Ivan on Tech gives a bullish Bitcoin market update with commentary on macro risks, Ledger hardware wallet security, AI disruption, and asset ownership strategy
Ivan on Tech presents a solo livestream covering Bitcoin price action, geopolitical and macro concerns, a Ledger hardware wallet supply chain attack, the importance of owning assets in an AI-driven economy, and a Q&A on real estate investment.
Summary
In this solo livestream, the host delivers a bullish Bitcoin market update, arguing that the market is only in the first 60 days of a bull cycle and that the optimal price action is a slow, steady grind higher with retests — not a fast pump. He plays an archival campaign clip of Donald Trump promising every adult American citizen $5,000, arguing that regardless of whether the promise is kept or was ever sincere, financial markets pricing it in could drive asset prices higher. He warns viewers in France about new government reporting requirements for self-custody wallets holding over €100,000, framing it as a wealth extraction move by a fiscally stressed government. He also issues a warning about reported Ledger hardware wallet supply chain attacks — confirmed in Southeast Asia and with unverified reports emerging from Europe — advising anyone who recently purchased a Ledger to stop using it immediately. He closes with a Q&A covering commercial real estate, land investment, and real estate ETFs, and discusses the bond yield vs. S&P 500 earnings yield dynamic.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Bitcoin Market Update: Holding Critical Support
Ivan on Tech: Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes. Guys, welcome to another episode. Right now, Bitcoin is bouncing off of this very important support. We're still holding it — holding it for dear life. The bears are wondering when we're going to dump, when we're going to lose this level. But Bitcoin is very, very strong. Strong hands. It is holding the support. It is ensuring that we stay above it. And as you know, this is our number one thing right now. We have to close weekly above this support to have the mega mega bull scenario.
There are basically a few scenarios in play. One scenario is that we go below here, we consolidate — it's still bullish, we're still in a bull trend. As long as we don't go below the bull flip level, we will still be bullish. But that may take just a few extra months. Maybe we go sideways until the end of the year. That would be not the most optimal. Still bullish, but not the most optimal.
Then the other scenario is that we just move straight up fast. That is also not very optimal. Why? Because a fast moon is not sustainable and you may have a big crash later, and it just prolongs everything. Just like in 2019, we pumped very fast from around $3K to $14K only to go back to $3K. You don't want that either.
The Optimal Bull Market Structure
The best, most optimal way for price to move is that you pump, you break resistance, you retest it, you build a base, then you pump again and you retest, you build a base. This can go on forever, guys. This can go on forever. By the way, the same is true on the way down. The worst in a bear market is when prices just drop and then go sideways and then drop a bit and then go sideways and then drop a bit. That's the worst, because ideally you just want a flash crash. You want everyone wrecked. You want a big fat move to the downside that shocks everyone, gets everyone scared — instead of this slow bleed. Slow bleed can go on for a very long time.
But in a bull market, we want a slow bull. We want the bull slowly building, slowly building, and then becoming faster, faster, faster, faster. So all in all, guys, we're in the early days. It's the early days. We are here super early in this bull market. It's literally just the first 60 days of the bull. Not longer than that. The first 60 days of the bull. It's still just warming up, and we keep the strategy. We keep it simple.
On Following Multiple Influencers
I know there are many different people online who have different opinions, and it's fine — it's totally fine to have different opinions. And the thing is, different opinions can be true at the same time. For example, yesterday someone posted this. There are two wolves. He says, "God damn it." Because one analyst had a picture showing Bitcoin is in danger, and we had a picture showing it's going to be green like a freaking leprechaun.
I'm not here to review anyone else. I'm just here to state the following: most people get wrecked because they follow a thousand influencers who have different strategies. So guys, if right after this stream you're going to watch someone else, you're going to get wrecked. It is the number one mistake, because you try to get a bit from here, a bit from there, and you get a mush in your brain.
Look — different strategists can technically all be profitable. You can see the market bearish if you trade lower time frames, or you can see it bullish if you look at the overall weekly structure. Both of them can technically be profitable. But what cannot be profitable is riding around watching a bit here, a bit there, getting confused and emotionally affected. You need clear strategies, clear rules.
Now it's time to be bullish on the big time frame. It's time to be bullish.
Risk Disclaimer
However, I need to give you a disclaimer, and that's that you can lose all of your money. Look in your portfolio right now. In crypto, you can lose all of it. It can all go to zero overnight. If you're not careful, you can get liquidated overnight. You come into crypto, you come into the arena, you can get slain in the arena — especially if you don't have mechanical rules, you don't have a stop-loss, you don't understand what you're doing, and you're running around different YouTube channels like a chicken without a head. Read the disclaimer. Pause and read it, and then confirm that you understand: in crypto, you can lose all of your money. All of it. You can go to zero. That's why we speak about risk management. We speak about the strategies. We speak about the rules.
