Ray Dalio has fired a shot across the macro bow, arguing that the Federal Reserve’s latest balance-sheet guidance risks “stimulating into a bubble” rather than stabilizing a weakening economy—an inversion of the classic post-crisis QE playbook with potentially seismic implications for hard assets, including Bitcoin.

In a post titled “Stimulating Into a Bubble,” Dalio frames the Fed’s pivot—ending quantitative tightening and signaling that reserves will need to start growing again—as the next milestone in the late stage of the Big Debt Cycle. “Did you see that the Fed’s announcement that it will stop QT and begin QE?” he wrote, cautioning that, even if described as a technical maneuver, it is “an easing move… to track the progression of the Big Debt Cycle.”

If balance-sheet expansion coincides with rate cuts and persistent fiscal deficits, Dalio warns, markets will be staring at a “classic monetary and fiscal interaction of the Fed and the Treasury to monetize government debt.” He adds that, in such a setup—high equity prices, tight credit spreads, low unemployment, above-target inflation, and an AI-led mania—“it will look to me like the Fed is stimulating into a bubble.”

The policy context for Dalio’s warning is not imaginary. After months of tightening liquidity and ebbing bank reserves, the Fed has announced it will end balance-sheet runoff (QT). Chair Jerome Powell underscored that, within the ample-reserves framework, the central bank will at some point have to add reserves again: “At a certain point, you’ll want reserves to start gradually growing to keep up with the size of the banking system and the size of the economy. So we’ll be adding reserves at a certain point,” he said at his October 29 press conference.

Officials and many sell-side desks have emphasized that reserve management need not equal a return to crisis-era QE. The practical similarity: if the Fed is again a steady net buyer of Treasuries to maintain “ample” reserves as deficits persist, the market experience can rhyme with QE even without the label.

While Dalio spars Bitcoin from his post, the mechanics are familiar to Bitcoin investors. He argues that when central banks buy bonds and push real yields down, “what happens next depends on where the liquidity goes.” If it remains in financial assets, “multiples expand, risk spreads compress, and gold rises,” producing “financial asset inflation.”

If it seeps into goods and services, inflation rises and real returns can erode. Crucially for cross-asset allocation, Dalio frames relative returns explicitly: with gold yielding 0% and, say, a 10-year Treasury yielding ~4%, gold outperforms if its price appreciation is expected to exceed that rate, especially as inflation expectations rise and the currency’s purchasing power falls. In that environment, “the more money and credit central banks are making, the higher I expect the inflation rate to be, and the less I like bonds relative to gold.”

What This Means For Bitcoin

Commentators immediately translated those mechanics for Bitcoin. “Fed resumes QE → more liquidity → real interest rates fall,” wrote Coin Bureau CEO Nick Puckrin. “Falling real rates → bonds & cash become unattractive → money chases risk and hard assets… Inflation risk rises → investors hedge with gold, commodities, and digital stores of value.” He highlighted Dalio’s own language—“gold rises so there is financial asset inflation,” and QE “pushes real yields down and pushes P/E multiples up”—before concluding: “Bitcoin thrives in precisely that environment… it’s digital gold on steroids.”

Millionaire investor Thomas Kralow sharpened the timing risk embedded in Dalio’s framework: this would not be “stimulus into a depression” but “stimulus into a mania.” In his words, liquidity would “flood already overheated markets… stocks melt up, gold rips, and crypto… goes vertical,” with the usual risk-on sequence across the crypto complex. His caveat mirrors Dalio’s late-cycle caution: a liquidity melt-up now, then—on a longer horizon—re-acceleration in inflation, a forced policy reversal, and a violent bubble pop.

For Bitcoin, the near-term transmission is straightforward. Lower real yields and expanding liquidity historically coincide with stronger performance of long-duration, high-beta, and scarcity narratives; similar to 1999-style melt-ups and late-cycle surges in hard assets, including gold—and, by extension, BTC as a “digital gold” proxy.

But the medium-to-long-term tension is unresolved: if the same easing stokes renewed inflation pressure, the exit—the point at which policy must tighten into the bubble—becomes the regime break Dalio is flagging. Dalio’s bottom line is not a trading signal but a regime warning. “Whether this becomes a full and classic stimulative QE (with big net purchases) remains to be seen,” he writes. If the Fed is indeed easing into a bubble, Bitcoin may benefit on the way up—but that path, by Dalio’s own schema, ends with impact.

At press time, Bitcoin traded at $99,717.

XRP is holding firm on the weekly time frame despite the latest market-wide drawdown, according to an Elliott Wave roadmap shared by crypto technician Hov (@HovWaves).

On Hov’s Bitstamp-based 1W chart, the current candle sits near $2.22 with three days and several hours left to close, and the structure remains nested inside a higher-time-frame impulse that he counts as wave iii completed, wave iv in progress, and a prospective wave v aiming materially higher.

Is The XRP Bottom In?

The key reference band for pullbacks is defined by Fibonacci retracements measured from the latest vertical advance. Hov plots the 0.236 retracement at $2.094, the 0.382 at $1.548, the 0.5 at $1.213, and the 0.618 at $0.950.

The price has broken down to the 0.236 neighborhood, probing a turquoise demand box that overlaps the 0.382 ($1.548) on the lower edge. That zone also contains the October 10 liquidity event wick he highlights around $1.58. In his accompanying note, Hov stresses that the last rise from that low has only formed three waves to date, leaving room for “one more small low on the micro before it’s all said and done,” while adding, “I don’t think it takes out the 1.58 low” and that, because of the wick, “we’re likely to see a truncation on this move.”

The upside map hinges on two resistance landmarks. First is a boxed supply region overhead that caps out just below a labeled swing marker at “0 (3.41159),” effectively framing $3.41 as the final pivot from the prior leg. More important for confirmation, Hov marks “HTF close above $2.94 is the key.” That $2.94 weekly close is his validation level that would reassert the impulsive trend and unlock a measured extension to his first target.

That target is explicit on the chart: the next leg’s objective aligns with the −0.236 extension printed at $5.558. A curved projection path from the current area arcs through the retracement box and then accelerates vertically toward the target, annotated with a circled “V” at the terminal portion of the move and a higher-degree “3” on the scale, consistent with an impulse termination at or near the extension.

Context from the left side of the chart shows how structurally important the base has been. A broad turquoise accumulation band anchored around the $0.43 handle (labeled “1 (0.43128)”) held price throughout 2023–2024, preceding the breakout that staged the current impulse.

Above that, a second, higher turquoise band spans the 2021 reaction zone and now acts as the battleground for the present consolidation beneath $3.41. A visible-range profile overlay inside the consolidation rectangle shows the heaviest traded activity toward the left ridge of the range, underscoring why weekly closes above $2.94 would be decisive.

Hov’s bottom line on X mirrors the chart. “XRP holding up exceptionally well on this market wide sell off,” he wrote, noting the coin remains “still up 40% off our level (threaded).” While he allows for a final marginal low—without undercutting $1.58—his roadmap retains a “first target” near $5.5, with the caveat that a “HTF close above $2.94 is the key.”

