Interview with a Renowned Crypto Analyst: Don’t Expect Precise Bottoms, the 200-Week Moving Average Remains a Good Investment Opportunity

Source: "Milk Road Show"

Compiled by: Felix, PANews

The podcast "Milk Road Show" recently interviewed crypto analyst Rob, a well-known content creator and market analyst in the crypto space, and host of the YouTube channel Digital Asset News, who has been closely following cryptocurrency, macroeconomic trends, and market dynamics.

The interview focused on Bitcoin's fluctuations near the 200-week moving average and whether this indicates the arrival of a bear market bottom. Rob shared his strategy of gradually increasing his investment based on risk levels and expressed concerns about asset security and vulnerabilities in cold wallets. In light of the current situation, Rob advised investors to reduce risks through diversified custody solutions.

PANews has compiled the highlights of the conversation.

Host: Bitcoin's price has finally climbed back above the 200-week moving average, which usually signifies the establishment of a bear market bottom. However, during bear markets, prices can sometimes linger around this level for a long time. Do you think we have hit the bottom here, or is there more bear market turbulence ahead?

Rob: That's a great question. Honestly, I hope the market hasn't bottomed yet. Historically, the area around the 200-week moving average has always been an excellent buying opportunity. If we trace back to 2015, when Bitcoin was still cheap and investing in Bitcoin seemed crazy, the price briefly dipped below the 200-week moving average but quickly rebounded. By 2018, after experiencing the historic highs of 2017 (when I just started), the price did drop below the 200-week moving average to some extent. Many people were lamenting, saying, "Everything is going to zero, it will never come back." But those who were smart just said, "No, I will continue to accumulate through dollar-cost averaging (DCA)." Then in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe, causing extreme market panic. Bitcoin again fell below the 200-week moving average, which was another very cheap "golden buying point."

Fast forward to 2022, Bitcoin fell below the 200-week moving average, even dipping below the 250-week and 300-week moving averages. Now, Bitcoin is testing this range repeatedly, possibly slightly above the 200-week moving average. For me, this is a very good time for dollar-cost averaging.

I don’t want to repeat the mistakes of 2022. At that time, I made a foolish mistake that I call "micro dollar-cost averaging," where I reduced my weekly investment amount out of fear that prices would continue to plummet, thinking I would buy in more when it dropped lower. If I had stuck to my original plan (normal dollar-cost averaging and increasing my buy amount when prices fell), my holdings would be in much better shape now. Although I performed reasonably well, everyone would agree that buying Bitcoin at $15,000, $16,000, or $17,000 in 2022, or at $3,000 in 2018, was definitely a very wise choice.

So, to answer your question: I hope we haven’t hit the bottom yet. Let’s see if the four-year cycle will play out perfectly as before, or if this is just a very attractive buying window.

Host: Dollar-cost averaging and holding long-term are indeed easier said than done. One of your well-known practices is "dollar-cost averaging Bitcoin every Monday without fail." Can you walk us through how you developed this strategy and how it operates in practice?

Rob: My approach combines a risk model. Simply put, when Bitcoin's price drops, the risk level also decreases. When the risk level is between 0.5 and 0.6, I start regular buying. Once the risk level drops below 0.49, I double the amount I bought the previous Monday. If by the next Monday the risk level falls to 0.39, I quadruple it. If it continues to plummet and falls below 0.29, I will buy eight times the amount.

I must admit that at first, within these risk ranges, I thought, "This is pretty easy." But as prices continued to fall, I had to manually increase my buying amount. However, the operation isn’t difficult because I use Cash App, which automatically triggers the dollar-cost averaging every Monday at 6:30 AM. Many people ask me why I use Cash App. It’s because if set to auto-repeating purchases, its fees are very low, almost negligible, and the spread is quite good, likely facilitated through OTC (over-the-counter) trading.

So to summarize: the lower the price, the more I double, quadruple, or even octuple my purchases. I don’t think too much; I just firmly believe in one thing: in the long run, buying now is likely to be a good deal in the future.

Host: So at this moment, in this doubling, quadrupling, and octuple range, where do you stand?

