A Cointelegraph YouTube interview (Molly Jain with Mati Greenspan) covering crypto market conditions in early June 2019. Greenspan outlines two bullish bitcoin scenarios (an aggressive rising/ascending wedge and a more conservative rising trend that could test $6.5–7k), discusses falling volumes/liquidity across exchanges and on-chain, explains a recent short-term flash crash as a liquidity-driven event, and argues bitcoin's value is driven by its network/movement rather than solely technology. He characterizes Bitcoin SV (BSV) as trading with extremely thin liquidity—behaving like a penny stock where small orders move price—and offers portfolio advice (diversification; he reports ~13–15% of his portfolio in crypto) while warning crypto is high risk.
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Hi, I'm Molly Jain, a managing editor here at cointelegraph and I'm talking to Mati Greenspan about what's happening this week in the markets. My first question for you about the markets in amid this week is after another rally, do you think that there is bull fatigue and you think we could be heading for another correction? I think we're kind of seeing it today, but I want of course, your stance on it.
Yeah, it's an excellent question. I guess that's the million dollar question that everybody wants to know. Right. So I think that before we've laid out kind of two bullish scenarios. Number one is an extremely aggressive scenario where we have this rising trend line. You can see it here on the chart. This is basically, this is an ascending wedge pattern. If you use the psychological resistance at 9,000 and you can see we are coming into some sort of a consolidation at the top. So this is the aggressive bullish scenario. And then there is a less aggressive, so a conservative bullish scenario where you draw your rising trend line a little bit more conservatively. And in this case there's definitely a possibility of coming back down, even testing, you know, six and a half or 7,000 levels if, you know, we do, if this does play out. So those are my two kind of bullish scenarios. Obviously past performance is not an indication of future results and anything can really happen.
So do you think that bitcoin then is trading in sort of a rising wedge pattern? And if so, does this signal to you bearish trends?
It is. I mean, those are both kind of rising wedge patterns that I mentioned. What's interesting to note is that the volumes across exchanges and in general, even on the bitcoin blockchain, the futures markets and all the derivatives of bitcoin, everything is kind of dissipating. I mean, we saw some incredible all time highs in mid, in mid May. As far as volumes are concerned, the volumes are still very elevated. The transactions on the bitcoin blockchain are near the all time highs, but we can see that they're coming down a little bit as things relax, as we enter into this consolidation zone that we're in at the moment. So if we get a breakdown in either direction, I mean the excitement can come flooding back in, but we'll see how it plays out.
Okay, so last week Bitcoin's price crashed 11% in just a matter of hours on bitstamp. Is this kind of thing anything that people should worry about?
So it depends what kind of trader you are. I mean, if You're a short term trader with very high leverage. Yeah, you know, it's always good to be cautious because those type of things can certainly stop you out for long term hodlers. I would say that it's not because with that Flash crash, we can see that, yes, there was a large player who sold off some of his holdings, but the market quickly return to the previous level. So this is the type of dynamic that we get in the low liquid environment. And low liquidity is really one of the hallmarks of Bitcoin's price action.
Interesting. So there was a comment this week from venture capitalist Jason Calacanis that bitcoin will likely be replaced by new technology and could eventually trade to zero. I mean, these kind of comments are said all the time. But could you speak about this one?
Yeah, of course. I mean, eventually, yes, why not? What's important to remember is that the bitcoin movement is not really about technology. You know, bitcoin was invented in 2009, more than 10 years ago. And certainly there are other cryptos and other digital assets that are much quicker than bitcoin are today. So that are technologically superior Anyways. Bitcoin doesn't derive its value from the technology. Bitcoin is a movement, it's a network. It derives its value from the network itself, from the people that believe in it. So yes, I believe that technology advances very quickly. But what we're seeing with bitcoin is, is not necessarily about technology, it's about the movement that's being enabled by the technology.
I got it. Yeah. I mean, you can, you can separate those two things. Then back to the prices. So what can you tell us about the recent bitcoin satoshi vision success? Because even today, it's one of the only coins that's up.
Oh, you're talking about bitcoin cash sv.
Yeah.
Right. So bitcoin sv. I don't know if you remember, there was a delist SV campaign that went on a while ago. Binance delisted it here in Etoro. We never listed bitcoin SV to begin with. We followed the other bitcoin cash hard fork, the abc. Generally speaking, you know, Satoshi Nakamoto, when he kind of spoke about hard forks, he, he said it's very dangerous to follow a minority fork because it can be unstable. Now, because of the DLIST SV campaign, liquidity on bitcoin cash SV is very limited at the moment. And what we can see is that it's kind of trading like a penny stock. So any and all volumes can move the price immensely. And that can work out in both directions. So let's say the supporters of bitcoin cash SV come in with even a small buying order, let's say 50,000 or $100,000, and they can move the price immensely. But remember what they have in their war chest at the moment. So if any one of them decides to sell off their holdings, the price could crash just as quickly.
Interesting. I didn't think about it that way. It's a thin market you would say, right?
Extremely thin liquidity.
So my last question then, not about bitcoin SV in general, but do you think that it overall is wise to be bullish right now for the crypto markets?
It depends who you are and how your portfolio is made up. For myself at the moment I'm holding about 13% in crypto of my entire portfolio and you can see it on my Etoro account. And the thing is that, okay, so at the Moment I have 15% in crypto and around when Bitcoin hit 8,000, I was taking some of the profits off the table. Cryptos are very, are very high risk asset class. So to hold, you know, too much crypto, it can be extremely risky. The best strategy for any investor is to think about diversification. Think about different currencies, commodities, stocks, ETFs that you feel have long term potential and kind of diversify yourself among them. That way you can manage the risk that you're taking. So within that, is it smart to be bullish on crypto? Yeah, because it has a very good chance of seeing another kind of parabolic rise. We've seen bitcoin do that several times in the past and it certainly can do it again. And if you're only taking a small amount of risk, that type of rise is, if it should play out, can quadruple or quintuple your overall profits in your entire portfolio, even with a very small exposure.
Got it. That was my last question. So thank you for speaking with us as always.
Thank you very much for having me, Molly, and have an excellent day.
So that was me, Molly Jain, talking with Mati Greenspan about what's going on in this week's markets. Be sure to check out our Hodler's Digest that was published just today. This episode is sponsored by Trade Santa. Trade Santa is a cloud based trading bot. Set it up in less than 2 minutes. Trade multiple pairs, choose between long and short strategies, use tech analysis indicators and see your results in real time. Trade Santa works 247 to get you the profit you set. The platform is already integrated with Binance, Bittrex, Bitfinex and hitbtc. The link is in the description below. Cointelegraph like subscribe and hodl Sam.
