Ivan on Tech analyses Bitcoin's breakout above $86K and warns against complacency in the bull market
Ivan on Tech presents a solo analysis of Bitcoin's price action, altcoin strategy, and broader macro conditions.
Summary
Bitcoin reclaiming $86K marks the continuation of a bull trend that began in early September, according to this solo analysis, which arguing that the new bull trend began in early September and that most retail participants are still on the sidelines — meaning bad news has limited power to dump the price. He shares a clip from the Pomp Podcast featuring George Visser, who argues that macro conditions including lower-than-expected PCE, unemployment, and hourly earnings data are converging to support crypto. Ivan's central macro thesis is that the US government will be forced to buy its own bonds and print money, which will ultimately drive Bitcoin and crypto markets higher — a view reinforced by a clip of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent himself stating he cannot control the bond market. Ivan also issues a strong warning against complacency, using Cardano's smart contract launch on September 12, 2021 — which coincided exactly with ADA's all-time high — as a case study in how real-world delivery of fundamentals can be bearish in a bull market, because imagination drives valuation more than execution. The episode also includes extended chart analysis of SUI, Algorand, and Injective, with specific resistance levels and trading rationale for each, and a dedicated discussion of Pump.fun's emerging role as core infrastructure for crypto launchpads.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Bitcoin Reclaims $86K — Bull Trend Confirmed
Ivan on Tech: Bitcoin is back above $86K. We're back above it. The volatility last week got a lot of people very nervous. Many people wanted clarity, and on this channel we gave the perfect clarity last week — to be bullish, not bearish, not concerned about Iran, not concerned about whatever is happening with inflation or interest rates. We said ignore all of that fully, because we will be pumping in a nice way due to the new bull trend that we started right here at the beginning of September, and because most people are on the sidelines.
Most people are on the sidelines. They are not in the market. You only have bad news dumping the price when many people hold the asset and the most nervous guys start selling, causing the price to dump. If the most nervous guys don't hold the asset, bad news cannot dump the asset. And after a year of drawdown, there are not too many nervous guys holding Bitcoin. They were holding all the way down, all the way down. Now there are not too many of them. That's why, by having a clear strategy and clear principles, we're able to ride this bull market with relative calmness.
As you can see, Bitcoin is just following exactly what we've been speaking about — doing exactly like we have been predicting. And most low-risk assets have produced fantastic returns for our community. In Bulmania, we have so-called model portfolios — basically assets that are going to do okay, they're low risk. So when you enter Bulmania, you can just pick and choose as soon as possible.
Looking at the past month, most of them are up 30% just during the last month. Some of them have doubled or more than doubled. There are a few that are down slightly — one down approximately 15%. But all in all, across the board, 90-plus percent are up around 30%. And some have doubled or even more. So this is just from the last month.
Be bullish when a new bull market starts. This is the lowest risk you can think about, and they are up 30%. We haven't even started the bull market properly. The big opportunity next is going to be in the smaller, hidden gems that are still either not even created or just now coming back to bull flips. That's the big opportunity in the coming months.
Everyone is more or less positioned in the big, fat coins — at least you should have been if you've been watching this channel for the past month. That opportunity is starting to fade. The opportunity of just buying Solana is going to fade more and more because the risk/reward of the large caps is becoming less, and the risk/reward of the smaller ones is becoming better. You always want to be in early bull trends. That's going to be very important in the coming weeks — to keep an eye on and to understand that you need to be adapting with the market.
Some people make gains in the bull market, then have a drawdown, and their altcoin never recovers. Sometimes it is like that. Sometimes you need to be aware of what's happening within a bull market as well.
Macro Context — Bond Yields, Fed Intervention, and Midterms
Right now, Bitcoin is just starting to really show its bullishness as we explode toward $100K. The opportunity in new altcoins that are still not bullish, that are going to flip — it's crazy. The party really starts when we go to $100K. That's the big party. Right now it's still a warm-up because mainstream media is not speaking about us. New retail is not here. It's still us — the same guys from last year. Retail has not come. That's what I'm telling you. It's only the early, early days.
Now, looking at the situation: currently Bitcoin is above $86K — very good. The Cardano situation is finally bullish. The Hyperliquid ecosystem is heating up, doing nice volume, and that's going to be important overall to see how the new landscape is looking. Hyperliquid is a prime broker routing $254 million.
