Bitcoin analyst Ivan argues for an imminent all-time high before Christmas
Solo market commentary from Ivan on Tech, covering Bitcoin's price action, macro debt concerns, the Ledger hardware wallet security issue, and broader crypto market conditions.
Summary
Ivan (Ivan on Tech) presents a bullish case for Bitcoin reaching a new all-time high before Christmas, arguing that the current price level — holding the May high as support — is a critical inflection point. If Bitcoin bounces here, he sees a rapid path to $100K with minimal resistance, and from there a fast teleport to all-time highs driven by FOMO and media attention. He references Ray Dalio's recent blog post on the sovereign debt crisis and a former Goldman Sachs analyst's 25% compound annual growth rate projection for Bitcoin as macro tailwinds supporting the debasement trade. Ivan also covers the Ledger hardware wallet supply chain security issue, warning that tampered devices have been found not only in Southeast Asia but also in Germany, and urging viewers not to purchase Ledger devices at retail stores. He closes with commentary on market sentiment, the upcoming CPI and FOMC events, and the importance of emotional discipline in trading.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Bitcoin holding May high support — the bull case for $100K and beyond
Bitcoin is still holding on to this very important support level, which is the May high. Holding on to the May high is very important. Should we bounce here, we have a very good chance of flying — absolutely exploding — towards $100K, because there is literally not too much resistance left until that very nice $100K level. Basically, we would be going above the January consolidation, and that's it. We have just one single consolidation to get above, and then we are at $100K.
Should we get to $100K? Oh yeah. Round number. The media loves round numbers. Should Bitcoin go back to $100K, you will see a lot of FOMO. A lot of people on the sidelines, and also a lot of retail obviously hearing that Bitcoin is back towards $100K — it will be monumental. And that's why, from $100K, the teleport towards all-time high is likely to be very fast. It could be already by Christmas, just like Anam is saying — could already be by Christmas. Time really goes fast in crypto, but at the same time, a lot of things happen during short periods of time.
If you think back to what happened last October — we were here at $120, $125. And then once we started going down, we said, "Hey, this is not good." And then in just a few months, we went from $126 all the way to like $80K. From October to the end of the year, we were at like $80K. So this can happen very, very fast once you start moving in whatever direction — whether down after a big bull market, or up after a big bear market. It can happen very fast.
So until the end of the year, we still have a lot of time. And of course the best thing would be that we actually get a bounce here, because that's the most bullish scenario. You break resistance, you test it like now, and then you explode. Should we fall below it — is it the end of Bitcoin? The end of times? The end of the bull? No more bull? No, it's not the end of the bull. It just means longer sideways, longer chop. Maybe back to $70-ish, whatever. Going sideways, chopping, chopping, chopping. Then we have to get above the resistance. So still bullish, still a new bull market — just not the best ideal scenario.
Market sentiment, emotional discipline, and the mental game of trading
People are very, very fearful right now. There is a lot of fear on the timeline. People are saying there is no bull market. People are saying maybe it's a Bart — maybe it's a big fat Bart pattern. Something that's going to give a lot of confidence to the market is the midterms. When the midterms are over, we're going to be flying very high. There's going to be certainty in the market. Markets don't like uncertainty. With the midterms, there is a bit of uncertainty right now. It's going to be Republican or Democrat, and the result actually doesn't really matter. What matters is certainty. So once we have certainty — stock market up, everything up.
The number one enemy of the retail investor is their own brain. Even if the bull market is amazing, even if everything is up, because of the volatility, people still mess up. Looking at Bitcoin through the years — how is it possible to not take advantage of all of these bull markets? It looks so easy when you zoom out and just see a chart like this. It looks so easy, especially when you have the money line and you see the trend. But if you actually go through it and it dumps 30%, 40%, and then continues up, it's not as easy as it looks. And that's why the mental work is the number one most important thing everyone should do with their own trading. Focus on the mental.
If you are emotional and you lose money in the market, where did that money go? Did it disappear into the ether? The money, when you lose it, goes to someone else. Someone who controls their emotions, someone who has a plan, someone who has mechanical rules.
Market predictions — timelines for Bitcoin all-time high
There are all kinds of markets now predicting the price of Bitcoin and when we're going to cross all-time high. According to one source, there is a 24% chance we're going to go to $130K by July 2027. Anam is saying all-time high by Christmas. Another source is saying a 27% chance to go to $130K next year.
