Will Crypto Peak in 2025 or 2026? Onchain Data Signals | Michael Nadeau’s DeFi Report #5

Bankless

[email protected]

Tech News, News, Technology

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 26 August 2025

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Crypto cycles have always topped on a four-year rhythm, but are we heading for a Q4 2025 peak or an extended run into 2026? Michael Nadeau from The DeFi Report joins Ryan to break down the onchain and macro signals shaping this cycle. We cover Powell’s dovish pivot at Jackson Hole, global liquidity trends, and why loosening bank lending standards could fuel risk-on markets. Michael explains how whale Bitcoin selling, ETH’s breakout, and muted altcoin flows fit into the bigger cycle map. Finally, we dive into portfolio strategy, from core holdings to high-beta “hot sauce” bets, and why holding fewer, higher-conviction assets is the edge most investors miss. Michael Nadeau & The DeFi Report: https://x.com/JustDeauIt https://thedefireport.io https://thedefireport.io/research/how-many-assets-should-you-hold-in-a-crypto-portfolio#closing-thoughts ------ 📣BIT DIGITAL ($BTBT) | ETH-FIRST PUBLIC COMPANY http://bit-digital.com ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🪙FRAX | SELF SUFFICIENT DeFi https://bankless.cc/Frax 🦄UNISWAP | SWAP ON UNICHAIN https://bankless.cc/unichain 🛞MANTLE | MODULAR LAYER 2 NETWORK https://bankless.cc/Mantle ------ TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 3:01 Global Liquidity Insights 6:44 Market Valuations Discussion 9:53 Lending Standards & Bank Activity 11:49 Powell's Impact on Markets 15:34 Inflation and Market Psychology 17:38 Bitcoin Fear and Greed Index 18:58 Long-term vs Short-term Holders 22:45 Realized Price vs Market Value 26:34 Altcoin Market Dynamics 31:19 Extended Cycle vs Classic Cycle 35:06 Portfolio Construction Strategies 39:27 Core vs Non-Core Asset Holdings 43:10 High Beta Assets Explained 45:54 Cash Allocation Strategies 54:05 Upcoming Research and Reports ------ Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	All right, Bankless Nation, the question today is how will the rest of the crypto cycle play out?
0:08.2	Are we going to top in 2025?
0:09.8	That would be a classic four-year cycle.
0:12.4	Crypto has had many of those.
0:14.3	Or will we have a longer cycle?
0:16.8	Maybe a top in 2026 and beyond?
0:19.6	Something a little bit different.
0:21.2	I'm here with Michael Nato of the D5 Report, and this is an episode we do on a monthly basis.
0:26.5	Usually comes at the last Tuesday of the month.
0:29.1	It's more of a crypto fundamentals episode where we look at a lot of the data, some of the on-chain data in particular,
0:35.3	and paint the story of where we are in the crypto cycles. Michael, how you doing today? Doing great. Thanks for having me, Ryan. Well, let's talk about the market right now. So first, ETH has had a great three months or so, and including an all-time high late last week. So it ticked that all-time high number. Hadn't seen that in almost four years. It was like three years and seven or eight months, but who's counting? Now it is trading down. So maybe there's
0:59.3	some resistance at the all-time high, at least at the time of recording. Bitcoin has been
1:03.8	okay, but it's had a sluggish three months or so. It is down a reasonable amount from its all-time
1:09.2	high. It feels like alt-coin still haven't caught
1:12.2	a bid other than ether, but maybe Seoul is more recently performing okay against ether.
1:19.0	Anyway, overall, what does the market look like to you? Like, how are you feeling about where we are?
1:24.5	Yeah, so last week was a big, big week, big catalyst with Powell speaking at Jackson
1:30.3	whole last week. Markets were pricing two cuts, you know, going into that speech. But I think there
1:35.9	was a lot of like sort of expectations of him being a little bit hawkish. And so I think the market
1:41.2	was actually expecting maybe a sell-off as he was speaking last week. And we got the opposite. We got like a really exuberant market. I think Eath was up 15% on last Friday. And so a pretty big move. And we've now, you know, sort of got both of those two rate heights are priced into the market now. And so now it's a matter of kind of looking out and taking a good look at what's happening in the economy.
2:05.8	We're going to go through some of the numbers and sort of see where things are at right now in terms of liquidity and the business cycle.
2:12.6	But I think you kind of hit on it at the beginning here, like, is this going to be a typical four-year cycle where
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from [email protected], and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of [email protected] and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.