Trading the Markets: August 13, 2025 | Kris Bullock and Bijan Maleki

0:00It's August 11th and Ready Set Connect starts today. Two weeks of AI and crypto alpha exclusive to RV Connect. And yeah, I'm going to be doing a live AMA, so bring the spicy questions. Join before midnight for a 50 % off, plus a bonus pack with a secret video from me. Go to realvision.com forward slash 50 off or click in the link in the description.

0:30Happy Wednesday. Happy hump day, everyone. Welcome back to another Wednesday episode of Trading the Markets with Chris Bullock, aka BlastoPlast. And what a great day to be doing a trading show because the market is green. Bitcoin and ETH are nearing their all-time highs. Solana crossed$200. Sui crossed$4. The meme coin market is showing some great strength. Just a great day to be in crypto, right? We haven't had many of these, so we have to celebrate them when we're getting them. And hopefully that's it. We're in the banana zone, right? So hopefully the higher highs and higher lows as well are coming our way.

1:14And with that, I do want to remind everyone, we have our Ready, Set, Connect. It's a two-week series built for this market right here, right now with real-world tactics on how AI, crypto, and macro collide and where you can find a real trading edge. So click the link below or head over to realvision.com forward slash ready set connect. Make sure you join. Make sure you watch. We have some great content coming your way. Like, for example, Andreas and Jordy Visser dropped on the platform today where they explore all the biggest opportunities in AI from traditional markets to crypto to just brand new cutting edge AI tech.

2:05It's definitely one that you'll want to catch. And also make sure you go back and watch Raoul and Jordy Visser's conversation as well, where they dove into just a variety of fascinating topics on AI and where we're heading. And also just a reminder about Connect. You don't just get our great Connect content on the platform. You also get two different portfolios, one from our very own here with us right now, Chris Bullock, who is up, oh my God, he's up 2x since May 2024. So incredible returns. He's outpacing Bitcoin by over 30%. And so he just builds a nice portfolio for DGENs and newcomers alike, honestly.

2:48And you also get Joe Blant's entry-level crypto portfolio as well. And he's up quite a bit. Last I checked on his portfolio, he was up 51 % since his, what, four-month inception. So great, you know, just great alpha and just great content. So make sure you sign up. Make sure you tune into our AI two-week series. And yeah, let's just share ideas with each other. Chris, how are we doing? It's a great time to be in the markets and doing some TA. Indeed. Indeed it is. Yes. No, it's all about Ethereum right now. I mean, Ethereum is kind of the talk of the town. It's nice to see. It sort of makes me feel like, you know, crypto is back, you know, now that Ethereum is in the conversation again.

3:32And I feel like everything is kind of back on track, back to normal. And we can really commence with this banana zone in earnest at this point. And so it's exciting times indeed. Yeah, so I wanted to start basically just by digging into the Ethereum chart because not only is it back, but it's, you know, very, very close to all time highs. So let's take a look at the chart here. for example, we've actually been in this long-term wedge pattern going back. Well, really the top of it started back at the previous all-time high in November of 2021. And then all the way up through this four-year cycle, we've held this bottom trend line until we had, well, admittedly, a pretty unnerving wobble, a little more than a wobble, I'd say.

4:16We had this big correction at the beginning of the year and it really broke down and lost that trend line. But then, you know, it came zooming back right when everybody was like, oh, Ethereum's dead. Even myself, I'll admit, I thought Ethereum's dead. Like it's maybe not dead as a project. I never thought Ethereum was dead as a technology, but I thought maybe Ethereum was no longer the investment it once was. And of course, you know, right when everybody capitulated is immediately when it reversed and has since been one of the best performers coming out of the lows, was the April lows. And it, in fact, broke out of the upside of this long-term wedge pattern just last week.

4:52And I remember on our Monday show, I said, if it has another candle as big as last week's candle was, we'll be hitting all-time highs like this week. And well, we're right on track to do that as it stands now. We're a little over$100 away,$150 away to be exact in this moment, which is nothing. And so pretty exciting times. It's good for ETH. You definitely can tell that it's maybe taking a little bit of air out of the rest of the market at the moment. Like everybody's kind of piling in on ETH at the moment. It's the crowded play. It's the big trade. And so some of the other alts are taking a bit of a backseat in this moment, which we can touch on.

