ROLLUP: Bull Market? | Inflation Cools, War Heats | Robinhood Flips Base | ETH’s Fee Problem

**David** (0:04)
Bankless Nation is the 3rd week of July, and for the 3rd week in a row, me and Ryan go over the question, have we bottomed yet? We got some extra data to talk about. Inflation is coming in cold, but the Iran War is coming in hot. And also we've got some drama over in the Robinhood base, Ethereum complex ecosystem.
I think that's the big news of the week, is that Robinhood Chain has passed base in activity, and as a result of that, things are just, things are changing. Times are changing.
It's a new bull market, so time for some changes.

**Ryan** (0:38)
Yeah, well, I don't know if I'm ready to call it bull market, David, but there are some changes that I feel are downstream of Robinhood Chain. One, it might be actually, and this is somewhat bullish for ETH, Max is listening right now, is some movement, positive movement for ETH on the ratio.
There's a question of whether that is Robinhood Chain-induced? Maybe, well, we'll explore in today's episode. How about that? There's also Jesse from BASE, founder of BASE, saying all first quarter, he's had to create shit.

**David** (1:07)
Creator of BASE, I think, is his preferred title.

**Ryan** (1:09)
Creator of BASE has been eating shit. Those are his words, not mine.
Talk about what he means, but this is a BASE pivot. We'll talk about that. And also, there's a new resurgent question again in the Ethereum ecosystem, which is are the L2s paying enough rent to ETH holders? And does ETH even need fees?

**David** (1:28)
Wait, I've never heard of this question before. Have we ever talked about this before?

**Ryan** (1:33)
It's kind of like the perennial question of have we bottomed yet? We're going to talk about that today.

**David** (1:37)
Yeah, there's new stuff to talk about that. There's new stuff to talk.

**Ryan** (1:39)
Yeah, including Plenia is back. Do you remember Plenia? The famous L2 bull back?
They are back.

**David** (1:46)
Mythological creature in Ethereum lore.

**Ryan** (1:48)
Yeah, with a hot take. So we'll talk about all that and more, but why don't we start by...

**David** (1:53)
Looking at this chart. When you look at this chart, Ryan, what do you feel? What do you feel? How does this make you feel? For the listeners, we are looking at the four bull markets of old in Bitcoin, 2014, 2018, 2022, 2026
It's sectioned off into four sections of each of those things. You have the bear, the pre-bull, first bull, and second bull. And it all lines up pretty well. Again, this is just the cycles playing out. And if you believe in this chart, what this implies, we're basically towards the end of the bear.
Not at the end. There is a chunk of time left in this aligning of the seasons, the aligning of the cycles for some shenanigans to happen. And so I think that's the question to be asked is like, in this remaining two quarters of time, the rest of this year, perhaps, what do we think happens? And it's like, I think the big question is, is it a slow grind to the right? Is it a flat grind? Or is there a final capitulation leg? We've just been asking this question every single week on the roll up. I'm in the camp of, is it a grind to the right?

**Ryan** (3:00)
Well, I mean, I think like, you asked how this chart makes me feel. And this chart makes me feel the thing I have been feeling for the last 12 months is that like, I need to get this tattooed somewhere on my body.
Never fade the cycle.

**David** (3:15)
Never fade the cycle.

**Ryan** (3:16)
Every time you want to fade the cycle in crypto, the cycle repeats. And this is just a fourth instance of the cycle repeating. That's what this chart is saying. So the clear syndication of what's going to happen is what happened the last three times. And that means we're close to a bottom, but have not yet bottomed. And so, I think the answer to the question is have we bottomed yet? Almost.
That would be my answer to the question.

**David** (3:44)
But not yet, but not yet, but not yet.

**Ryan** (3:46)
And it just follows exactly like this. This, I believe in this chart. I believe very much in this chart. And I think it's going to play out the exact same way. So we're talking about a bottom in probably two, three months.
And then sideways for the next year, sideways up. And then we will rebuild the base. And then we have a OK 2027, a fantastic 2028 And then it just repeats again.