Bitcoin holds key support level as "Black Monday" fears prove unfounded — Ivan on Tech analysis
Ivan on Tech (Ivan) delivers a solo market update dismissing Black Monday fears, covering Bitcoin's technical position, Solana's Alpenlow upgrade, Richard Heart's arrest, and MicroStrategy's potential MSCI exclusion.
Summary
Ivan opens by debunking the "Black Monday" narrative that circulated on social media on October 19th — the 39th anniversary of the 1987 crash — arguing it was emotional manipulation targeting traders without a system. He reports that Bitcoin held its May high as support, which he describes as the most bullish possible scenario, and that US futures opened green, ending the panic. He covers Solana's upcoming Alpenlow consensus upgrade, which promises to reduce transaction finality from 12.8 seconds to 150 milliseconds — a change he argues is transformative specifically for on-chain trading and financial applications. He also discusses Richard Heart's arrest in Turkey, playing a clip of Peter Schiff's earlier prediction about HEX and a reflective post from Trevon James (the BitConnect promoter who faced his own SEC case), and covers Strategy's potential exclusion from MSCI indices, with Michael Saylor arguing the decision reflects prejudicial treatment of digital assets. In a Q&A segment, Ivan also reviews Render token, discusses the rotation out of AI stocks such as Micron into crypto, and explains at length why PulseChain's block explorer remains non-functional.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Black Monday fears dismissed as Bitcoin holds key support
Ivan: Bitcoin is holding the line — very, very beautifully. And today we will be studying manipulation, because yesterday there was a lot of it. People were literally saying it's going to be Black Monday. On Twitter, there was a lot of talk about Black Monday. People were posting pictures, saying it's game over, that there is Black Monday, that people are going to dump a lot. And actually, big accounts were pushing this narrative so hard. I've never seen anything like it — but I've also never seen anything quite so dumb. Literally, people were saying that Monday, October 19th, is going to be Black Monday. Why? Because 40 years ago there was a Black Monday on October 19th. The actual Black Monday, where the saying comes from, was October 19th, 1987 — 39 years ago. Literally the dumbest stuff ever. But the plebe believes it. I was checking Twitter, I was checking Discord. Even in our Bull Mania Discord, people were saying, "What's happening? It's Black Monday. Black Monday. Black Monday." I've never seen anything like that.
It's not only manipulation by playing on people's emotions, but also the sheer smooth-brainness of the manipulation — and yet it works. Here's the thing: when people are invested in the markets, they're highly emotional, especially when they don't have a plan. They trade without a plan, they trade without a system. They don't even know what they would do in case there is a dip. This is why it's so important to be on the newsletter, because as soon as this Black Monday talk started happening, I emailed you. I told you exactly that there's no need to panic. If the S&P goes down a lot, we have a plan for that. I said honestly, I'm not sure why people are calling Black Monday — I guess it's a good way to scare nervous traders without a system. This was literally going out in real time as everything was happening, and it's so important that you are on the newsletter, because otherwise you will be doing stupid things with your money.
I see so many people yesterday being so affected by the Black Monday narrative. And of course they make it quite convincing. If you read the posts, you see things like: China and Japan dumping $5.5 trillion, most people going to lose everything, US Treasury yields skyrocketing. It's not just that they say "Black Monday" and that's it — they have some kind of explanation. One guy says everything reminds him of 2022, that signals are firing, insane complacency, bearish, bearish, bearish. Another guy says Putin is amassing tanks near the NATO border, Poland is preparing for war, Iran is calling for nationwide military preparedness, the EU is burning with riots — and then, "What a nice bull market soon next year."
Relax, guys. Relax and appreciate the power of mechanical rules. Appreciate the power of Bull Mania. Most people are what I call chickens without a head. When I was a kid, I told my grandma I wanted chicken soup. Next thing I see is our chicken without a head, running around — going to be soup very soon. That is exactly what I see in crypto as well.
Bitcoin's technical picture — the ultra-bullish scenario
Now looking at Bitcoin — let's actually see what Bitcoin did. Bitcoin closed the week quite well, and for now our ultra-bullish scenario is in play. You remember our ultra-ultra-bullish scenario: we break the May high, the yellow line, and then we retest it for a massive Valhalla. That's the ultra-bullish scenario. This scenario is actually more bullish than just breaking it and continuing up, because when you don't have a pullback, you don't have confirmation of the breakout — it's more fragile, the rallies are not as long. When you retest previous resistance as support, that's confirmation. Currently, for all I know, we have the most bullish scenario in play. Not the middle bullish, not the a-bit-bullish, but the mega-bullish — if we actually get a bounce here.
