What Welcome back to Market Movers the opening bell.
Well, Bitcoin tripped a death cross on Sunday, November 16th, when its 50 day moving average fell below the 200 day average.
This technical signal is often seen as bearish, and it's fueling debate among traders as well as analysts.
And in technical terms, a death cross happens when short term price momentum drops below. trends, something many view as a warning sign for potential downside pressure.
Well joining me on this Wednesday morning is Alicia Painter, and she is the COO and co-founder of Boni Labs.
Thank you so much for joining me, Alicia.
Great to see you.
So the big question now is how Bitcoin hit a bottom or could prices drop even further?
Where are we right now?
Great question.
I think what we're seeing with Bitcoin right now is a confluence of three contrasting factors.
One is the fact that Bitcoin is obviously very responsive to global macroeconomic uncertainty, which we're seeing within equities and with fading expectations of rate cuts, and Bitcoin tends to be very responsive to that.
Second of all, as you know, this has already been alluded to, the mass liquidation event that happened on 10/10, which wiped out a lot of.
Leverage in the crypto market and also led to a lot of profit taking by long-term Bitcoin holders.
And then you cross that with the cyclicality of Bitcoin.
So actually, I was overhearing what was said before about how, you know, Bitcoin is becoming less cyclical and the idea of the four-year cycle is fading, and I, I tend to agree with that, but what we're seeing right now is some remnant of that.
So there might be a drawback, not as severe a drawback as we've seen it. cycles of, you know, 60-70%, but we do expect a little bit more of a further drawback.
So it's basically a confluence of the global macroeconomic uncertainty, rate cuts, um, the crypto leverage drawdown event that led to a lot higher uncertainty within the digital asset space, as well as the cyclicality of Bitcoin that's led to where we are now.
But I think what's really, really important, what's really.
And for us to remember is that the fundamentals are still very much in place.
So for the first time, um, you know, 3/4 of all of the Bitcoin supply are held by long-term holders, what we in the industry called diamond hands, of which I am one, and I think that's really, really interesting.
The conviction is still there.
People are not selling their Bitcoin, um, or panic selling the way that we've seen in previous cycles, and that's a result.
Of, you know, the conviction that folks have in Bitcoin being around for over 15 years at this point, but also the entry of institutions, uh, ETFs, even sovereign countries coming in and accumulating Bitcoin.
So the question now isn't, you know, is Bitcoin here to stay, it's, you know, what is Bitcoin going to look like going forward and how is it going to evolve as an asset?
And I think that's the more exciting question for us here at Botanics.
Yeah, and so building on what you just said, Alicia, I do want to ask you about yield when it comes to Bitcoin.
We all know that 2025 has been quite the roller coaster ride, not just in crypto, but across global markets and in some asset classes we've seen the highest highs as well as the lowest lows.
So why are institutions rushing into Bitcoin yield as traditional returns dry up?
Absolutely.
I think it's completely responds to Bitcoin's price action and the maturity of Bitcoin as an asset class.
So if you look at Ethereum, Solana, all of these other digital assets that have come into play, they have this base level programmability which gives which gives rise to financial primitives like yields.
Now Bitcoin inherently doesn't have that, which is why we have scaling solutions like what we do at Botanics.
Allow folks to build that programmability on top of Bitcoin, and the number one thing that folks want is yield.
So as more and more folks are convicted, convinced that, you know, Bitcoin is a long term asset that's worth them holding as a part of their portfolio, they want to put that asset to work.
They want to make it productive, and the number one thing that they all ask for is yield.
And so at Botanics, the way that we've approached this is how can we Build yield on Bitcoin based off of a real economic activity, and that's based off of activity on the botanics chain, which is what we've built over the past several years.
And basically it comes from financial activity that occurs, you know, across the botanics network, which is all denominated in Bitcoin and gives given back as yield to those who stake on our network.
And that we think is the most simple way to approach yield.
Now, there's so many other yields. out there.
There are folks who take that Bitcoin and then take it off chain and then, you know, do basically find yield on centralized exchanges.
There are folks who do the funding rate trade, there are folks who use, um, you know, other market makers to develop this yield, but that is going to be the focus of this cycle for Bitcoin, which is Bitcoin is here, it's an asset.
Now this asset needs to be put to work.
We need to find the yield, and we need to diversify the yield sources that are.
Available to Bitcoin holders, and it's going to look a little different for both retail as well as institutional participants because they have very different risk profiles, especially retail participants who are very new to Bitcoin.
They want the least risky forms of yield possible, and that is what we're here to serve at Botanics.
But then for the institutional classes that are out there, they're much more risk on and they're looking to see, you know, where can they find the high. amount of yield with different risk profiles and so that's what we're trying to do at Botanics is basically classify these different types of yields and make it as accessible to both retail as well as institutional and Bitcoin holders, and that's how we we will have to leave it there for today, but sorry to interrupt you, but thank you so much for joining us, and I look forward to continuing the conversation next time you're in town.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Sounds great.
Thank you.