There's another important thing to keep an eye on, which is Pump.fun. Pump.fun is really starting to grow into a core infrastructure piece for everyone else who is building any kind of launchpad or software that creates assets. People are not pricing in Pump essentially becoming an L1 as underlying infrastructure for other launchpads on top — not L1 in the sense of being a chain, but L1 in terms of being infrastructure for all other launchpads that are going to be building on top.
Nobody is tracking how much they are giving away in creator fees. It's nearly one-to-one with the amount of revenue they're making. So teams are highly incentivized to build on top. For every $500 million in revenue, there's $500 million in creator fees to coin creators because of the fee structure. So there's a nice incentive to launch your coin on Pump.fun because you get creator fees — and if you're doing any kind of launchpad instead of doing your own, you can just build on top of Pump.fun. The economics are much better than L1 economics because Pump benefits from getting fees from every launchpad layer and every coin from every launchpad.
As the bull market enters its heated prime, launchpads are going to be big. People are going to be looking for new opportunities, and that's going to be good for Pump. Currently, Solana was bullish about a month ago, ETH was bullish about a month ago. We've been living through this easy mode where you can just buy SOL and that's it — buy ETH and that's it. Now it's up 30%. It's going to go up even more, but you will have to go down into other assets and be more open-minded toward new opportunities. Above $100K, the new hidden gems meta is going to come quite soon.
Now, in terms of Bitcoin, George Visser had a very interesting take on the Pomp Podcast. Here's what he said:
George Visser: "I think most of what's driving crypto right now is a combination of new players coming in. This is what a bull market is about. And FOMO is going to start to kick in very, very soon. I said before, when Bitcoin got above $82,000, that was the confirmation of the bull trend. I think we're in that. The fundamental side's getting stronger and stronger by the day. I think we're at a point where this stuff is about to kind of take off, particularly with what happened today with the unemployment rate being lower than expected.
If you take everything that happened this week from the rate picture and you look at it — David Zervos brought into the Treasury — he's a very creative guy. He's being brought in to help get long-term rates lower. They did another buyback, another Treasury yield curve twist, whatever you want to call it, in terms of the twisting of the back end versus the front end. We got a lower-than-expected PCE core. Now we got an unemployment number that came in weaker than expected, with hourly earnings that came in weaker than expected. So maybe rates settle here. They don't have to go down — they just need to not be a story where every day they go up. And I think we could be staring at a position coming out of the midterms where people are like, why were we waiting? Earnings are just growing rapidly and we're entering earnings season in two weeks."
Ivan on Tech: Very important. What he said there about the bond yield is very, very important. We've been covering it for quite some time. Basically, they will have to intervene. You just heard that the Fed is hiring all kinds of people to figure out how to get the yields down because they're high. It's very expensive for the government to have this kind of high rates. The US cannot finance itself — and that's the conclusion. Benjamin Cowen — big shout to Ben — is saying we knew that Bessant cannot control the bond market, but he just figured that out. So basically Bessant came out and said that he cannot control the bond yields, but he's trying.
Here's what Bessant himself said:
Scott Bessent: "What I've learned is that everyone in the market knows — you don't win every hand, but you win over time. Everyone knows I'm a big basketball fan, a big fan of John Wooden, a big fan of Dean Smith. And how did they win? You trust the process and you put a good process in place.
What we could see with bond yields — I would be concerned if we were having some kind of idiosyncratic rise. It's been a global rise. The US bond performance since the president came in has been the best in the world. So we are not seeing people sell Treasuries to buy German bonds or Japanese bonds. And like I said, I can't control the bond market. What I can do is try to get people to slow down and think. My job in the financial markets for 30 years was to be outside the door, ear to the door, when policy was being made — sometimes getting myself over the transom — and think: what is policy going to do, should do, can do? And now that I'm in the room, I have superior information. People could ask — obviously the Japanese would have liked for us to intervene in the yen at some point since January. Why did we do it then? People should sit back and ask themselves that."
Ivan on Tech: The conclusion — what is the conclusion? The conclusion here is that the money printer is coming, one way or another. They have to get the rates down. They will have to buy their own bonds. There's no other way. They will have to show the market that there is a buyer of last resort, and that's the Fed. They're going to buy your bond. If you want to sell it, they can buy. There's always a buyer of US bonds. So you can be confident, you can deploy capital.