5:34But the big caps, I think, are moving well, nicely. Not only ETH, but we're also seeing Solana moving well. We're seeing SWE moving well. And so I wanted to just kind of spend a little bit of time looking at both of these or some of these other assets on a weekly timeframe chart just to show that they have good structures too, that I think that good things are happening. And it's only a matter of time before we see these breaking out too. So actually, let's look at Solana and SWE briefly real quick. Here's the SWE chart. It too has a big wedge pattern that it's been forming, not quite going back to 21, of course.

6:06But yeah, it's coiling, basically. It's coiling. It's holding support on this horizontal line right at around$4. And I think it's ready to rip as well. And then looking at Solana, same thing, if even better. Solana is actually maybe a tick closer to its sort of all-time high. And it had an all-time high more recently as well. But it's also holding fine support here. And everything just looks good. They're in weekly uptrends, which I think is really important. They're both above their 10-week moving averages. Both the 20-week moving averages are pointed up and to the right. So we're in solid weekly uptrends on both of these.

6:45And I feel like it's at the moment in the larger rotation that takes place within the crypto ecosystem, we're kind of in that phase where it's the major's turn to run, even Bitcoin to a degree. We're looking at the Bitcoin, the Ethereum, Solana, SWE, XRP, BNB, those top 10 tokens. Those are all doing well right now. And a lot of the other ones are a bit in the red at the moment. But that's OK because we know, I mean, what, give it a week. And next week, it's going to probably be the opposite. Next week, we're going to have lots of memes running, lots of alts running. And these other ones will be taking a breather in that moment.

7:20So yeah, just kind of good stuff all around right now. Like you said, it's exciting times. Yeah. And this is, you know, this is the moment we've kind of been waiting for. You know, we've talked about this quite a bit on our Monday and our Wednesday show about ETH, needing ETH to break out to really signal the coming of all season. So, you know, we have that moment, you know, ETH really just started showing that strength kind of, you know, this month, really. So, you know, these things, they come fast, right? But they also take time to build up that momentum. And once that momentum gets that full steam, then, you know, you better be on that train because it's taken off.

7:56So I would say, you know, just because maybe your coins, I was I was speaking to Chris offline before and, you know, I was expressing a little disappointment in the lack of sleeves, pump action, if you will. But, you know, it's a great reminder that, you know, all season is here with ETH and that ETH strength is going to trickle down, especially to not to everything. right? But to the things that are showing strength that we always, we often chart on this show. So absolutely love that we're starting with, uh, with those charts. Um, Chris, did you have another, uh, chart that you wanted to mention or should I, uh, start going into some of the questions we've got, which actually, let me remind everyone, if you have any questions, uh, we do have a bunch of charts to get through today, but if you want us to see a specific chart, uh, just throw your question on X or in the platform chat and we'll get to them.

8:44So, yeah, we had a kind of lead in the lead up to the show and in some of the comments on like the Monday show, for example, we did get a few requests that I want to address, chart requests. And so let's start with those. And I'm going to kind of lump two things into one here by probably showing these charts like against their Ethereum pair, you know, because a lot of people are like, how is, say, you know, can we look at Link? Can we look at AVAX? Can we look at Injective? Can we look at some of these other charts? And absolutely. But I think you want to make sure that they're outpacing, you know, a lot of the majors right now, the leading charts.

9:18And normally I would do that against Bitcoin. But I think in this moment, let's take a look at them against ETH because that's a little bit more relevant right now and a little bit more stark, even I might say. So let me switch here to a daily timeframe. And then I want to start with LINK. So LINK has been coming up a fair bit because LINK has had a nice run, admittedly. Like it had a really good and solid last couple of weeks. It bounced hard out of the lows. And so we're actually looking at the ETH I'm sorry, the Link-Ethereum chart here. So as good as we know Ethereum has been doing, Link has actually outpaced Ethereum even to some degree over the last month.

9:55But if you look, it's really not outpaced Ethereum since the April lows. And it's actually in a longer term downtrend against Ethereum right now too. And then I kind of want to look at it too against the Bitcoin pair briefly as well, because that's interesting as well. And more importantly with Link, because Link comes up a lot. And I get it. It makes sense because it's an amazing tech project. It's like an essential key piece of infrastructure for the crypto ecosystem. If it went away, it would be catastrophic. I totally get that. But that doesn't necessarily mean that Link as an investment is the best way to go.

