Ivan on Tech analyzes Bitcoin's rally from $74K to $78K, weighing bull confirmation against fakeout risk
Ivan on Tech presents a solo Bitcoin market analysis and Q&A livestream covering price action, DeFi hacks, and altcoin performance.
Summary
Ivan on Tech examines Bitcoin's rally to $78K, testing the bull market support band, and argues that while the move is significant, it is too early to declare a bull market return — pointing to a comparable 40% bear market rally in 2022 that preceded a 70% collapse. He outlines a tiered DCA strategy: scale in slowly above the bull market support band, and accelerate aggressively only if the Money Line (currently at $91K) flips bullish. He also covers the multi-party hack involving Aave, LayerZero, and Kelp DAO, in which a compromised RPC node led to unbacked tokens being accepted as collateral, with each party deflecting blame. The stream closes with a Q&A covering altcoin performance, NFTs, the Justin Sun lawsuit against World Liberty Financial, and the recurring pattern of investors being trapped by fundamentals rather than price action.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Bitcoin at $78K — Bull Confirmation or Fakeout?
Ivan on Tech: Welcome to another episode. Right now, Bitcoin is at $78K. We're pumping quite nicely from the lows, and the question everyone has is: have the bulls won? Is this the end for the bears? Is this goodbye to our buy zone? Or is it just a big fat fakeout before we take the next leg down? This is going to be the topic of today. Then we have all kinds of crypto news to catch up on, and we'll go to Q&A at the end. Prepare your questions while you're watching — we'll get into questions in about 20 minutes.
Let's start with Bitcoin. As you can see, we have a quite strong pump to the upside. We're now testing the bull market support band, which is the bear market resistance band in bear markets. From the low, we're up about 30%. And the question is: is this common? Can you have such a rally within a bear market?
The answer is yes — you can easily have it. Right here in 2022, we actually had a 40% pump before prices collapsed all the way down, minus 70% basically. So is it possible? Yes, it's possible. At the same time, if you watched yesterday's video and saw how we compared Bitcoin's performance in midterm years, currently there is a bit of deviation from most midterm years to the upside. We're still within what's possible — still within the 2022 trajectory, for example. And if you look at the average, you clearly see that we're more bullish than normal. But at the same time, 2022 also had a similar trajectory.
So the conclusion here is that we need to be prepared for the bull scenario, but the bear scenario is still very, very real, and it's too early to be super euphoric. I see many people becoming complacent. Just looking at all of the criticism that Benjamin Cowen gets — big shout out to Ben Cowen — the pushback against him is crazy. Like, relax. Bitcoin's going from $74K to $78K and the reaction has been insane. People are complacent. Bulls are basically opening champagne as we're speaking. I think you cannot be complacent here. You really have to be on your feet. At the same time, we don't know the future. We cannot predict the future. We can only position accordingly.
The Bull Market Support Band and the Money Line
In the videos from this week — yesterday and the day before — I laid out the plan. We have the bull market support band. Sometimes when we go above it, like we're trying to do now, let's say we close above it — it is technically a signal according to the bull market support band that we're now bullish. But you do have fakeouts. For example, here in 2022, you had three weeks trading above it. And in the bull market, you also have many fakeouts to the downside where it signals bear market but we still continue to the upside. So this is not the signal, but it is a signal to be more bullish in case we start trading above it. You could DCA slowly here, and should we go bullish on the Money Line, then you DCA like a maniac and go very, very fast.
The Money Line is now still at $91K, because the Money Line is basically calling the bluff. The Money Line is saying: listen, bulls, you're going to be vague — okay, that's what the Money Line is saying. It's still probabilistic, meaning it's possible that we go bullish, it's possible. But because the gap is quite big, the line is saying, "I'm calling the bluff." If you look at when it turned bull in the last bull market, the gap was smaller, and once we flipped it went bull fantastically and we held bull very, very nicely. The bull market support band flipped bull one week before the Money Line back in 2023, because the gap there was way smaller — more time had passed and the Money Line was ready for the bull flip. Here, the line is calling the bluff, and to hedge the $91K level you could DCA already above it. But I'm telling you, the downside risk is massive. It's still massive, and being complacent here is not good.