At press time, XRP traded at $2.18.

A widely followed macro roadmap circulating on X early Friday, November 7, sets an explicit sequence of policy and market triggers that could define crypto’s trajectory into December—and frame positioning into 2026. The thread, posted by macro analyst Alex Krüger is unambiguous about the immediate constraint: “cautious stance until [the government shutdown is] resolved.” It is equally explicit about the upside if Washington finds a path forward, calling the shutdown’s resolution “bullish” for risk assets and saying for bitcoin to “Expect BTC +5% or more within 48 hours of deal.”

The near-term hinge, in other words, is binary. A shutdown that lingers keeps risk pared back; a deal, by contrast, opens the door to what the thread characterizes as a quick relief move. The author’s base case on timing—“estimated to be resolved sometime between the end of next week and Thanksgiving”—extends that window into the back half of November. That framing matters for crypto because the same roadmap argues the December calendar is stacked with policy and flow headwinds that could complicate any rally that begins late this month.

Crypto Outlook For Year-End Of 2025

At the center of December sits the Federal Open Market Committee. The thread presently tags the December 10 FOMC outcome “hawkish,” explaining that “most Fed officials favor a pause as of now, which is not priced in at the moment,” while also acknowledging that “officials may change their stance on rates as economic data comes in and the month progresses.” The nuance is important: the policy signal, as currently envisioned, is tighter than markets are discounting, yet the sign itself could be revised as data crystallizes—if it arrives at all.

That caveat leads into a second unusual feature of this year-end: a potential data vacuum due to the ongoing US government shutdown. “Omitted all upcoming economic data releases from the list due to uncertainty on release dates,” the thread notes, citing the shutdown’s impact on statistical agencies. It adds, “Will likely see no official economic data in November, and data resuming in December, with payrolls (jobs) on Dec//5 (a crucial data point for the FOMC decision).” An extended blackout followed by a compressed burst of releases would increase event risk around any single print, especially nonfarm payrolls, and could amplify volatility across risk assets, crypto included.

A separate political appointment may intersect with the December meeting as well. The roadmap flags the “New Fed Chair nomination,” “estimated to be announced before the next FOMC, to influence the FOMC decision (it could also be soon after); bullish to very bullish.” Even if the timing slips to just after the meeting, the signaling effect around leadership and policy reaction functions would, in this framework, skew supportive for risk.

Tax-based flows complicate that picture for crypto assets specifically. The thread characterizes “Tax loss selling (crypto only)” as “bearish; all December, mainly last two weeks,” reasoning that crypto’s relative underperformance versus equities this year leaves room for harvesting that is “of particular importance given relative stocks-crypto performance.”

Seasonal pressure late in the month would be consistent with prior years in which crypto saw localized December-to-January pivots as selling abated and re-risking emerged with the calendar reset.

Another macro wildcard sits outside monetary policy. The author highlights the “Supreme Court’s decision on Tariffs: most likely sometime in December, otherwise January, timing fluid,” and frames market odds as pointing to a ruling “against Trump, which would be extremely bullish IMO, although some argue such a ruling would be bearish.” The point is less about a one-way trade and more about the breadth of plausible paths: depending on the ruling and how forward-looking positioning is into the event, crypto could either extend a policy-led risk-on move or face a whipsaw if the outcome collides with consensus.

Beyond 2025’s final weeks, the roadmap sketches a decidedly constructive macro backdrop next year, at least at the start. “2026: very bullish first half of the year, driven by accommodative fiscal and monetary policies.” For crypto, that forward anchor matters because it underwrites the notion that any December drawdowns from tax effects or a hawkish-leaning FOMC could be transient if the policy impulse turns easier into 2026.

Tactically, the thread even proposes a short-term trade expression around the shutdown endgame: “For BTC, I think you can probably sell a spike into the shutdown resolution around $108k-$109k (~20 DMA) then enjoy a king’s holiday and come back in by year end.”

At press time, the total crypto market stood at $3.36 trillion.

A day after another billion-dollar liquidation cascade, veteran crypto analyst Trader Mayne says his core thesis is unchanged: the bull cycle’s top is “not in,” and the market is in the process of printing a weekly cycle low that could set up one more leg higher into year-end. “I’ve been banging on the drum about the high not being in,” he said in a November 5 video, adding that he remains “a BTC maxi from the spot perspective,” despite tactical longs and shorts that have been hit-and-miss during the recent volatility.

Is The Bitcoin Bottom In?

Mayne framed the selloff—coming less than a month after an almost $20 billion wipeout on October 10—as a feature, not a bug, of late-cycle price discovery. He argued that speculative leverage rapidly re-accumulated in altcoins and that majors still offer sufficient volatility with clearer structure. “People were right back on with the leverage… You really can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” he said, while emphasizing he now “primarily focus[es] on the majors” and holds a core spot stack he hasn’t sold.

His near-term timing anchor is cycle theory. Drawing on the four-year template popularized by Bob Loukas, Mayne said he expects the broader crypto top to land between late 2025 and early 2026, but he stressed the immediate setup is about nailing a weekly low within a narrow window that “extends until about mid next week, November 10.”

He wants to see “time and space away from this low” and a reclaim of the monthly open around $110,000–$112,000 to confirm that the decline has been exhausted. If that structure forms, he intends to treat $98,000 as the operative bull-market invalidation on a weekly-closing basis: “That will confirm to me that this is our bull market invalidation… at least in the worst case you have a cut point at like $100k Bitcoin.”

Mayne supplemented the timing view with a cross-asset read that he says has been reliable in prior impulses: gold tends to rally first, with Bitcoin following “about 60 to 90 days later.” He cited chart work showing gold’s advance now roughly 80–90 days old, which, if the relationship holds, would “line up very well with Bitcoin being ready to make its next move.” He also expects the BTC-versus-gold cross to bounce, implying outperformance of Bitcoin over the precious metal through year-end: “I’m pretty confident this chart is due for a big bounce and we’re going to see gold underperform Bitcoin for the remainder of the year.”

A more subjective—but, in his telling, telling—input is the absence of a true “blow-off” in Bitcoin versus the vertical arcs seen in AI-heavy equities and gold. With megacaps like Nvidia running hard since the spring and gold printing a sharp leg higher, he argued that “it just doesn’t sit right… that Bitcoin hasn’t had [its blow-off],” suggesting latent upside energy remains to be released if the weekly low locks in.

On market microstructure and seasonality, Mayne pointed to early-month dynamics. In many green months, he said, the low forms in the first third of the month, analogous to how Monday’s range often frames the week for intraday traders. If November is destined to close higher, an early-month low coupled with a monthly-open reclaim would be consistent with his cycle read. “If we’re bullish for November… I want to be a bull above the monthly open,” he said.

The scenario analysis was not one-sided. Mayne repeatedly acknowledged bear signals that have emerged on higher timeframes, including a weekly structure break, prior sweeps on the weekly and monthly, and building momentum divergences.