It's a question of time — likely after the midterms. After midterms, when we have a new political landscape settled, when we have calmness, when we don't have the speculation about what's going to happen — that's likely when you're going to see big moves. Until then, there is going to be volatility and questions. As soon as midterms are settled, I think that's when the stock market and the crypto market are going to have their biggest moves, because you need calmness. People don't like uncertainty.
October Seasonality and the Danger of Complacency
October is typically a bullish month. Pumptober happens all the time in a bull trend. In a bear trend, you've got to be careful. Last October, there was no Pumptober — we told you it was time to get out. Now, looking at the flows — someone is taking a bunch of money into Base. Maybe it's Venice. That's it.
This week is going to be quite important as we continue the pump. I also want to give a bit of a warning to everyone who is exposed to the crypto market overall — volatility is normal for bull markets, it's very normal, but many people are going to be destroyed even in a bull market. Sometimes you have volatility that is quite brutal.
With your altcoins, you need to be careful because some of them have an initial pump and then they don't come back. So with your altcoins, you need to ensure that they are in a bull trend and that you follow the mechanical rules. To give you an example: in 2023, the bull trend started, and then we had a dump of 20%. If Bitcoin were to fall 20% from here, that's all the way down to the 60s. It could fall from the 80s or 90s at some point within the bull market — we're going to have a 20–30% correction. The question is from where, and no one knows that. That's why in general you're bullish in a bull trend. You don't overcomplicate too much. Should there be a correction, it's likely from higher levels. Bitcoin is going to be okay. Your altcoins, your shitcoins, may not.
Ensure that your shitcoins — you manage the risk, you ensure they are in a bull trend. Because there are many stories in bull markets where an altcoin looks good, it pumps, then the first correction hits, it dumps like everything else, then everything else continues and it does not continue. It's dead. It doesn't go anywhere. And even if it goes somewhere, it doesn't go that high.
A good example is probably DOT. If we look at DOT — DOT had a big fat pump in 2021, then massive dumpage, then a bit of a small pump, and it did not survive the first pullback. You want to avoid this. Most coins currently are kind of in this situation. It seems like all of them are going to go to all-time high, but it's not going to be all of them. Some of them are going to go like DOT. So you've got to be very careful with altcoins. You really need to have full control over them and know what trend they're in, because most of them are not going to be okay.
The big ones, the low-risk ones — there are a few. The ones we speak about on the channel, like ETH, are obviously going to be okay. And the super strong ones like Zcash — they're going to be okay. But you need to avoid the DOTs. Because you remember DOT in 2021 was kind of a blue chip. In 2022 and 2023, people also thought it was kind of blue chip, going to return just like Solana — because DOT and Solana are kind of the same, they're both blue chip. But there's a big difference. Something that's blue chip today can turn brown very quickly.
Don't relax. I want you to not have complacency. I have seen complacency in the last market and I see complacency in this market as well. There's a lot of complacency. As soon as the portfolio is up a bit — it's still down 80%, but it goes from minus 80 to minus 75 — now confidence is all-time high. But never relax. You cannot relax, because unfortunately the markets are not easy even in a bull trend. Even in a bull trend you're going to have volatility up and down.
Now, if you zoom out and look at the bull trend in the future, it's going to look easy. But going through week by week, feeling the volatility in your bones — it's never easy. The best example is just look at what happened in the last bull market. If you look at it from a distance, it obviously looks amazing — you just bought in 2023 and that's it. But then you zoom in and see what the hell happened day to day. Here, down 20%. There, down 20%. Here, it was a mega fake-out — pump to $48K, then dump another 20–30% to $38K.
Don't be complacent. Never be complacent. Your money is here today — tomorrow it might not be. Sometimes I hear nowadays when people say, "Oh man, I made more in the market in the last month than I did in my job in the last six months." I'm starting to hear that sometimes, especially in Bulmania — people trade in such a nice way, they put bets in such a nice way, that they say, "Oh man, I can quit my job." I'm telling them: don't. Take it easy. Take it easy.
Of course, Bulmania sets you up in such a way that it's easy to get the hubris, but take it easy. Please take it easy. We're now just a few weeks into the bull. Don't declare victory. We're not even halfway through. We're not even a quarter through. Don't declare victory. Bull market gives, bull market takes. Within a bull market, you can have many bull and bear cycles. And if you quit your job — take it easy, man. Please take it easy.