For us, we need to make a lot of money no matter what happens. If the bulls are back and we say goodbye to the buy zone below our 200-week moving average, we have to make a lot of money. Should we go down to the 200-week moving average — which is still a big possibility — we need to have a lot of money there to buy. So no matter what happens, we need to be in a fantastic, big fat profit. That's the goal.
We risk-off since October 8th right here, and we have the tweet to prove it — TradingView puts the tweet in the candle. So we have the massive war chest to buy and to enter the market. But of course we don't want to be buying and then have it go down 70%. That's not the goal and that would be very, very bad. So this is how we ensure that we slowly nibble here. Should we go bull, massive nibble — big fat nibble. But because we're nibbling slowly, we have this scenario where in case it goes bull for a few weeks like in 2022 and then collapses down, our nibbling stops and resumes in the buy zone.
Many people who are inexperienced want everyone to commit to one clear scenario — either all in or we all blow up. That's the newbie mindset. Sometimes they're even annoyed when, no matter what happens, there's a plan. I see that in the comments sometimes — a very small minority, but they're really annoyed. "What do you mean? If it goes up and it goes down, you still have a plan?" Because they have no plan. They're cornered and they want everyone else to be cornered. But we're not cornered.
Macro: Oil Prices and the New Fed Chair
There is more news. We have the new Fed chair being installed in a few weeks — basically in two weeks. Trump is potentially saying he needs higher rates to stop inflation. He's saying many things, many things, all the time. What he actually said about Kevin Warsh: "I think Kevin's great. I think he's going to do a great job. I've been in favor of interest rate rises to stop inflation. I think it's sort of effective, but we should have the lowest interest rates in the world." So this is the typical politician — we need rates to rise to stop inflation, but we should have the lowest in the world. You have cake and you eat it.
With Kevin Warsh, we should technically have lower interest rates. But it's going to depend on oil. Let me pull up oil, because if oil is high — guys, it is high. Oil is around $96 to $100. It's quite high. With this high oil, it's going to be a bit hard to lower any interest rate. Technically oil is in a bear trend, but because oil is so volatile — it's a political asset — it changes a lot. I'm not using the Money Line as a way to see where oil is going to go, because one political decision can send it to $150 and one political decision can send it to $70. It's more that we see what oil is doing and that is a signal for other assets. So when it comes to interest rates, I think it's going to be tough to lower them with oil this high. But let's see.
Justin Sun Sues the Trump Family and World Liberty Financial
There is more and more pressure on World Liberty Financial and the Trump family from Justin Sun. Justin Sun is coming out — and not just coming out, he's actually suing. He's actually suing the Trump family and World Liberty Financial, saying they wrongfully froze all of his tokens, stripped him of all of his voting rights in the ecosystem and governance proposals, and have threatened to permanently destroy his tokens.
So Justin Sun is now taking legal action against the Trump family, coming out swinging in a big way. I mean, you have to be smart here. Justin Sun — I guess he's smart — but at the same time, it's the Trump family. And Justin Sun is running some risks here, because is he all fluffy and shiny like a fluffy bunny, or is there something to be found? You know how this works.
Eric Trump is firing back, saying it's meritless, and dismissed the lawsuit as more ridiculous than the $6 million duct tape banana that Justin Sun bought a few years back. So all in all, the drama is escalating. Sun alleges the firm co-founded by President Donald Trump and his son Eric Trump has frozen all of his tokens and stripped him of all rights on governance proposals. Sun is the founder of Tron, initially invested $45 million, and that pumped to $1 billion since September. The price of a single Wolfy token — so yeah, he could not sell, he's angry, and now he's suing the president. Let's see, guys. I would be maybe a bit careful because crypto founding is crypto founding. There's just not a fluffy bunny everywhere.