Using our strategies, using our way of reading the market and reading the charts, we are looking very good. Bitcoin did get supported on the May high right here. So far so good. Should it go below, it is also bullish because we are in the bull trend — it's just not as bullish. Maybe it means we consolidate here for a few months before breaking out. But it's also bullish. To be bearish now, after a year of dumping, I don't think it's smart. You know my position on this. And yet, as soon as there is a bit of volatility — holy crap. But this is also what makes crypto fun. These emotional guys have money in, they don't know what's happening, some guy is saying Black Monday because 39 years ago on this exact Monday there was a Black Monday, and now they do this. It's fun. It also gives me meaning, because when I explain to people in Bull Mania, "Hey, you're thinking wrong" — I reprogram the brain, they see the new light, their eyes shift. It's a totally new person who has gone through a transformation where literally the whole brain is replaced, more or less.
Black Monday cancelled. Once the US futures opened green, the tone flipped to mockery and relief. Every time Black Monday is threatened, some of the best buying opportunities happen. Gauging negative sentiment is one of the best bottom predictors. If Black Monday were actually to happen, I can assure you the wrecked-ass Twitter influencer you follow, who farms engagement and doesn't even trade himself, will not be able to tell you when it's going to happen. When actual Black Monday hits, no one is going to tell you. No influencer is going to tell you. There's no way to know when Black Monday is going to happen — that's another thing. No one knows these things. It's a black swan. When a black swan happens, the only thing that can protect you is a system. Mechanical rules. Bull Mania. Clear strategies, clear rules.
Bull Mania, clear strategies, clear rules — say it out loud. That's the only thing that protects you against Black Monday. Black Monday can happen and we're totally fine with that, because we have a plan. The S&P will not go to zero without going into a bear trend. At some point the S&P is going to dump a lot — we don't know when, so we don't worry too much about it. At some point we're going to go to the 200-week moving average. At some point — who the hell knows when, maybe in five years. First we need to go to bear trend, and then we can dump to the 200 moving average, which is the white line. It always revisits there eventually. Now the interesting thing is that the 200-week moving average is increasing, so in a few years it's going to be higher and maybe the S&P 500 is also higher. Who knows? We just worry about the bull and bear, and the S&P is bullish. Futures opened green. NASDAQ pre-market green — up 0.71%.
Every day I learn something new. I never thought you could just recycle an old date — October 19th — and say it's Black Monday again. But in crypto, anything is possible. I never get surprised by the plebe. It amazes me all the time. But we should also be thankful for the plebe, because the plebe allows us to profit. If everyone in the market had clear strategies and clear rules, there would be no way to profit — you need emotional people. Money moves from emotional, impatient people to people with clear strategies and clear rules. Simple as that.
Michael Saylor teases more Bitcoin purchases
Michael Saylor is teasing that he's going to buy more. He posted "We found room for more orange." So he's going to buy a bit more Bitcoin. That's very, very nice because we're in a bull market and it's fantastic.
TIA and Chris Burniske's bull case
Now looking at some important things. Chris Burniske is saying we're going to have a big fat juicy bull market. And as we are in bull trend on Bitcoin, I cannot do anything else than highly agree with that analysis. Now I still love Chris Burniske even though he wrecked all his audience with TIA, which went down like 98%. By the way, we're now bullish on TIA. TIA sees the bull flip. I actually think TIA is bullish now. I did say very clearly in our weekly TA last week in Bull Mania that I think TIA is bullish, because just look at the chart — there's not too much resistance basically until this area, which is like 170% up, and then a bit of resistance at around $4. So basically it can pump so much just to hit previous resistance and you can make a lot of money just by going to previous resistance. You don't even have to go to all-time high. But of course if you're a wrecked player who held it all the way down, you need all-time high.
