Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW.

It's a daily podcast on Macro, Bitcoin, and the Big Picture Power Shifts remaking our world.

What's going on, guys? It is Tuesday, October 28th. And is it possible that Bitcoin never falls below 100,000 again? Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying the breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link in the show notes or go to bit.ly slash breakdown pod. All right, friends, well, as we discussed on Monday's show, this is going to be a big week in markets. We have a very doveish outlook for Wednesday's Fed meeting, with rate cuts fully priced in for this week and the December meeting. Then on Thursday, President Trump will meet with President Xi, and all signs point to a deal that will de-escalate the trade war. Many Bitcoin analysts view this as the week that will determine whether the bull market continues or is brought to an abrupt halt. In his Monday note, Jeff Kendrick of Standard Chartered wrote, If this week goes well, Bitcoin may never go below $100,000 again. He added that he's watching for positive confirmation of a new all-time high, saying,

As if it comes, this would signify the death knell for those hanging on to the halving season as a reason for Bitcoin prices to peak now. To clarify, I think the halving cycle is dead, ETF flows matter more, but it will take confirmation to convince everyone of this. To the extent that the halving cycle still exists, we are very deep into it. so much so that if we were following that pattern, the top of 126,000 from early October should have been the final top of the cycle. As Kendrick highlights, it's been relatively painless to maintain that view for the moment. If you sold a few weeks ago and started preparations for crypto winter, the market is more or less validated that view. However, if Bitcoin breaks out to a new all-time high, the people bearish because of the end of the four-year cycle will need to quickly re-examine their assumptions. Kendrick pointed to two further catalysts that could make this a big risk-on week. Firstly, it's a huge week for tech earnings, with Microsoft, Meta, and Google reporting on Wednesday, and Apple and Amazon reporting on Thursday. There are still many investors who are convinced that the AI bubble has burst and will drag down the Mag 7. Meanwhile,

the consensus view on Wall Street is that Microsoft's cloud division will hit a record high 38% growth

on the back of outperformance in AI demand. There's potential that many will be caught in an upside

surprise and will need to get risk on in a hurry. Micro Strategy and Coinbase are also due to report this week, which could provide a crypto-specific boost. In addition, Kendrick is watching the money drain out of the gold market. He noted that around 2 billion exited U.S. gold ETFs between Wednesday and Friday last week. If even a fraction of that flows into the Bitcoin ETFs, it could provide a strong tailwind. Gold is now down 8% from its all-time high last week, and doesn't seem to be slowing down. Kendrick believes that Bitcoin should rise on this weakness in gold writing, some ketchup, is due. One theory that's starting to permeate Twitter is the idea that Bitcoin OGs were selling according to a calendar, rather than paying attention to market conditions. Many of seen four-year cycles come and go, so if you're sitting on a large stack of Bitcoin, it makes sense to sell down as we come into this part of the cycle. However, those time-based selling plans are coming to an end or have already been completed. If we do get another breakout and a continuation of the bull market, those OGs will be faced with a tough choice. Felix Javan, the host of the Forward Guidance podcast commented, considering the flash crash liquidation and many crypto-native selling and belief were at the end of a four-year cycle, some even shorting, if we really get some momentum going here, the sideline chase could get really juicy. So, going only by the halving cycle, this would be the last week of the bull market. However,

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