Digital Scarcity and the Age of AI
In 2017, a wise man told me: "When you think it's over, it'll just be getting started." I think we'll reflect upon 2026 as such a period for blockchain. It's true. It's interesting how everything digital is becoming fully, fully commoditized. You now have AI copying Photoshop. AI can copy any app. There is no IP left. The only thing that's left is community and blockchain — which is digital scarcity. Community you cannot fake. That's why I love doing the streams here every day with you guys. You're here every day. I'm here every day. That's really the value in the age of AI — that we come together, we hold our hands, we sing kumbaya even when the market is shaky, even when the market is uncertain.
Number two: blockchain. Obviously, in the age of AI, the number one user of blockchain is AI. AI will not go to PayPal and get an accountant. It's going to be using blockchain. And right now, with all this revolution, just think about the few things that are important: community, which is part of all blockchain, and digital scarcity. And that's where blockchain is. And it's fantastic.
Also, you understand that with digital scarcity, it's important to have a capped supply — 21 million — when you have things like this going on.
Trump's $5,000 Promise and Money Printing
So Trump is promising free money, and the printer is going to go hot. Listen to this.
Donald Trump (clip): "I'm going to give all adult citizens in the United States of America $5,000. Democrat policies won't allow this to happen. In fact, the opposite — they're going to raise your taxes. If the Democrats win, you will have an economic depression. If the Republicans win, you will each have $5,000 in your pocket and economic success for our country like we have never ever seen before."
Ivan on Tech: Holy — you get $5,000 guaranteed. He says if you vote Republican, you're going to have $5,000. If you vote Democrat, you're going to have high taxes. Let me take this in again.
Donald Trump (clip): "I'm going to give all adult citizens in the United States of America $5,000."
Ivan on Tech: If this happens — I know many people say you cannot trust Trump, who the hell knows — but if this happens, is this going to be COVID helicopter money on steroids? And again, for us, it's not whether it's going to happen or not. It's more about the pricing in. We need to see if the market will start pricing this in. Obviously, we don't know. Maybe he's lying. Maybe he's trying to pull a fast one on you. So maybe that's that. But the thing is, that's a bit secondary. What is primary is that the financial markets may start pricing it in. And if they start pricing it in, you will have asset prices rise anyway. So don't worry too much about whether it's going to happen or not, because that does not matter for asset prices. What matters is whether financial markets are taking it seriously or not. And that's going to be interesting to see.
Donald Trump (clip): "If the Democrats win, you will have an economic depression. If the Republicans win, you will each have $5,000 in your pocket."
Ivan on Tech: You know the movie Idiocracy? We're getting there. This video — I'm a bit of a cinematographer, I do videos every day — this Hans Zimmer dramatic music, then he's showing $5,000 when he gives like a tip to this woman and slaps her on the shoulder. Man. Hans Zimmer. Look at her. Look at him. That's what's going to happen if the Republicans win. Amazing, guys. Amazing.
Listen, when I see this, I become even more bullish. It's going to be very interesting to see how they do this and if they're going to do it. But that's secondary. The primary is that the dollar is going to be printed in one way or another — either from this or from something else. It's going to be printed in a big, massive way.
France: Fiscal Crisis and Self-Custody Reporting Requirements
Big news if you are in France. You know that France is struggling a lot. France's debt is horrible. They're paying a higher interest rate than Greece. They're paying a higher interest rate than many companies. Can you imagine that? It's cheaper to borrow money for individual companies than for France as a government, as a country.
Now the problem for you guys who are in France is that they will be milking you a lot. If you have €100,000 or more in self-custody, you will have to report it to France. All self-custody wallets need to be reported. That's the new rules they want to have. France now wants a list of everyone holding €100,000 euro or more of Bitcoin in self-custody. If you don't declare it, what's going to happen? A €10,000 fine. If you declare it, you're going to get targeted — a wrench attack. Can't make it up. Why are they doing that? Because they're coming for your money. At the end of the day, they have a very bad budget. The budget does not make sense.
They have the lefty guy — Mélenchon — he's directly calling out financial markets, saying he doesn't care about them. But how are you going to finance your country? Without bonds, the government cannot finance itself. It can finance itself through bonds — borrowing money — or by printing money. Printing money is going to be hyperinflation, and they cannot even do that because they are part of the euro.
At the end of the day, you are going to be milked. Heavily. And your self-custody — they're coming for it. So guys, if you're in France, you need to go somewhere, especially if you're young. If you have a family, it's harder. You're more stuck. But if you're a young person, there are many other countries. You go on a plane, two or three hours, you just sit there, you watch Netflix, you eat something nice. Two, three hours. Totally different tax regime. It's crazy. In two or three hours of just sitting on a plane, you don't have to give up 50% of your money. It takes two hours. A flight, and then everything changes. Once you start seeing it for what it is, it's not hard. It's not complex.
