keep looking forward.
Bitcoin Risk Levels and DCA Strategy
Now for me personally, it could be great. It could be awesome. We could be into the next bull run. I personally use Into the Cryptoverse and the different key risk levels, and we're looking right now at 0.47. So I will still be buying Bitcoin, as I've been doing every single Monday for the last six months. Unfortunately, the Bitcoin price has not gone as low as I would have wanted, but that's okay. I do what's called dynamic DCAing. When it goes into the 0.39 levels, I actually double, quadruple, 8x up as we go down the list — 0.39, 0.29, 0.19, and so on and so forth. Right now we're at a pretty high level of 0.47.
Also, good news: if we just go four years back — we talked about this yesterday — we are 35% down from our all-time high, as opposed to 71% down in 2022. If you go to danterscrypto.com, there are links in the description. It's free — always free. We can see that four years prior, on September 19th, 2022, we were 71% down from our 2021 high of $67,000. Who wouldn't like to buy Bitcoin at $67,000 today? That would be pretty much a lot of people. And I think as time goes on, you're going to hear the same thing over and over again. When I got in in 2017 at roughly $8,500, people were telling me that was just too high — it was a thousand bucks just six or nine months ago, there's no way you should be buying an asset like that. They didn't even call it an asset at $8,500. Here we are today. Right now we are 35% down, which is half of what we were four years ago. So there's a little bit of a difference, and that is very true.
Bitcoin ETF Flows
Also, you can see the ETF flows, and they're looking pretty good. BlackRock at $64 billion, Fidelity, Bitwise, ARK, Hodl, and all these different ETFs that are out there. BlackRock at $64 billion. Looking at the flows over time, as of October 9th we had our all-time high for cumulative flows at $62 billion. Over the last year or so we've seen some lower highs — one on May 5th at $59 billion, not too bad, and then just recently one on September 8th at $55 billion. A little bit of degradation going down. However, ETFs remain strong. So there are some good things going on out there.
I'm not saying this is the exact same situation. Obviously, 35% down versus 71% down — so maybe this is the next bull run coming, and maybe I won't see my sweet Bitcoin price dropping in Q4.
Scam Warnings — Cardano Hack and Fake Wallet Apps
However, there are some things to be aware of. One of those is scams, and we cannot get away from them. Charles Hoskinson's and Cardano's YouTube channel have been hacked. Don't click any links. I don't know if this was the IOG channel on YouTube or also Charles Hoskinson's personal YouTube and social media platform, but it just goes without saying — don't click anything, because everything is a scam until proven otherwise. That's why I have these rules: Rule Number Two — everything is a scam. 100% are scams.
Also, I've linked a video in the description — shout out to Jimmy for sending me this one. There are 45 wallet apps being used right now, not just on the Google Play Store but on the Apple App Store as well. All these wallets, which look like legitimate wallets — I don't know what Flash Wallet is, Ben Token, Ybit, XRPH Wallet — all of them have been flagged for stealing your private keys and essentially draining people left and right. There are 45 of them. I've linked that in the description.
So the second case for everything being a scam until proven otherwise: don't download anything, because it's all going to be a scam. Let me get to the point of diversifying your cold storage. I know we want to keep things on exchanges and do a little ETF — nothing wrong with that. But if you're going to do cold storage, definitely get a Trezor, switch it up with a little Ledger, get a Trezor. I don't care what you get — just move things around. You don't want to be the one that loses everything.
I personally am a big believer in iTrustCapital for their cold storage, which, you know, MicroStrategy and Larry Fink over at BlackRock use the same thing — Coinbase Prime — the same thing that iTrustCapital is doing. And there's going to be a big announcement this week: they are rolling out their AI robotic trading platform, which is going to be integrated into it. You don't have to download anything — which again, why don't we want to download things? Because everything's a scam. But within iTrustCapital, they're going to give you access to do that. You'll be able to pick seven different types of categories of how you like to trade, and they've actually back-tested it. It looks like if you would have done this in 2023, you'd be up 15x. I'll explain it all next week. Things are looking pretty good with that.
