Digital Asset News host argues November 3rd is historically the best day to buy, based on midterm election cycle data
A solo presentation by the host of Digital Asset News on market cycles, Bitcoin ETF flows, stablecoin developments, and viewer Q&A.
Summary
The Digital Asset News host presents a historical case for why midterm election day — falling on November 3rd in the 2026 cycle — has been the single most reliable buying opportunity in the S&P 500 since 1942, with a 100% positive forward return rate over seven months and a median gain of 15.2%. He draws parallels between the 2018, 2022, and current Bitcoin bear market cycles, arguing that four-year presidential cycles — not the Bitcoin halving or M2 money supply — are the primary driver of these patterns. He also covers Bitcoin ETF inflows returning after two weeks of outflows, a $2.5 billion USDT burn and the broader stablecoin market contraction, and Tether's plan to issue USDT natively on Bitcoin via the RGB protocol and Lightning Network. The episode closes with a viewer Q&A covering SpaceX's NASDAQ 100 inclusion, Michael Saylor's reputation, and personal stories about buying Bitcoin near all-time highs.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Four-Year Cycles and the Case for Buying on Midterm Election Day
Host: As retail goes through and starts to give up, I think it's really important to see what the smart money is doing and why I believe you should be buying on November 3rd. That's a very odd prediction, but I'm going to show you exactly why. Today we're taking a look at just a little bit of history and going back.
I just want you to take a look at this chart. What do you notice about this one and this one? Let me go back — this one or this one? It's like you're at an eye appointment. This one. Does this look good? Does this look good? It's almost the same thing. What we're looking at is the bear market of 2018. That was my first bear market. It was pretty stressful, I must admit, because I didn't know what was going on behind the scenes. I didn't know how things were actually happening. Going through this now, I can see that this is just a repeat of 2022. You can see how we just go through these cycles. I know you're sick of hearing about the four-year cycles, but it is amazing to me just how things have lined up.
The question is why? Because in the comment section I keep getting comments — that's why it's called a comment section — saying this is ridiculous, there's no reason why everything should repeat in four-year cycles, it has nothing to do with the halving, it has nothing to do with Bitcoin mining, it has nothing to do with anything, you guys are just getting lucky. There's a little bit of truth to that. But if we take a look at four-year cycles going back to the early 1900s, you'll see what I'm talking about.
You can see there's a cliff and a drop-off, another cliff and a drop-off, and then it goes flat — roughly around mid-May, early June or so. There's a little bit of peaks and valleys, but then there's one more drop-off in October or November somewhere around there, for the last eight years or so going all the way back. This is where you're at right now, roughly. Going further, we'll probably see a drop-off. But again, past performance doesn't equate to what's actually going to happen.
That was Bitcoin. Now let's take a look at the M2 money supply and the S&P 500 in these four-year cycles. Let me blow that up so you can see it better. That is the S&P 500. What I want you to notice is how in 2022 it also went down. There weren't as many flat plateaus — it seemed like it would just spike and then drop farther, then spike and drop farther. Of course, this was after the coronavirus and things were recovering. It was recovering so well that we actually retracted the M2 money supply, which a lot of people say is the big catalyst for Bitcoin. But I want to remind you that in 2018 we actually increased the money supply, and in 2022 we actually decreased the money supply. So it's not so much about the M2 global or the M2 US money supply. It really just comes down to four years.
In 2022, the S&P 500 just kept going down and down until we hit around November, and then it repeated. And here's the same thing in 2018 — you can see roughly in November it actually dropped even further and then into January. And why was that? Midterms. That's where we're at here.
For the people in the comment section saying this makes no sense — it does. The midterm years, historically speaking, line up with one year after the all-time highs. It happened in 2013–2014, it happened in 2017–2018, it happened in 2021–2022. You'll see it's just four-year cycles going with Bitcoin, four-year cycles going with the traditional stock market. The way that Satoshi Nakamoto lined this up in the white paper was that we had a halving roughly two years before the midterm years, which equates to a blowoff top or all-time high, and then you get a reduction in return on investment. It's the same thing with the S&P 500 and traditional markets.
Going back all the way to 1920: year one of a presidential cycle, things go good, everybody's hyped up, they think the president can do no wrong. Then the midterm election year, the opposing party lays it all out and tells you how awful the current president is. Then we go through the election. Year three of the presidential cycle, things calm down. Year four, we go up. Right now, this is a midterm year. And this is why I said November 3rd is a good time to buy.
Now, personally, I've been buying for months. I buy every Monday. But having said all that, maybe I should have just waited. I could be wrong. Nobody's perfect. But this is a good timeline to look at.