Ledger Hardware Wallet Supply Chain Attack
Back to Ledger. Ledger got wrecked in Southeast Asia because hackers bought a store that sells Ledgers and then infected all of the Ledgers inside that store. They literally bought the physical store business. Ledger is saying all confirmed fund losses tied to the incident disclosed on October 9th involved signers sold through Cryptobilis. We have not verified a drain linked to a signer bought anywhere else. Cryptobilis confirmed to stop selling Ledger signers while the investigation continues.
Based on the analysis of the attack — this is from an analyst known online as Don Juan — the implant sits inside the enclosure and reads the data shown on the screen. During setup, the signer displays the 24-word recovery phrase. When the implant detects this, its microcontroller captures the seed during setup and then sends it to the hacker via LTE — via 4G — basically with an eSIM. That's how you get drained. That's how your keys are leaked.
By the way, there are reports coming out that even in Europe there is an attack on Ledgers. If you go to Taizen — one of the OG YouTube channels, he's been doing YouTube since around 2017, he's amazing — he also said that this is not news and he was trying to warn the community for a long time. He said: "We have four tampered devices out of 400 students in South Asia with total losses over $2 million." He also said: "Do not be stupid and send a tampered Ledger device to random people on the internet. The Ledger device is not hacked — if it was hacked, then everyone using Ledger would have lost all their coins. The problem we're having is that scammers and hackers are adding dishonest hardware to Ledger devices."
But there are also reports that it's in Europe as well. Here: "I can confirm that Ledger's supply chain is compromised in Europe as well. Ledger should initiate an immediate product recall to protect users." And: "I just purchased a second device from a different Media Markt location today. I recorded the unboxing process and discovered spyware once again. The device was compromised in the exact same manner, featuring identical modifications. This indicates it's a widespread issue rather than an isolated incident."
He has a video where he shows the receipt — he bought it from a Saturn store in Germany. He shows the unboxing, he shows the issue, the antenna — it's LTE, so it's got to be some mobile antenna there.
All in all, guys, if you recently bought a Ledger, it is serious. If you recently bought a Ledger, it is serious.
Self-Custody vs. ETF: Legal Recourse
That's why when it comes to your assets, having your assets in an ETF is not a bad decision. I know it's not cypherpunk, but if something happened to BlackRock, you're going to be a creditor. You're going to be respected in the eyes of the law. You're likely going to get money back in one way or another. Bernie Madoff victims got like 80% back eventually.
So if you have a Ledger and some hacker installed a SIM card there — an eSIM that leaked your private key — you are nobody. You don't even know where to go. You go to the police, they say, "We have a case. Your case is accepted." What do you think? They're not going to find who this is. No assets back. Your case is closed. Next morning, your case is closed. You understand?
So of course it's nice with self-custody. It's important that you have a choice. If you really want self-custody, you have it. But also in these cases — like what Taizen is saying, $2 million-plus losses in the community — it would be different if BlackRock exit-scammed their Bitcoin ETF. It's a warning to everyone who is using Ledger and recently bought it. Be careful.
AI, Civil Servants, and the Four-Day Work Week
Speaking about AI — I think society is going to change so much in the coming months, in the coming quarters. That's why we speak so much about being an owner of assets. If you want to be an owner of assets, you need to understand how the market moves, how to read the chart, how to understand whether something is bullish or bearish. It's very important that as soon as possible you start owning assets — whether it's crypto, whether it's stocks. Assets, assets. Because AI is changing everything so fast. We're going to have civil unrest in many countries very soon because people have no job.
Now, it is interesting to me that in the UK, civil servants will vote next week on whether to strike for a four-day work week on full pay and a 10% rise. You know, it blows my mind. Anything a civil servant does — with all due respect — AI can do. I love civil servants. They're great people, honest people, great guys. But the paper-pushing that they do — AI can do it. And AI will not have a queue. It's not going to have a rundown building you have to sit in and wait in. It's not going to have vacation and close on bank holidays and go out for lunch.
Civil servants in the UK want a four-day work week. Nowadays, if you want to get something done with the government in most countries, it's already slow. It's already barely working. It's already nerve-wracking. And now they want to work even less. Civil servant — it's servant. You're a servant to the citizen. What is a servant? You serve. The citizen needs something, you serve. You don't go on holiday. What holiday? You cannot serve on holiday.
And you know what's the best servant? AI. You cannot beat AI. If you really look at the definition of servant, how are you going to beat AI? AI needs no lunch. And by the way, the UK together with France has massive debt and high bond yields, meaning they need to cut expenses. The financial markets are telling them: you have too high costs, you have too high expenses, have less expense as soon as possible. So how are we going to get a four-day work week? It blows my mind.
