Digital Asset News host Rob discusses Bitcoin's dip below the 200-week moving average, Trump's crypto clarity push, and his own increased DCA buying
Solo presenter episode from the Digital Asset News channel hosted by Rob.
Summary
Two breaking developments from President Trump's Truth Social account anchor this episode: a call for Congress to pass the Clarity Act in honor of the late Senator Lindsey Graham (who passed away from a heart condition described as an aortic valve issue), and a declaration that the US will act as "guardians of the Hormuz Strait" while charging a 20% fee on all cargo shipped through it. Bitcoin has dropped approximately 2.4% over 24 hours and has dipped below the 200-week moving average, which Rob uses as a signal to increase his dollar-cost averaging buys significantly. Using risk-level data from Benjamin Cowen's Into the Cryptoverse, Rob explains that the current risk reading of approximately 0.295 triggered him to quadruple his usual buy amount (his strategy quadruples at the 0.3-and-below threshold). He also announces a forthcoming website to publicly archive and hold accountable influencers' Bitcoin price predictions. Rob shares an extended discussion of the personal investment rules he developed after promoting and losing money through Celsius and Voyager, including: don't invest more than you can afford to lose, treat everything as a scam until proven otherwise, don't leave assets on exchanges, avoid leverage, and take profits.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Trump Calls for the Clarity Act and the Hormuz Strait Announcement
Rob: There's a push for clarity from the President of the United States, but unfortunately we have another issue with the blockade as far as the Strait of Hormuz. We'll take a look at that, and also we'll take a look at where we are in the cycle. Today I have to be very thankful because the buy orders flashed. I bought on Cash App as I usually do, and because of the risk levels I actually increased my buys. I'll tell you about why that is.
But before we get into all that, we have to put on our geopolitical expert hats and talk about what the President of the United States just wrote a couple of hours ago. This is from Truth Social. And unfortunately, Senator Lindsey Graham did pass away yesterday, if you're not aware of that. It looks like it was a heart attack — an aortic valve issue. I think it was a congenital problem. Our prayers go out to his family. No one likes to see anybody pass away. It's an awful thing.
But here's what was said. In honor of Senator Lindsey Graham, a big supporter, the US Senate should pass the Clarity Act. So he's asking for Congress to just come together for this one time and pass one thing. I don't think it's going to happen, but it's a nice thing to put out there. He states: "China and many other countries would like to take complete and total control of this major financial happening, as well as with AI, where we're now leading, but they are fighting hard. Don't let China win." — President DJT.
So on top of that, let's hope it gets passed. It looks like they're bringing that to the floor this week for debate. I don't think they're actually going to go through with a vote on it. It's a funny thing because this Clarity Act was supposed to have been gone through already before July 4th. It didn't pass. So that's not a good sign, but of course I've been wrong many a time before. So we'll see. That is a positive development.
Now we'll take a look at maybe a little bit of negative. This just broke a couple of hours ago. President Trump states: "The Hormuz Strait is open and will remain open." That sounds good. Just wait. "With or without Iran, we are reinstating the Iranian blockade — so named because it is only stopping Iran's ships or customers from entering or leaving." Okay, well, if you just want to do a blockade against Iran, that sounds pretty reasonable. "This only stops Iranian ships or customers from leaving. All other countries will have fair and open use of the strait." That sounds good. "The US will be, from this point forward, known as the guardians of the Hormuz Strait." Interesting. "But as such, and as a matter of fairness, the United States will be reimbursed at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped, for any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security to this very volatile section of the world." So take that as you may.
Bitcoin Price Action and Market Overview
This is what happened with the market. Bitcoin over 24 hours went down 2.4%. Not uncommon — this is Bitcoin, this is crypto. We've all been here for quite some time. This is nothing new to us. This is just a Monday. Ethereum down 2.4%, BNB down 2.1%, and so on and so forth. Over the last 24 hours we see quite a bit of a tumble. Nothing too uncommon. It's because when the traditional markets like the S&P 500 sneezes, the crypto market gets a cold, and then altcoins themselves get pneumonia.
