Ivan on Tech analyzes Bitcoin's dip, market rotation, and crypto news including Richard Heart's arrest
Ivan on Tech delivers a solo live stream covering Bitcoin's price action, macro conditions, and several crypto news stories.
Summary
Ivan (Ivan on Tech) opens by addressing Bitcoin's drop to around $80,900, contextualizing it against broader stock market volatility triggered by higher-than-expected inflation data. He argues that the current dip is minor compared to historical corrections within bull markets, and that the rotation from AI stocks into crypto remains the dominant macro trend. He also covers Richard Heart's arrest in Istanbul on tax fraud charges related to HEX, the Pudgy Penguins/Abstract chain controversy involving founder Luca Netz, and several macro items including US Treasury debt buybacks and stablecoin dry powder sitting at $305 billion.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Bitcoin's Price Drop and Market Context
Ivan: Let's go live as soon as possible. Guys, welcome to another episode. As you can see right now, Bitcoin is going lower. We're now at $80,900. We are now below this support that we were hoping would hold. It's still three days until the weekly close, but right now it looks like it's falling based on the recent news from yesterday with inflation. Inflation is high — very, very high. It sparked the worst S&P day since July.
If we look at the stock market, it has been dumping — not too much, it's still in the bull trend, but people are nervous. Whenever there is intraday volatility, people are nervous. When it comes to the S&P, we have the same price as two weeks ago. So if you zoom out, you see nothing has really changed. But of course when the S&P goes down 1% in a day, NASDAQ down 2% in a day, people are nervous. That nervousness is getting into crypto as well. Bitcoin is down a bit — not even that much in comparison to the S&P. The S&P and NASDAQ are down more than Bitcoin.
The AI-to-Crypto Rotation Thesis
Likely what's going to happen is the continuation of the rotation from AI into crypto. Yes, currently there's a bit of volatility in stocks which propagates into crypto as well. But on the big picture — remember since July — since July we have been rotating from AI back into crypto. In October 2025, we said to move from crypto and then we entered AI. During the summer of 2026, we moved from AI back to crypto. As you can see here, in July we said the AI trade is ending.
So all in all, crypto is still in early bull while AI stocks are in early bear. You have many AI stocks struggling. Look at CoreWeave just during the last 24 hours. There are a lot of concerns about the stocks. And when we speak about the stock market, AI was really driving it. So as money leaves AI, the natural home for it — the comfy, cozy home — is crypto.
Is there volatility now? Yes, indeed. A few weeks ago we were at $75,000. Now we're at $80,000. Imagine if you told someone a few weeks ago we were going to be at $80,000 — they would have been saying Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Now people are scared. People are worried. But we're here to follow the plan, follow the system, be bullish in a bull trend. Bitcoin is now in a bull trend, and we're bearish in a bear trend — and Bitcoin now is not in aversion. So keep the plan.
If the plan goes to zero, you have only yourself to blame because this is not financial advice. Crypto trading is high risk and most traders lose money. Results shown are not typical. I may hold assets I discuss. Do not copy me. It may all go to zero. And that's the best part with the financial markets — it can all go to zero. We're speculating. We go into the arena. Some people say we go into the casino. And guess what? No crying in the casino.
NASDAQ and S&P Trend Analysis
Looking at the stock market, it's down a bit. Looking at the NASDAQ, it seems that it wants to go lower. S&P actually wants to open a bit higher than the close based on futures. And these things can change very fast. Yesterday was a bit concerning. Tomorrow you wake up and it's bullish again. So just be bullish in a bull trend. NASDAQ is still in a bull trend and S&P is in a bull trend.
Should it go to a bear trend, we're going to adapt. If we are in a bear-trending NASDAQ, we're bearish NASDAQ. Simple. Because if NASDAQ decides that it wants to go to the 200-day exponential Moving Averages — which sometimes it comes very close to, like here and like here — we would rather just jump back when it goes bull again and then ride the next leg up. That's my strategy because protecting the downside is very important. If you multiply yourself by zero, you have zero, and it's very hard to grow zero. I would rather be risk-off in a bear trend. Even if the bear trend is short, you can jump back when the bull trend happens. Maybe the bear trend ends very quickly. Maybe it is like a bear fake-out — it just goes down and then continues up.
I love money too much to have downside. Better trend, we're out. Bull trend, let's go. NASDAQ cannot keep moving without being in a bull trend. So it's way better to jump on the bull trend and then avoid the bear. Jump on bull, avoid the bear.