Rob: I’m not currently focused on specific real-time data, but the current risk level is around 0.3, so I’m in the phase of quadrupling my purchases. Once it drops further below this level, I will start dollar-cost averaging at eight times. Honestly, every time I trigger these large purchases, my bank even calls to ask, "Hey, is this transaction initiated by you?" I reply, "Yes, that’s right." Now they have gotten used to it and no longer call because it is indeed a significant amount of money.

Host: It’s good that the bank has someone to help you ensure security. Since you aggressively dollar-cost average in bear markets, do you also adopt a similar "dollar-cost selling" strategy in bull markets, or do you just hold?

Rob: During the bull market in 2021, I did a better job of taking profits. At that time, I just set clear price targets and sold in batches. My approach was to use "fractal indicators." I would compare the previous cycle's gains (like 2x, 3x, or 4x) and then tell myself: once Bitcoin's price rises 2x from the cycle bottom, I will cash out a small portion of profits. When it rises to 4x, I will cash out another portion, and so on.

But by 2025, I felt I should be smarter, so I started relying on various technical indicators, like MVRV scores, P/E ratios, etc. I thought these indicators would never let me down, but unfortunately, they failed.

In fact, the wisest move at that time was to listen to a user who posted on Reddit three years ago. He asserted, based solely on the four-year cycle timeframe, that October 6, 2025, would be the absolute peak of this cycle. At that time, I thought, how could that be possible? And what happened? October 6 really was the highest point of that cycle.

So, while I didn’t perfectly time the top, I still cashed out some profits in batches during the price decline. I believe no one can truly buy at the lowest or sell at the highest. In the upcoming four-year cycle, I will continue to adhere to a batch profit-taking strategy.

I know some people will say, "Rob, you should never sell your Bitcoin." But everyone has their own life goals, and mine are different from yours. Being debt-free and not suffocated by debt is a wonderful feeling. Bitcoin is indeed great; it has the best currency issuance mechanism, but for me, cashing out a portion of Bitcoin profits and moving them into assets I consider safer (like the S&P 500 index, bonds, or real estate) allows me to sleep better at night. Of course, most of my assets are still held in Bitcoin, not altcoins.

Host: In the past few weeks and even months, Bitcoin's volatility has hit historical lows, even calmer than gold and U.S. stocks. In this narrow trading range that has been sideways for two to three months, do you think there are any short-term catalysts that could break the monotony and reignite Bitcoin's volatility?

Rob: It’s hard to predict. Because whenever there’s a potential positive news, it’s always accompanied by various negative news and FUD. For example, the AI bubble might burst, or there could be large-scale hacking attacks on certain cold wallet devices, any of which could happen.

On the positive side, I previously hoped that the "Clarity Act" would pass, which could have brought positive momentum and market energy. Unfortunately, it ultimately did not pass. Given that it’s an election year, the Democrats clearly do not want to give Trump a political achievement to allow him to conduct a victory tour and mock the Democrats, so they directly vetoed it.

So what other positive factors are there? We see Wall Street institutions accelerating their entry. For example, Citigroup, the third-largest bank globally, will launch a custody solution called Custody+ later this year, designed to meet all-weather demand, and will initially support Bitcoin custody. Other major institutions are also rushing in. We even have a presidential candidate who supports cryptocurrency. Although this may primarily be to promote his World Liberty Financial project, there are indeed candidates who have made many promises as part of their campaign platform, but unfortunately, they often struggle to deliver.

In the short term, I don’t expect any major breakthroughs. I believe the SEC and CFTC will step in to regulate where Congress fails. Congress always disappoints us, but the regulations and adjustments made by regulatory agencies may provide some help in the short term. I think it will be hard for the market to have a super big trend before the end of this year because people used to think that the market was entirely determined by fundamentals and institutional entry, but ultimately, everything still cannot escape the rules of the four-year cycle. As long as we get out of this year’s trading range and the investor sentiment shifts, we will truly see a price explosion.

Host: You’ve mentioned many interesting points, especially regarding hacking incidents, but I want to continue discussing regulation. Although the "Clarity Act" is stalled, it hasn’t completely died; it’s just been postponed to September. On the day we recorded the podcast, President Trump was meeting with several leaders in the crypto industry at the White House. What do you think this meeting could signal that would genuinely impact the market or be worth investors' attention? Or is this just another "show"?