Right now we're down almost 0.6% as things move. We'll see how it bounces. I don't expect this to last, but this is what we have right now.
Risk Levels, DCA Strategy, and Why Rob Increased His Buys
So what does that mean? Well, for me — I don't know about you — but I like to use the risk levels from Ben's website, Into the Cryptoverse. There's a lot of things in there that are actually free, so if you sign up you can use some of the free stuff, which is pretty nice. But if you want to go even deeper, there's an option for that.
The price went down to $62,333, which gives us a risk level of 0.295. Because of that — I usually start to layer in around 0.5, then I double up at 0.4 and below, then at 0.3 and below I quadruple up. So I bought a hefty amount of Bitcoin.
Like I said before, I made a mistake in 2022 doing what I called micro DCAing. What I should have done was buy like crazy when Bitcoin was at $15,000, $17,000, $18,000. I messed that up. I will not mess that up this time. But that's just me — everybody has different goals.
So as the risk levels go down, at 0.295 I buy more. However, I will say I don't know if this is going to last.
First of all, the best time to historically dollar-cost average is on a Monday. That goes back to a data point all the way back to 2010. What this means is you can see the price action and how it extends — the lowest number is the best. You don't want the price to be higher, like on a Wednesday. You want it to be lower, like on a Monday. This is why I've been dollar-cost averaging on Mondays, having Cash App do the action.
I know some people say they hate Cash App, but that's because you're buying it wrong. If you do recurring payments — every Monday, every day, every three days, or whatever you set it up to — the spread is negligible, almost nothing, and there are essentially no fees. What I believe is happening in Cash App is that Jack Dorsey is buying that OTC. When you buy on spot individually — like, hey, it's a Wednesday at two o'clock, buy one thing — you're going to pay some fees and some spread, which is fine. What Jack Dorsey, I think, wants people to do is to buy continuously. That's why he rewards people who come in and buy on a recurring basis and set it up the way I've done myself.
Cycle Analysis: Where Are We Now Compared to 2022?
Now, at these risk levels — 0.294 — when we look at them, they're not very common, and they're becoming more uncommon as time goes on. The 0.2 to 0.3 range is where we're at right now. The 0.1 to 0.2 range is pretty much crash-level territory. And 0.0 to 0.1 doesn't exist anymore — that went extinct back in January 2015. The 0.1 to 0.2 range is going extinct as well. We can see that back in 2022 during the great crash, when the price went to $18,000, $15,750 — those levels haven't been hit since 2022. That range is extinct over here now.
Does that mean it can't go to that level? No. I'm just saying at this point, and we haven't even hit the bottom, I don't think we could see it — but who knows?
If we look at the 0.2 to 0.3 range, even that's going away. Back in the day — 2011, 2014 — you had several spots. In 2018 you had a big long variation. Then of course the coronavirus hit in 2020. And then in 2022 you had a couple of occurrences. Now over here in 2026, it's not happening too often. So again, I think there are some good times to buy, and I think this is actually a good time for me. We'll see how it works out.
People say, "But Rob, for your cycles — remember, if we topped in October 2025, then we will bottom in October 2026." And it sounds reasonable because everything else is lined up like that. I will say there are some variations.
What I'll say about those variations is that we are now 20% higher than where we were in the last cycle as far as July 13, 2022. Today is July 13th, 2026. The price from the all-time high is down $62,536 — that is at negative 50%. At this point four years ago, it was negative 70%, and the bottom was negative 76–77%, depending on the exchange. Isn't that amazing? We are 20% higher, meaning we're not as volatile.
So the question becomes: if everything is equal right now, and we went from negative 70% with a bottom of negative 77% when we hit $15,763 — does that mean that here at negative 50% we can only go to negative 57%? Well, maybe. But remember, it's not as volatile. So what you're looking at is maybe a bottom of negative 53–54%. But even if you went negative 57%, you would be at around $54,000–$55,000. We've already seen $58,000–$59,000. So could we go lower? We could. I just don't expect us to do one of these things where we go negative 75% and end up in the $30,000 range like we did four years ago. But it could happen.