100% of the time — let me say that again — 100% of the time since 1942, buying the S&P 500 on midterm election day generated a median return of plus 15.2% through June 30th of the following year, which is seven months forward. Never, not once, ever, was there a negative return in that forward seven-month period. World War II, Vietnam War, the 1970s, the dot-com bubble, the great financial crisis — doesn't matter. Midterm election day was a time to buy.
Am I telling you to wait until midterm election day and dump it all in? That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying that as far as the S&P 500 goes and the four-year cycles, this is the time. The midterm election falls on the first Tuesday of November in midterm years, which in this cycle would be November 3rd, 2026.
Let me reiterate, because apparently I keep missing people. I am not saying to wait till November 3rd. Let me say that again. I am not saying to wait till November 3rd. Historically speaking, that is the best time — but I'm not saying to wait for it. Let me know what you think about that in the comments.
The 200-Week Moving Average as a Bitcoin Accumulation Signal
Host: If we take a look at some of the weekly moving averages, if you just follow the 200-week moving average, you're crushing it right now. Let me blow this up so you can see even better. Look at these prices below the 200-week moving average: $60,000, $60,800, $61,000, $61,400, $59,000, $60,000 — $58,560, $59,610, and I think it just hit $62,000. If you just waited for the 200-week moving average and bought underneath that, that's a pretty good time. I think in the long run that'll probably be a pretty good investment, but we will see.
Bitcoin ETF Inflows Return After Two-Week Drought
Host: A quick note on ETFs. Monday, July 6th, we finally had BlackRock come in. Look at those red selloffs — $96 million, $117 million, $118 million, and so on. $40 million on July 2nd, and then $209 million was spent on the positive side. We also had positive flows from Fidelity, Bitwise, ARK Invest, MSTR, and Grayscale. That could be a sign of smart money, quote unquote, returning — because these guys were selling quite a bit.
And that's just Bitcoin. Ethereum actually had a positive couple of days as well, which is kind of crazy. $36 million, $29.23 million from BlackRock, and a couple of different players out there — some negative, but overall a positive flow for Ethereum. I like where things are going.
Stablecoin Market Posts Biggest Contraction Since Terra Collapse
Host: There is some negative to this, and I have to give you some balance to keep your feet on the ground. This is from Ted Pillows — good follow, I'll try to put them in the description. $2.5 billion in USDT just got burned. Maybe somebody said, "Hey, I want my money back." This was on Ethereum USDT. $2.5 billion in Tether just got burned.
Stablecoins — my thesis has always been that the rails would do quite well, whether that be Binance, Ethereum, Solana, Tron, or Base, or the pass from OpenUSD, which would be Polygon, Aptos, Solana, and something else. With those rails, I thought stablecoins would do quite well. However, from what Ted puts out and from Walter Bloomberg: the stablecoin market posted its biggest drop since the Terra collapse. The stablecoin market shrank 2.4%, or $7.7 billion — the biggest collapse since Terra.
If you were around in 2022, you remember Terra — the so-called future of finance — had a nice little algorithmic stablecoin that just collapsed and everything went down with it. So the stablecoin market shrinking 2.4% makes me ask: what is going on? Maybe the use case isn't there. Maybe people aren't doing it as much. Maybe they're retracting and getting into AI. Who knows?
Tether Plans to Issue USDT Natively on Bitcoin via the RGB Protocol
Host: There was something positive that came out of all of this. This is from Woo Blockchain. Tether, issuer of USDT and the world's largest stablecoin, plans to issue USDT natively on Bitcoin through the RGB protocol.
What is the RGB protocol? It's a really solid Bitcoin protocol. What Tether is saying is: we want to issue Tether onto Bitcoin. It is the most decentralized, the most recognized, the most trusted — so let's just do that. This is actually just happening. It's rolling out in July, with UTXO leading the commercial rollout. The feature could go live as early as July and be supported later by Tether Wallet and multiple exchanges.
When I first read this, I thought: why would they use Bitcoin? That's going to be kind of expensive, right? Bitcoin is not known for being cheap. But RGB has actually been around since around 2019 — correct me in the comments if I'm wrong — and they just had their deployable mainnet launch in June of this year. What they're using is the Lightning Network. RGB is a native member of Bitcoin's Lightning Network, and it's going to bring smart contracts in a scalable way to the world's most secure and censorship-resistant crypto, which is Bitcoin.
Wouldn't that be something? Everything that the Bitcoin maximalists have been preaching about — how we need to have everything built on Bitcoin, just like the HTTP layer for the internet — why couldn't we do that instead of using all these altcoins that have been created? And let's be honest, most have failed. If they can pull this off and put stablecoins on the rail that is Bitcoin and the Lightning Network, that would be something. You're not spending Bitcoin here — you're just using the network and the Lightning Network to move stablecoins around using Tether, the most trusted and censorship-resistant option. I think that's a pretty good thing and we'll see how it goes.