He warned of the possibility that the recent range resolves as distribution—“maybe the banks literally came in… and they’ve just been distributing on us here”—and laid out a lower-high path in which a rally fizzles beneath or just above the prior peak before breaking down. “There’s a world where we make an all-time high, but it’s just a weak one… you’re going to have the biggest bear div of all bear divs up here,” he said, cautioning that a marginal new high followed by a swift rejection would flip his posture.

In the medium-term, he remains open to two competing macro arcs. In the base case, the classic four-year rhythm holds, the late-2025 window marks the cycle top, and 2026 skews bearish, though he expects drawdowns on Bitcoin to be “truncated” relative to prior 80% collapses given deeper institutional participation.

In the alternative, the market “right-translates”—an atypical extension in which a new all-time high could print as late as Q1 2026—forcing a reassessment of the four-year template. Either way, he said, his plan is to sell strength on the next leg and reassess if the market presents higher-low continuation after a new high: “If the market appears to still be bullish, guess what? I can get back on the bull train.”

Mayne also flagged the US dollar as a 2026 risk pivot, arguing the DXY is carving a “serious low” on multi-month and yearly structures that could precede a “deflationary rally.” While not a one-to-one driver, he said a strong dollar tends to pressure crypto and other risk assets. That macro overlay, combined with what he views as froth in AI-linked equities, underpins his caution beyond the next advance.

At press time, Bitcoin traded at $103,412.

Crypto analyst VisionPulsed says Dogecoin’s window for a cycle-defining advance has narrowed to weeks, arguing that a failure to pivot higher in November would likely end the current bull-side setup and shift the conversation to downside risk in 2026.

In a late-November 5 video, the analyst framed Bitcoin’s weekly moving average as the near-term arbiter of trend and, by extension, Dogecoin’s fate: “By the end of the week, we need to see Bitcoin back over $103,000–$104,000. If that ends up happening, then you could start pushing the idea… we could start talking about a Dogecoin rally. If we close below $102k, 100k even, that’s your first confirmation that it is actually a bear market.

Dogecoin Needs Immediate Reversal

VisionPulsed anchored the Dogecoin outlook to a broader read on market structure and cross-asset momentum. He noted that when mapping the “top-10 dominance” basket ex-stablecoins, the market has “fully retraced the alt season from 2021.” Hitting the upper band of that multi-year channel “doesn’t mean it’s the top,” he cautioned, but it reinforces how mature the advance has become. The analyst emphasized that he is not declaring the start of altseason based on this single indicator; rather, he is situating Dogecoin risk in a market that has already re-tested a critical historical boundary.

The immediate gating factor, he said, remains Bitcoin’s weekly moving average and a cluster of corroborating signals. “All eyes are still on $103,000,” VisionPulsed said, pointing to a supertrend read that, so far, mirrors a March episode when price briefly broke below but never closed under it, avoiding a formal sell trigger. He contrasted that with 2021, when confirmed closes below the same tool delivered unambiguous sell signals.

The distinction matters because Dogecoin’s high-beta behavior to Bitcoin tends to compress timelines for both rallies and retracements, and any decisive break and close beneath the moving average would erase the already tight window for a Dogecoin impulse.

Momentum, in the analyst’s framing, is “so bearish that it’s screaming the end of the market cycle is near,” even though the monthly MACD has not crossed down yet. That lag on higher-timeframe oscillators leaves room for a “very little rally,” which in previous cycles still permitted outsized alt moves.

“In this bull market… every time we’ve bounced off the moving average, we’ve broken the prior high,” he said, making the conditional case that if the trend holds and Bitcoin reclaims the level into the weekly close, a final Dogecoin push remains possible. But he refused to extend the timeline beyond the near term: “I would argue that if we don’t actually go back up in November, it’s probably not happening.”

The calendar overlay is doing heavy lifting. VisionPulsed explored a scenario in which Dogecoin could peak in January, but stressed the math now strains credibility unless upside starts immediately. “Eighty-one days from now would be January… it’s starting to get to the point where it’s almost unachievable because you don’t want to keep stretching this out to January, February, March. At some point, you have to say it’s not happening.” The refusal to “move the goalposts” defines his base case: the bull thesis survives only if November prints a directional turn.

From a pattern perspective, he flagged a head-and-shoulders-like structure on Dogecoin and introduced a vivid downside marker he has used in prior updates. “That’s why this little pig is down here,” he said, referring to a graphic that labels a potential capitulation zone around $0.05 to $0.06.

If Bitcoin loses the weekly moving average and confirms the breakdown with a close, “the pig only is in play once Bitcoin is below that moving average,” and Dogecoin’s primary target would revert to “five to six cents.” On the Bitcoin side, he framed a bear-market base case of 40,000–50,000 on the assumption that both upside and downside retracements are shrinking versus prior cycles, implying “not 77%… you’d probably get 65% to 70%,” which would align with a mid-40k trough.

For Dogecoin specifically, he drew a clean decision tree. If Bitcoin reclaims $103,000–$104,000 into the weekly close and confirms above the moving average, the Dogecoin rally window reopens, with a shot at a late-Q4 to January run. If Bitcoin closes below roughly $102,000 and sustains weakness, “it’s bear market time,” Dogecoin likely gravitates to the “pig at 5 cents,” and “it might even break the pig honestly” depending on the severity of Bitcoin’s drawdown.

At press time, DOGE traded at $0.16297.

Galaxy Digital has cut its 2025 year-end Bitcoin target to $120,000 from $185,000 in a new research alert circulated on November 5 and shared via screenshots on X by Alex Thorn, the firm’s head of firmwide research. In the note titled “Bitcoin Outlook Update: Lowering 2025 YE Target to $120,000,” Thorn situates the downgrade squarely in the context of a “major, multi-week selloff,” writing that “Bitcoin is trading below $100k for the first time since late June, with other cryptos faring worse.”

Thorn stresses that the shift is cyclical rather than existential, stating plainly: “While bitcoin’s structural investment case remains strong, cyclical dynamics have evolved.” The firm frames the current backdrop as a decisive turn in market microstructure: “Bitcoin has entered a new phase – what we call the ‘maturity era’ – in which institutional absorption, passive flows, and lower volatility dominate.”

That regime change helps explain both the tempered year-end target and the altered cadence of price discovery that Galaxy now expects. As Thorn puts it, “If bitcoin can maintain the ~$100k level, we believe the almost three-year bull market will remain structurally intact, though the pace of future gains may be slower.” Short-term optimism is not abandoned: “Still, we think nearing prior all-time highs before year-end is a reasonable target for short-term bulls.”

Reasons For The Bitcoin Downgrade

The downgrade aggregates several identifiable drags, beginning with distribution patterns across the holder base and the market’s capacity to absorb them. Galaxy writes: “Significant coin transfers from old holders to ETFs and new institutional buyers signal maturity, not weakness, but have presented headwinds.” This redistribution—whales handing supply to passive and institutional channels—may strengthen long-term ownership but has, in Galaxy’s telling, blunted near-term momentum.

