Bitcoin holds steady while select altcoins show strong gains — Digital Asset News analysis
Solo presenter Rob of Digital Asset News discusses why Bitcoin remains the safer hold while certain altcoins are positioned to outperform, using Helium's 60%+ single-day pump as a case study.
Summary
Rob, the host of Digital Asset News, opens with the observation that Bitcoin is holding around the $77K level and argues that while Bitcoin remains the safest crypto asset, select altcoins will outperform it in the current market environment. He uses Helium's dramatic single-day surge of over 60% — triggered by the city of Selena, Texas adopting the Helium network for carrier-grade Wi-Fi coverage — as a live example of how speculation combined with even modest real-world utility can produce outsized price moves. He also covers Solana's disinflation vote passing, Charles Schwab adding Solana, Avalanche, and Chainlink to its crypto platform, and the Bitwise Solana spot ETF crossing $1 billion in assets (with VanEck, Fidelity, and 21Shares bringing the combined total across all Solana spot ETFs to approximately $1.3 billion). Rob closes with a DCA simulation showing that dollar-cost averaging into Solana from the November 2022 bottom would have outperformed Bitcoin by a wide margin. The episode also includes an extended Q&A covering viewer questions on Cardano, preferred crypto exchanges (Kraken and Cash App), dynamic DCA strategy, and a Bitcoin price prediction of $150,000–$170,000 by 2029.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Bitcoin holds at $77K as altcoins begin to show movement
Rob: Bitcoin still remains safe — we can see it's just hovering around the $77K level — but I believe that altcoins will pump, and I'm going to talk to you about why. Let's jump right into it.
So first of all, yeah, look at that — we actually dropped below $78K, but we've been here before. Bitcoin's been hovering around the $60K level, we had a nice little pump last week, and now we've maintained that. Things are looking pretty good. $77K. Ethereum is almost — wow — almost $2,500. Pretty good.
Why altcoins will pump: speculation plus utility
I was taking a look at something, and this is the thesis as for altcoins. Bitcoin's the safest. If you want to put 99% of your net worth in Bitcoin, go right ahead. I'm not a financial adviser. I can't tell you what to do. I'm not your dad. But I will tell you altcoins will pump, and the few will outperform. The question is which ones they are, and I'm going to tell you why.
Take a look at Helium. If you don't remember Helium, it was all about Wi-Fi, internet service, and also phone service. It was a big deal. It's built on Solana, and it's looking to do pretty well. But today it's up over 63 — Jesus Christ — 64%. And it's not even in the top 100. It's not even in the top 300. It's ranked number 375, and it just blew through the doors today. It was up almost 88% or somewhere around there at 44 cents. Now it's retraced a little bit, but roughly about 60% in 24 hours.
This is why altcoins will pump. Altcoins pump for two reasons. Number one, and the biggest one, is speculation. Go all the way back to 2017 when we had ICOs — it was a white paper and a dream. That is called speculation. Go to 2021. What was Solana doing? I don't even know if Helium was around back then. It wasn't doing anything. It was just speculation. Now here we are, actually making something of it, we have a little bit of utility, and people will lose their minds. That's pretty much how it is.
Helium's Selena, Texas adoption — the catalyst
The question is which ones are going to be the winners, and why is Helium pumping? It pumped because of this. Again — speculation, a little bit of utility. The headline: Helium token skyrockets 100% as every Texas town turns Wi-Fi into cell coverage. This is the blog post from Helium. This is what happened.
Selena, Texas — which is a nice little town, I've actually driven through there on my way to Dallas, it's around 45 miles or so outside of the Dallas–Fort Worth area, very nice, very clean, very beautiful — this whole town just chose Helium.
America's fastest growing city chooses Helium to keep its residents connected. The city turned Wi-Fi already running across its public buildings and downtown into carrier-grade coverage, live on the Helium network today. I want you to pay attention to what they say here: The fastest growing city in America is not in Austin, Miami, or Phoenix. It's Selena, Texas, which added more than 12,000 residents in a single year — more than Seattle or Houston added — growing 24.6%.
