206. Ben's Updated Crypto Investment Strategy. The Game Has Changed.

Welcome back to another episode of the bennetbergs Podcast. I'm Ben, your favorite high school dropout and founder of Collective Shift. Alongside me as Bergs, your favorite MBA and CEO of Collective Shift, we're here to bring you world class crypto research strategies and insights to help you crush this crypto bull market. Plus, get an exclusive behind the scenes look as we scale Australia's leading crypto research company. If you're listening to this podcast, we'd love for you to leave us a follow or share it with your friends and colleagues. It's how we grow the podcast each and every week. Today I've made some changes to my portfolio and I want to share that with you and those insights as to what's going on with the market, what's changed in terms of my strategy and how I'm thinking about investing this way around. Because the reality is, Bergs, this market is feeling different to previous cycles. I think we all came into 2025 hoping that'd be a lot, you know, happen in the market. And we had Trump at the helm and we had all these exciting things. But then the reality is it's sort of been pushed back. There's been announcements of announcements, the macro conditions aren't great and altcoins have sort of had a decent sort of correction, although bitcoin is still up 130% over the last 12 months and there's a lot, a lot of tailwinds still to come, but yet sentiment is really, really poor on, on Twitter and things like that. So we're going to sort of walk you through what's going on, give you a bit of an update and talk through it. But yeah, a little bit different than cycle books.

Yeah, it's a difficult period in time where everyone expects up only this huge explosion, insane price action and it's a bit boring. The market's just waiting. We've heard from, you know, Trump, there's a few indications around interest rate drops or rises and the market is waiting for that information before it moves. We had the tariff wars a week or two ago and just those little announcements, people get scared, they pull their liquidity out of the market. There's a lot of big players still continually buying bitcoin, which is great to see, but we're in that. Look, market conditions have changed and I think that's the whole purpose of this episode, right? It's not to not ignore the market and to not ignore where things are at. And this is why we say that bull markets are a lot harder than bear Markets, because Trump was in, everything's going great, and now all of a sudden you're down 30% plus. You're like, hang on a minute, this is supposed to be a bull market. What's going on here?

Yeah, there's been like a bit of mania really as well in the market since the launch of Pump Fund. So just to give a bit of context, so, you know, I think in previous cycles you could have used the term like the rising tide lifts all boats. But I think what we're seeing now, this cycle is the rising tide has lifted some boats and then sunken the rest.

So, like, it's. It's not as easy. This cycle is just picking something and just hoping for the best. Like, bitcoin is not lifting all boats. This, this cycle. What we've seen really over the last six months is like this hu. Probably 12 months, this huge increase of meme coins, primarily from Pump Fun. And since the launch, the total value of like Solana has diverged from the top 125 altcoins. Like Solana TBL has really, like, exploded off the back of Pump Fun and Pump funds based on Solana. A lot of these coins, you know, built on. On Solana. By the end of January this year, over 400, 000 new tokens were launched every week.

Thousand tokens a week, which is nuts. That's about a 5,000% increase in total coins from the market in 2021. Right. Which is likely. We're probably likely underestimating that. So compared to 2017 as well, there were only hundreds of new tokens a day. So we've literally gone from hundreds a day to tens of thousands a day of new coins. Right. This is the divergence that we're seeing, and that is really why we're seeing complete and utter uncertainty. A lot of coins performing well, a lot of coins not performing well. And then we're also seeing things like President Trump launching Trump and Melania coin, or, you know, Dave Portnoy from Barstool promoting his jail stool coin. Or then we saw the Argentinian.

President launching his coin. And then we saw the President of Central African Republic launching his meme coin. Like it is nuts. What's going on right now?

I was watching Dave Portnoy live on Twitter and he was just like getting stuck into crypto bros. He was basically admitting market manipulation, selling a security. And it's just, bro, just stop incriminating yourself. Talking about how much money he made. He's literally live trading as well. There was a few hundred thousand people watching it was just utter craziness. And we, what we're talking about here is crypto Found another use case for the majority of people that want to get into the market in 2017, it was ICOs. What are ICOs? I can be my own venture capitalist, I can make a lot of money. Then it was NFTs. I can join a community, I can make a lot of money. It's art, it's amazing. And now it was, hey, I can create these tokens, I can trade them, I can get in before everyone else and I can make a lot of money. And these stories and narratives really spark up and you see these violent moves upwards. Then there was a lot of challenges with pump fun, with some of the things people were posting. A lot of people lost a lot of money and Trump got in. Everyone was quite positive. And now we're seeing that kind of sideways to slightly down consolidation period and we need to take note of that. And when market conditions change, you need to ask yourself, should I be changing with them?