Positioning and leverage are the second leg of the argument. Thorn flags the “significant leverage wipeout from Oct. 10” and adds that it “continues to dent market liquidity and confidence.” The October flush sits at the center of Galaxy’s cyclical reassessment: forced de-risking weakened order-book depth just as large-holder distribution accelerated, leaving price vulnerable into the latest drawdown.

A third component is the rotation of capital and narrative attention into other trades. Galaxy is explicit that “Bitcoin started the year as the hottest investment narrative, but AI, hyperscalers, gold, and the Magnificent 7 have absorbed capital and attention that might otherwise flow into BTC.”

That diversion extends into crypto-adjacent plumbing as well: “Rapid stablecoin growth has redirected venture and equity interest into fintech and payments infrastructure.” The net effect, according to the note, has been a drag on incremental demand for direct BTC exposure and a tougher funding environment for pure-play Bitcoin vehicles.

Retail participation, which defined prior peaks, is notably absent at sustained scale, and when it surfaces it tends to be flighty. Thorn writes: “Retail never fully returned at scale post-2021; when it did, the memecoin mania fostered short-termism that is not conducive to understanding and adopting bitcoin’s long-term value proposition.” Without sustained retail sponsorship, Galaxy expects ETF and institutional flows to “define BTCUSD behavior,” adding that “Passive Flows Dominate… lowering volatility and moderating cycles.” This, again, is part of the “maturity era” thesis rather than a repudiation of Bitcoin’s core investment case.

Policy timing features as a missing catalyst rather than a negative shock. The note observes that “Despite positive rhetoric, no government bitcoin purchases have been announced. In general, the US government has been very quiet on the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SBR).” Galaxy does not ascribe immediate downside to the absence, but it removes a bullish tail event that some investors had hoped would materialize this year.

Corporate treasuries and listed “Bitcoin-as-reserve” plays also receive a recalibration. Galaxy argues that the next iteration will demand business fundamentals rather than balance-sheet optics alone: “BTCTC Phase 2: The next wave of bitcoin treasury companies will mostly need revenue generation and operating businesses beyond reserve accumulation to differentiate themselves and thrive.” The firm also points to “poor performance of BTC treasury companies” as part of the year’s defining headwinds.

Taken together, the factors map to a post-$100k market defined less by reflexive retail surges and more by methodical institutional accumulation. Galaxy calls it the “Post-$100k Regime,” in which “Bitcoin’s ascendance above six figures earlier this year marked the transition from early-era speculation to mature, institutionalized markets.”

The conclusion threads the needle between structural conviction and cyclical prudence: “As a result of this market performance, and other factors, we are revising our 2025 year-end bullish bitcoin target from $185,000 to $120,000.”

At press time, BTC traded at $103,093.

The question dominating crypto desks this week is whether the cycle is intact, and when the bull run will return. Two widely followed macro commentators sketched the same causal chain from public-sector cash management to crypto asset beta, arguing that the current drawdown is a liquidity story first and a sentiment story second—and that its reversal hinges on the mechanics of the US Treasury General Account (TGA), Federal Reserve balance-sheet policy, and the timing of Washington’s reopening.

Crypto Market Awaits US Government Shutdown Resolution

Macro analyst @plur_daddy on X summarizes the current state bluntly: “We are seeing the contraction in liquidity flowing through into risk markets. Naturally it first showed up in BTC and market internals within equities, and now is finally hitting the broader indices.” He describes a textbook quality rotation underway—speculative thematics “such as quantum, nuclear, drones, and alt energy have been getting destroyed,” while flows consolidate into the megacap cohort and earnings-backed momentum, notably the AI capex complex.

The underlying plumbing, in his reading, is starved of bank reserves as cash piles into the TGA and quantitative tightening (QT) continues to shrink the Fed’s balance sheet. “Monetary liquidity is drawing down as the TGA has become overfilled beyond the Treasury Dept’s $850bn cap, due to mechanical factors around higher issuance, timing of specific payments, and the government shutdown. There is a broader lack of bank reserves which continues to fall below the key $3trn threshold.” His conclusion is conditional but clear: these stresses “will precipitate actions to calm market plumbing but it will take time.”

On the dollar and cross-asset risk, he points to a crucial level: “The DXY has been rallying and is now approaching a key level at 101, which would be a logical point for it to top. I continue to believe the Trump administration wants a lower dollar.” The path to a crypto bottom, in his cadence, is explicitly tied to policy milestones: “The government reopening provides a clear catalyst to mark the bottom in liquidity conditions. Then, we get QT unwinding Dec 1 and then potentially more Fed actions (such as hints on bills repurchases) on Dec 10. The fiscal deficit will expand significantly starting Jan 1 as the OBBBA will fully kick in.”

He characterizes Bitcoin’s behavior as resilient—“BTC has held in well despite tremendous OG selling, the aftermath of 10/10, and the factors above”—and describes his own playbook accordingly: “I currently have a sizable cash position and plan to aggressively add equities (especially the memory trade) and BTC once the government reopening looks imminent.” Hours later he added, “Bought some BTC. Seeing progress being made towards government reopening and signs that liquidity headwinds have peaked. Risk/reward here is strong with sentiment bombed out.”

When The Liquidity Returns

Raoul Pal, whose framework centers almost entirely on the global liquidity cycle, pushes the same thesis to its logical macro conclusion. “If global liquidity is the single most dominant macro factor then we MUST focus on that,” he writes, before distilling the next year of market structure into a single constraint: “REMEMBER — THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN IS ROLLING $10TRN IN DEBT. EVERYTHING ELSE IS A SIDESHOW. THIS IS THE GAME OF THE NEXT 12 MONTHS.”

In Pal’s telling, the shutdown’s effect is immediate and mechanical—“the gov shutdown has forced a sharp tightening of liquidity as the TGA builds up with no where to spend it. This is not offset by the ability to drain the Reverse Repo (it is drained). And QT drains it further”—and crypto, as the highest-beta liquidity asset, takes the brunt.

The pivot, he argues, is likewise mechanical once fiscal operations restart: “As soon as the gov shutdown ends, the Treasury begins spending $250bn to $350bn in a couple of months. QT ends and the balance sheet technically expands. The Dollar will likely begin to weaken again as liquidity begins to flow.”

He layers on prospective policy and regulatory catalysts—“SLR changes free up more of the banks balance sheets allowing for credit expansion. The CLARITY Act will get passed, giving the crypto regs so desperately needed for large scale adoption by banks, asset managers and businesses overall. The Big Beautiful Bill then kicks in to goose the economy into the midterms”—and frames the global backdrop as additive, with China’s balance-sheet expansion and Japan’s policy mix supporting a broader risk rally.

His tactical advice is to accept bull-market volatility without over-reacting: “Always remember the Dont Fuck This Up rules… and wait out the volatility. Drawdowns like this are common place in bull markets and their job is to test your faith. BTFD if you can.” The punchline comes down to a single indicator within his dashboard: “td:dr — When this number goes up, all numbers go up.”