Rob: I certainly hope it can lead to substantial progress. But I see that the World Liberty Financial project behind Trump has just obtained a temporary charter bank license from the OCC, and they are trying to enter the stablecoin space. The stablecoin they currently have is ranked about fifth globally, which could help strengthen the dollar's position worldwide.

I believe President Trump will strongly promote this because it greatly benefits his family project. There are supporters for this, and naturally, there are opponents. But if we return to the "control circle," what can ordinary investors really control? We cannot control a sitting or incoming U.S. president to create their own crypto business project. If he can communicate with everyone in the White House and effectively push for legislation in Congress, that would be great. But in my view, this largely remains a political gesture.

Host: Another major event: the SEC voted to pass and launch the so-called "crypto regulatory framework." This framework clarifies how digital assets operate in the U.S., including initial coin offerings (ICOs), financing, and providing "innovation exemptions" for projects still in the network construction phase. What is your response to the SEC's move? Do you see this as a positive development?

Rob: Regarding the regulations on ICOs, I can only say that the government's actions have been five to six years late. If these regulations had been introduced in 2017 when I first entered the industry, and ICOs were rampant with the market growing wildly, I would have been very grateful. At that time, if you invested in the right projects, you could indeed make a fortune.

I believe that the involvement of the SEC and CFTC is beneficial for capital allocation. I researched the new regulations, and for the next four years, there are almost no restrictions on financing below $5 million, with a cap of up to $75 million. If these policies are implemented, there will be a continuous influx of funds into the crypto space.

But what I really worry about is whether we really need to cram more new crypto projects, altcoins, and DeFi startups into this already chaotic "melting pot"? Everyone runs in saying, "I have a brand new token, a new feature, or the next greatest DeFi invention." While free market competition is good, how many types of altcoins are there in the market right now?

Host: It depends on how you define and count them, but there are at least millions.

Rob: Exactly, up to millions. My personal view is that we should focus on mainstream altcoins that have already been tested by the market and proven their resilience, and build on top of them. If everyone is willing, we could even use Bitcoin as the ultimate settlement layer, just as people envisioned in the early days. So, while I welcome the SEC and CFTC providing positive regulatory intervention, I don't think it will be a super catalyst for a market turnaround.

Host: Recently, security breaches have been happening one after another. From Coldcard to Trezor, and then to last week's SafePal, these breaches and hacks have seriously shaken ordinary investors' confidence in "self-custody." I want to know your thoughts: will the core concept of self-custody suffer a severe blow due to these chain reactions? What should ordinary people do in the face of these concerns?

Rob: Some might say this is purely coincidental, as traditional giants like Citigroup have just announced their entry into the Bitcoin custody space, and a large number of third-party custody services are emerging, perfectly coinciding in timing. But you must realize that devices like Coldcard have been operating securely for many years. Regardless of any conspiracy theories behind it, the unchanging fact is that many people have lost their life savings in these events.

If we are still promoting "self-custody is the only way for the future of finance" now, I believe it is not suitable for everyone. A few years ago, the well-known quantitative analyst PlanB said on X, "I want to transfer all my assets into ETFs." This is someone who has been deeply involved in the crypto industry for many years and knows all the risks and technical details of self-custody, but he clearly stated, "I don't want to mess around anymore; 'no keys, no coins' is certainly true, but now 'no keys, no worries' is more applicable to me.

Another industry heavyweight, Simon Dixon, has a different view. He believes that this series of wallet security crises is a carefully orchestrated public relations battle aimed at scaring ordinary users away and forcing everyone to give up self-custody and return to traditional custodial institutions.

For me, I receive desperate emails from fans every couple of weeks. They write, "Rob, I just lost all my life savings." In the past, this was mostly due to users' ignorance and negligence (like falling for phishing sites). But now, the situation has changed. Brands like Ledger, SafePal, and several other cold wallet brands have had their security protections or company databases hacked, leading to the leakage of users' personal sensitive information (such as home addresses, emails, phone numbers). This allows hackers to directly locate you, creating significant offline personal and asset safety risks.