I still love Chris Burniske overall. On a cycle level he does say smart things. He's saying: "In times like this, if you're a long-term investor, you don't want to be waffling around being in or out. You want to be stacking units systematically. Don't get confused by the traders — it's a separate game. On a unit accumulation basis, depending on how long you've been in the game, it's helpful to think in relative units." Then he explains basically that you can think about how much you have in Bitcoin, what percentage of the network that is, and you can try to grow it. He mentions ETH, SOL, and TIA as examples. Someone replied: "Brother, I love you, but no one is considering TIA." True. No one is considering TIA. I agree. But overall he is bullish. He says: "I read this as an early bull opportunity rather than a warning sign that the move was a bull trap. I'm inclined to be a buyer." Yeah, he is bullish, and we're bullish. That's it.
TradFi money entering crypto — the bull market extension thesis
Now Anam is saying we're going to have a big fat juicy bull market, and as we are in bull trend on Bitcoin I cannot do anything else than highly agree. Let me play this clip.
Anam: That's going to be true, and I think the reasoning behind it — a lot of the crypto natives have attached themselves to this idea of the four-year cycle. As we know, everybody was waiting for the bottom to happen in Q4 of this year. People in the summer thought prices were going to go a lot lower. We actually bottomed while Saylor was selling into the bottom at 60K — a lot of people thought he was going to have to sell a lot more. He didn't end up having to sell a lot more. He shored up some cash. So it wasn't crypto natives primarily that were bidding that bottom. I think it was more the TradFi guys who were like, "Okay, gold just went from $15 trillion to $30 trillion in like a year. Bitcoin is only at like $1.1–1.2 trillion here. It makes sense to allocate a few percent of our portfolio to Bitcoin. We know it's not going away and it's a better version of gold digitally." So I think we had a lot of TradFi people allocating to crypto. It's clear that there are some crypto startups right now that are very successful — Hyperliquid being one of them, and they also have an ETF. I think one of the big signs of TradFi being interested in crypto was Stan Druckenmiller buying the Hyperliquid ETF. That was incredible to see for me because it shows that these great traders in TradFi world are paying attention to the most successful startups in crypto. And if you think that these people are going to be allocating more to crypto in the same way they allocate to stocks passively, then it makes a lot more sense why we would have higher targets for the bull market this cycle.
Ivan: So basically big money coming, big traders coming, Stan Druckenmiller coming, everyone's coming. True, true, true. And yeah, we need to follow the trend. We need to be less focused on whatever four-year cycle framework. But if you follow the channel, you know we're bullish below the 200-week average since the bull flip in Bitcoin a few months ago — what is it, like two months ago already? Time flies. It's almost November. The four-cyclers are still cycling, still waiting for a November low or October low, when in reality you just have to watch the charts. Sometimes the charts are overlapping — for example, we were risk-off last October, and for four-year cyclers they were also kind of risk-off last October. So during certain periods there's overlap. But if the chart starts moving in one direction and four-year cyclers are cycling in another direction, then we follow the chart. We don't follow four-year cyclers.
Solana's Alpenlow consensus upgrade — 150ms finality
Some tech updates. At the end of the day, we're Ivan on Tech here. Alpenlow is coming in two days for Solana — a new consensus algorithm. Let me play this clip.
Jacob Creech: What is Alpenlow? It's a new consensus protocol, which is kind of the heart of the Solana protocol. You claimed that there was going to be roughly 150-millisecond finalization, and if you have 80% of the votes say yes, then it's immediately done — you immediately know that the block is final.
My name is Jacob Creech. I lead tech at the Solana Foundation.
Roger Watenhoffer: Hey, my name is Roger Watenhoffer. I'm the head of research at Anza. And today what we're going to do is talk about Solana's new consensus protocol, Alpenlow.
Ivan: You can go watch the whole thing. Let me explain approximately what it is. It's all about finality — how to get it faster, how to get blocks finalized faster. It's now 12.8 seconds on Solana and it's going to go to 150 milliseconds. That's 85x faster. It's a full consensus overhaul — they basically rebuilt it from scratch, from absolute scratch. Anza is the client team working on it. That guy with the glasses, the German guy, he was from Anza.
Finality is the moment a transaction is irreversible. This is the biggest question when you have DEXes, when you have TradFi — you need to know that what happened on-chain really happened and cannot be rolled back. In Bitcoin, for example, things can roll back for quite some time — up to one hour. Finality is not fully achieved. In Solana with this new update, around 150 milliseconds you have finality.