10:41Oftentimes, you'll find in crypto, and even confoundingly so, that some of the best technology doesn't equate to the best price action. And unfortunately, Link happens to be one of those. And what we're looking at here is the Link Bitcoin chart. And we can see since Link peaked against Bitcoin back in August, all the way back in August of 2020, it's just been pretty much down only. It's like, yes, there's been occasional periods of outperformance, even some that would go as long as six months. But like by and large, if you were holding Link for the long term, you would have lost tons of value against just holding Bitcoin on its own.

11:17And so I just want to make sure that if you're looking at this sort of breakout that Link is having right now, that you sort of remain cognizant of the larger long-term picture and know that we really need to see like something more than just a few weeks of spiky price action. Because a lot of times what happens is it just immediately reverses. And then suddenly, you know, a month or two later, you're down even more against Bitcoin. And again, you'd have just been better off holding Bitcoin. So when people ask me, should I be looking at link? This is the first chart I show them because I'm like, yes, if it will, it depends.

11:51It depends on what your timeframe is. It depends on what your goal is here. If you're looking for like a short term trade. Yeah, probably you could probably do pretty well. You might even do real well. But if you're looking to hold it, if you're thinking you want to hold this to the end of the decade, for example, yeah, I don't know. Maybe not. You know, that's, that's definitely a different answer in that scenario. So, so I think keep that in mind. And then let's kind of look at AVAX under the same lens here.

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13:17And it's almost exactly the same conversation. You know, certainly we had this amazing period of outperformance at the beginning of 2024, where it caught up a ton and even, you know, significantly reversed this downward trend. But really, I mean, in the grand scheme of things, this big run only lasted, you know, two months. And then basically it's been down only again from there. So sure, if you happen to catch it and ride it for these two months, great. Chances are you wouldn't have sold the top in that scenario. And, you know, before you knew it, you were all the way back down. So kind of the same thing with AVAX, just be careful.

13:52Like, again, these are good projects technically, but like they just, you have to really focus on what the market is paying attention to right now. The market's going to tell you where the money is going. And that matters more than the tech more often than not. And so that's unfortunately the case with AVAX too. And then briefly one more before we kind of move on to something else, there was another one, Injective, that had come up. And I might have to just type this one in. I don't see it here. Oh, no, it's right here. Injective is a little bit different story. like for the first half of this four-year cycle, like all of 23 and even all of 2024, Injective was amazing against Bitcoin.

14:32Like it was one of the best performing assets in the whole space for like the first half of this four-year cycle. And then just, you know, come the beginning of 2024, it's literally given almost all of that back. Like it's kind of crazy. But if you look here, Injective could be doing a reversal against Bitcoin. Now I'm not, I can't say for certain that we're going to start to see, you know, another rally like this come out like we did here right now. But credit where it's due, it has reversed against Bitcoin. It is setting higher highs since sort of the April lows. So it's like this could be a decent one to get into for the stretch because we know that Injective can get market buzz.

15:15It can get the attention of the market. It can get a strong bid. it has shown that it can do that this four-year cycle, which I think is important. And so we might be in the beginning of that stage. It's yet to see. We need to still see it kind of set a little bit further higher highs here. But Injective could be one to pay attention to. I think it's a little bit too soon. It's maybe a little bit of an aggressive entry to get in at this point. But I kind of like what I'm seeing here. I think it's a more sustained reversal pattern, bottoming reversal pattern than either of those other two we just looked at.

15:46So a quick break in your regular programming. If you're serious about your future, grab my free report called Prepare for 2030. I think you've got five years to make as much money as possible. And this guide will help you navigate what's coming. The link is in the description. Download it now. While we're still on the topic of alts, especially alts versus ETH, we have a question from Andy on X. I'm thinking another four to six weeks until alts such as HBAR and SWE have true face-ripping rallies. Chris, what are your thoughts on that timeframe? That kind of lines up. I do think over the next probably week to two weeks, we'll generally see everything going up a fair bit.

16:33But then I'm anticipating September to be not great. You know, I don't know what that means exactly. I do think historically, like from a seasonality standpoint, September is one of the worst performing months kind of across the board for all of crypto. And so, you know, you have to kind of factor that in. And also just cyclically in terms of like Bitcoin, how it goes in its sort of 60-day cycles and weekly cycles, that kind of lines up too with September being, you know, not great. I don't know what that means by not great. That could mean anything from, you know, it goes sideways to it goes down 20 % on Bitcoin side to maybe we, maybe because everybody's thinking it's going to go down in September.