Yeah, that's a great point, Burks. And that really has been the shift in my investment strategy. Understanding that, you know, this space is moving faster than ever. There hasn't been an altcoin season like this one and maybe there won't be an altcoin season, I don't know. But the idea that the tide lifts all boats is not, is not looking likely this time around. So with that information I sort of went back to my investment strategy and sorry, just to be clear, like I do think there'll be an altcoin season, but it just may not be the same as previous seasons. Just sorry, just to be clear on what I meant, we did have the.

The mini altcoin season, but even with there a lot of altcoins didn't reach previous all time highs.

Exactly, exactly. So, so my outlook hasn't changed and my portfolio is up about 60 over the last 12 months, which I'm, I'm, you know, pretty happy with and it's been solid and you know, did I pick the top?

So funny. Bro, Bro. Hey, like it's 60%. Like, oh, I'm pretty happy with it. Where else in the world can you get a 60 return in 12 months? No way.

You can't. And also like I, you know, and I made, I made some, you know, not errors. I've actually invested really well this cycle, but I haven't, I wasn't able to get out on the meme coin cycle as well as I could have. Like I got in on Pepe popcat and Whiff that did extremely well for the first three months and then sort of everything tanked as, as Trump sort of pushed back everything and I was a bit slow to act on that. But the other investments around like Salana Sui BTC being great. Like I've been very strong on not going too hard on lower cap alts. Like my portfolio allocation really I think is a key metric of success and a lot of people don't have a good portfolio allocation. They over allocate on an alt. They have like 28, 30% on an altcoin. That's, that's, that's underperformed and a whole portfolio is underperformed. Right. So having like 50% BTC minimum, which I've had, is really imperative, which is up 130%. If you haven't got bitcoin in your portfolio or if you haven't got a large portfolio allocation Bitcoin, you're probably on struggle street right now.

Exactly right. And you're never going to get a perfect entry or a perfect exit. And the way you.

Mitigate that is by having appropriate allocation. So it does give you additional time and it's not going to hurt you too badly if you miss things.

Yeah, yeah, exactly right. You need to sort of have that allocation to, you know, have some sort of. Yeah. Mitigate your risk. But you know, I think what's driving the market to be so bleak for altcoins right now is that Power's made it very drone. Powers made it very clear there's no quantitative easing anytime soon.

So funny. Craig from.

I don't even know who it works for now. I won't name because I don't know who it works for. But you know who I'm talking about. Yeah, I know up in my comments talking about QA coming. It is not coming. Jerome Powers made it very, very, very clear that QE will not happen unless rates are at zero or we're in an emergency economic condition. And we are nowhere near that.

Bro. He's so funny. So he came up to me at Oz Crypto Con and he said he was so deep in eth that all he can do is buy more E.

And he's been down only like he like and I think that like not just as like that's not just him right now. There is a palpable amount of, of copium going around trying to come up with reasons why people aren't right so why people aren't wrong. And that's the downfall to poor investing. Like you need to Update your mindset and strategy based on data. You can't bury your head in the sand.

People guess, markets decide and you're in the middle of the ocean and you can swim as hard as you want against the tide, you're going to get tired out. The market can be irrational longer than you can stay solvent. So it's best just to go with the tide. And Ben, you said you posted a video recently. I think it was on Instagram and the comments and the amount of cope were just crazy.

Yeah, so I posted a reel on Instagram talking about how the market's changed and it's very clear I'm still bullish on the market and altcoins but my timeline's been pushed back. And if you look at the like the top 150 coins versus the lower cap assets on trading view, I can't remember the exact trading view. It's like others over others minus total 2 or something. I'll double check. But basically this chart is showcasing you the liquidity being sucked out of low cap coins push and being pushed up into top 100150 coins based on the macro conditions. So that plus a bunch of other data was telling me that okay, well right now is not the right time to be in high results. So I'm going to rotate out and the comments and DMS that come in, you've no idea what you're talking about. You are the bottom signal, you're capitulating, you're blah blah blah blah blah. Like no, I'm looking at the market. I've updated my thesis to say that these shit coins are going to be continue to be shitcoins for a little while. Macro wise we're not getting any better. There's no QE coming to save us. Are liquidity things that can enter the market but that's not favorable for altcoins right now. And the, the Trump presidency is bullish on crypto, but they push back their timelines until middle of this year before we even get an announcement. So why the hell would I be holding this right now? And over the last week that's already played out correct. But at the time people are like, you know, fuck you, you're wrong. My bags are down 60%. You're selling, you know I'm right and it's just not right.

