00:02 Will Bitcoin hit a top this cycle and
00:05 then crash? Is that something you need
00:06 to worry about? How will you know if or
00:09 when that might happen? Let’s talk about
00:11 it. Okay, so historically, Bitcoin’s
00:13 gone in four-year cycles with three up
00:15 years, one down year, three up years,
00:17 one down year, three up years, one down
00:18 year. The peak of each of those up years
00:21 was 2013, 2017, 2021, and if that
00:26 pattern continues, you would expect that
00:28 to be 2025. Now the reason for those
00:31 waves is natural technological adoption
00:35 which happens to sync up in this case
00:37 with what’s called the Bitcoin having
00:39 which happens the year of the
00:40 presidential election. So every four
00:42 years the amount of new Bitcoin that is
00:45 released onto the market as it gets
00:47 closer and closer to 21 million with 21
00:49 million being the hard cap uh drops in
00:52 half. So right now there’s about 20
00:54 million bitcoin in circulation and the
00:56 remaining 5% which is the remaining one
00:59 of the 21 million bitcoin will be
01:02 released into circulation which is
01:03 mined. It will be mined by the bitcoin
01:05 miners between now and the year 2140
01:09 which is 115 years from now 115. So the
01:13 last 5% very very very very slowly is
01:16 released at uh into the marketplace over
01:19 the next 115 years as a reward to
01:21 Bitcoin miners. After that the Bitcoin
01:24 miners transition entirely to fees from
01:27 the Bitcoin network. Right now it’s a
01:28 mix of the two. Well every four years
01:30 the amount of new Bitcoin released into
01:32 the market every 10 minutes drops in
01:34 half. And usually the year after that
01:36 Bitcoin having you see a a significant
01:39 bull run meaning an optimistic run.
01:42 that’s caused by the decrease in the
01:45 supply of Bitcoin which finally is felt
01:47 by the market. It’s usually a time a
01:49 time delay there. So usually it kicks in
01:51 you know six to you know 6 to9 months
01:54 after the having you start getting a
01:56 bull run and then it runs uh
01:58 significantly
01:60 uh through typically the end of October
02:02 or early November of the year after the
02:05 having which would be 2025 which is this
02:07 year. Now, people have been, you know,
02:10 some people think that four-year cycle
02:12 is going to continue. Others think the
02:14 four-year cycle is over because now
02:16 there is enough adoption that Bitcoin is
02:19 just not going to do four-year cycles.
02:21 Now, does that mean there’s a time to
02:24 invest in Bitcoin? Well, obviously the
02:27 closer to the peak of the price of
02:29 Bitcoin, the longer you have to wait to
02:32 be in profit on your investment. So, if
02:35 you were investing essentially, for
02:37 example, at any time in the end of 2022
02:40 or 2023, you only had to wait for a few
02:43 months to be in profit on your
02:44 investment. And the likelihood that
02:46 Bitcoin ever goes back to those prices
02:48 is essentially zero. But the closer in
02:51 those three up years, the farther toward
02:54 the end of those three up years, uh, the
02:57 closer you get to a potential
02:58 correction. So, if you think of those
03:00 three up years like a baseball game and
03:02 a baseball game has nine innings, three
03:05 innings per year, then we’re sort of in
03:07 the, you know, seventh, let’s call it
03:10 seventh or eighth inning of nine. Okay?
03:14 Because we’re in the third year, which
03:16 is 2025, and we’re, you know, halfway
03:18 through through it. Um, so, but the big
03:22 difference here, give me one second.