That's great. But just so you know — two things. Selena, Texas, again, a very nice town. The population is roughly 64,000 people. With 64,000 people, the valuation for Helium itself is $63 million. Now, I don't know if it's worth that much, but again, when things pump, they pump like crazy on speculation. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just pretty much how it is.
And it's not like it's in Dallas itself. It's 45 miles outside of Dallas. Again, 64,000 is the population of Selena. So take that into account when you're thinking, "Oh, it's great — this whole city's got it." It's 64,000 people. And I like how the article is written — it's like it's the fastest growing city, 12,000 residents in a single year. That's great. But she's only got a potential of 64,000 in this situation to grow into — probably, who knows, a billion-dollar company, which is Helium. I don't know. We'll see.
But there is one thing to point out here, and if you're a Helium holder, don't get mad at me — I'm just the messenger. Selena joins a growing roster of cities including Redondo Beach, California, New Orleans, Louisiana, and Sausalito, California, using the Helium network to close coverage gaps without new capital spend. The Helium network now spans more than 42,000 locations across the US.
So is this worth it? I'm not here to say or judge. I don't own any Helium, but if you do, tell me in the comments why you do and why you held on for so long, because it is interesting to see the speculation play itself out. And it is interesting to see how just a little bit of utility can make things pump.
Solana's disinflation vote passes
To move into more positive things — Solana is going to do quite well. This is from friend of the show James over at Best Answers, as he gives us the breakdown of what looks like a disinflation vote that just went through the Solana ecosystem and was passed. I think this was one or two days ago.
James says: Solana double disinflation vote passed. Huge thanks to Mert. Welcome hardness. Solana will be harder than gold. I don't know if that's true, but it's a nice posturing from James.
But as a reminder — this is good because the problem with inflation is the same thing as the debasement of the US dollar and every other fiat currency out there. They keep printing and printing and printing. Well, guess what? A lot of your favorite digital asset projects are no different. They print and print and print. Here we have a proposal — a smart one — that says, "Hey, we've got to stop cranking out so much Solana. Let's just move to disinflation." So it's going to save around 18.9 million Solana over six years. They're going to reduce the amount of actual inflation, move to disinflation, and I think this will be good for the token.
Charles Schwab adds Solana, Avalanche, and Chainlink
So pay attention to the different tokens that are out there that are becoming potentially the big winners. And it's not just that on Solana — Charles Schwab has added Solana, Avalanche, and Chainlink. I didn't have Avalanche in my bingo card, but a lot of people seem to love it. So we'll see. Chainlink I can see, but they added that to their crypto platform. And Charles Schwab is not a small company.
Charles Schwab Crypto began rolling out to retail clients in May, initially offering just Bitcoin and Ethereum. The other three they chose — you can see right there — are Chainlink, Avalanche, and Solana. Interesting choices, but here we are. This service, just so you know if you're outside the US, is not available to you. And if you're in New York or Louisiana, it's not offered to you either. Schwab crypto accounts are offered through Charles Schwab Premier Bank and will be offered early next quarter or so. Sounds pretty good.
Bitwise Solana ETF cracks $1 billion
Solana, Avalanche, and Chainlink aside — the Bitwise Solana ETF just cracked the $1 billion mark. I haven't really been tracking this too well. We usually talk about Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, which have done fantastic the last five days or so. But congratulations to Bitwise as they cracked the $1 billion mark for the Solana spot ETF — and that would be spot, not futures. Really got to hold that. So that's good. I like when people buy and hold and don't have to sell it off.
You've also got VanEck at $23 million, Fidelity at $210 million, and 21Shares at $98 million. So total you're looking at $1.3 billion.
Hyperliquid and the weekly bullish watchlist
If we're looking at ETF flows — I haven't tracked this either, but this was just added recently — Hyperliquid. I'm not a big Hyperliquid holder. I own a little bit, but this is also something to take a look at. It's up over 100% in roughly three or four months. The total is $155 million.
Now, again, the safe bet is always Bitcoin in the crypto digital asset market. However, you have to take a look at what's the next one to go — which one is the fastest horse.
I take a look at this and I say to myself, okay, how far away are we? I've got this really nice device called the Money Line from Ivan on Tech. Usually when things flip on the weekly over the next two or three weeks or so, it starts to really pump. And right now, as far as bullish on the weekly, you've got Ethereum, BNB, XRP, Solana, and Hyperliquid — 99% up over four months. Just something to be aware of.