Chart Analysis — SUI, Algorand, Injective
On this note, let's go to Q&A, questions, answers, debates. There's not too much news because it's been the weekend, but we have weekly closes and we can look at the charts.
Let's look at SUI. SUI was bullish last Monday. Hasn't done too much since then, but this is a chart that looks good for several reasons. Number one, you can see it is breaking out from this high — it's in a bull trend, but it's breaking out from this high. That's good. And you have a bit of room until the next big cluster of resistance, which is quite a lot. Up until those numbers you have like 100% upside, there's a bit of resistance here also — not too much, but could be quite significant because it's the low from 2023. Then you have the big cluster higher up. So all in all, SUI does look quite good. Every chart has some kind of resistance, but this one has a bit of resistance here — 40–50% up — and then a big cluster of resistance more than 100% up. All in all, SUI does look good.
Use case? Who knows? Is anyone using it? I don't think so. But don't worry about that. In a bull market, it's a meme. Look at the numbers — very low value locked, DEX revenue $2K, 7-day volume $45. Yeah, you're thinking of it as a meme. You're not buying it as some serious L1. How can you have a DEX with 7-day volume of $45? I mean, sometimes that can be transaction fees if you have serious money and do serious trading. Anyway, let's see how it goes.
What about Algorand? Algorand is also in a bull trend — that's good. But there's just so much chop. I don't like that it's so much chop. I want more of a big comeback story where it fell a lot and now for the first time it's recovering. This chart I like a bit less. It's a second bull trend. You can speculate here for sure — you can speculate that it's going to go back to these highs. There's still money to be made here. It dumped so much that even to the 2024 high you have 300%. So even if it just chops and doesn't go to all-time high, because it dumped so much you have quite nice trades here.
But in terms of having an all-time high runner, this chop I don't like so much, because there are other alternatives. You saw SUI, for example — it's down and now it's up for the first time. I want more of that clean recovery. But yeah, technically it's a bull trend. The problem with chop is that there's a ton of resistance everywhere. It basically needs to clear this high, but then there's so much chop. This whole coin is just chop — it's been chopping since it was born, basically.
Yeah, you can speculate, but it wouldn't be my number one choice. This is another example where if you are complacent — let's say you bought Algorand at the beginning of the last bull market and thought it was going to go to all-time high, or maybe you bought at all-time high and now speculate it's going to come back — the problem is it never came back. This is what I mean by don't be complacent. So many people now are complacent. They're like, "Yeah, I just bought the coins from last cycle and now they're going to make me rich." No. People thought the same about Algorand. You could have bought early and still got wrecked. Some people bought super early in the bull — like end of 2023 at $0.25 — and then it traded just a few weeks above that, not even that much, and then collapsed. So no, don't be complacent.
This is going to be where most people get burned in this bull market — complacency, just buying stuff they had last cycle again and hoping that now for sure it's going to be good. Algorand is a good example of that. Now technically it is in a bull trend, but if you compare across different charts, there are better charts where there's no resistance, no chop — just recovery from a massive dump.
Most coins that tanked will not come back. People will ape into any new coin with 100x potential. All of the old coins compete with each other and with new coins. So you really need to ensure that your coin is in a bull trend and has a good chart. Otherwise, math is against you. Every cycle, millions of coins are created. Obviously each new cycle cannot pump all of the coins from all past cycles. It's impossible. So only specific assets are going to come back.
Let's check Injective. Someone asked about Injective. Injective is now at massive resistance. It's been in a bull trend for quite some time, actually since June. Massive resistance. But should it break it, you have a nice trade to all-time high — 600%. This one has a lot of resistance, and it's kind of been chopping, but the chop here is slightly different because at least here the chop goes up. You remember with Algorand the chop was more downward. This is also chop, but at least it's upward chop. I prefer upward chop versus downward chop because you have more bullish structure. And yeah, there is resistance here — it's now fighting with the resistance. Should it break it, you have a nice trade. So speculating here in a bull trend makes sense, and it has been in a bull trend for quite some time. Not bad.
Fundamentals vs. Imagination — The Cardano Smart Contract Case Study
Someone asks: if this cycle brings a true alt season, probably the blue chips from last cycle who kept building will be valued higher than new ones because they have proof of time.
There are many misconceptions in that question. Let's discuss. First and foremost, there is a difference between how highly something is valued and what you get from it. There's a big difference. If it's already highly valued and becomes more highly valued, who cares? If you can buy something at a few million market cap and it goes to $100 million, it's still low value in comparison to blue chips, but your results are amazing. So whether something is highly valued or not doesn't matter to you, because you're not an insider in the highly valued ones.