The through-line across both perspectives is the primacy of dollar liquidity—specifically, the interaction of Treasury cash balances, Fed asset purchases or run-off, and the available stock of bank reserves after the Reverse Repo Program has largely normalized. When the TGA rises without offset, it functions as a suction pump on aggregate reserves; when it falls as the Treasury spends, reserves rebuild, the marginal cost of leverage eases, and high-beta assets—crypto first—tend to outperform.

Where does that leave the timing question implied by every red candle on crypto Twitter? Neither source offers a date, but both tether the next leg higher to the same sequence: a resolution in Washington that flips the TGA from hoarding to spending, visible easing in reserve scarcity as QT pauses or is unwound, a swerve lower in the dollar from resistance, and renewed fiscal impulse that re-steepens the growth impulse into 2026.

At press time, the total crypto market cap stood at $3.38 trillion.

XRP’s latest downswing has dragged price into a cluster of long-term volume and mean-reversion levels, with one prominent market technician flagging Korea as the epicenter of near-term spot selling.

XRP Faces Crucial Support

In charts shared over the past 24 hours, trader Dom (@traderview2) said XRP has “reached the 12M rVWAP for the first time this year,” adding that it “really isn’t a level we want to be trading under for awhile.” He warned that if bulls lose that 12-month rolling VWAP, “we are looking at the range low of $2 as the next area of interest,” whereas a swift recovery would require “$2.50 [to] regain to get out of danger area.”

Dom also pointed to order-book composition: “Spot orderbooks are skewed towards bids right now which is positive, but snapping the local low will likely send us back to $2 where the rest of the bids sit.”

Dom’s VWAP-suite chart places spot price pressing directly into the 12-month rolling VWAP ribbon after failing to sustain above the prior distribution shelf, a configuration that often separates trending from mean-reverting phases. Testing this line for the first time this year is notable because multi-month rVWAPs act as dynamic fair-value proxies; sustained closes below them historically coincide with further probing of high-volume nodes beneath.

Korea Dictates The XRP Price Move Once Again

The geographic concentration of selling has amplified the risk of a deeper tag of that range. Dom said the bulk of the spot pressure was exchange-specific: “They do NOT look happy over there in Korean… 84% of all the spot sell pressure over the last 2 days has came from Upbit.”

A cumulative volume delta (CVD) breakdown by exchange corroborates the outsized role of the Korean venue, with Upbit’s CVD line deeply negative while Binance, Coinbase, Bybit, OKX, Kraken and Bitstamp hover comparatively flat near the zero line. In practical terms, that mix indicates real-coin distribution flowed predominantly through the KRW corridor even as other USD- and USDT-based venues showed less aggressive net selling.

A separate high-timeframe chart from IncomeSharks frames the downside magnet with simple clarity. The analyst posted a daily XRP/USD view with a broad demand zone centered just under $2.00 and commented: “XRP — If you missed it under $2 you’ll probably have a chance to bid it again.”

The chart highlights how the late-summer impulse failed to retake overhead resistance and how subsequent lower highs left a clean air pocket toward the December–March value area that begins around the psychologically dense $2.00 handle. The analyst expects a retracement as low as $1.80-$1.70 if the psychological important $2 mark doesn’t hold.

At press time, XRP traded at $2.21.

Bitcoin endured one of its sharpest selloffs of the year on Tuesday, knifing below the six-figure threshold and printing lows around the $99,000 area on major composites before rebounding. At press time, bitcoin (BTC) hovered near $101,700 after an intraday trough just above $99,000 on widely used benchmarks, marking a fall of roughly 6% day-over-day and the lowest print since June.

The slide came as US equities limped into mid-week, with the Nasdaq up 20.9% year-to-date and the S&P 500 up 15.1% as of Tuesday’s close—gains that underscore how much bitcoin has lagged other risk assets during long stretches of 2025. That divergence, together with a growing body of ETF-flow data showing several straight sessions of net outflows from US spot bitcoin funds into early November, provided the macro backdrop for a fragile crypto tape. Independent tallies from Farside/SoSoValue and multiple outlets point to a roughly $1.3–$1.4 billion cumulative bleed over four trading days into November 3–4, led by BlackRock’s IBIT.

Why Is Bitcoin Price Down?

Into that context, Joe Consorti—Head of Growth at Horizon (Theya, YC)—argues the selloff is less a loss of conviction than a structural handoff of supply. In a video analysis posted late November 4 US time, he framed the day’s move as “one of its roughest days of the year, down more than 6 percent, falling to $99,000 for the first time since June,” adding that while equities would call that “the start of a bear market… for Bitcoin, though, this is typical of a bull market drawdown.” He noted that “we’ve already weathered two separate 30 percent drawdowns during this bull run,” and characterized the present action as “a transfer of Bitcoin’s ownership base from the old guard to the new guard.”

Consorti anchored his thesis to a now-viral framework from macro investor Jordi Visser: bitcoin’s “silent IPO.” In Visser’s Substack essay—shared widely since the weekend—he posits that 2025’s rangebound price belies an orderly, IPO-like distribution as early-era holders access the deepest liquidity the asset has ever had through ETFs, institutional custodians and corporate balance sheets.

“Early-stage investors… need liquidity. They need an exit. They need to diversify,” Visser wrote, arguing that methodical selling “results [in] a sideways grind that drives everyone crazy.” Consorti adopted the frame bluntly: “This isn’t panic selling, it’s the natural evolution of an asset that’s reached maturity… a transfer of ownership from concentrated hands to distributed ones.”

Evidence for that churn has been visible on-chain. Multiple instances of Satoshi-era wallets and miner addresses reanimating this quarter—some after 14 years—have been documented, including July’s duo of 10,000-BTC wallets and late-October movement from a 4,000-BTC miner address. While not dispositive that coins are being market-sold, the pattern is consistent with supply redistributing from early concentrates to broader, regulated channels.

Technically, Consorti cast the drop as part of “digestion,” not exhaustion. “The RSI tells us Bitcoin is at its most oversold level since April, when the last leg of the bull run began. Every drawdown this cycle, 30%, 35%, and now 20%, has built support rather than destroyed it.” He added a key conditional: “If we spend too much time below $100,000, that could suggest the distribution isn’t done… perhaps we’re in for a bull-market reversal into a bear market.”

Macro, however, is intruding. The Federal Reserve cut rates by 25 bps on October 29 to a 3.75%–4.00% target range, but Chair Jerome Powell carefully pushed back on the idea of an automatic December cut, citing “strongly differing views” inside the FOMC and a “data fog” from the ongoing government shutdown. Markets promptly tempered their odds for further near-term easing. Consorti’s warning that bitcoin “is extremely correlated” to risk-asset drawdowns therefore looms large: if equities lurch meaningfully lower or funding stress reappears, crypto will feel it.

If Visser’s “silent IPO” is right, ETFs are both symptom and salve. They have delivered the two-sided depth to absorb legacy supply but also introduced a new, faster-moving cohort whose redemptions can amplify downdrafts. That dynamic showed up again this week in the four-day string of net outflows concentrated in IBIT, even as longer-term assets under management remain enormous by historical standards.