In Bitcoin, even if you have a block, there is a chance that someone is mining another block and the whole network continues to mine on that competing block instead of yours. So if your transaction is in block A and not in block B, but block B came out at the same time as block A and the whole network continues to build on block B, then your transaction is reversed because you're not part of the biggest chain. All of you OGs who have been in the blockchain fundamentals course know this — way back in 2017 I taught you all about how blocks work, how you can have two competing blocks, and your transaction may get dropped if you're in a block which no one cares about and everyone builds on top of the other block.
Finality is the moment a transaction is irreversible. Today Solana is already fast at inclusion. Alpenlow is making settlement feel nearly instant. When you do a transaction on Solana it may feel fast, but on the back end it still takes 12 seconds for it to be fully confirmed — which is a problem. If you run a serious trading operation, you may be doing fast trades that feel fast, but on the back end things can still get reversed. With this update, the settlement on-chain is going to be basically like a web app — as soon as you click a button, done. It's going to be closer to a web app or a centralised exchange matching engine than a classic blockchain confirmation.
The user experience is that apps stop feeling like crypto. At 150-millisecond finality, swaps, payments, memes, and game actions can confirm inside a single UI animation. You click, and in 150 milliseconds it's done. That matters for retail payments, mobile, and other consumer apps. But most importantly, it matters for financial apps. For consumer apps you can still fake instantaneous transactions and it's not too bad an issue if something gets reversed — if you have some game, you click around, some cents here and there, some dollars here and there, okay, some of it got reversed, you can tell the user, it's not a big thing. But if you're trading, if you're really trading and you have millions at stake and that got reversed — that's very bad. That's real bad.
So the big unlock is not necessarily consumer apps. Consumer apps you can already fake instant stuff and manage what happens if it reverses, which very rarely happens but can. For trading it's massive. Faster finality unlocks on-chain order books, liquidations, arbitrage. Most rival chains still talk in seconds or longer for economic finality. Sub-second — especially 150 milliseconds — is a different product category. It strengthens the pitch against slower L1s.
That's the biggest thing happening in the coming days. I asked Bull Mania AI to give us other updates. ETH is continuing its multi-year roadmap — upgrades are large and carefully staged but arrive on a slower cadence. Basically nothing noticeable is going to happen to ETH. Vitalik did a big fat roadmap for a multi-decade timeline. I'm not even sure what the clear vision is. Maybe it's kind of like Bitcoin — ossified, doesn't change too much, it is what it is. Data availability improvements — nothing of that is going to be noticeable for users. An upgrade like Alpenlow is a clear, noticeable improvement to user life. ETH is good as is. Maybe we just leave ETH as is. Just ensure it's quantum safe and that's it.
Sui and Aptos were already engineered for very fast finality from the start. The big updates tend to be iterative protocol improvements. No big things with Sui and Aptos. Avalanche has ACP-style upgrades, some subnet performance improvements. Is anyone using subnets? I haven't seen anyone using subnets. In the past it was gaming — for a while they were branding as a gaming chain. I don't see too many people using the subnets.
And just to clarify — if we're a bit cynical when reading through these tech upgrades, just know that if it's bull trend, we're bullish on the price. Don't confuse our tech reading with price. Everything is a meme in the bull market. Don't worry too much about tech this and that. Bull market is a meme. So Monad — nothing too much is happening there either. Basically it's all Alpenlow. Nothing else is happening in terms of tech right now.
Richard Heart arrested in Turkey — Peter Schiff's earlier prediction
Turkish media has released a picture of Richard Heart getting arrested. It is real. Turkish media are spacing this image of Richard Heart — without his hat — blurred. I thought it was AI-generated but it's not. They keep calling him Whale James. Balina James. Who invented Whale James? No one is calling him Whale James except the media. Balina — whale. Holy crap. And then they speak about how they captured him, the police operation that was used. He had a bunch of weapons — he was ready for any kind of development. Many watches, all the Rolexes are there. And also, I have a question: he has a big speaker. I mean, he wants to be underground, hidden, but he also has a big fat speaker. On one of the pictures he sits with this big fat speaker. How is he going to be hidden with a big fat speaker? I don't think it's healthy for the ears either — a small confined space with a big speaker.
Out of all people, Peter Schiff was one of the earliest to predict this development. Let me play this clip.