For now though, we're very, very bullish. There's a bunch of support here for NASDAQ — a lot, a lot, a lot. As long as there is still some fuel in the tank for stocks, it will keep running. We're going to adapt otherwise.
Macro News: SEC, Treasury Debt Buybacks, and Stablecoins
The SEC has approved binary options on company KPIs. A bit unrelated to crypto, but more and more ways to speculate on different things — and all of this is also going to come on chain. All these new rules are also going to come on chain. So you can speculate on everything on chain very, very soon.
US Treasury prepays for $24 billion-plus in debt buybacks this month. This is massive because they need to control the yield curve. They need to ensure that yields go down. It's going to be a bigger and bigger story that governments are buying back their own debt. We speak about it every day because we will have a sovereign debt crisis. The only way to solve it is by governments printing money and buying their debt. Currently it is the Treasury doing this — so not yet the Fed. This money is currently not printed; it's used from the budget of the Treasury. But the budget is not endless. They will have to print sooner or later, and these numbers are quite small in comparison to the whole debt and how much they really have to manage. Everything will end with a printer.
Stablecoin dry powder: 305 billion stables on the sidelines. As soon as Bitcoin goes towards $100,000, a lot of this is going to start pouring straight back into crypto. It's interesting — I'm an avid student of human emotion, an avid student of the market. The emotion now is bearish, but literally you look at the chart — look at where we were just a month ago, we were at $70-something. The human emotion is crazy. If everyone feels so depressed, everyone is saying game over, it could be a bear market — and you have to manage risk always. But at the end of the day, we're never happy. There's always going to be a wall of worry. We're climbing the wall of worry. And that's okay. That's how it should be. In a bull market, there's always a wall of worry.
Whenever we reach some significant number — let's say we reach $100,000 — suddenly that wall becomes weaker and normies flood in. New capital floods in. Even people currently on the sidelines, should we go to $100,000, flood in. So you either have the money line or other ways to see where the trend is, or you are just a normie and you follow the headline. See a big headline — "Bitcoin $100K" — you flatten. Basically, don't be surprised that every day there's a bit of worry. Don't be surprised that every day you don't have this 100% confident feeling that everything is up only, because in a bull market there is never such a feeling.
Historical Bull Market Corrections in Perspective
Even if you zoom out and look at the last bull market, I can tell you there was never a feeling that I would just sit and relax and everything is up only. We entered the bull trend, then it went down — it went down quite a lot — then it popped, then went down even more. From one peak to one low it was 23%. Imagine: we just flipped bullish, Bitcoin flipped into bull trend, and dumped 23%. This was all in the last bull market. It looks so nice when you zoom out, but when you zoom in, you see what happened. You know what people said at that peak? Double top. They said it's a double top. Without the bull trend, there's no way to navigate the market without knowing whether we're bullish or bearish.
From another peak to another low, it was also 20%. So Bitcoin lost 23% here, then another 20% here. I'm just putting things into perspective because emotions are running high and Bitcoin is down like 7% from the high. All in all, nothing has changed for me.
The Bear Market Rally Question
Someone is asking: what if it's a bear market rally? Here's the beautiful thing — we don't know. It could be a bear market rally, but we have the probabilities. If it is a bull trend, a bear market rally is just less likely.
Why is it unlikely to be a bear market rally? Number one, you have the 200-week Moving Averages, which is normally long-term support. If you can buy around the 200 Moving Averages, it's very, very good. We already started buying here during the summer below the 200 Moving Averages. So that's the first signal why it's just less likely — because we hit a significant milestone. Again, less likely, not guaranteed. Nothing is guaranteed.
Number two, it is a bull trend, meaning that we've had enough upthrust so that this being a bear market rally is just less likely. Now we need the third confirmation — that we really use this previous high as support and really start creating a new series of higher highs and higher lows.
But just get away from this thinking of "what if." If you want certainty, there's no certainty. It could be a bear market. I don't care. We just place our bets in the best possible way — we're bullish in a bull trend, we're accumulating around the 200 Moving Averages. That is how we play our hand. We throw our dice.
Should reality go against us in such a way where buying at the 200-week Moving Averages was bad, buying in a bull trend was bad — we've done everything. And it can still happen that you do everything right and still get wrecked. You can do everything right and still have a bad outcome. The same with the market — outcome is not guaranteed. You can just do your best. You can position in the best way possible. Even the best investors in the world don't have a perfect hit rate. It's okay.