But the Tron chart is good. Tron chart is very good. Almost all-time high. Let's actually check it. Tron chart is probably the best altcoin chart. I don't see too many other big old coins doing this well. Almost freaking all-time high. If you look at the weekly close, to go to all-time high, Tron has to pump just 10%. Isn't that crazy? So when it comes to delivering for his holders, Tron has been very nice despite all of the drama.
Market Sentiment and Emotional Behavior in Crypto
Just looking at the chart, not discussing the personality — in crypto we have mainly dudes, but the amount of drama, the amount of being super emotional — I've never seen anything like this. For example, now on Twitter, you say anything bearish and you get cooked alive by emotional people. Anyway, moving on.
The Aave, LayerZero, and Kelp DAO Hack
As you know, we did have quite a big hack involving Aave, LayerZero, and Kelp DAO. All of them are saying they were not hacked. Aave is saying everything worked perfectly, our code was perfect. LayerZero is saying they worked perfectly, everything was as intended. And Kelp DAO is maybe the only one saying they were potentially hacked. But the thing is, all of them have many problems and all of them have lost their users' money — no exception.
Now you have Aave outflowing $15 billion because Wall Street is pulling back money. It was supposed to be super safe. Here's the drama: LayerZero, which is this bridge infrastructure project that provides bridging and got hacked, says it's not their fault because Kelp used a configuration where they only needed one signature for the LayerZero bridge to work. They're saying Kelp configured their integration in a bad and insecure way. The problem is that Kelp DAO is saying this is actually what LayerZero told them to do in their documentation — that this was okay.
So LayerZero says it's not their problem, they're just open infrastructure and Kelp used it wrong. Kelp DAO says they used it in the way LayerZero told them to. Many people are coming out saying it boggles their mind that LayerZero blames Kelp for this hack when LayerZero's own DVN RPC infrastructure was spoofed by forging a fake node.
What got hacked on a technical level was that LayerZero's infrastructure somehow got compromised and their RPC node got replaced with a malicious RPC node. For those who are not technical: an RPC node is like a server that has the state of the blockchain. If you are an infrastructure project — say you're a bridge — you want to know how many tokens a contract has, you read it from an RPC node. An RPC node is like a computer that has the whole real-time state of the blockchain and can tell you what's happening on-chain. It can also allow you to execute transactions.
That node got replaced, and because it got replaced, it either replaced the messages or gave incorrect state of the blockchain, and they trusted the data that came from it. That was the technical attack. Using this, they were able to compromise Kelp, and then using unbacked Kelp tokens — because what happened was they compromised the bridge tokens that Aave previously accepted as valuable, this rsETH from Kelp, which was no longer backed by ETH — Aave still accepted them because Aave didn't know the hack happened. So Aave had a problem with risk management: they allowed lending against coins that could potentially lose their backing. That's Aave's fault. But everyone is saying everything worked as intended.
Apparently it's North Koreans — the Lazarus Group — but I'm also a bit skeptical that it's always, always North Koreans. Is it really always only North Koreans hacking? I have some doubts. Are they the only ones hacking? No one else wants to hack? It's always the Lazarus Group. The case is closed. But yeah, potentially Lazarus, potentially not.
Now, everyone needs to check their LayerZero integration. BlockDaemon, which is another infrastructure provider, is saying they're pausing all of their stuff with LayerZero — taking it offline — because they also have this configuration where they use basically one node for the bridge, one signature. If that's targeted, it's a big, big problem. That's what happened.
Pudgy Penguins and NFT Philosophy
Let me know if you are in Pudgy Penguins coin, because out of nowhere penguins started tweeting at me. I saw this appreciation post and there was a lot of engagement. Penguins are strong.
Then I saw an article breaking down the trend. Let's check the chart. It's currently still in the bear trend. We don't touch things in the bear trend. On the daily, it's been a heavy bear trend. You stay away from things in a bear trend. But you see something very interesting — potentially a new bull trend. Let's see if it will confirm.
I'm thinking about whether I should buy another penguin, but the problem is I already have one and I don't know what I'm going to do with another one. If I buy another one, I'll have to create a new Twitter account. They're like four ETH now, which is very, very cheap. So potentially I will buy one more, but I need to figure out what to do with it. Maybe I'll create a new Twitter like a virtual employee — maybe post some news, maybe post some charts. I'm considering it.