People say, "Well, this time's different." But if you look back at the previous cycles — 2018, 2022 — it was almost lockstep in how far down it went. It's amazing to me that this actually worked out. Look at this: May 22nd, 2018, the price was $8,423, which was negative 57% from the 2017 all-time high. May 22nd, 2022, it was negative 55% from the all-time high. Just look at those two numbers. And then negative 76% from the 2017 all-time high in 2018, and negative 76% in 2022. So all these things being equal, there is a little break in the madness. We are at negative 50.7% — 20 points up from where we were at the equivalent point in the prior cycle.
Bitcoin Below the 200-Week Moving Average
As a reminder on buying times — we did go below the 200-week moving average. And I mean barely. Let me zoom into this. Bitcoin price: $62,230. The 200-week moving average: $63,000. I don't know if we're going to keep going below it. I know that previously we actually went to the 250 and 300-week moving average — I believe that was in 2022. If you are waiting for that level, I don't know if it's going to hit. What I'm doing is dollar-cost averaging, and I think in two or three years I'll probably be rewarded.
Live Q&A
Rob: Let's get into a little Q&A and answer your questions.
Someone mentions the mayor giving away free condos — I'm going to guess that's Mayor Adams or Mayor Mamdani in New York. I don't know if he's giving away free condos. Sounds pretty good. I don't know what is going on in New York. It's just craziness. Hopefully it works out for people.
Rusty, I did test Polymarket. What I did not account for was that people could place bets during the whole match — we're talking about the World Cup. I wish I had just put my bet five minutes before the end of the game and not before the game. That's what I'm used to from when I used to gamble. I don't gamble anymore — just kidding, I'm in crypto, so of course we're all gambling. It was always beforehand: who's going to win, what's the spread, that type of thing. But I guess things are different in the prediction markets.
Rusty says, "Before the war started by the axis of Epstein, we had 0% tax in the strait." Yeah, it's been quite a roller coaster. I don't know how many times we've declared victory over there.
Leisure Real Estate says, "Rob, I've heard Rincón is a great place to visit." It's okay. It's like a sleepy surfer town. I always think of it like that. Puerto Rico is great in and of itself — there are a lot of different places. I just like places where I can get Amazon delivered. I'm getting old. It's hard.
Someone wonders about my bet when I lost everything. Sorry, Rusty — I'm not laughing at you, but you could have just done the same thing with meme coins. Same result.
Any famous or infamous predictions for us today? Maybe Bitcoin 2030? No. But yesterday's video was pretty fun. Me and Jerry got to come on and give what I would call a conservative Bitcoin price prediction for 2029. We laid out the reasoning why. We said it's going to go between $150,000 and $170,000, based on all-time low to all-time high, all-time high to all-time high, different risk levels, and things like that. It was coming across the four-year cycle and the lack of volatility. I think people liked it.
The Price Prediction Accountability Website
The problem with price predictions is people just go crazy and whacked out. You get Jamie Dimon and Dan Peña screaming it's going to zero — we all know that's not going to happen. And then you've got Tim Draper and Tom Lee going, "No, no, no, it's going to go to this crazy number." I think there's somewhere in the middle, common ground, that people should get to. So the conservative was $150,000 to $170,000.
What I did was I bought a domain today. What I'm going to do is have Claude, my AI assistant, create a website which takes people's price predictions and puts them up there and immortalizes them — instead of people doing this thing I despise, which is going onto a social media platform, saying it's going to go to this number, and then just disappearing. "Oh, what happened to that price prediction? Oh, that wasn't me." Okay. Well, we're going to do this website. I'm going to start taking snapshots of people's accounts and we're going to put them up there and find out who has been way right and who has been way, way, way, way wrong.
I'm not going to go back in the past in a gotcha way, because there is a link in the description — it's called my crypto critical videos, numbers one through thirteen. Every single person in 2021 was wrong. Every single person. It wasn't even close. Watch that video. And don't forget, in 2025, every single person was wrong again. I think it gets people in trouble because they hear these price predictions and they're like, "Oh, that's it." And no one remembers. Well, I'm going to make sure people remember, because I'm going to put that website together.