What's good is that this has worked fantastically well cycle after cycle after cycle. So the probability is on your side. Will there be some cycle at some point where we go bull trend, we hit the 200 Moving Averages, everything is fantastic, and then it goes to zero? Theoretically possible. Hopefully it doesn't go fast enough and we can exit with a ban. So that's that.
Richard Heart Arrested in Istanbul
Very important news: Richard Heart has been arrested in Istanbul. Why is it important? Because this is how Hexicans — at least some of them — can finally be free. I wrote: congratulations, you are free.
Normally people refuse to exit cults or scams on their own. Look at OneCoin, for example — it took a long time for people to understand that it was a scam. Some people still think it's not a scam after Ruja disappeared, even after 10-plus years. Some people are still living in the cult. So it's easier to scam someone than to convince them that they've been scammed. Therefore, your messiah getting captured is bullish for you.
The thing is, maybe I was a bit too positive here, because people say he's going to be out in like five years. If he goes for the tax fraud charge in Finland, they calculated he can max be there for five years. That's the maximum charge. So he's going to be back in 2031, maybe for the next bull market.
People think I'm against the Hexicans. Actually, I am on the Hexican side. I'm on your side. It's just that for two-plus years we've been warning and warning, and if you listened to Ivan long ago, you would be well off. The slow ones maybe listen now, and the really slow ones maybe wait for him to be released in five years.
Eric Wall had a good summary of how Richard got caught, explaining it in one tweet. Richard said, "So you guys send me $1 billion for this ETH fork" — we call it the Fiverr chain because he found the guy on Fiverr to copy it. It was Brea. Brea is a good guy but he was probably found on Fiverr. And it's not an investment — it's a sacrifice. You essentially gifted it. The SEC said, "Dog, that was an investment. See you in court." The US court said case dismissed because Fatman operated from Finland. Finland was like, "Wait — he was operating from Finland and you guys gifted him $1 billion? We have gift taxes in Finland: 30%. That's $300 million in taxes, please."
Now here's the thing — if he had just based himself in Sweden and not Finland, he would have had 0% tax on gifts. If he had just asked me, "Ivan, where should I do my gifts?" I would have told him: in Sweden there is zero percent on gifts. Why did he go to Finland? It's like a 30-minute flight. He could have saved $300 million and been fully free. There's a problem with not thinking the plan through fully.
Europol also said Fatman punched a 16-year-old boy five times — though I think that charge was dropped. Turkish police found 64 Rolexes. In the Turkish media, he's called "Whale James" — Balina James in Turkish. I've never seen anyone call him Whale James. It's just that when they captured him in Turkey, they gave him that name. He was wanted via red notice by Interpol. At the suspect's address: $600,000 in cash, 24 watches, 20 gold bracelets, 300-something items. Five passports, three handguns, and four long-barreled rifles. He was ready for any kind of development. He's accused of embezzling $1.5 billion — though the US case is closed because he was in Finland. He's now wanted in Finland for $300 million plus interest. Interest rates have been high during the last five years, so it wouldn't surprise me if that $300 million is now $500 million.
Hopefully he's going to be okay. In five years he's out. Maybe he's going to pump your stuff, guys. But maybe there's some closure to this also. Obviously, we want everyone to do well. If you're a Hexican, we wish you all the best.
Standard Chartered Expands Bitcoin and ETH Trading
Standard Chartered, a major bank, is expanding Bitcoin and ETH trading. Bullish. Everything bullish.
There's a bit of volatility in the stock market. Fed's Barkin says CPI was higher than hoped. Fed's Barkin declined to prejudge the October FOMC. Also, we have the midterms coming. There's going to be volatility before the midterms because people want clarity and certainty. Volatility means no clarity. There's also volatility in gold — gold has been dumping.
The Pudgy Penguins / Abstract Chain Controversy
The Pudgy Penguins / Abstract drama is quite big. It's not getting smaller. Normally if there is some drama, it's gone quickly. This thing is not getting smaller. I think Luca needs to come out and handle it. He should come out and set the record straight, because everyone who's been farming the Abstract chain — and there are quite many of them — those Abstract farmers are angry. They're very angry. They wanted Luca to give them money for using Abstract. They're coming out swinging. They're calling him a scammer.