But all in all, Penguins — I love Penguins — but they need to be in a bull trend. No exception. You need to be in a bull trend.
Q&A: Hyperliquid, Solana, and Market Trends
Ivan on Tech: Let's go to Q&A. Questions, answers, debates, discussions. We can discuss the chart, we can discuss your coin, we can discuss anything you want.
Oil we just discussed — it's at around $96. It's quite high. It's not really buying this ceasefire narrative. But in terms of content, I'm a bit burned out on politics. I don't find it that interesting to cover every day. Trump says this, Trump says that — I'm burned out on all of that. I'd rather just focus on the charts and making money. Someone said, looking at the last year and what has happened in the world, and looking at what Simon Dixon has been producing in his content — you understand that politics is actually like theater. To react to each and every thing — no matter what you vote, it's going to be the same. So that's why we're doing less politics, more chart, more focus on portfolio.
Someone asks about Hyperliquid. Let's check it. Bull trend. That's good. Strong, strong bull trend. Still near all-time high. What can I say? It's a bull trend. It's nice that it's actually continuing up and not just collapsing down. Quite strong. Bitcoin is still in a bear trend — should Bitcoin have a fakeout, Hyperliquid is not going to do too well. But short-term trading is still bull.
Hyperliquid is super strong. Next bull market, I think it's going to be one of the key players — maybe the new thing that everyone looks at. Why? Because they have the users, they have the adoption. A lot of things that Solana should have had, Hyperliquid has taken. For example, trading stocks on-chain, being the NASDAQ of on-chain — that's now Hyperliquid. That's important. Can Solana compete? They need to hurry up.
Someone asks how to use the combination of the bull market support band and the Money Line. The support band is a quite popular indicator — it's been around for a long time. It's not some proprietary thing. The Money Line is different — that's more specific. But people want to use exactly what I use with the same colors.
The way to use it is all about weighing risk versus reward. The bull market support band is not a super reliable indicator — it has many fakeouts. In general, it can show you kind of what's happening. For example, you see here we're getting rejected, we're getting rejected — bear market. Should we break above it now, it's bull market. That's the theory. But in practice it has many issues. For example, here we went below it — it was a fakeout and we still continued up. Here going below it was technically bear but it was a fakeout.
The problem is it has many fakeouts in the last bull market. It had a fakeout here — three weeks trading above it, which is technically bull market, but it was a fakeout. The good thing is that it reacts a bit faster than the Money Line, especially if the bear market hasn't lasted a long time. For example, here you see it was quite a fast reaction. If the bear market has lasted a longer time, then it was just a week difference — here in 2023, Money Line and bull market support band were just one week apart.
So to your question, how to use it: this is to balance risk versus reward. Because it reacts faster, it has more fakeouts, meaning higher risk, but you do get a quicker signal. One way to use it is as the first signal to start scaling in, but do it slowly. Should we then also flip the Money Line — which is like the strongest possible signal you can have that the bull market is here — then you go faster. You scale in quite aggressively. That's how to use it practically.
Someone asks about holding their penguin during the bear. Yeah, 100%. I mean, listen — the penguin is not an investment. It's like art. My penguin is my profile picture. The Bulmania logo is based on a similar penguin. That one is not for sale. It's never going to be for sale. I mean, everything has a price — if it goes to $10 million, maybe. If it goes to $100 million, you know, everything has a price. But right now, it's not for sale.
And if I buy another penguin, I'm not thinking about it just to put it and wait for it to pump, because there are better ways to speculate. If you want to make money, there are better approaches. If you are more sophisticated, if you have finer taste — you see the beauty in life, you're a bit of a connoisseur, whether it is with watches or other things — then it's penguin. If you want to invest and speculate and make money, it's not for that. The penguin coin can be for that if it goes to bull trend. But the NFT — I wouldn't think of them like that. It's connoisseur territory.