And it comes back to strong opinions loosely held where you've got very strong opinions about your portfolio, how you think things are going to play out. But when you start seeing all of these signals and indicators that we have as well as general sentiment. You're like, hang on, what I thought is happening is not playing out. Should I update my strategy here? And you came to conclusion that yes, I need to update my strategy because things are going to be delayed. You can see that in the market, you can see in the price action. I'm going to reallocate part of my portfolio so I can take advantage of that.

Yeah, yeah, bang on. And sometimes you've just got to make the call, like if, you know, you can't again bury your head in the sand and hope for the best, like, that's not a strategy. And, you know, essentially I hope it's not a strategy.

I say that a lot, a lot, because I think a lot of people just hope it's going to get better. But back to what we've been saying at the start of the episode, guys, 400,000 new tokens a week, right, compared to 2017 where there was hundreds. Like, it's, it's like worlds apart, right, of where we're at. So, you know, for me, I, I'm doubling down on, you know, the, the top dog sort of BTC E. I've got some other Solana plays, I've got a little bit of gaming, a little bit of AI, a little bit of defi and I'm adding another next gen layer one. But I've cut majority and I've still got.

Some, a meme play, but I've cut down the rest of my memes, cut down some gaming, cut down some, some defi. Really just solidified my portfolio into the assets I have the most conviction in and that's kind of where, where I'm at and I'm very happy with those moves.

This is really what separates good from great investors, where if you have strong conviction and a thesis, new information comes in and you're willing to go against it. And I think our long term outlook hasn't changed. I still think we had some excitement last year and early this year. I think what's going to happen this year is going to eclipse that. I still think we're going to have an altcoin season and it is going to melt faces, but that has just been delayed and we forget that. We look at price and what's happening and think, oh, it's all over. But the reality is it's not over, it's just been delayed. Trump has made some quite positive moves. He and his companies are accumulating eth and everything in the background and he said, go away, make it in 90 days, come back with a plan and I'll approve it, which is what you do in any business. Nine days is actually quite quick for government and as soon as we get updates from those working groups and a resolution, I think that is going to be very positive and that will spark an insane bull run.

Yeah, I agree Burgs and that's what I've sort of, you know, listed here. And this was an update I made. I made these changes a week ago to members that I'm still bullish on these sectors. I'm still bullish on the market, but my timelines have been pushed back and that's why I believe the market sold off. Because the market thought we'd be like, you know, some people are calling like a left translated cycle ending before Christmas. Right. You know, like it's wild, you know how quickly things change. But I've still got a good chunk of altcoins. I don't get me wrong. And I think it's where some people are like, oh, you're capitulating. It's like, no, I'm just reallocating into assets that I have higher conviction and I think have stronger strength. But that's all I'm doing.

And things aren't over. This is another opportunity, a gift from the gods to accumulate against your strategy. Like we're so lucky that we get so many opportunities to accumulate and do well. Yeah, like even if you accumulate, let's just take bitcoin for example. Like it's, there's like.

An insane chance, I would even say like 99% chance if you bought in bitcoin today that you're going to be significantly better off by the end of the year and probably be every other market out there.

It's up 130% the last 12 months. Like you look at zoom out on the bitcoin chart and you're like, oh, this is a nice looking chart.

Look at the monthly chart and the noise goes away.

That's wild. So I think just to recap, sit back, don't stress, look long term, readjust your strategy, cut the crap and simplify. That was my first post I did this year. This, the theme for this year was going to be simplify. That's exactly what's playing out. So don't chase shit, don't trade, chase all the craziness in the meme coin space. Just sit back. The macro conditions are not favorable right now, but there are a bunch of tailwinds that are coming and you don't need to like do crazy shit to try and make a bunch of money because you end up losing it.

Exactly right. Keep it simple, sleep well at night and profit.

Love it. Let's end there. Thank you so much, folks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, we'd love for you to share it with that friend or family member that's barreling in the memes and losing a bunch of money. Let's send them this, get them dialed in, get their strategy right. And if you need help with your strategy or if you've got a large portfolio, we do have a couple of spots open in February for our platinum services by application. So you can just jump on a call, see if it's a good fit because we've got, you know, some awesome events coming up. We'd love to speak to you. And yeah, join, join the 100 odd high net wells. We're working with our platinum group, which is super exciting.

It's a lot of fun.

Awesome, guys. See you on the next episode.

Thanks, champions.