Comparing it to Azuki — there has been a lot of drama. Basically, they're saying Luca is a scammer because he shut down Abstract and the farmers will now not get a TGE. I understand the accusation, but in my honest opinion, maybe it's a bit too harsh. I understand these people have been farming and farming and farming. They wanted to become rich from the airdrop. The project got cancelled. It happens. Should Luca have been more careful shilling the airdrop? Probably. But I think Luca should just come out and take control of the situation. Take control of the narrative. Put the record straight. Tell them: "You wanted the airdrop, it ain't happening. Here's our plan instead. And thank you very much for farming. You have XP — maybe we can give you something for the XP."
It's a real lesson for all the teams here: be careful with farming promises. The pleb wants the farming delivered. As a founder, you always have to be all-in until you're not — that's how you are as a founder. There's no way otherwise. You either give your everything or you close it and do something else. As a founder, you cannot be lukewarm.
I totally understand why Luca doesn't want to do the chain. He can either shut it down like he did, or kind of continue with it — maybe give the pleb some coin so they stop with their farming complaints. Would that be better? I'm just brainstorming. But it is clear that the damage to the brand is massive. It's a big damage.
I don't know how much money the farmers spent. Maybe it is a real pain — someone lost a lot of money. I don't know. But just in general, in crypto, it's very easy that if you don't set boundaries, the pleb is going to run nuts. You set boundaries. That's what I do. I say: this is what we do. Don't ask anything else.
Should we interview Luca about this? We could maybe do a debate — a farmer, the leader of the farmers, and then Luca — and they can debate while we spectate.
Anyway, I'm not taking sides really. I can see both points. Because I'm not a farmer, it's hard to see the other point. That's why I invite you guys: if you lost money on Abstract, enlighten us.
It's a very important lesson for all founders: be careful with how you manage expectations. Luca should have done the same — he should have said, "Hey guys, disclaimer: maybe I cancel this." In crypto, it would be even better to do that. As a founder you need to be all-in, but in crypto, just to control expectations, I would say: "Hey guys, I'm Luca. This Abstract chain — maybe I cancel this. Okay, good, you farm, but maybe I cancel this on you." That would be better.
You give people a finger, they take the whole hand. They never remember anything good. Look at what kind of airdrop Luca did with Pudgy Penguins — everyone forgot that. So you really have to be in control of the narrative. If I were Luca, I would confront all of this. If they really did not lose a lot of money, if they're just whining because they lost time, I would tell them: "Hey, have you seen the Pudgy Penguins airdrop? Have you seen how much you got? Have you seen how many billions I airdropped?" But no one remembers that now. You give them a finger, they take the whole hand.
So you really have to consider: should you give them a finger at all? Maybe only do a VC raise and give no finger, because you give them a finger and they want the whole hand. As a crypto founder, it's a lesson: don't do too much airdrop. You do one airdrop, but the player who got it wants another one. Be careful with how you manage the pleb. Managing expectations — that's what it's about for all founders, Luca included.
I mean, I totally get it if people have been farming and now they don't have money, or they lost money because they just wanted to trade for volume. But enough crying, enough complaining. There are ways to salvage this legitimately. But for sure the brand is hit.
Here's where I would be wrong: if someone shows me they lost $100K on Abstract, if someone shows me "hey, I lost $10K and here's how he stole it from you" — show me. Show me how he stole it from you. Otherwise, it's a lot of noise.
Pudgy Penguins is very weak now on the chart. For me, it needs to go back above this level again to be bullish.
Q&A: ADA, New Projects, and Market Strategy
On ADA — it got bullish and then Bitcoin went down, so it's also down. But all in all, it is good that we do see more and more confirmed bull trends. I would not enter it until it goes above this level. So if your stop loss was hit, I would just wait until it goes back above this and then it can continue higher.
What's the best new project you're investing in that you might know about that we might not? Currently none. We're not in that stage of the cycle where there are new projects that are exciting and fun. Now it's more that the existing projects turn bullish. There will be a period where new projects are going to be minting left and right as the bull market evolves and as the altcoin season comes back. But now the market conditions are not good for new projects. There's not too much launching, not too much going on. If you do a project now, you're not going to get a lot of attention. We're not in that altcoin stage where a lot of them are doing well. Risk-reward wise, not too good currently with new ones, because existing ones themselves have a lot to pump just to come back to previous resistances and recover some of the losses from the bear. That is probably the best opportunity now risk-reward wise. As we get more and more into the bull, there are going to be other opportunities.
On Prove X — didn't he raise money for Prove X? How is he going to launch it from jail? He's never going to — maybe he'll launch it in five years when he's out.