DCA simulation: what dollar-cost averaging from the 2022 bottom would have returned
How much can we go up? I think that's the big question. Take a look at this. I was thinking about this today because right now we've gone through the bear and we're emerging out of it. I'm not sure if Q4 will bring us lower lows in October, November, or maybe even December. Historically speaking, in the four-year cycles, those three months are pretty brutal. But we'll see. Regardless — if yes, if you dollar-cost average, you're usually going to win. Unless you get into something that's just awful and never goes up, like Luna, and it collapses. That's how it is. That's why you have to pay attention, do your due diligence, do the work as much as possible, and just stay in the game.
I took a look at this DCA simulation. If you would have bought — this was back in the last cycle, around November 14th, 2022, when we collapsed. Remember those days? FTX, Voyager, Celsius, BlockFi, Luna. Oh, it was awful. But if you would have gotten past the tears — which make it very hard to look at your screen when you're crying like a baby — and said, "You know what, the hell with it. I may have screwed up something, but I'm going to make it right. I'll figure it out," and just started dollar-cost averaging into some reasonable projects and stuck with it for the time frame — look at this.
If you would have done $30 every day — it doesn't matter, percentages are percentages, you can do $5 a day — and you started on November 14th and stopped on, let's say, November 2025, at the peak: on Solana, you'd be up 430%. On Tron, you'd be up 200%. And Bitcoin was still the safest play — you'd be up 174%. BNB and ETH rounding out the top five.
And then of course, today — Tron and Solana still beat Bitcoin. Interesting. Just putting it out there.
So there's that option. Or if you're like my friend Bobby and you're like, "You know what, that's stupid. I'm going to wait and just do a lump sum of my entire life savings." Let's say Bobby's got $10,000. Let's say Bobby does $10,000 and he did that on the bottom — November 14th. Actually, let's change it. Bobby's not that smart. Let's do November 30th. And let's just do a lump sum. $10,000 on November 30th. Here's what you would have done at the very top: Solana still beats Bitcoin — you'd have $173,000 for $10,000 in. Bitcoin, you'd have $67,000. Tron, not too bad — $62,000. ETH $35,000 and BNB $32,000.
And then today, if you would have just held it and diamond-handed it — still beat Bitcoin. Solana and Tron, you'd be up 673% and 517%, and Bitcoin would be only a measly 366%.
So that's it for today. I just wanted to give you a little bit of an alternative look at things. I know everybody's going to talk about Bitcoin and Bitcoin and Bitcoin. I love it too. It's great. But I think we should diversify a little bit, and I've gotten more into altcoins. I'm sure you can guess which one I'm going into.
Q&A
Rob: Let's get into the best part of the show — Q&A. I'll answer all your questions to the best of my abilities and we'll get the heck out of here.
Fat Sonic asks: "How are projects like SAND still in the top 200 for crypto?" SAND — if you remember, it was all about the metaverse play, which was like the biggest thing in 2020 and 2021. It was just enormous. Even Facebook changed their name to Meta because they thought that was going to be the next big thing. Well, it's not. And I don't know how the heck SAND is still in the top 200. Maybe people are just going to diamond-hand it to the grave. I don't know. But that's the beauty of crypto.
Shabbat Shalom says they can vouch for Amigos and volunteer with them every year and adopted a dog from them. Yeah, it's a good organization. I have a platform and I've got you guys, and maybe you're like, "You know what, I want to get rid of 40 bucks of Binance Coin or whatever." Sure, we'll take it, and we'll use that for the new shelter, which can be a good, sustainable thing.
Someone asks: "Does Helium work when there is no electricity?" I have no idea on this one. I would think no, because it's not like there was an app made by Block that would work when there was no cellular service. As far as electricity, you still need electricity, I believe. Yeah, that would make sense.