What's great about it is you, the viewer, can go to the website, submit a price prediction as long as you have a link to the social media post. Claude will snapshot it and put it on the website, and off we go. And to be fair — because I'm not just going to put anybody and everybody up there — I am putting myself and my own price prediction up there, because you have to have accountability. There's no "I got you" type of thing. That's what I think. Am I going to be right? Probably not. No one's right. This is a very conservative prediction and I lay out why I did it.
Everyone's going on the list — every single person I know, every single person you know. Friends, people I don't know. It's all going to go on there and we'll see who's right.
Lessons from Celsius, Voyager, and Personal Rules
Leisure Real Estate is correct — 99% of coins are going to zero. Yeah, it's hard to find honesty in this industry. The people I come across are pretty straight shooters, quite honestly. I try to associate with the good ones and so far everybody's been pretty good. You just have to stand up. It's like when you're in the military — I was in the Army. You make a mistake, you call it a mistake, because if you don't call it, people die.
For me, I had a big problem — I had Steve Ehrlich on many times and promoted Voyager like crazy. That was going to go great. Didn't realize there was a $640 million uncollateralized loan to Three Arrows Capital, which was of course eventually revealed. As soon as that was revealed, I said, "Get the hell out." Celsius — I had Alex Mashinsky on the channel many times. That was my one-two punch. Didn't work out too well. Thankfully, I didn't get into the FTX situation.
But because of those guys — because of Voyager and Celsius — that's why we have the rules we have today. The rules are very simple. Don't invest more than you can afford to lose. You have to think to yourself: it's all gone. Whatever I'm putting in — if I'm going to put in $5 or $5 million — if you're okay with losing it and you're like, "I don't care," then you should be okay. But if you put in so much money and you start sweating, you probably bet too much.
The next rule: everything's a scam until proven otherwise. That came right from Celsius. Next: don't leave your assets on exchanges. That was because of Voyager and really FTX too. Don't use leverage. This is just something I believe, though I've evolved — I think a little 2x or 3x every so often is fine. It's like going to Vegas. Vegas won't kill you, but if you're going every day with only your shorts on, it could be bad. And then: take profits. Nobody ever went broke taking profits.
Terra Luna — I never really got into that. I bought some, but every time I saw that yield I thought, that's unsustainable. There were a lot of people who said it was the future of finance. I didn't understand what it was — an algorithmic stablecoin, something. I didn't see where they could get that kind of yield. I stayed away from it mostly. I bought some, sold it, sold it too early. Oh well.
Portfolio Talk and Final Thoughts
Leisure Real Estate says: Tesla, Nvidia — solid. Bitcoin, also solid. Solana, sure. AMD, Marvel, Google, Palantir, SpaceX. Looks like my portfolio just about. I have AMD. I have Google. Google, I think, is a sleeper for the whole AI space. I did a whole video on the second channel where I talk about AI and such, but we'll see how it goes.
Me and Jerry talk about Tesla every so often. He believes that everything will fold into Tesla — SpaceX, the Boring Company, xAI, Starlink — they'll all kind of come underneath the Tesla umbrella.
Everything is a VC pump and dump until proven otherwise. That's also a good rule. Pump and dumps are scams.
James — to be fair, I talked about Mashinsky. I had him on this channel and he lied to my face three or four times. That was true. I had Steve Ehrlich, the CEO of Voyager, on. He didn't lie to my face — he just neglected to tell me about that $640 million uncollateralized loan. That was on me. As far as MicroStrategy, that one worked out pretty well. The Terra Luna call — he's got to own that. That's just how it goes. And that's fair.
Yeah, I did say Solana normally — I slipped up. And someone says my computer crashed trying to log in. Meme, you're rich — you should get a nice new computer. Top of the line Apple Mac Pro. That would be it.
And Joey says, "Trump moves the market back and forward with every post. That's why I'm invested into TA — Trump Analysis." That's a good one.