Ben Armstrong, founder of BitBoy Crypto, joins Cheddar News to talk about the continued volatility of Bitcoin and if we're entering a 'crypto winter.' 

Between Bells

Bitcoin Prices Bounce Back to $36K After Monday's Dip

Bitcoin making a recovery today, bouncing above $36,000, but it is still down almost 50% from a record high of nearly $69,000 in November. It's got some investors talking about a crypto winter, fearing that the worst is yet to come. This all comes as investors continue to worry about the prospect of further regulatory crackdowns on the crypto industry joining us. Now to discuss is Ben Armstrong, founder of Bit Boy Krypto. Welcome, welcome to the show. Our investors seeing Bitcoin as an inflated hedge here. Well, I, I think one thing is for sure, Bitcoin has not proven itself as a hedge on shorter time frames. And when we see the stock market dropping, I mean yesterday, 5% intraday, you know, drop one of the largest drops that we've seen, you know, since the 2008 financial crisis and the dot com bubble. I, I think that tells you that, you know, generally when the stocks are crashing, we're going to see Bitcoin go down now. Yesterday Was a little bit of a flute because we had Bitcoin bounced back really, really heavy yesterday. And I think that was just because we, you know, entered into the $33,000, uh, support level. But there's really nothing in the world that I know of that if we're looking at an overall economic crash is not gonna at least have some downward action. But as we saw in the pandemic crash in March of 2020. Bitcoin will crash quick, but it will bounce back fast and it will be more resilient than other assets. So Ben, I'm going to bring up that term again, crypto winter, are we in the middle of a crypto winter? And is there a crypto spring upon us anytime soon? Well, I mean traditionally we've seen four year Bitcoin cycles, it seems like we may be moving a little outside of that is more attention and you know, confidence moves to the crypto markets from the traditional markets, but right now we're at a very, very pivotal point. We are either looking at the beginning of a multi year bear market, which traditionally would be what we have seen for Bitcoin with prices dropping an overall average of 85% for Bitcoin, which could put it down in between, you know, 10 and $15,000 scary numbers to look at, but it's things that we've historically seen or it's also possible that we're gonna get maybe some reversal from the Fed and we're gonna see some upwards momentum back moving back to the stock market and Bitcoin could bounce and kind of hit, I guess you could say a third leg of this bull cycle, but you know, people who are into crypto and are into Bitcoin, especially if they're newer, I mean the warning is this whether we are entering a Bitcoin, you know, bear market winter right now or later. Eventually, they do always come and the market is a little overexuberant, it's gonna have cool off periods and really that's great for, you know, new investors to be able to pick up, you know, new lines of accumulation for people, are you expecting to see the selling in Bitcoin and ether end anytime soon here, Ben? I think it's either over right now or it's going to get much, much worse. I I think yesterday was really pivotal with bouncing off that $33,000 level. If we do get, let's say some really, really, um you know, uh dovish, you know, comments from the Fed here, uh, and you know, we, we see like a reversal of some of the stuff that they've said, we could see the stock market plunge, we could see, you know, Bitcoin continue down further a Bitcoin breaches that $30,000 level. I don't think there's really any hope for it to reverse and continue to be bullish. So I think people have really got to pay attention to the next few days in crypto, this is, you know what I, what I employed my audience to do, pay attention right now, more than ever, there is this thought that maybe it's as bad as it's gonna get kind of for the overall market, that the Fed hike, the rate hike is going to be priced in, but there was recently a poll done on twitter and over half the people are about half the people on that pole thought that we're going to get a reversal from the Fed and if we don't get a reversal with so many people counting on it and hoping that it's gonna come, I don't see how any of the current action is already priced in. I think we will see, you know, further downward action and we are heading into a multi year, you know, bear market, I mean look, Bitcoin is probably gonna drop for another year. Let's talk about those long term holders sitting on those crypto assets. Are they taking advantage of the lows that we're seeing currently? Well, I think that if you are a long term holder, it's never really a bad time to accumulate. And those are the people that always win. There's there's no losers when it comes to Bitcoin sitting on Bitcoin for more than four years every four years. We've always seen an increase in the Bitcoin price over time. Of course that doesn't mean it's a guarantee for it to continue. But the Bitcoin halving is what drives that price of Bitcoin the cut in production, the 50% cut in production to the Bitcoin come into circulation. We see every four years, that's what truly drives everything. When you're looking at right now, there's an average of about 900 Bitcoin being brought into the circulation per day in 2024 that's going to drop down to 4 50 then, you know, you can drop that number in half every four years and see it's an incredible value proposition for Bitcoin, we've never really seen an asset like this where we know how many are in the total supply, We know the schedule, they come into the supply and we know it's, you know, kind of intrinsic value. The on chain analytics of Bitcoin are phenomenal. They continually great. The hash rate is higher than ever. I think that right now if you're a Hodler for Bitcoin, um, you know, it is a decent time to accumulate, but make sure you keep sending money to the sidelines because, you know, there could be better chances to accumulate down the road. And then I have less than a minute, but I do want to ask you about the White House releasing an executive order on crypto as early as february. What should investors be looking out for here? I think investors should really be looking for this to fall in line with wherever the Fed is coming out right now, if the Fed is going to reverse action, then I think you can probably expect a little bit more bullishness, bullishness from the White House, then, you know, we would expect, we all thought that this, you know, the, the green energy Bitcoin meeting that occurred last week, uh, in the Senate, we thought that was gonna be really bearish. A lot of positive stuff came out of that. Uh, we thought that the meeting in december was gonna have a lot of negative stuff where, where Sam Bateman freed and brian brooks and jeremy Allaire spoke uh you know to the Senate financial committee that was really bullish. A lot of positive stuff came out of that. So I think that just because they're putting out a report, it doesn't mean it's going to be all negative. I think if we see if we see crypto continue to fall, look for that report to be pretty negative, but if we see, you know, crypto prices continue to rise to kind of reverse course here, then, you know, I think it may be a better than expected report. I think the one area and all of crypto that is the target right now are stable coins. So you know, be careful what stable coins you're using to trade with and you know, expect big changes in the stable coin industry going forward. Alright, great insight. We hope you come back on Ben Armstrong, founder of Bit Boy Crypto. Thank you again.