Worse still, we can't even fully trust the technology and underlying algorithms of hardware wallets themselves now. This reminds me of a saying: "What is terrifying is not what I know, nor what I know I don't know, but what I don't know I don't know."

In the field of self-custody, I am not omniscient. If I had researched some of the hidden dangers of cold wallets earlier, perhaps I could have warned everyone in advance. What I worry about most is that one day, a mainstream cold wallet suddenly announces, "Sorry, we discovered a long-buried underlying code vulnerability thanks to AI, and we apologize for causing thousands of users to lose their Bitcoin."

Some might say I am spreading FUD. But I believe that those who suffered losses due to the Coldcard vulnerability surely wished they had heard more warnings like this at the time.

To mitigate this risk, I have adopted a diversification strategy. I keep part of my funds on Ledger, a significant portion on Tangem, and I also use the custody service from iTrust Capital. At the same time, I will put some into ETFs.

Host: This approach contains great wisdom, and my operations are very similar to yours. On one hand, we want to have autonomy and control over our assets, but on the other hand, we cannot bear the enormous cost of a single link collapsing. Diversifying risks and combining custody is indeed the best practice. How did you gradually develop this combined custody plan?

Rob: This is because I once invited former Los Angeles LA Raiders star player Steve Wisniewski onto my show. He is a future Hall of Famer who invested over $3.2 million in Bitcoin. However, he ultimately lost it all due to a meticulously designed phishing scam.

In the show, he detailed the entire process for us. That interview had a significant impact on me; I realized that even someone as smart as Steve could fall for it, let alone countless ordinary people. Sometimes, you might have printed your seed phrase on paper and tucked it away in some corner five years ago, and you forget about it, only to find out that information leaked through some channel.

I have received too many desperate emails, with people asking me, "Rob, who should I contact? How do I explain this to my wife? How do I pay for my child's college tuition?" I can only helplessly tell them, "In the world of self-custody, once the chips are lost, no one can help you. You can report it to the police, contact the FBI, and I can recommend on-chain detectives like ZachXBT, but the likelihood is that your money will never be recovered."

Losing 25% of your assets is painful, but the most tragic thing is losing 100% of your entire fortune. I hope to protect more people rather than watch everyone blindly engage in self-custody without any safety net.

Host: Since you have focused most of your energy on Bitcoin, is there still a place for altcoins in your investment portfolio? In this bear market, are you also dollar-cost averaging or holding certain altcoins? What is your overall outlook on the altcoin market?

Rob: Regarding altcoins, I look at them from the perspective of practical application. We know that stablecoins will shine in the future and further strengthen the global dominance of the dollar. I researched the on-chain analytics platform under Visa, which tracks the on-chain data of major public chains when carrying mainstream stablecoins (like Tether and Circle). The data is very honest; the same four chains always rank at the top. I refer to the tokens of these four chains as the "BEST" combination: Binance Coin (BNB), Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), and Tron (TRX).

These are the "four kings" of altcoins in my eyes. Of course, there are other good projects in the market, like Polygon. But my personal funds are limited, and I cannot spread my money across every project. Some might say, "Although the transaction volume of stablecoin channels reaches trillions of dollars, this is only a tiny part of what determines token price increases." They are right; payments are just part of the fundamentals, and the biggest driver of token prices, to put it bluntly, is still speculation.

Host: In the future market, will you consider broadening your horizons beyond this "BEST" combination to allocate some smaller market cap dark horse projects?

Rob: If the market environment changes, my strategy will also change; I always keep an open mind. For example, I will pay attention to the progress of the Canton chain in RWA tokenization. If you go to the website rwa.xyz and break down the data by chain, you will find that the Canton chain occupies a huge market share. Additionally, I have been closely monitoring the activity and trading volume on Hyperliquid, which is quite impressive.

But whenever I examine these emerging projects, I always ask myself: Is it really worth breaking my existing stable position to take the risk of diversifying my investments? The current answer is: not worth it. My altcoin positions remain very tight.

Because historical patterns tell us: if the traditional financial market (like the US stock market) sneezes, Bitcoin will catch a cold; and once Bitcoin catches a cold, altcoins will be directly "sent to the ICU on a ventilator." This is the unchanging trajectory of the crypto market.