03:27 The big difference is we have much more
03:29 adoption than we used to in the
03:32 marketplace. And at some point the
03:34 havingings are small enough and the
03:37 adoption is large enough that we’re just
03:39 not going to do four-year cycles
03:40 anymore. Now, is that will we have a
03:42 four-year cycle this time or are
03:45 four-year cycles officially done? I
03:48 would say 50/50 chance of the two. So,
03:50 what do we do not knowing if it’s a 5050
03:53 chance we’ll have a big correction or
03:55 not? Well, the number one thing you can
03:57 do is subscribe to James Czech’s
03:59 newsletter, a check on chain, which I
04:02 post periodically. He specializes in
04:06 doing the analytics of human behavior
04:09 that detect if you’re near uh close to a
04:12 market top. So, how does one know if
04:14 you’re close to a market top? Well,
04:16 there’s a couple things you can look
04:17 forward to. One second.
04:23 Okay. So, first of all,
04:26 what always historically has preceded a
04:29 major correction in the price of Bitcoin
04:31 has been a huge run up in the price of
04:33 Bitcoin. And the reason Bitcoin goes
04:36 through a correction is because it went
04:39 on a huge run. So, market corrections
04:43 are not inevitable in any asset. Market
04:46 corrections happen in an asset because
04:48 the price of the asset gets ahead the
04:52 market adoption of the asset. So the
04:55 price starts to rise. People start
04:57 seeing it start to rise. People start
04:59 start speculating on that rise and then
05:02 the price rises faster than market
05:05 adoption can keep up. And if that
05:07 happens then the price of the asset has
05:09 to fall back to a sustainable level that
05:12 reflects underlying market adoption. So,
05:15 for for example, in the first big runup
05:17 in 2011, which was even before the
05:19 four-year cycle happened, the price ran
05:22 very quickly up to $32 and then crashed
05:25 to $2. It only crashed to $2 because the
05:29 the run up to $32 had been insane. It
05:32 went from like 5 to $32 very, very, very
05:36 quickly. And the market just wasn’t
05:37 ready for that. There was not a not
05:39 enough people back in 2011 who
05:41 understand Bitcoin unders, you know, had
05:44 studied Bitcoin, understood what the
05:46 asset was, understood what they held.
05:48 So, as the price started to rise from 5
05:50 cents to $32, it went on this wild tear
05:53 of speculation that adoption worldwide
05:56 was right around the corner. And when it
05:58 became clear that wasn’t going to
05:59 happen, it could not sustain $32 and it
06:01 dropped to $2. Now, notice $2 is still
06:04 way higher than 5. So if you invested at
06:07 the front of that, then you went through
06:09 this $32 and then it dropped to $2.
06:11 That’s only a big drop. If you’re
06:14 looking at the very peak of the top from
06:16 $32, it’s a huge rise from 5 cents. So
06:20 then the same thing happened over the
06:21 course of a couple years until 2013 when
06:24 the price ran to I believe it was, let
06:29 me get my numbers here. Uh
06:33 $32 went to $2. Then it ran up to $1,200
06:38 and dropped to $92. And again, the only
06:41 reason it dropped to $92, now mind you,
06:43 $92 is 46 times as high as $2. So ran to
06:47 $32, crashed to $2, ran to $1,200,
06:50 crashed to $92. Again, the only reason
06:54 it had to price correct down to 92 was
06:57 because the market adoption was really
06:59 marching from $2 up to $92. But the
07:03 speculation on top of that market
07:05 adoption drove the price up to $112,
07:08 sorry, $1,200, and then it had to crash
07:11 back down to the fundamental level of
07:13 market adoption, which was down at $92.
07:16 And then the same thing happened. The
07:17 price ran up to $19,000, came back down
07:20 to $3,200, and again, that’s from $92 at
07:23 the bottom to $3,200 at the bottom. Then
07:27 the price went up to $69,000 in 2021,
07:31 came back to $15,500.
07:33 Now here we are at $118,000.
07:36 So again, the only reason these major
07:39 price corrections happen is because they
07:41 are preceded by a huge price run. Now
07:44 since 2022, Bitcoin has gone on a big
07:47 run, but it’s been slow and steady
07:50 relatively. It’s I should say it’s been
07:53 you know run up grind sideways for a
07:55 long time to sort of digest that then
07:57 run up grind sideways run up grind
07:60 sideways. So the r the price rise from
08:03 15,500 to 118,000 or whatever it is now
08:07 118 that price rise has been more
08:10 gradual and typically the more gradual
08:13 it is the more sustainable it is. People
08:15 have had a long time to get used to
08:18 higher prices of Bitcoin at each price
08:20 along the way.