Solana, Altcoin Performance, and the Old Guard Cycle
Someone asks: does that mean Solana to $1,000 is impossible? Listen, I still think it's more likely to go to $30 than to $1,000 since we went bear in October. Before October, when it was in bull trend, it could have gone to $1,000. But with markets, if they shift against you, you shift. Currently the way things stand — if it breaks support, you see yourself. Can it go to $1,000 in a bull? It could, absolutely. But when the trend changes, I also change.
Some people are surprised: "Ivan, you said potentially if the trend sustains it's possible to go to $1,000." But since October we risk off — no Solana. My analogy: when it's sunny I have sunglasses, when it's rainy I have an umbrella. Sometimes people say, "Ivan, why don't you have sunglasses? It's rainy." But I have written 300 pages on trends. Trend bear — bear out. Trend bull — in. Should we go to bull trend and not break down here, we're bull again. But I know for sure someone is going to say, "Ivan, you said it's going to $30, now why don't you think it's going to go to..." Because it's up now. We ride the trend. Trend changed — okay, you understand? But the way it stands now, it is umbrella time. The path of least resistance is down.
Someone asks what I think about buying Solana NFTs like Famous Fox if Solana dips to $30. No, I wouldn't do it. Big shout out to Famous Fox — it's a great project — but in my world of connoisseuring, I only respect the ETH NFTs. Penguins the most. Punks and maybe Apes, but I don't really like Apes. I just somehow have a scam vibe with them. Maybe it's because many scammers use them. Maybe it's because the organization has been weird. Maybe because they do things that hurt the brand — for example, they do a game no one plays. But punks and penguins basically.
For a money-making perspective, NFTs are not great. It's better to be in coins because then you can have system, discipline, stop-loss, and so on. You can still make money with NFTs, but that's like secondary — it's a byproduct of being a connoisseur. So no, I wouldn't buy NFTs on Solana. But let's see — maybe I change my mind. If you see something that makes sense to you, buy it if you want. Don't not buy it because I said I'm not doing it, because I may change my mind as well. Before 2023 when I bought the penguin, I wasn't connoisseur enough. Then I became connoisseur enough. In 2017 I didn't like watches — now I have a Daytona. Taste changes. New horizons open up.
Just ask yourself: do you really like it, or do you want to make money from it? Because if you want to make money from it, stick to coins.
How This Cycle Compared to Previous Bull Runs
Someone asks how this cycle's bull run compared to previous cycles and whether it impacts this bear market. I mean, obviously everything is different, but people over-exaggerate the differences. Yes, we did not go up a lot in some altcoins — ETH did not go to $10K and so on. But when we look at the fair value of Bitcoin, we use the 200-week moving average. That takes into account how much Bitcoin pumped. If Bitcoin doesn't pump too much, then this moving average is not far away from the price. For example, when we peaked here from the moving average, it was just 57% — which is not a lot. Compare to last cycle, from this peak to this moving average it was 75%. So when we have our buy zone based on the 200-week moving average, that is based on how much we pumped. Don't worry too much — it's already included in the analysis.
And then the second question is about altcoins. I mean, altcoins did pump. You cannot say that altcoins did not pump. We had meme season. We had all kinds of things pumping. Yes, ADA did not go to all-time high. But ADA is a boomer-era coin — it's from 2017, it's 2026. Chainlink did not go to all-time high. But guys, you have to look at the price action, not at fundamentals. People read Sergey saying they're integrating with Swift, banks are going to use it — but no one is actually using that, and the money from that goes not to the coin but to their company in many ways. So for the holder, who cares about the holder? No one cares. You've got to just look at the price.
We did see altcoins pump a lot. Memes pumped — Dogwifhat went to $5 billion, Pepe, many things pumped. I understand that some people wanted their coin to pump, but it's the classic wreckage and destruction of the old guard.