Peter Schiff: You could always pick and choose whatever time frame is convenient for you. But the reality is you're so excited about how much HEX has gone up — HEX is down about 70% from its peak. So there are people who bought HEX who are down 70%. Nobody is down anywhere near 70% in gold. And the people who have made money in HEX haven't made anything because they haven't sold, because they've locked up their HEX in your scam of a CD. You've conned people into taking a worthless currency that you create for nothing, and they've agreed not to sell it, so you can keep unloading yours to the people who are foolish enough to think there's a free lunch and they're going to get rich in your pyramid scheme. But they're not — they're going to go broke. And eventually they may come looking for you, because all the money that your followers are going to lose is the money that you're making. And we'll see how the authorities feel about that when you end up in a court of law, because I know a lot of the people who lost money are going to be looking to try to claw back some of their losses from your winnings.
Ivan: Crazy that Peter Schiff was actually right this time. Was actually right this time.
Some people are in Hexican land. They're bullish because they say that in Finland the maximum sentence is four years, so he's going to be back in like five years maybe with his money still intact. But here's the problem — Finland is going to take his money. If your thesis was that he's going to take the money and pump all the coins, Finland is going to take the money. And he's been hiding for how many years? Five-plus years. There's interest, there's all kinds of stuff. So let's see how much money is left to pump. But then also he needs to get back and he needs to still pump your bags.
Some people see him as a martyr. At the end of the day, I've said everything many, many times. Everything comes to its logical conclusion. It may take time, but everything comes to its logical conclusion. A monkey could have predicted this. If you zoom out and see what's happening, everything comes to its logical conclusion.
Trevon James reflects on Richard Heart's downfall
It's interesting that Trevon James posted about this — he fought the SEC in his own land. Do you guys remember Trevon James from BitConnect? He's shared his journey and he's basically done with all of the cases. He actually got some money back from the SEC because they found hacked money connected to his case, and he actually made a profit by being sued by the SEC. You should read his story. But here's what he said about this whole situation:
Trevon James: "I remember when Richard sent me a mention or DM when the BitConnect news first hit about the SEC suing me around 2018, and he said something to the likes of 'here comes the poo poo lol.' And I remember feeling so stupid — like, here's this expert guy who is good at hiding his truth, keeping his opsec secure, lives somewhere where they can't find him, and gets to freely enjoy life. Maybe I should go move to a different country and move like this guy, because this SEC stuff isn't going to go away. This rich expert who knows everything about that stuff is laughing at me. I'm such an idiot. I was moving so stupid. What was I thinking promoting this Bitcoin? What was I thinking promoting this — that was starting to look like a scam here in the US? I should have moved like him. I see now — I was the dumb one. Staying in my land kept me out of major trouble and even got me some of my hacked Bitcoin back. You would think someone as smart as Richard Heart would know how to bend reality and make it work in his favor. But he can't, because he operated in fear. Maybe he gets out soon and beats all the stuff on his head now, but he lost a lot of street credit with me."
Ivan: At the end of the day, imagine if he just paid the effing tax in Finland and that's it. Now he has to pay tax and be in jail. Finland doesn't mess around with tax. With the Nordics — Finland, Sweden — tax is a more serious crime than like the worst crimes you can think of. You can do very, very horrible things, people are going to feel sorry for you, you're going to be rehabilitated, all of that. But man, you don't pay tax — oh. They don't mess around. The money is going to come in.
And also, if he had just asked on Twitter, "Hey guys, which country has zero gift tax?" — because all of what he did is treated as a gift. You guys sacrificed to him, you gave him a gift. Finland has 30% gift tax. I could have told him that in Sweden there is 0% gift tax. He could have just moved literally 50 kilometres. He can bike there in a few hours. Okay, there's a bit of sea between — you can take a ferry. Boop. In a few hours, you're at zero.
So at the end of the day, don't mess around with this stuff. Don't mess around with this Jason Bourne life. People ask me sometimes, "Ivan, I have this situation — how do I hide?" Don't hide. Just move somewhere where it's 0%. There are many, many countries with 0% tax for different things. Even Sweden has 0% gift tax. Many countries have 0% capital gains tax. Don't try to be Jason Bourne with five passports and five of this and that, because the world is so global, so connected, so international. There is no way to go except to face the problem you're facing and figure it out, because he could have figured it out long time ago.
MicroStrategy faces potential MSCI index exclusion
There's one more thing we need to speak about — MSCI, because apparently MSCI is going to remove Strategy from its index. Michael Saylor is not too happy about this.
Interviewer: We want to switch gears a little bit, Michael, and talk about what we expect to hear from MSCI on Friday. It's considering rules that could exclude you all from its global equity indices. What kind of decision do you expect and how important is it to you?