I think the timeline, the way I see it, is a bit shorter. We just have to ensure that we get a bounce here. Should we get a bounce here, the timeline to all-time high is going to be very short. There's not too much resistance towards $100K, and after $100K — round number, big fat explosion. Think about what altcoins are going to do. They are likely going to be insane during that time. Nothing really has developed into some kind of big altcoin season yet. It may seem like many altcoins are doing well, but we're just in the beginning.
Goldman Sachs analyst on Bitcoin's long-term growth trajectory
Goldman Sachs — or rather, a former Goldman Sachs analyst — is saying we're going to go very high. Here is what he said:
Former Goldman Sachs analyst: "I think that Bitcoin, having where it is in its adoption cycle and having a perfectly fixed supply and growing in adoption over the next 10 to 50 years, puts us in a position to continue to outperform the S&P 500 fairly meaningfully. I typically will model out a compound annual growth rate of what I think is fairly conservative over a long period of time of 25% per year. Obviously there's going to be a lot of volatility there. But I think that the properties of Bitcoin, the utility case that it provides the world as a store of value, and the fact that we live in this digital world and will continue to do so, and the fact that the fiat financial system will continue to produce money and credit to debase the money that Bitcoin is denominated in, virtually guarantees that it will go up over a long period of time. And then the question is just how much relative to other assets. And I think because of Bitcoin's fixed supply and that upswell in demand that we're seeing and adoption, it will outpace the majority of all assets, if not every other."
Ray Dalio's sovereign debt warning and the debasement trade
Ray Dalio just published a big blog post about how the sovereign debt crisis is going to bring fiat down. This is something we speak about in all of the live streams. We touch on this topic of bonds because currently bond yields are very high across the Western world. Whether you look at the US, whether you look at France — especially in the EU, France is so bad. France is on the brink of collapse financially. The next Greece. You remember the PIGS crisis — Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain — which was about 15 years ago. France is going to be the new one. And it's going to happen very fast. Probably within the coming year there's going to be an unraveling of all of this.
But the US itself is not doing that great either. Ray Dalio is explaining that at the end of the day, countries go broke when the supply of debt to be sold is much larger than the demand for it — which is currently true for the US and most Western countries. When the yield is going up, it's because there is not enough demand for the debt. Debt service payments rise relative to incomes to levels that painfully squeeze out other spending. This is also happening everywhere. In the US, the debt service payment — just the interest — is more than the defense budget. It's more than any other thing they spend on. It's $1.3 trillion or something per year. It's more than anything. Isn't that crazy?
Another interesting number Dalio spoke about is the ratio of bills versus bonds being issued. Currently there is not too much demand for long-term bonds, and the government is just issuing short-term bonds — treasury bills. Normally you have approximately 20% of debt issuance being treasury bills — very short term. Now it's around 50%, meaning that the government cannot really issue long-term debt because there is no demand. And should they start doing that, the yields are going to skyrocket even more because it's a less liquid market. If they put more supply into a less liquid market, the yields are going to go up a lot. So they're worried. That's why they only do the short-term bonds — bills, as the short-term ones are called. And that puts them in another problem where they have to refinance all the time, roll over the debt all the time.
So the US is not doing great. The EU is not doing great because France is not doing great. Japan — Dalio speaks about Japan a lot here also. Japan not doing great. So the dominoes are not really stable, and the debasement trade is real. Because the only way to fix this, if there is no demand on the market, is to just print the dollar and buy the stuff yourself. They try to avoid it. They try to figure stuff out. But the final stage — all roads lead to the printer. So you want to have real assets. You want to have Bitcoin, especially in this time and age. The debasement trade is just starting. Most people don't even understand it.
Current market overview — altcoins and the money scanner
Looking at the current market by market cap: Bitcoin is down 0.5%, ETH down 1%. The market is very, very sideways. You could even say boring. We kind of got used to big moves during the last few weeks.
Looking at the money scanner — going to crypto, weekly view — there are some notable performers. Bitway is bullish on the money scanner since three months ago. Shareex is up a lot since its bull flip. Fun Token up. Stuff on Tron up. Pyiverse up since seven months ago. Zama up. Near Protocol up. HyperLiquid up. Stacks up. A lot of great stuff. And it's only the beginning for altcoins as a whole, because most altcoins are still sleeping. They're just now entering some kind of bull phase.
AI capital rotation into crypto
Crypto is in its value era — meaning it's cheap — while AI is in its inflated era. Money from AI is going to go into crypto. This is what Chris Burniske is saying, because crypto is cheap — you get value for your money. AI is very low value for your money right now.
Since approximately the summer, a lot of the air has disappeared from the AI trade. There was a big run-up in AI before the summer, but then things started to go into a bear trend. It wasn't a constant bull trend. Since then, the momentum has kind of vanished and it went into Bitcoin instead, into crypto instead.