Consorti’s conclusion was starkly patient, not euphoric. “For every seller looking to liquidate their position, there’s a new participant stepping in for the long haul… It’s slow, it’s uneven, and it’s psychologically draining, but once it’s finished, it unlocks the next leg higher. Because the marginal seller is gone, and what’s left is a base of holders who don’t need to sell.”

Whether Tuesday’s pierce of the six-figure floor proves the climactic flush—or merely another chapter in a months-long ownership transfer—will hinge on how quickly price reclaims and bases above $100,000, how ETF flows stabilize, and whether the Fed’s path from here restores risk appetite or starves it. For now, the most important story in bitcoin may be happening under the surface, not on the chart.

At press time, BTC traded at $101,865.

Arthur Hayes argues that the next leg of the crypto cycle will be driven not by a headline pivot to quantitative easing, but by a “stealth” version executed through the Federal Reserve’s Standing Repo Facility (SRF). In a new essay titled “Hallelujah” published on November 4, 2025, the former BitMEX CEO lays out a balance-sheet-driven case that persistent US fiscal deficits, hedge-fund demand for Treasuries financed via repo, and the Fed’s need to cap funding stress will translate into incremental dollar liquidity that ultimately “pumps the price of Bitcoin and other cryptos.” As he frames the core mechanism: “Government issued debt grows the money supply.”

Hayes’ logic chain begins with an observation on political incentives and the arithmetic of public finance. Governments can fund spending with “savings or debt,” and in his view elected officials “will always favor borrowing from the future to get re-elected in the present.” For the United States, he contends that the trajectory is already set: “Here are the estimates from the TBTF banksters, and a few US government agencies. As you can see, the estimates are for ~$2 trillion deficits funded by ~$2 trillion of borrowing.” In his model, once one accepts that “Yearly Federal Deficit = Yearly Treasury Debt Issuance Amount,” the next critical question is who actually buys that debt, and on what financing.

Fed’s Stealth QE Will “Pump Crypto”

He dismisses foreign central banks as dependable marginal buyers after the US sanctioned and immobilized Russian reserves in 2022. “If Pax Americana is willing to steal Russia’s money… then no foreign owner of treasuries is ever safe,” he writes, concluding reserve managers “would rather buy gold than treasuries.” He likewise downplays the capacity of the US household sector given that “the 2024 personal savings rate was 4.6%” while “the US federal deficit was 6% of GDP,” and he argues the largest US money-center banks have increased their Treasury holdings by only “~$300 billion” in fiscal 2025 against issuance of “$1,992 billion,” making them meaningful but not decisive.

Instead, Hayes positions relative-value hedge funds—particularly those booking positions via Cayman vehicles—as the marginal, price-setting bid for US duration. Citing a recent Federal Reserve study, he quotes: “Cayman Islands hedge funds purchased, on net, $1.2 trillion of Treasury securities… [between] January 2022 and December 2024… [and] absorbed 37% of net issuance of notes and bonds.” The trade architecture is straightforward: “Buy a cash treasury debt security vs. sell the corresponding treasury futures contract,” then lever the tiny basis through repo funding. Because the edge is “measured in basis points,” the trade only works if leverage is cheap and predictable every day.

That funnel leads directly to the SRF. Hayes lays out the Fed’s short-rate corridor—“Upper and Lower Fed Funds; currently these equal 4.00% and 3.75% respectively”—and the policy plumbing that keeps market rates inside it: the Reverse Repo Facility (RRP) at the lower bound for money-market funds (MMFs) and banks, interest on reserve balances (IORB) for banks in the middle, and the SRF at the upper bound as the emergency spigot.

Lower Fed Funds = RRP < IORB < SRF = Upper Fed Funds,” he summarizes, adding that the target, SOFR, normally oscillates inside the band. Stress occurs “when SOFR trades above the Upper Fed Funds,” which he calls “a problem” because “the filthy fiat financial system shuts down” once participants can’t roll overnight leverage at a stable rate.

In his telling, the cash supply that cushions SOFR is structurally thinner than it was when the Fed began quantitative tightening in early 2022. MMFs, he says, have drained the RRP to zero because “the T-bill rate is so attractive,” making them less available as repo cash providers. That leaves banks, who will supply liquidity so long as they have ample reserves, but “banks lost trillions in reserves since the Fed began QT.”

Set against that diminished supply of cash is relentless demand for repo financing from RV funds, whose “marginal” Treasury purchases must be levered. If SOFR threatens to pierce the ceiling and repo becomes unreliable, the Fed’s SRF must backstop the system to prevent a funding accident. “Because a similar situation occurred in 2019, the Fed created the SRF,” Hayes writes. “The Fed can supply an infinite amount of cash using its printing press at SRF as long as one provides an acceptable form of collateral.” His conclusion is blunt: “If the SRF balances are above zero, then we know the Fed is cashing the checks of the politicians using printed money.”

Hayes labels this dynamic “Stealth QE.” He argues the optics of outright balance-sheet expansion via asset purchases are now politically toxic—“QE is a dirty word… QE = money printing = inflation”—so the central bank will prefer to meet marginal dollar demand via SRF lending rather than by visibly creating excess reserves.

What This Means For The Crypto Market

The result is functionally similar from a liquidity standpoint, in his view: repo credit distributed by the Fed against Treasuries still increases spendable dollars in the system to finance government borrowing. “This will buy some time, but eventually the exponential expansion of treasury debt issuance will force the repeated use of the SRF,” he writes. “Stealth QE will begin shortly. I don’t know when it will begin. But… the SRF balance must grow as the lender of last resort. As SRF balances grow, the amount of fiat dollars in the world expands as well. This phenomenon will reignite the Bitcoin bull market.”

He also sketches a near-term tactical backdrop that helps explain recent market tone across crypto. While auctions are pulling cash into the Treasury General Account, he notes, fiscal spending has been temporarily impeded by the government shutdown, producing a net drain in private-sector liquidity.

“The Treasury General Account is above the $850 billion target by ~$150bn,” he writes, arguing that this “extra liquidity won’t get released into the markets until the government reopens,” contributing to “current softness in the crypto markets.” In other words, the same fiscal engine that ultimately forces the Fed’s hand via the SRF can, in the very short run, sap liquidity when issuance front-runs outlays.

Hayes’ rhetoric remains intentionally sharp. He describes Treasuries as “dog shit” at prevailing real yields, calls the buy-side “debt shit eaters,” and opens with a hymn to Bitcoin’s monetary properties—“Praise be to Lord Satoshi that time and compounding interest exist regardless of who you are.” The provocation serves the point: if the marginal financing of US deficits increasingly relies on opaque backstops rather than transparent reserve creation, then crypto’s native, non-sovereign liquidity cycles will key off the same hidden plumbing. He distills the investment upshot in a single sentence: “Treasury Debt Amount Issued = Increase in Supply of Dollars.”