08:24 So if somebody told me we had run from
08:28 $18,000 to $18 $18,000 in 6 months, I
08:32 would say get ready for a crash. Like
08:35 you can’t you can’t the marketplace
08:37 cannot adopt any technology that fast
08:42 where it suddenly 5x’s in six months.
08:45 That’s just no technology gets adopted
08:47 that fast. Not cell phones, not big
08:50 screen TVs, not the internet. Um I mean
08:54 nothing gets adopted where it’s like
08:55 five times as many people adopt it once
08:58 the number numbers get large in like six
09:00 months. It just doesn’t happen. But that
09:02 has happened pretty steadily over 2023,
09:04 2024 and half of 2025. And each of those
09:08 price rises has had a lot of time to
09:10 adjust which uh James Czech calls
09:12 chopolidation which is a combination of
09:15 chopping sideways and
09:18 so James Czech calls that chop
09:20 solidation. Consolidating sideways,
09:22 chopping sideways, chop solidation. So
09:24 what James Czech is always looking for,
09:26 which is why I read his newsletter. It
09:28 comes out two or three times a week. why
09:30 I always read it as soon as it hits my
09:32 inbox. What he’s looking for is okay,
09:35 how fast has the price risen. Is it
09:37 getting ahead of what is sustainable?
09:40 How much Bitcoin is transacting that
09:42 represent people wanting to buy and sell
09:44 at that price? So, for example, let’s
09:46 assume something dumb like eggs. Let’s
09:48 assume eggs sell for $1 per egg. And
09:52 they go for $1 per egg and it’s been
09:53 that way for 10 years. And then somebody
09:56 really wants an egg at 3:00 in the
09:58 morning. And so they meet somebody at
10:00 the marketplace at 3:00 am and pay $10
10:03 per for a for an egg. Now, you might
10:06 think as soon as the marketplace opens
10:07 the next day that the price of eggs is
10:09 now $10 per egg instead of $1 per egg
10:12 cuz someone just paid at 3:00 a.m. that
10:14 morning $10 for an egg. And the truth is
10:17 now that was a desperate situation. The
10:19 price might be higher than a dollar, but
10:21 it’s not $10. So the same thing in
10:24 Bitcoin. The fact that the price is
10:26 $118,000. The question is, yeah, but how
10:28 much Bitcoin has really transacted at
10:30 $118,000?
10:32 Do we have a good sense that there are a
10:34 lot of people willing to buy Bitcoin at
10:36 $118,000,
10:38 or did we run up to $118,000 so quick
10:42 that there’s hardly anybody transacting?
10:44 And if you look at the price rises in
10:46 2013, 20 2017, and 2021, most of those
10:50 price rises were so quick that there
10:53 just wasn’t that many people
10:54 transacting. There was not a lot to
10:56 validate that the price belonged way up
10:59 at those levels because there just
11:01 wasn’t that many people transacting
11:03 because it was just running up so fast
11:04 that there wasn’t time for people to
11:07 transact. So James check looks for
11:09 things like that like how many people
11:11 are transacting at this level? How many
11:13 people have actually paid $118,000 for a
11:15 Bitcoin? Or is there just a few people
11:18 paying $118,000 for a Bitcoin? And most
11:21 people are sitting on their Bitcoin,
11:23 glad it’s at 118, but not selling. So,
11:27 he also looks at how willing are uh
11:30 sellers that people have been in profit
11:32 a long time. So, you can tell on the
11:33 Bitcoin blockchain the last time every
11:35 Bitcoin moved. You don’t know who moved
11:37 it, but you can tell when it moved. And
11:39 so he’s looking at things like how much
11:41 people are in profit. So for example, I
11:44 know he’s got a bunch of, you know, one
11:45 or two standard deviations and I’m not
11:47 going to go figure out the math on that,
11:49 but let’s use round numbers. Let’s
11:51 assume
11:55 let’s assume for sake of argument that
11:58 the average person has a hard time
11:59 holding on to something once their
12:01 investment has increased by a value of
12:03 10. It’s a fair assumption. So he looks
12:06 at things like, okay, how how much
12:08 higher is the price than the average
12:11 Bitcoin has transacted on the Bitcoin
12:12 blockchain? Meaning, how in profit are
12:15 the people holding Bitcoin right now?