Political Developments — The Clarity Act and Congressional Outlook
But there are also some other things to be concerned about, and that is politics. This isn't a political channel, so I want to make this quick. Charlie Bilello says Democrats are now favored to take back the Senate and the House — 90% probability in the House of Representatives, 60% probability in the Senate. This is from Polymarket. We'll see what actually plays out, although Polymarket was correct in calling that Donald Trump would be the President of the United States, so it was accurate. If this comes through, what does that mean for the current administration? It means a lame duck session where not too much is going to get done, and they're going to be fighting constantly — because let's be honest, the Democrats despise the current administration and the current administration despises the Democrats. It seems like they can never reach across the aisle. That's hyperbole — I'm sorry. There are people that are doing good things. I see good things. It's just that in the next two years, we're not going to get much done. That's pretty much how it's going to work out.
And this is the type of message you're going to keep hearing. If you believe it, this is what people are going to get behind. This is Michael Bennet — he's the senator for Colorado, and he is one of the ones that voted no on the Clarity Act. Take a listen:
Senator Michael Bennet: "This week, I voted no on the Clarity Act. It does nothing to stop President Trump from continuing to enrich himself and abuse his office. This year alone, the president made $1.4 billion on corrupt crypto transactions. This bill will only enable the president to continue lining his pockets. I have spent years fighting to ensure that no federal official, including President Trump, can line their own pockets when they're in office. The American people deserve real guardrails on crypto, not weak legislation like this that hands the president and his family a free pass."
Host: First of all, let's be honest — it's not like the people in the Senate and the House weren't trading on insider information. I know, I know it sounds crazy, but they have enriched themselves. And let's be honest, the current sitting president has kind of done the same thing. So let's just call a spade a spade. That's what you're going to get. That's politics. Let's move on.
Upcoming Conference and Tomorrow's Show
Lastly, the Into the Cryptoverse conference is going to be happening November 20th to 22nd in Miami. It's going to be good times, and we have a new special guest coming in. Have you heard of this guy? His name is Michael Saylor. So Michael Saylor will be there. Sam Carson, former options market maker. Mark Yusko — that'd be good. Alicia James, James Czech — always got good information. Mike McGlone, also kind of a hater sometimes but a good guy. And speaking of Guy, Guy will be there. I'll be there. Gareth, David, Jason Pizzino, Leah Thompson. Tom Cron. CryptoKid, who just got his channel back — congratulations. Randy, Dana, Evan, Matt Crosby, and Mr. M is going to be there. This should be a good time. The link is in the description and you'll get 10% off, and I will buy you your first beer — if there are a lot of people, probably a cheaper beer.
And for tomorrow, Jerry will be on the show from Costa Rica. I'm going to have Jerry come in with me on this one about the big three that I'm leaning on — Ben, Ivan, and Wes. I'm going to explain why I'm doing that and look at their indicators, because these indicators didn't fire whatsoever and they were just awful. So we're going to back-test some of these guys and their calls, and I've got to tell you, looking pretty good. We'll get to that tomorrow.
Animal Shelter Update
But lastly, before I go into Q&A, I just want to say thank you to everybody for the donations for the animal shelter here in Puerto Rico — the Amigos de los Animales. It's great because we have to move these 50 to 60 dogs out because we lost the lease, and instead of them being sent to the kill shelter, we raised $51,000. Fantastic. I appreciate all of you. And as I promised, we will be doing little updates so you can understand that we're not the government — if you give us money, we're responsible to you. So thank you, and we'll tell you what's going on.
Yesterday, we signed the lease for the new land. And just like Puerto Rico, as we were signing, the lights went out — electricity — because that's Puerto Rico. But everything worked out pretty well. We'll have the land, we'll do the fabrication, we'll build everything, and I'll bring you guys along for the ride.
Q&A
Host: All right, let's get into the Q&A and answer your questions.
Independent Jack says, "Bitcoin has no utility." As far as utility goes — what it was originally designed for — the white paper specifically said peer-to-peer transactions. That's what Satoshi said it was supposed to do. This was right after the great recession of 2007–2009. That's when it was created, and it should have worked that way. But we figured out that it's kind of pricey and didn't really work too well for peer-to-peer transactions. We couldn't just buy coffee, especially when we saw in 2021 that transaction prices went up. Then we did some changes — the Lightning Network came in, everything was made more adaptable. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, a lot of different altcoins and different projects took that spot for payments. Now we're looking at stablecoins, and of course Visa is doing the same thing, looking at Binance and Ethereum rails.