The essay is not a calendar call. Hayes refuses to timestamp the inflection—“I don’t know when it will begin”—and he warns that “between now and when stealth QE begins, one has to husband capital. Expect a choppy market,” especially with shutdown dynamics distorting flows.

But he is unequivocal on direction once SRF usage becomes persistent: “Stealth QE will begin shortly… [and] will reignite the Bitcoin bull market.” For crypto investors conditioned to watch CPI prints and FOMC dots, the message is to track money-market microstructure instead. In Hayes’ framework, when SRF balances stop being a rounding error and start trending, that is the tell that dollar liquidity has quietly flipped—and that crypto isn’t topping yet.

At press time, the total crypto market cap was at $3.41 trillion.

Bitcoin’s technical structure remains decisively negative and will stay that way “until” a key resistance level is reclaimed, according to veteran analyst Josh Olszewicz in his latest video published today. Pointing to the Ichimoku Cloud and a stack of trend signals, Olszewicz said, “Below the cloud we’re bearish, above we’re bullish. We are currently below… [and] fully bearish on price and the expectation is lower lows.”

The fulcrum, in his view, is a reclaim of roughly $115,000. “I don’t really have anything bullish to say here at all until we’re back above $115,000 on BTC and $4,200 on ETH,” he said, adding that Ethereum’s setup is comparatively less negative—trading “in the cloud,” with what he still characterizes as “certainly not a long entry signal.”

For Bitcoin, he flagged a confluence of bearish cues: a bearish Chikou span on the weekly, moving-average crosses to the downside, and head-and-shoulders patterns both at larger and smaller scales. While he acknowledged a possible “falling channel” and even a broader “megaphone” that could complicate pattern reads, Olszewicz underscored directional risk in the near term: “If I were to randomly wake up and see price at $103k, $102k, that would not surprise me here,” even warning that “it’s possible we flirt with… below $100,000.”

The deterioration in derivatives premia underscores that message, he argued. “If you look at the basis on CME we are making multi-month lows here… you go to ETH [and it’s] also making significant lows. So there’s certainly no froth in this market based on premiums.” Spot flow doesn’t help either: “On BTC we’ve still got people sending hundreds of millions to exchanges seemingly every day… my guess is they are [selling] because you don’t send coins to an exchange for fun.”

Macro Headwinds For Bitcoin

Beyond crypto-native signals, Olszewicz tied the setup to a macro regime shift that has turned unhelpful at the margins. He highlighted a still-ongoing US government shutdown as a potential kink in liquidity transmission—“maybe when the government comes back… the pipes start moving again”—and warned of rising near-term volatility around a data drought: “We do have ADP employment on Wednesday… very, very closely paid attention to because there is a data drought on employment numbers.”

Since last week’s FOMC, he noted, rate-cut odds tightened materially “after Powell mentioned a comment about the fog. Got to slow down on the fog, he says,” with risk assets reacting poorly: “Equities didn’t like that… crypto certainly didn’t like that.”

He also flagged the inflation now-casting mix as a swing factor. “Trueflation [is] ticking higher consistently… you don’t want to be in this position where we are cutting into rising inflation,” he cautioned, while contrasting that with the Fed’s nowcast, which “doesn’t look as dire.”

A CPI headline beginning with a ‘3’ would be problematic in his view: “I suspect if we do get a three handle on headline CPI, markets aren’t going to like that.” Under the hood, he pointed to falling gasoline and used-car prints and easing rents as disinflationary, but called out sticky components like insurance.

Liquidity optics remain mixed: the reverse repo facility has seen periodic end-month spikes yet is “running on fumes,” and, crucially, the long-observed link between global liquidity gauges and BTC “has not reconnected in any regard since May, June, July.”

Dollar strength is an additional pressure point. “The dollar continues to look good, continues to push higher… and this chart looks phenomenal… a real problem” for Bitcoin if that uptrend persists, he said. In classic cross-asset contrast, he described the 60/40 US bonds/equity mix as technically constructive—“above the cloud, bullish TK cross, bullish cloud”—and noted that risk proxies like high-yield credit are diverging from the S&P 500, which he reads as consistent with crypto’s underperformance: “With BTC struggling, you see riskier parts of the market also pulling back to a greater degree than equities.”

Equities Need To Remain Strong

In equities, he argued there is “nothing to short” on the major indices right now—“SPY… looks great,” with the Nasdaq and semis echoing the same message—creating an awkward asymmetry for BTC: “If Bitcoin can’t find its way when the SPY and the Q’s look like this, we’re certainly in trouble because if this does reverse, that’s going to take BTC with it almost certainly.”

On crypto-equity linkages, Olszewicz observed that miners have outperformed for reasons outside of Bitcoin’s fundamentals: “If you look at the Bitcoin miners, those have been bullish. Why? Because of AI and not because of Bitcoin… anybody following that story has done very well this year.” He extended the caution to other high-beta tech themes—quantum names “look very tired… more and more like a head and shoulders”—while acknowledging individual standouts like Palantir, which he said is “breaking out of its own cup and handle,” even if near-term price action was choppy after hours.

The broader market psychology, in his view, is shaped by cycle age and wealth preservation. “A thousand days from the bottom, more and more people are just saying, okay, this is enough… if they’re rich, they want to stay that way… it makes some sense to take a little bit off the table.” Until the technicals change, he sees no reason to force trades: “Honestly, not much, probably just sit around and collect some cash. Wait for those A-plus setups to emerge.”

The trigger for a regime shift is unambiguous in his framework. As he put it at the outset, “Below the cloud we’re bearish… not a bullish expectation.” The condition for flipping that view is equally clear: “Back above $115,000 on BTC and 4,200 on ETH,” or, in this headline terms, reclaim the level—or remain “fully bearish.”

At press time, BTC traded at $103,634.

Arthur Hayes thinks Zcash can move an order of magnitude faster than most investors expect—and he spelled out why in a Coin Bureau interview released on November 3.

The former BitMEX CEO ties the new Zcash bull case to a three-part story that mixes technical maturation, visible shifts in on-chain behavior, and a looming supply inflection. “I think that 10% to 20% of the value of Bitcoin quite quickly is something that Zcash could achieve,” he said—an estimate that, at current Bitcoin prices, translates to roughly $10,000–$20,000 per ZEC.

Why Zcash Could Skyrocket To $10,000-$20,000

For Hayes, the technology is no longer the 2016 experiment that divided the market over ceremony theater and cryptographic trust. He recounted being “deep into Zcash in 2016” when BitMEX listed a pre-genesis futures market and spot prices briefly printed around “$3,000 a coin on Poloniex” before supply filled in.

What’s changed, he argues, is the removal—by protocol upgrades—of the original single biggest credibility drag. “One of the big issues with Zcash back then was this trusted setup issue… but essentially, I think it was the Halo 2 upgrade recently removed or maybe a few years ago removed that trusted setup issue.” That, in his telling, reframes Zcash from a clever but encumbered R&D project into a privacy asset whose cryptography now clears the institutional sniff test.