12:17 Because the more and more inprofit those
12:20 people are, the more likely they are to
12:22 upgrade their lifestyles, to go on a
12:24 nice vacation, buy a new car, you know,
12:28 do an add-on to their house, whatever it
12:30 is they want to do that might involve
12:31 spending some Bitcoin. Because if you
12:33 have a ton of Bitcoin held by people
12:36 that are seriously in profit and then
12:38 the price goes on a huge run, what
12:41 typically happens is people are like,
12:42 “Wow.” They start feeling really rich
12:44 and they start feeling really ri rich
12:46 and wealthy people spend more money and
12:49 so they start spending their Bitcoin and
12:51 at some point they start spending more
12:54 Bitcoin than the market can absorb by
12:56 new Bitcoin adopters. And then you see
12:59 the price correction. And then as the
13:00 price corrects, people who have borrowed
13:02 money to buy Bitcoin get wrecked. They
13:05 get wiped out, you know. So then they
13:06 have to dump their Bitcoin. So then the
13:08 price starts dropping more. Speculators
13:10 who thought they wanted to own it when
13:12 it was going up decide they have no idea
13:14 what they own and they want to sell it
13:16 on the way down because they’re scared
13:17 of it because they don’t know what it
13:18 is. Anyway, you just get that and then
13:20 it goes through a price correction. So
13:21 are we going to have a price correction?
13:23 If we do, most people like me would
13:26 anticipate that a big significant price
13:28 rise would happen before that happens.
13:30 Now, could we price correct 20 or 30%
13:33 off 20 off the 2020 the uh $123,000
13:38 high that we had last week or the week
13:40 before sometime in the last like week or
13:42 two, it went up to 123. Yeah, we could
13:45 absolutely price correct uh you know 20
13:48 or 30% off that level. I don’t think
13:51 we’re going to correct 50% or more off
13:54 that level just because we haven’t had a
13:56 huge up uptick.
13:59 You know, that happened very rapidly yet
14:01 unless you want to consider the most
14:02 recent price rise. But again, the most
14:04 recent price rise was mostly like, you
14:07 know, 105 up to 118. And that’s just not
14:11 a huge price rise that you’re going to
14:12 get a massive price correction as a
14:14 result of that from. So, nobody knows.
14:16 The short thing is nobody knows when
14:17 we’re going to get a price correction.
14:19 If we do, the magnitude of the price
14:22 correction is heavily a function of how
14:25 big the price rises were before that
14:28 happened and
14:31 how long of consolidation happened to
14:34 enable the market to digest that new
14:37 higher price with new market adoption
14:40 because only 5% of the world owns
14:42 Bitcoin today. 95% of the world doesn’t
14:44 own Bitcoin today. So that’s a ton of
14:46 people that still need to adopt Bitcoin,
14:49 but it takes people a long time to
14:50 understand Bitcoin. I mean, humans just
14:52 have a hard time understanding
14:54 completely paradigm shifting new things
14:57 uh like Bitcoin. They just do. It’s just
14:59 takes people time to understand and
15:02 adopt. So 50% chance we get a a big
15:05 price correction, but I don’t think
15:06 again if we get price corrections off of
15:09 today’s prices, I don’t think they’re
15:11 more than 20 or 30%. If we get a big
15:14 price run, let’s call it from 118,000 up
15:17 to 180,000. Let’s say we do that. Let’s
15:19 say the four-year cycle of the live and
15:21 well, it’s only a matter of time and
15:23 it’s going to peak in late late October
15:25 or early November like it did in 2017
15:28 and 2021. What does that look like? It
15:31 probably looks like the price running at
15:34 some point, you know, July, August,
15:35 September, October, somewhere in there,
15:38 the price gets a huge uplift from
15:42 118 and runs up very quickly to 180,000.