For us, the number one signal is the stock market — whether we're risk-on or risk-off. A lot of the gains in the stock market are AI. So it's still an important factor that stocks remain in a bull trend. But ensuring that you have good performance by picking individual assets is better in crypto now. Way better in crypto than trying to pick individual AI stocks, because that train has already left the station. You can still get into S&P or NASDAQ just to ride the overall wave, but the big value creation — the zero-to-one creation — it already happened since the beginning of the year. The big fat value creation is going to be now in crypto, in altcoins, in Bitcoin, and so forth.
MicroStrategy and the Bitcoin catalyst
MicroStrategy is climbing back, and when it gets back above $100, Michael Saylor will be able to raise money and buy more Bitcoin. It's another catalyst. That's why we are very bullish now. Despite what the bears are saying, we're very bullish, because as soon as MicroStrategy goes above $100 again, Saylor will be able to raise money and buy Bitcoin. The last time he was able to do that was here in May — you remember the May peak in Bitcoin. It was because Saylor was able to raise a lot of money there. He sold, raised money, raised money, then straight into Bitcoin. Since then, he has not been able to sell MicroStrategy shares. Now we're climbing back, and he will be able to do it again.
Ledger hardware wallet supply chain security issue
Michael Saylor is saying we're in the beginning of the bull market. Good. Now — Ledger has confirmed tampered Nano devices. The news is developing fast. There were more announcements — more stuff hacked in Europe. MediaMarkt and Saturn in Europe — if you buy from those stores, you have to be very careful.
Also, if you get an email from Ledger, be very careful. Scammers are trying to FOMO you into giving them your seed phrase. They say, "Hey, you have to give your seed fast, otherwise you're going to get drained." Of course, people who don't know better read this and think the email is protecting them. So inform everyone you know who has a Ledger and might receive this email, because scammers are using the news about Ledger having issues to FOMO people into doing something dumb.
Ledger is asking resellers in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong to suspend sales of devices while the investigation is ongoing. This includes taking products off shelves — specifically Indonesia and Singapore. But it's also a problem in Germany. One person named Johannes posted that Ledger's statement is misleading — he visited a MediaMarkt location to verify whether they had already stopped selling Ledger devices, and as of October the store was still actively selling and displaying inventory. When he spoke to a store employee, the employee was completely unaware of any such policy change. It was only after he brought it to their attention that the staff proceeded to remove the devices. As of October 13th, MediaMarkt and Saturn in Germany have stopped the sale of Ledger devices.
Ledger's official statement says they have no indication that their infrastructure, systems, or services were compromised. But what happens to the supply chain — which dudes are attaching the device, which dudes are poking in the device — that is their infrastructure. Ledger should know all of that. Anyone who touches the ledger should be fully vetted. If you have a Ledger, be careful. Figure something out. Trezor is flying under the radar — no issues with Trezor so far, at least.
In general, when you buy a hardware wallet, don't buy from a store. Buy from the official website, and be smart about the personal information you provide. You want to know that the device is coming directly from the manufacturer. It's not a perfect solution — there's still someone in the post office handling it — but it's far better than buying from a retail shelf where you have no idea what's happened to the device.
France declaring hardware wallets — privacy and security risks
If you are in France, they're coming for you. They will want you to declare your hardware wallet if you have more than €100K in it. And there's a broader problem with giving up that information — you need to trust that the government keeps it private. There have been rumors that wrench attacks in France happen because there are leaks from the tax department. So if you are in France, use your brain and figure something out.
The same general situation applies in the Netherlands — and in the Netherlands you also have the box three unrealized gains tax issue, which is coming in a big way.
CPI, FOMC, and how to think about macro events
Today is CPI. Tomorrow is PPI. The next FOMC is on the 27th. The September CPI headline is expected to jump on energy, with core expected to cool.
Don't worry about trying to predict what the CPI is going to be. No one knows. Sometimes everything looks bearish and it's still a good CPI print. It's essentially random. You can speculate if you want, but just understand it's more gambling than strategy. Sometimes they even change how CPI is measured. So whatever analysis you did — which was already uncertain — is now even more uncertain.
We react based on price moves to position ourselves for the next big trend. We worry about CPI only in case the price actually moves. For example, if CPI happens and the stock market goes into a bear trend, then I would say the CPI is serious. If CPI happens and the S&P just bounces, okay. Should we go into a bear trend, that would be the first warning signal — because eventually the stock market touches the 200-week moving average. I don't know when, but if we go bear trend, that would be the first warning signal.