Bitcoin DUMPS To $62K As Iran War Escalates – Matt Hougan Live

**Scott Melker** (0:01)
Bitcoin has dropped back below $62,000 on news that we have ceased ceasing fire in Iran. Apparently, the war is back on, even though anybody who's been watching realizes that it probably never left. But under the hood, there's a lot more to talk about than just what may or may not be happening in Iran on any given day. And I have my favorite person here to discuss all of it with. We got Matt Hougan from Bitwise. Let's go.
Good morning, everybody. Happy Wednesday, and welcome to Rivendell, here in the neighborhood of Mordor. I don't know. Everyone wants to look back. I'm like, we're in the Lord Of The Rings. Matt, I know it's not sick to have where you are, but we don't even keep time here.

**Matt Hougan** (0:58)
That's right, you don't need time. That's quite a background. You're looking good. You're looking good.

**Scott Melker** (1:03)
I didn't know it was gonna be there. You know, when you're an elf, you live forever, and the time doesn't really matter.

**Matt Hougan** (1:10)
It doesn't really matter right now, so, you know, yeah.

**Scott Melker** (1:13)
Okay, so like, I have to admit something, you know, you do titles on YouTube because, you know, you need like the engagement and there's a formula for the outcome. But like one day we're like, Bitcoin pumps to 64 The next day we're like, Bitcoin dumps to 62 and it's all just the same price, right? But then it's still, you know, the Bitcoin under pressure, as Trump says, Iran ceasefires over. I didn't even know we had one, really.

**Matt Hougan** (1:35)
I think we're supposed to wait 24 hours to react to anything that Trump says. So I think really this is a tomorrow story. That's the incredible thing about this market. We've gone nowhere since June. I actually take that as a pretty big positive, right?
Sentiment got really terrible at the end of June. It's picked up a little bit now, but we're basically trading where we were on like June 9th. I think when there is bad feelings and bad headlines, but the price is flattish, that's probably good long-term, but it's a little bit of a boring market right now.

**Scott Melker** (2:11)
Yeah, it is a boring market. That doesn't mean that the news is boring though.
I think that the key, and I'm trying to find your, I know you wrote a note and I had it pulled up, but about STRC and Sailor. So I think this is just a continuation of what you just said, because that was definitely the quote unquote bad news in the market for a while. So I'd love your take as we do with every guest who comes on, on what he did basically on Monday and how the market reacting, because what we had for those who haven't been watching, obviously he had a significant sale for the first time, 200 plus million dollars worth of Bitcoin and the market kind of went up.

**Matt Hougan** (2:50)
Yeah, actually there were two important things that I would point out. The first is that when the full stretch freakout happened, when it traded to 74 and when MicroStrategy stock was getting crushed, Bitcoin didn't care. It traded flat and that was one of the first times I had ever seen where Bitcoin didn't care what was happening to stretch and MicroStrategy. Then as you said, when he sold Bitcoin to raise cash to push off any concern about strategy into the future, Bitcoin rallied. I think that tells you something pretty specific, which is that strategy was the big dog, it was the tail wagging the dog of the past few years of crypto. It was the biggest buyer. It was also arguably the biggest risk. It ever had to liquidate things, and now it's just become less important. The more it's in the rear view mirror and not front of stage, I think the happier the market is. But it was really interesting to see it rally when he sold. I think that tells you everything about what people expect from strategy in the future.

**Scott Melker** (3:54)
Yeah.
I'm torn between a number of narratives with him. Obviously, the biggest fear, I guess, was that he would be a force seller. Him selling says, I'm not going to be a force seller because I'm willing to sell. So maybe it removes the fear from the market. I'm wondering how the market is handicapping him not being a buyer, because the other narrative is that he was the only person buying Bitcoin this entire way down or at least in size, and who's going to step in. You wrote about that here in this memo, but I think that's another interesting conversation.