Michael Saylor: It's not that important to us. It's a fairly de minimis amount of capital that they control. We think their position so far has been disappointing because they're imposing prejudicial values on digital assets — deciding that oil, natural gas, land, or machinery is capital, but Bitcoin is not capital, is a value judgment. They're acting like an unregistered financial advisor. I think it's a bad precedent for them and for the industry, and I hope they reconsider it. But having said all that, digital assets are smarter, faster, stronger. They are the future. MSCI may not want to share in that future, but I think the investors will disagree, and of course the nation disagrees.
Interviewer: Do you expect to be excluded?
Michael Saylor: I don't have any particular expectation right now.
Interviewer: Would you be happy if you were included?
Michael Saylor: I think it would be good for them and good for the industry if they drop their initiative, but that's above my pay grade. The issue is the question of whether or not you are a quote operating business rather than engaged in accumulating assets. Insurance companies and banks have assets and they're operating businesses. If MSCI decided that insurance companies' financial assets were non-operating, or that banks' assets were non-operating, then they would exclude every insurance company, every bank, and half the oil and gas companies.
Interviewer: To be fair, insurance companies provide a service other than accumulating assets — in the case of making a payout, they provide a service to customers.
Michael Saylor: The product of the insurance company is the insurance policy, and the product of the bank is credit. Our product is digital credit. We sell a product. It pays a 10 to 12% dividend yield. The insurance company sells you an insurance policy or an annuity. All of these are finance companies. They're selling financial products. They're operating companies.
Ivan: His biggest argument is that MSCI is removing them because they mainly hold Bitcoin and don't do too much other business, and there are many other companies that do similar things — whether it's oil and gas or financial services. Let's see how that's going to play out for the bull market. Don't worry, guys — it's not going to stop the bull market because MSCI removes MicroStrategy. I don't think it's going to be a big impact because the bull market is so strong. Maybe a week of weakness, then bam, Valhalla. It's a bull market. In a bull market, there's no bad news that can stop it because we're just starting now. At the end of the bull market, the slightest bad news can stop it. But now, in the beginning, we're just coming out. It's just been a year since the previous peak — we've had a year of the bear, and now likely the bull, bull, bull.
Q&A — Render, Solana, AI stocks, and PulseChain's block explorer
Ivan: Let's go to fast Q&A. Black Monday — re-watch the whole episode. I can see sometimes when you don't watch the episode you ask me questions I already discussed. Anything you can think of in terms of news, I likely already discussed in the stream.
"Do you feel this could be a dead cat?" I don't feel anything. Feeling is not the correct word. Do you feel this, do you feel that — we act on what's happening. No one knows the future. Your gut feeling is going to wreck you. I see where the candles close. The candle closed above the May high and now it goes higher. That's my reality. If it's a dead cat bounce, we have strategies to deal with that also. If it goes lower, it's still bullish — it just means it's going to be a longer consolidation likely. Don't think with your gut.
Sometimes people join Bull Mania and they ask me, "Ivan, what do you feel?" I'm telling you, bro — watch the course. We have a big fat course, a big fat educational program that transforms your brain. I can clearly see you haven't watched it. When people join Bull Mania, they take the course, they come out different people. But sometimes I see someone and I can tell by the question they have not watched the educational material. Actually, in Bull Mania we're going to be integrating our learning software with Discord so we can see who actually did the course fully, who is a clueless plebe, and who is a highly educated person. When I see a question, I can understand — sometimes I get concerned, like, did I not explain it? And then we check the student progress in the course and they didn't do it. Same thing here, guys — you have the stream, you watch the stream.
Can you look at Render? Let's check Render. Nothing's happening with Render. Yes, it's sideways. It's technically bullish, but it's a bit weak. I would not enter it now if it doesn't go above here. If you got stopped out, the next entry I would do is only if it goes above here. If you're still in, depending on your strategy, if you entered and your stop hit, it's fine — it's very good actually. This is another important thing to understand: when a stop hits, it's good. Before mechanical rules, most people enter a trade and then they are at the whim of destiny. It goes down 20%, 30%, they're not in control. One of the best things that happens once you have a system is that you set a stop loss — boop, you're out. You have a small loss. It may feel bad, but compare it to the alternative: you enter multi-year mental prisons where you hold for years. Instead, stop loss hits, boop, and then you look for the next entry. If you still like the chart — let's say Render goes above here — fantastic. If your stop loss is not hit, let it ride. It could easily come back. It's still bull trend. So let it ride.