Many old coins are already — look at the top 10, look at Hyperliquid, look at everything else. They're going to be okay, they're going to do okay, but they're not going to make you rich. You're not going to become rich with the top altcoins that are no-brainers with all of the revenue and everything. Why? Because you're not alone in looking at them. Everyone looks at them. Everyone already bought them or is planning to buy them. The biggest fans are already positioned.
Yes, it's true that things that have revenue are going to be more valued than things that don't. But where are you in that story? Where is your paycheck in that story? Because you're randomly coming from the street, buying at high valuation — even if it becomes higher, so what?
Then in terms of proof of time and actual fundamentals — sometimes having proof and having actual fundamentals is bearish in a bull market. Why are fundamentals bearish in a bull market? Because fundamentals can never compete with imagination. The imagination of the player is such that he will dream — you can tell him anything. There are many communities that in their imagination are at the top of the food chain, while in reality they're among the poorest. ADA has been like that for the longest time. The most bullish time for ADA was before they launched smart contracts, because then imagination dictated valuation. And you always want imagination to dictate valuation if you want high valuation.
It will not work forever, but it can work for five-plus years. You remember Cardano before they had smart contracts? It was the chain that would eat Solana alive, eat everyone alive. As soon as they got smart contracts and you saw there were no DEXes, there was nothing — no one cared. Technically it got better because now they have smart contracts. But it's not exciting. What do you invest for? Okay, now they have smart contracts. What is the next story? Because investments are always forward-looking. If you don't have anything that is forward-looking, what's the excitement? What are they going to launch? They already launched smart contracts — no one cares. So what are they going to do? Go to Zimbabwe again? Make some deal with some dictator? Okay, they already did that.
So now — ADA is still in a bull trend and is likely going to pump fantastically well. But I'm just comparing to how it was in 2018, because back then the hope and the bullishness was on a different level. Fundamentals are good long-term, of course. But within a bull market, sometimes it's good to have no fundamentals and have pure imagination.
You remember the TV series Silicon Valley? There's a scene where they're talking about hosting fees becoming a challenge as they scale, and how they can offset that once they get customers and start subscriptions. And then the investor says: no, no, no — don't have revenue. Don't show revenue. We're pre-revenue. As soon as you start showing revenue, people will ask how much, and it will never be enough. The company that has a 100x — if you are pre-revenue, you can still 100x. If you have revenue, you become a 2x dog.
It's the same in crypto. You want to be pre-revenue, pre-smart contract, pre-all-of-the-upside. Long-term, yes, you need fundamentals. But within a bull market, the less real the better for valuation.
XRP is another such pre-adoption thing. It's so bullish for them. People call it vaporware — we've been calling it vaporware — but the price chart for XRP in a bull market is very good. Why? Because it's imagination. Exactly.
Pre-pump, pre-smart contract, pre-everything — that's the best for valuation. The less real the better. It doesn't matter if you have smart contracts if nobody uses them on your chain. But the thing is, now you have them, so everyone sees that no one uses them. Before Cardano had them, everyone thought there would be a lot of use. That was way better for the price.
Can someone tell me when ADA launched smart contracts? Let's see if they pumped since then or what happened. Okay — September 12th. Guys, you cannot make this up. According to Google, smart contracts got launched September 12th, 2021. It was right here — exactly at the top. They never recovered from the smart contract launch.
Holy macaroni. What? Look here — on September 12th. No way. No way. Yes, it was this week. They should have not launched smart contracts. They should have fired all of the devs. Just do marketing. Just have Charles do live streams and talk about how Cardano is going to fix elections in Zimbabwe. It would have been better. Imagine how much money was spent on all of the engineers. They built something — what is the result for the token holder? Nothing. They should have taken vacation. Should have been fired long ago. Just do marketing, man. Just do Charles marketing. He was the best at that. Do more whiteboard presentations instead of paying devs. Charles should have just done 500 whiteboard presentations on how ADA is going to be decentralized.
They should have done more peer-reviewed papers. Peer-reviewed papers — that was such a nice strategy. It sounds like progress, it sounds like you're doing something real, but you don't have to do anything real. That was the most bullish time for ADA — when they did not ship code, but shipped peer-reviewed papers.