Guys, you need to be an asset owner. Asset owner. One AI could replace 10,000 civil servants. And it just highlights — now it's civil servants, but it's coming for everyone eventually. I mean, will I be competing with AI? I don't know, guys. I honestly don't know. That's why I'm here every day. Am I taking a vacation? Four-day work week? No. I'm here Monday to Friday. These guys want four days — I work all day to serve you guys. I'm your servant. Do I have bank holidays? No.
Now there is a way where we could be less replaceable. Peter Schiff is telling you to be more — less woke, basically. Look:
Peter Schiff (clip): "It seems to me that AI is quite good at the woke stuff, and so if you want to be a successful actor, you should be maybe a little bit racist or a little bit sexist, or just really funny. And you won't have any risk of the AI replacing you, and then everybody else will get replaced."
Ivan on Tech: Guys, I don't know — is that correct? Let me know.
Bond Yields vs. S&P 500 Earnings Yield
Let's go through all of the news. Bitcoin is smashing higher. Sailor bought. Ledger supply chain attack — yes, covered that. Physical brand oil is volatile up and down — we don't worry about that because everything is in a bull trend. Some XRP treasury company. Let's check the bond yield story. Everything bond-related is quite interesting.
This hasn't happened since the tech bubble: the Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Yield is now above the S&P 500 earnings yield. The last time this happened, stocks lagged bonds for the next decade. Basically what this means is that you now get more return buying a bond than you get from S&P earnings. S&P is very expensive. Bonds are very cheap — because when yield is high, it means the bond is cheap. When yield is low, like in S&P, it means S&P is expensive, because in comparison to the asset price, the revenue it generates is low. And here, in comparison to the asset price of the bond, the revenue it generates is high. So the price is low for the asset. Last time it happened, stocks lagged bonds for the next decade.
It is interesting, but at the same time — I don't worry too much about that. There's always a chart from the tech bubble saying the market is so overvalued, so bad, and then it just keeps going higher. We literally just went to new all-time highs. It's the highest weekly close ever. So it can still go a long way before it collapses or something happens. NASDAQ very similar.
We do have our flip level, which is now at the same level it was back in September. So it's not like it's going to be a big loss to see it flip bearish. If it flips bearish, we're going to know it. We're going to know it.
The earnings yield — just to clarify — it's the index aggregate earnings per share divided by the price. So it's earnings per share compared to the price. The price is very high for S&P, earnings per share is low in comparison to the price. So S&P is expensive versus bonds. Bond price is low, which means the yield it gives is big in comparison to the price. That's that, guys.
Q&A: Commercial Real Estate, Land, and ETFs
Let's go to Q&A. Is it okay to invest in land, commercial property like a factory or shop? It is hard to say. Technically yes, but I personally don't like that. Why? Because I need a lot of knowledge about it and I don't have it. Commercial land — you need to know what the permit situation is. There is also the problem that there's some government guy you have to interact with. There is a civil servant you need to deal with. Land just seems like people are going to bug you with stuff. It could be a political question also. If a country really goes bad, they're going to ask: who is this guy that owns this land? This land should be affordable housing. And here you are trying to do your commercial thing.
Listen, it is an asset. Maybe it's a good asset. You need to study it. If you really understand what you're doing, fantastic. Maybe it is good. I just don't know it. And the thought of learning it makes me demotivated. I like more stuff when I'm at home at the computer. I don't want to go out and check where is this land, the promised land. I like being at home in front of the screen. I did have real estate in the past. I did not like it. Everything where there is some human involved — someone texting you stuff — I don't like it. My phone is on Do Not Disturb and I answer no calls. You cannot call me, literally. That's why the best scam protection is just don't answer calls.
I want to be at my computer and work with crypto, with stocks, with our community. I love that. That brings me satisfaction. I've been doing that for 10-plus years.
Now, if you want to invest in real estate, can't you just buy an ETF? In Bulmania we have a money scanner — software that scans everything. You can buy an ETF because here's the thing: if you don't buy an ETF, is there like a land ETF? Let's see. Commercial land ETF. Is there any commercial real estate? Oh yeah — VNQ. You can buy Vanguard Real Estate and you don't have to worry too much. It's in a bear trend though, so be a bit careful. Check Vanguard Real Estate — it's going to give you your land exposure or whatever.
Look at this: "Largest underperformers in history — real estate stocks now underperforming the S&P." Real estate has been hit hard the last five years with interest rates and stuff. But that could also mean it's cheap if you love that sector. It could mean that it's cheap. Rates, financing hard, relative weakness. So just wait. You can see when Vanguard Real Estate goes bullish against SPY — S&P 500 — and enter then. You cannot do that with your physical land. That's the problem.