Q&A — Peptides, Market Cycles, SpaceX, and Buying the Top
Host: Let's get into the Q&A. Yesterday wasn't a great day, I must admit. I think I know why. Everybody knows I messed up my back recently and I've been taking these peptides. One of them is called the Wolverine Protocol — BPC-157. There are a couple of ways to do it. One is a single super dose, or you can split it into two doses per day. What I was doing the last couple of days was just doing a super dose because I didn't have time. I think that made me super irritable and I'm still feeling it today. If you want to learn more about that, follow Future of Wellness MD — he's actually my doctor and the one who prescribed it. When you have a herniated disc, it hurts like hell and you can actually avoid surgery. Not medical advice, just saying that's what I did and it worked out great.
Michael Stevenson says TB-500 and BPC-157 together is the Wolverine Protocol. I just eased into BPC-157 to see how well it worked. In seven to ten days I felt great. But there's a lot behind that — watch that video.
TK makes a good point: just like each cycle, the hero turns into the villain. Bitcoin Jesus — Roger Ver — became Bitcoin Judas as he made his case for Bitcoin Cash. I remember those days. And then Michael Saylor became Michael Seller. I'm going to steal that — it's really good. And I'll add one in there for TK: Sam Bankman-Fried. Wasn't he like the savior and the future of finance in 2021, and then all of a sudden became the most hated person on the planet? Same thing with Terra Luna — the person who was supposed to be the savior, and then here we are.
It is pretty interesting that we did so well after yesterday's selloff. Michael Saylor — or Seller — buying 3,000-something Bitcoin is quite a bit, and the market did pretty well. Some people say it's just a four-year cycle. We'll see.
Jimmy says SpaceX has officially joined the NASDAQ 100, one of the world's most tracked tech indexes, less than a month after its debut — making it one of the fastest inclusions ever. Is anybody buying SpaceX? I bought some. I sold it though. I'm waiting for August when apparently there are a bunch of unlocks coming for the early private investors. I learned that from my experience with ICOs and how people just dump on you. So I'm hoping there's a big selloff for SpaceX, because I do think it's a good future.
Jerry has a good thesis — he thinks SpaceX will be merging with Tesla, so you'll have SpaceX, XAI, the Boring Company, Tesla, Starlink, and everything solar underneath one big umbrella that is Tesla. He says he's only going to buy Tesla and Bitcoin. Probably do pretty well. We'll see.
Sam Bankman-Fried to Sam Bankman-Fraud. Exactly. Do Kwon — everybody loved him, especially on his X account. He was quite something as he would talk and dismantle people. It was pretty funny until the very last part where he said "have fun staying poor," and then his whole empire collapsed. Maybe people shouldn't talk trash.
Frostu says, "Hey Rob, I bought the top. Do you recommend waiting till November to accumulate most capital?" I got to tell you, you and I are the same person. Let me go back in time to 2017. This is pretty much when I started buying. I bought on November 15th — Bitcoin at $7,814. Sounds good now, doesn't it? But I also bought at $12,000 and at $17,500, somewhere around there. And then it crashed — what was called a crash back then. Now I realize that's just a Monday. It went up to $20,000, and the majority of what I bought was around $17,000. And then it went to $6,852 and I was like, "Oh my god, my life is over. This is the worst thing."
Then it rallied — because Chinese New Year was over. I swear to God, that's what everybody talked about. The reason everything was going down was because of Chinese New Year and people had to buy gifts for their families. And of course they talked about CME futures and so on. But then it went the other way and I'm like, "What the heck, it's $6,000. This sucks. I'm going to get rid of this junk." And then I started doing a bit more research. I figured out what Bitcoin actually does and what it is — how the government is debasing the currency with M2 money supply and printing money, how it could be a store of value, how it's a medium of exchange. And then I just held on to that, went through 2021, and everything was good.
I can't tell you what to do. I can tell you what I did. I just said to hell with it — historically speaking, it probably should go up. And in 2018, we only had one previous big run-up, so we were taking some big risks back then if you think about it. I just held on and that was it. Sold some along the way after 2021 and everything was good. Rolled into other things like real estate, and that's the majority of where things are right now.
I feel you. I understand. Trust me. But I just kept on to it. That doesn't mean you shouldn't take profits at some point. Remember — the buying is the easy part. Everybody can buy. We can all dollar-cost average. We're pros at that. Where we fail is picking our spots to sell. Am I wrong? Let me know in the comments. That's my biggest issue — I just don't sell when I should sell more.