As you can see, we have a plan for everything. Something goes bull and it pumps — we have a plan. Something goes bull and it doesn't pump instantly — there is a plan. Clear strategies, clear rules.
Let me check with Bull Mania AI what's happening with Render tech-wise. Solana, Solana, Solana — bull trend. For now at least you have the continuation quite nicely. The bear flip has come out quite a bit now to 96, which is basically the previous support here. But yeah, so far so good.
"Could you consider shorting AI stocks like Micron?" So many AI stocks were not participating since the bear flips. They flipped bearish on the weekly. For example, Micron is a very good example — it flipped bearish already in July. Since the summer, we are rotating out of AI into crypto. Since October last year, we were rotating from crypto into stocks, mainly AI. And now since the summer, we're going back. Why? Because many stocks got into bear trend, including Micron. I don't like shorting too much when there is a longing opportunity. In this case, I would rather long crypto than short AI. I like shorting in general when there is no alternative, because when you long, it can go very, very high — your upside is theoretically unlimited. When you short, your maximum is capped — the thing can go to zero and that's it. So if you have an opportunity to long, I would just long.
"Ivan, have you followed any of the on-chain activities in PulseChain since they got Balina James?" No. What has happened, guys? No one can follow anything on-chain on PulseChain because you don't have a working block explorer. Just as a reminder — your block explorer doesn't work. No one can follow anything. Or did they fix it? But who will fix it? You have only Bret, and he's like a contractor who launched it. Who's going to pay him? That's why I call it Fiverr chain. It's not PulseChain, it's Fiverr chain. It got done by a Fiverr guy. And I love Bret — I can imagine he got contracted to fork ETH and that's it, and then the budget ran out. I don't think they anticipated how hard it is to do a block explorer for ETH.
I know this because I founded Moralis, one of the biggest infrastructure companies in crypto for this stuff — indexing data on-chain. It's very hard. To index ETH is very hard because Vitalik made it a bit retardio where you cannot even ask the blockchain how much money someone has. Vitalik is a genius boy, but holy crap, he made it very hard to query balances. All of you devs who have been building on ETH know — you come into crypto thinking it's a la-la land. You're like, "I'm a dev in crypto, everything is so easy, you just ask the blockchain what's happening on-chain." Man, it doesn't know. The blockchain does not know on ETH which coins you have. It doesn't know. You can ask it a specific contract address and it's going to tell you that this guy has this much money in this contract address. But to ask it which ERC-20 coins a guy has — you need an external API like Moralis for that. Isn't that crazy?
So I don't think Bret — big shout out to Bret, I love Bret — I can imagine they did not really anticipate how hard it was. They thought, okay, let's quickly copy this, let's raise a billion, we're out. And then they thought, maybe we can still make a legit-looking thing. And then they saw, oh holy crap, it's very hard. And then you have internal transactions. ETH is a cluster duck. You have transactions, you have ERC-20 transactions, you have NFTs — it's all different standards, nothing is super consistent. Some NFTs work one way, some NFTs work another way. Metadata is sometimes on-chain, sometimes on IPFS. And then there are internal transactions. To build a block explorer — you understand? Holy crap. Number one, it's very expensive, because to have all of the history and be able to query it fast, you need a freaking database department. Just a guy doing the database so everything is fast and indexed and you can pull anything out. And here's the fun part — it can also reverse. You can have your database, then boop, chain reverses, and now you have a new chain and you have to catch up. The system is real-time. Your system better be real-time. If there's a fork, a rollback — guess what? You have to remove all the history. Now you have to very fast catch up to the current chain, which has now changed. And when history rewrites itself, it can happen a lot.
And also, when you do a fast chain like PulseChain, everything becomes a million times harder — a trillion times harder. It's not like Vitalik is dumb and just put in a slow chain. It's very hard to make anything work when you make the chain faster. So when the PulseChain guys just increased the parameter — "just faster, man, how we going to do this" — it becomes: how are we going to make stuff work? Because it's still this EVM system but now it runs faster, so your indexers need to run faster. And that's it, guys. Big shout out to Bret. Bret is my favorite guy in PulseChain. And Matt. I love Matt also. Bret and Matt are my top two guys in PulseChain.