What does this mean? In 2017, you were a Bitcoin maxi. You said ETH is a scam, and then ETH and everything pumped. Next cycle you say, okay, this time I have ETH. But now Solana pumps. You're like, "Solana is a scam, ETH is not a scam." So last cycle you said ETH is a scam, then you said holy crap it pumped so much. Okay, now I have ETH. Next cycle, next bull market, I have ETH. Let's go. Then next cycle, Solana pumps. It's a scam. ETH is decentralized. Solana is a scam. So you are now the old guard, getting wrecked. Next you buy Solana, Hyperliquid pumps. You understand? It's the classic wreckage of the old guard.
I think this is what happened. People wanted ADA and everything to pump. What happened? The freaking Dogwifhat — kids making meme coins — pounds everything. Chainlink did not pump. The quality investments in LINK, Avalanche, the quality things people hold — they don't pump. And then all of the memes pump. And then they cry, "We didn't have altcoin season." I don't know. I think we had altcoin season. If you look, there are many coins that pumped. But yes, all of these boomer-era coins, they did not pump. Except Tron. Isn't that crazy? Tron was created in 2017, the same as ADA and everything. And it actually went higher. Way higher.
Let's see other coins. BNB is similar — launched in 2017, big pump, massive pump. You see it's the Chinese, Chinese, Chinese. You need to have Chinese quant. There are many Chinese scams also. But it's also very common with a Western project to have a fully legit slow extract. Meaning you have a company, you have a coin, all value goes to the company, and then the coin is like a slow extract. But all of the news — you feed the community the news: "We're going to integrate, we're going to integrate." You feed them the news and then you slow extract. That's the Western approach. Chinese is either to zero or actual value accrual — and you see it yourself, whether it's BNB or Tron.
Maybe it's because traditional capital markets are not really developed in China. It's very interesting, because if you have a Western company you can do so much with shares. You can lend against them. Your shares are a very valuable asset. You can sell them, you can raise more money based on them, you can lend based on them. All the billionaires never sell any shares — they just lend against them. So in the West, if you accrue value in your corporate shares, that's the best option. You come with a bunch of crypto and you're going to get blacklisted everywhere. But in China, maybe it's different. Maybe for them the share — what are they going to do with the share? Better to have the coin. So maybe incentives are more aligned there. I'm just speculating here. But for some reason BNB and Tron are looking very nice, and Avalanche — what is this? How can it be like that? How is Tron like this and Avalanche like this? And then compare the narrative — compare your crypto Twitter shilling, all the tech, great tech — it blows my mind. But that's why I love the fundamentals trap discussion.
The Fundamentals Trap — The Number One Investor Mistake
The number one trap: the fundamentals trap. Some people try to learn the fundamentals of a project, a coin, or a stock. They study the technology, read the white papers, analyze the business model. And while fundamentals can be important, most people get absolutely destroyed trading based on fundamentals alone. And it isn't just a crypto problem. The fundamentals trap has destroyed traders and investors in every market that has ever existed — from stocks to bonds to real estate. There's the famous example of George Bush being bullish on the US economy in 2008 because of fundamentals.
You intended to make a quick profit. Instead, you're forced into a multi-year hell, trapped by your belief in fundamentals. Let me know in the comment section — have you ever been in a multi-year hell because you believed in fundamentals? Be fully honest. I mean, we are all friends here in the bear market. The tourists are gone. We're only friends here. We trust each other. You can be fully vulnerable with me here. I'm kind of like your psychologist.
Let me know if you've been in a multi-year hell because you believed in fundamentals. Write the timestamp 49:10 in the comment section and let us know.
Closing Thoughts — Don't Get Complacent
Guys, listen. Thank you very much for being here. Let's see how this market develops. But I just want to leave you with one thing: don't get complacent here. It's way too early to open champagne for bulls. But as bears — we've been bears since October 9th, that was the tweet, that was the call from October 8th — we should also not get too complacent, because should we get above the bull market support band and see acceleration to the upside, we need to be ready. And we have a plan, as explained in this stream.
But I can just tell you, the likelihood of us going down from here is quite big. It's still quite big. But let's see — we make a lot of money no matter what. Up, down, we have a plan for everything. That's the best. That's why you come to this channel. We're never cornered. We have a plan for anything. And that's what trading is — we don't know the future, no one does, but we can position ourselves. It's all about positioning.