15:46 If that happens, if we get a price run
15:48 from 118 to 180,000 that happens in a
15:51 matter of six or eight weeks, yeah,
15:54 we’re probably going to get a price
15:55 correction. Now, the reason I don’t buy
15:57 and sell Bitcoin anticipating things
15:59 like that is we don’t know. Is the is
16:01 the runup going to be to 160, 165, 175,
16:05 180, 190, 210, 220? Nobody knows. Most
16:10 people think if we get a very aggressive
16:12 price rise. I don’t I don’t know anybody
16:15 predicting before the end of October
16:17 it’s going to go above 240, which would
16:19 be double the current price of 118. I
16:21 don’t know anybody that’s that thinks
16:23 it’s going to run quicker just because
16:26 again I mean we’re a $2.5 trillion
16:28 asset. So you got to have a $2.5
16:30 trillion asset turning into a $5
16:32 trillion asset in a matter of months.
16:35 That’s just very I mean it’s it’s very
16:37 difficult for things that are already as
16:39 big as Bitcoin at 2.5 trillion in total
16:42 size. It’s very difficult for people
16:44 things like that to suddenly boom, you
16:47 know, double in size just like in a
16:50 matter of months. It’s just again it’s
16:52 hard that that requires so much money
16:55 dumping into Bitcoin to drive the price
16:57 higher by new adoption that you just
16:59 typically don’t get that. But if that
17:01 happens, if somebody if we ran to 240
17:04 and somebody said, “What happens next?”
17:05 I would say get ready for a 50% price
17:08 correction. We’re probably coming back
17:09 to 120 very temporarily. Now, you might
17:12 think, well, I’ll just wait and buy it
17:14 after the price correction. The problem
17:15 is if we run up to 240, where are we
17:18 going to correct to? You don’t know. Is
17:20 it going to be 120? What if it’s 130 and
17:22 you’re waiting for 120? You totally miss
17:25 out. What if it’s 140 and you’re waiting
17:27 for 130? You totally miss out. Nobody
17:30 knows. See, nobody knows where the peaks
17:32 are and nobody knows where the valleys
17:34 are. Which means the only thing you can
17:35 really do is just buy Bitcoin and sit on
17:38 it for as long as conceivably possible,
17:40 which is what I always recommend to
17:41 people. Just buy Bitcoin, sit on it for
17:43 as long as conceivably possible. That’s
17:45 the only thing that has ever
17:47 consistently worked because you don’t
17:49 know what high is. You don’t know what
17:51 low is. So, are we going to get a price
17:53 correction 50/50? How will we know? If
17:56 there’s a huge price rise, the higher
17:59 the price goes very quickly, the higher
18:02 the likelihood of a significant
18:04 significant price correction because the
18:06 adoption in the marketplace just can’t
18:08 sustain that aggressive of a, you know,
18:11 of a very quick price rise. It just
18:13 that’s just the way you know things
18:15 work. Um so are we going to get a big
18:18 price rise? It you know uh I I think
18:20 we’re going to get additional price
18:22 increases between now and the end of the
18:24 year. Um and is there going to be a
18:27 price correction? It depends on how big
18:28 the price rise is. A bigger price rise
18:30 means
18:32 you know means the possibility of a
18:34 greater correction. But again do not try
18:36 to time that market because you will get
18:38 burned every time. That’s what always
18:39 happens is people people start try to
18:42 they try to outsmart the market and
18:44 they’re like, “Hey, I’m going to buy it
18:46 low and then I’m going to sell it high
18:48 and then I’m going to buy it back low
18:49 and then I’m going to sell it.” You
18:51 know, don’t do that. You’re going to get
18:52 burned. Everybody gets burned trying to
18:54 do that. Um because you just can’t.