As far as utility, I see Bitcoin more as a store of value. To make it simple: one Bitcoin in 2017 was like $20,000. I remember buying a property in El Paso, Texas — roughly 1,700 square feet, looking at $110,000 to $115,000, good area. Then in 2021 everything went super high, and now you take a look at those houses and everything has exploded. That's called inflation. So if you're not keeping up around 11% year-over-year for your different assets, you're falling behind. I'd rather own Bitcoin than a T-bill, Treasury, or even cash. I'm not saying Bitcoin is the only thing in my portfolio — far from it. But as far as utility, I still see it as a store of value. People are welcome to disagree with me, but that's how I see it.
And the great thing about Bitcoin is this: with real estate, if you could wipe out half the houses for sale, what would that mean for the rest of the prices? They'd probably go up. The thing about Bitcoin is that there are only 21 million. We've already mined 20 million, and there's a halving coming up in 2028 — half the supply. As far as scarcity, it's one of the best. As far as decentralization and not being able to be overrun by the government, Bitcoin is probably one of the best. And as far as utility as a store of value, that's where I see it.
Muhammad says, "Glad the Clarity Act didn't pass. It's time to repeal the Genius Act. All these regulations are going against the purpose of crypto." I can't really go against that — that's true. And I will tell you that the Clarity Act, as it wasn't passed, was actually pretty good. The SEC and CFTC were on it. And we actually talked about this yesterday — they're saying, "Well, look, if Congress can't get it done, then we'll string up some rules and regulations and drive this out." I believe the SEC commissioner said they'll have this implemented for five years plus. Again, when the new administration comes in, they have the ability to replace the heads of those organizations — the OCC, SEC, CFTC, whatever else — and they can put other people in place who will be aligned with their thought processes and will probably eliminate that and change it to whatever else it is. So it would be better if it was actually brought into law as a bill, because it's a hell of a lot harder to repeal a bill than to just override one head of an agency.
I'm Vision says, "Bitcoin has utility." All right. Ben Cowen is clueless in crypto. I don't agree with you, but sure.
Rusty Bots says it looks like we're about to finally crack Bitcoin. We'll see.
Rob, why did you use AI for that poster? The one where I look like some kind of weird fish — I didn't do this. I'm not in charge of creating these things in newsletters. It was one of our guys, and I don't know why I look like that. It doesn't matter. I'm not important. What's important is saving the dogs and making sure everything works out.
Kevin O'Leary, usual suspects. Yeah, I wish my hair looked good in Miami. Well, you should come to Puerto Rico — it's the same thing.
Michael Saylor — never sell your Bitcoin. I mean, I'm talking about for my company, not for — actually, no, he was talking about himself. His company did sell. What am I saying?
Are senators corrupt? Well, not all senators. Most senators — it depends on your level of corruption. Is taking some information and using that to your advantage corruption? Is it corruption to buy certain things or do certain things? Is it corruption to only enrich your friends who are bidding for different contracts within your state? Or do you do that because you know your friends and they are actually top-notch at what they're doing? There are always different levels to it. I know people say it's got to be on merit and merit only. Well, if I'm going to do something, I'm going to look for the people I actually know and have a history with, because I know what I'm going to get. Some people say that's not right. This is why it's not a political channel — because we go down all those rabbit holes and it just gets boring.
I miss the days when corruption was just under the blanket and no one could see it. We knew it was there, but we didn't get it blasted to us on Truth Social.
Truckers in the US are going to strike shortly, and the economy's in the toilet. Fer is probably right. My brother is a trucker and he talks about this all the time. He travels from Las Vegas to California and diesel prices are outrageous.
Rob is a good man — thank you, Aristotle. Very nice of you.
Splint says, "Will alts make a comeback this next bull run?" I think some have to, because it can't be all Bitcoin. I think we've all figured that out. And for these rails — the SEC just came out and said they're going to allow essentially equities and trading on the rails of digital assets. There are a lot of rules and regulations with that, but they're going to have to pick something. And one of the big things I noticed in what was said was that these will have to be open and permissionless. I thought that was a pretty good step in our direction. So will they take off? Yes. The question is what kind of utility they have. You just need a little bit of that — just a little bit of utility — and then if we can talk about it enough to get speculation going, things will go through the roof. Don't believe me? Just take a look at the last couple of years.