The Bitcoin Supercycle with Dan Held

 
 
WBD306 - Dan Held - Large Banner.png

Where to find the show

Download Episode MP3 File
The file will open in a new window. Click down arrow to download the file.

“Close to $1,000,000 is what the KPI would be for a supercycle, and why I like it is that no one is talking about it. No one even thinks that’s possible and everyone just thinks it’s going to do what it did before and it’s a very different environment.”
— Dan Held

SHOW DESCRIPTION

Location: Remotely
Date: Monday 25th January
Company: Kraken
Role: Director of Business Development

The design of Bitcoin issuance leads to clear four-year market cycles. While Bitcoin experienced bull runs in its first cycle, 2013 was the first, mainstream bull market and the price climbed to over $1,000. What followed was a multi-year bear market and an 80% drawdown.

2016/17 marked the next bull cycle with the Bitcoin price reaching $20,000 only to, again, experience an extended bear market and another 80% drawdown. 

Many speculate the catalyst for these cycles is the four-year halving, where the issuance rate of Bitcoin to miners cuts in half. With reduced supply and sustained demand, the price of Bitcoin pushes higher. However, each successive bull market presents a new and different set of participants.

In 2013, the early adopters were the people who understood the technology or needed censorship-resistant money for the Silk Road. While it had become simpler to buy Bitcoin during this cycle, the fall of MtGox marked the end of this bull market.

2017, was mainly a retail-driven bull market, with few institutions investing in Bitcoin, due to the lack of infrastructure and regulatory clarity. A civil war also marked 2017, where  Bitcoienrs debated the block size, ending with a hard fork, a split in the community and the creation of BCash.  

The current bull market is again different. Institutions have woken up to Bitcoin, and Michael Saylor has paved the way for corporations to add Bitcoin to their balance sheet. With the unprecedented levels of money printing and reckless policy, the need for hard money that is state resistant is more apparent than ever. As Dan Held says "Never before has Bitcoin had such strong fundamentals against a macro backdrop that highlights exactly why Bitcoin is needed, the narrative is singular, and the ability for global value to flow into Bitcoin has never been easier."

In this interview, I talk to Dan Held, the Director of Business Development at Kraken. We discuss Bitcoin market cycles, the halving's impact, and the catalysts that could make this cycle a supercycle.

TIMESTAMPS

00:04:18: Introductions
00:07:56: The term "supercycle"
00:09:08: "Planting Bitcoin" - Dan's series
00:10:19: For those who've never heard of Satoshi…
00:16:32: The truth about the whitepaper
00:19:16: The halving cycles
00:25:37: Learning through the cycles
00:26:49: The philosophy of hodling
00:30:57: Dan's thesis on the supercycle
00:36:56: The regulatory moat surrounding Bitcoin
00:41:39: Freedom - a basic human right
00:44:30: What will be different with this cycle?
00:50:20: Peter's future use case for Bitcoin
00:52:38: Bitcoin's risks vs other assets' risks
00:55:19: Ways to minimise selling your Bitcoin
01:03:25: The unit denomination issue
01:08:21: What makes this a supercycle?
01:10:48: Could governments start mining Bitcoin?
01:13:48: Bitcoin - the singular narrative
01:15:29: Final comments

 

SUPPORT THE SHOW

If you enjoy The What Bitcoin Did Podcast you can help support the show by doing the following:

If you are interested in sponsoring the show, you can read more about that here or please feel free to drop me an email to discuss options.

SPONSORS

 
 
 
 
 

SHOW NOTES

PodcastPeter McCormack