Navvice says: "I like Solana. I use it a lot for Tether Visa payments on Red Dot. I'm not in the US though." See — actual utility. I like Solana. It seems to work, it's fast, and it hasn't gone down in three years. It just did a disinflation. I don't know what's not to like, and it just works. I remember one time we did a giveaway of some meme coin on Ethereum layer one rails. I was giving away like $5 and it would cost like $3 or $4 in gas fees, and I'm like, "This sucks." And it took a while. But when we did Solana, it was instantaneous and it was pennies. I was like, "Why don't we just use this? This makes a lot of sense."
Someone asks: "Rob, do you think we should keep DCAing?" Here's the thing. If I say no, let's just wait for the ultimate drop, which is going to happen exactly on October — it won't happen. And then if I tell you, "You know what, just keep DCAing," there'll be a big dump and people will say, "What the hell." Throughout this whole last bear market I've just been consistent. I don't know where it's going, and nobody really knows. They can make a really good assumption and a very educated guess, but I've come out ahead just by saying, "I don't care, I'm just going to buy every Monday." I use the risk levels on Ben's website, and once the price goes down, the risk levels go down, and I have to double, quadruple, or 8x my buys. There are some days when I was like, "Damn, that's a lot of money." But it pays off.
I just got to tell you — if I would have done this in 2018, I'd have a lot more Bitcoin. If I would have done this in 2022, instead of what I called micro-DCAing — I did the exact opposite of what I should have done. I reduced my dollar-cost average as the price went down, when what I should have done was increased it. The beauty of dollar-cost averaging, especially dynamically, is that when the price goes down, let's say you put in $1,000 every week, and then it goes down and the risk level goes from 0.49 to 0.39 — now you've got to double up, now you're buying $2,000. And then the next week it goes from 0.39 to 0.29 — now you've got to quadruple up, now you're at $8,000. And then if it goes even lower, you've got to buy $16,000. It's not for the faint of heart, but let me tell you, it pays off in the long run.
So what I would say for me — I know exactly what I'm doing. It'll be the same thing on Monday, but I'll also be dollar-cost averaging on the daily into some altcoins.
BK asks: "Rob, do you still believe in Cardano? That it can pump?" Yes. "That it has utility and value?" Sure. "That people are adopting it?" No.
Jennifer asks: "Which site do you use for the least amount of fees?" My favorite exchange is Kraken. However, for Bitcoin, I use Cash App. And I use Cash App because if you do recurring investments and set it up that way, the spread and the fees are almost negligible — I think they get their Bitcoin OTC. That's just Jack being Jack, Jack Dorsey. But Kraken is number two. I love it. It works out pretty well for all my altcoins. That's what I'm using right now. I have this plan — I think it's like $12 a month — called Kraken Pro, where the fees are almost nothing. Works out pretty well.
Price prediction for Bitcoin? Sure — $150,000 to $170,000 by 2029.
Someone says: "Cardano is a memecoin." Well, according to some people, it was always a memecoin. A lot of people hated Cardano. I've got a staking pool for it, so if you've got some Cardano sitting in a wallet not doing anything, just stake it with my stake pool. At least you can get a little bit of yield off it — it's essentially getting something for nothing. The great thing about Cardano, and I will give it credit where credit is due — they knocked it out of the park for staking because it never leaves your wallet. It's essentially liquid staking. There's no bonding period or unbonding period where you've got to wait 72 hours or two weeks like some other chains. You just stake it and say, "I don't want to do this anymore," and that's it. You don't get the rewards for that epoch, but at least you can make a little money off it.
Someone asks about Cardano: "It's never been hacked, 100% uptime, and it's powered by waterfalls." I'll take it. That sounds pretty good. The problem is it's like — there was this great Italian restaurant down the street from us. The food was so good. It was relatively fresh, the prices were reasonable, the staff was fantastic, and just people didn't go to it, and then it closed. It sucked. It's the same thing with some of these projects. They're awesome, they do great things — and I remember Cardano had an open and free distribution system for their ICO, they didn't have a bunch of whales — except Charles — and it was a good thing they did. Unfortunately, it just didn't get adopted. And it's all about execution. It's a great thing to do a startup, but it's really about how far you can go, how far you can manage everything, and sometimes things just aren't working. Maybe Cardano will see the light and turn it around.
Echo states: "The Internet of Things is going to be next level." Let's hope so. I think the next Internet of Things is going to be all AI doing everything for us.