18:56 Humans can’t time the market. We can’t
18:58 time highs and lows. There’s no way to
19:00 know what high is. There’s no way to
19:01 know tell what low is. Just don’t do
19:03 that. It’s just you’re going to get
19:05 burned. Um, so anyway, it’s gonna be
19:07 exciting le rest of the year. Um, I’m
19:09 going to be reading James Czech’s
19:11 newsletter every time it hits at least
19:14 usually once a week. He’ll do a sort of
19:15 a deep dive that looks at the
19:17 marketplace, the likelihood that we’re
19:19 getting close to a top, you know, etc.,
19:21 etc. And he’ll do the same thing in the
19:23 reverse. If we go through a price
19:24 correction, he starts the analysis all
19:26 kicks in and he’s like, “All right,
19:27 let’s talk about it. Are we seeing the
19:29 behavior of people that are done selling
19:32 or are we seeing the behavior of people
19:34 who are just getting started selling
19:36 which can give you a sense of like okay
19:38 you know again you can’t he can’t time
19:40 the bottom he can’t time the tops he
19:42 can’t do any of that but he can help you
19:44 understand likelihoods so for example
19:48 the last time uh we went through a price
19:50 dip of uh of 30% which was I think in
19:54 April I think we dropped from like I
19:56 don’t know 109 down to 74, you know,
19:60 temporarily. And he said, “Look, I think
20:02 there’s a 70% chance we go significantly
20:04 higher from here. There’s a 30% chance
20:07 it could drop even further.” You know,
20:09 use your best judgment. Which that’s all
20:11 you can do. That’s all you can do is
20:12 offer people that, which is 70% chance
20:15 we’re done selling here down in the 70s
20:17 and it’s a fantastic time to buy. 30%
20:20 chance we could edge a little lower. And
20:22 then you just use your best judgment. Um
20:24 but again um saying he’s saying the same
20:26 thing now is you know his most recent
20:28 updates are like look I don’t think
20:30 we’re at the top. It feels like we got a
20:33 good ways to run.
20:36 You know we’ll find out. We’ll look at
20:37 the data. So the best way to find out if
20:39 we’re near a top or bottom is James
20:41 check with his check onchain newsletter.
20:44 I typically post the ones that are most
20:45 relevant with a few highlights. uh if
20:48 you want the full meal deal, it costs
20:49 $29 a month, which I it’s the only thing
20:52 I subscribe to in the Bitcoin world. Um
20:55 anyway, so um it’s the only analyst I
20:58 trust, the only one I think that’s worth
20:60 anything. So James Check is is the best
21:02 guide for whether we’re near the tops or
21:04 bottoms and we’ll continue to do videos.
21:06 Hopefully those are helpful.
21:08 And I feel like if somebody said, you
21:10 know, where are we going to go between
21:12 now and the end of October? I would say
21:14 at least 140 to 160. Um, and then
21:18 depending on how long how quickly we get
21:20 there, what news stories are announced
21:23 while we get there because there’s again
21:26 yesterday uh Coinbase announced I think
21:28 a PNC Bank a major partnership that PNC
21:31 Bank customers are going to be able to
21:33 buy Bitcoin um using Coinbase. So, it’s
21:36 like, okay, if you get major
21:37 announcements from Coinbase and or River
21:40 and major financial institutions that
21:42 are going to make it super easy for
21:44 average people to walk in a bank branch
21:46 and pay Bitcoin. Yeah. Well, suddenly
21:48 160 or 180 is way more sustainable than
21:51 if you just run up there, you know, with
21:53 no new major news stories of adoption.
21:56 But anyway, hope all that helps. Have a
21:58 great day, everyone. I’m here to help in
21:60 any way I can. Thanks.