He couples that with direct user-level experience. Hayes says he installed Zashi, Zcash’s flagship wallet, and used Near Intents flows to shield and swap, which he likened to an industrial-strength mixer. “When you do that, it’s essentially like Tornado Cash on steroids,” he said, emphasizing that the resulting output asset “appears, but it’s not linked to any other transaction.”

Costs remain a friction—“It’s definitely not cheap yet”—but he points to trend data he has reviewed showing a secular rise in actual privacy usage: “the amount of shielded transactions is approaching I think 30%, up from like a few percentage points when I cared about Zcash a long time ago.” In other words, the privacy feature set is not just theoretically stronger; it is being used.

The demand narrative rests on a simple claim: in the age of on-chain forensics and AI-enabled pattern recognition, true cash-like privacy is a product with differentiated utility. Hayes draws a sharp line between pseudonymity and privacy. “I believe in privacy coins… I think Bitcoin being synonymous is actually a good thing because I want to be able to track Bitcoin, but I also want to have internet cash where there is no traceability of that.”

He contrasts Zcash with Monero’s recent headlines, citing reports that “the Japanese authorities were able to deanonymize Monero by… linking together different disparate parts of some information.”

Scarcity is the third pillar. Hayes flags the Zcash halving “coming up in a few weeks, November,” framing it as the timing catalyst that could supercharge reflexivity if investor attention and liquidity arrive in tandem. The supply cut is not the entire story for him—he dismisses halving dogma in Bitcoin—but he does view a synchronous demand narrative plus a mechanical issuance drop as unusually potent for a small-float asset when a privacy bid is already rising on-chain.

Liquidity and access are precisely why he sees the setup as asymmetric. Zcash is not broadly quotable, which is a risk and an opportunity. “I hit up… eight or nine OTC brokers. Only two brokers would quote me Zcash,” he said, describing how hard it was to acquire size through traditional venues. He expects that, if the price begins to trend, the path will run through permissionless rails rather than regulated exchanges. “If the price rises high enough… I can buy it on one of these decentralized exchanges and that’ll be how you really get access… just like how Bitcoin was back [then].”

Hayes also addresses the change in his own posture, including what catalyzed it. He credits a dinner during Token2049 with Naval Ravikant, who “started shilling me on Zcash,” prompting him to push past his 2016-era objections and re-underwrite the protocol. “I bought a few million bucks on the spot at that point,” he said, adding that he kept buying “even though I bought it after the 80% pump when Naval sent out that tweet.”

Hayes believes the upside can compress into weeks rather than years. In his words: “I’ve bought a lot of it… I’m still buying it. I think that this is probably going to be one of my better trades of the cycle.”

At press time, ZEC traded at $464.

On November 2, 2025, crypto analyst Ignas | DeFi distilled crypto’s current standoff into a clean ledger of pros and cons.

The Bearish Case For Crypto

The first bear pillar is the “AI bubble” overhang. Late-October headlines crystallized the debate as Nvidia briefly breached a $5 trillion market value, a milestone that sharpened concern that equity valuations tied to AI infrastructure spending may be running ahead of realized returns.

Point two—“bullish news fail to pump”—was on display as “Uptober” ended with a whimper for the crypto market. Despite intermittent policy tailwinds and strong ETF inflows mid-month, both Bitcoin and Ethereum faded into month-end, and US spot ETF flows turned sharply negative over the final three trading days of October, a pattern consistent with risk aversion after the Oct. 10–11 shock.

That shock, the “10/10 crash,” is the third bear lever. The two-day downdraft followed a sudden tariff escalation threat from the White House and produced one of the largest one-day liquidations in crypto history, spurring a rush for downside hedges and leaving the market probing for “dead entities” and hidden impairments.

Cycle timing is Ignas’ fourth bear note. The fourth Bitcoin halving occurred on April 20, 2024 (block 840,000). Prior cycles do not map one-for-one, but the post-halving window is a pattern which gets a lot of attention at the moment. If the “cycle is not dead,” a Bitcoin top may already be in or is looming by the end of the year.

“Old OG wallets selling” is the fifth bear claimant—and, for once, the chain tells a clear story. Since mid-October, long-term holders have materially increased net distribution, with Glassnode and other trackers flagging outflows on the order of tens of thousands of BTC, alongside headline-grabbing awakenings of Satoshi-era wallets. This does not prove panic, but it does inject supply at a delicate moment.

Negative ETF flows round out the bear list. Farside’s fund-by-fund ledger shows pronounced outflows on October 29–31 across several US spot Bitcoin ETFs, with total daily net redemptions exceeding $470 million on October 29 and $488 million on October 30, before another hit on October 31 (191 million). While October closed with a inflow total of 3.424 billion, the message: the “fast money” cohort that chased the summer breakout was, at least temporarily, in retreat.

Buffett’s caution is the macro bear exclamation point. Berkshire Hathaway’s third-quarter print revealed a record $381.7 billion cash pile and a twelfth straight quarter as a net seller of equities—a posture that telegraphs wariness about broad risk assets and liquidity conditions even as operating earnings rise. For crypto, this is not a direct flow, but it is a bellwether for global risk appetite.

The Bull Case For Crypto

The bull case, however, is not hand-waving. Start with “liquidity easing & interest cuts.” The ECB has already delivered substantial easing this year and paused; the Bank of England has begun cutting; and in the US, the Federal Reserve is also expected to close out the year with two more cuts while ending quantitative tightening.

Ignas also says “no clear euphoria,” and—empirically—he’s right. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index spent the past week toggling between “Fear” and low “Neutral,” printing in the mid-30s to low-40s as of November 3. That’s a long way from the 80s–90s “extreme greed” that often sets up blow-off tops, and it supports the idea that positioning is not yet dangerously crowded.

Institutional adoption remains the quiet compounding force in the bull ledger. With $30.2 billion year-to-date inflows, spot Bitcoin ETFs are fueling most of the market strength.

On policy, the US did more than chatter in 2025: the Senate passed, and President Trump signed, a bipartisan stablecoin law in July. A broader market-structure bill remains in play, but even the stablecoin win is non-trivial for on-chain liquidity and payments rails.

Seasonality also favors patience. Since 2013, Q4 has been Bitcoin’s strongest quarter on average, with multiple cycles posting outsized November–December runs.

Then there’s the stablecoin plumbing. Despite October’s chaos, aggregate stablecoin float sits around $307–308 billion and notched fresh all-time highs in mid-October—a sign that dry powder inside crypto’s own rails remains abundant and ready to mobilize if confidence stabilizes. As of today, DefiLlama pegs the total at roughly $307.6 billion.

Finally, the US–China trade war has seen extremely positive progress. “This is the BIGGEST de-escalation yet. Under the new US-China trade deal, President Trump made a HUGE agreement with China: China will suspend ALL retaliatory tariffs announced since March 4th. And, China will suspend or remove ALL retaliatory non-tariff countermeasures taken since March 4th. This is not getting nearly enough attention,” The Kobeissi Letter wrote via X on Sunday.

At press time, the total crypto market cap stood at $3.56 trillion.