17:15Maybe we're all wrong and September is going to be green just to prove us all wrong. You know, it's like you never know because you have to factor in, you know, a lot of exogenous stuff that's going on with the regulatory thing, regulatory standpoint, macro standpoint, things like that. So there's definitely factors out there that can serve to, you know, influence the charts and outweigh the sort of cyclicality of Bitcoin and crypto. So we'll have to see. But I generally agree with that, that, you know, after September, I think the whole market, you know, obviously including the likes of, like you said, HBAR and SWE and Solana and things, I think everything's going to go on a run at that point.

17:53I think October through the end of the year probably will be that face-melting rally, which again, also because it's also the consensus, hopefully that doesn't mean we're wrong there too. But probability-wise, I think that's the most likely scenario. I'll say that. Yeah, if there's one thing I've learned about these markets is they will often do what you least expect them or want them to do. Exactly. Well put there. Chris, I had a coin that I actually wanted you to check out as well. One that I mentioned a while ago when it first dropped, which is Grind. Grind the coin, the hamster coin. It is the number one meme on Abstract.

18:39So why don't we check in on how that's doing? It has a little bit more price history than when we first mentioned it. What do you think about what the charts say about that one? I remember when you said that. And we charted it at the time, and it was very early days, and it was a bit on a downward trend here as it was sort of finding its bottom. And then it kind of has plotted sideways for more than a month since then. And then, I don't know, maybe you know, Bijan, whatever happened on August 8th. But that was the catalyst it was looking for because since then, it's just been, you know, that's your face-melting rally right there if there ever was one.

19:18And so, yeah, I mean, let's see. What did this do in this stretch? It was, I mean, at one point, yeah, 180%. So almost a 3X. So, yeah. I mean, it's definitely down a bit since then. It's kind of come down perfectly and is tagging its 10, what are we on, 10 bar moving average. We're on the four-hour time frame right now. So it's 10 bar moving average. Since it is quite so extended like this, there's a decent chance it'll come all the way back down to its 20, as it often does in these big corrections. This one's calling for a fib, too. These big rallies, they're perfect for this. So it's down to...

20:00Well, it's not even down to its 382 yet, so it's probably got a little ways to go. Typically, with a big run like this, it's not uncommon to see a 0.5 or even a 618. and so we'll see how that goes but yeah definitely whatever is going on here it's got people's attention and and even with these they don't necessarily have to correct all that much if the larger market is running and suddenly there's big hype going on here because this isn't a huge as big as this looks it's not what was it not even a 3x it was 180 so it could have plenty more room to run. That's pretty exciting, though. Pretty cool project.

20:37Yeah, it is a cool project. It is a really strong NFT community kind of behind this project as well. Like I mentioned, they're on Abstract. They're doing a bunch of stuff with InfoFi as well, which is, you know, you can read into that and see what you think about it. But it's also under 10 million market cap right now. So, you know, we've talked about coins like that. You know, if you find them interesting. They always have a lot of opportunity to run. So, you know, if you got some lunch money, you know, some spare change in the couches, uh, maybe not too bad to throw it at it, but I definitely like Chris's mentioned there, keep an eye on the chart and see if you can find a good entry, um, or, or not, you know, they could, it could always run.

21:20Um, yeah. Put in like a cheeky buy order down here at like 6 ,500 or something like that. There's, there's a, you know, a decent chance it'll fill, I feel like right here. So I like that. Yeah. And it is a meme coin, obviously, but it's also like a, it's a community coin too, you know? So I think that's a, it has like an interesting double aspect to it with, there's no utility behind it, which is always bullish for these kinds of things. But yeah, guys, check it out if you like it. Chris, so we're also talking offline about this, but I've also seen this come up quite a bit in our chats on Discord, people kind of asking and wondering, oh, well, ETH is running.

22:00Should I sell my ETH now and start trickling that down into some maybe lower cap alts that think we can run, like Sui or some others? Or should I sell my lower cap alts and start chasing this ETH rally? What do you think about that? And how would you play that situation? Yeah, that's a great question. It's funny. Right now, I feel like ETH still has a little bit more juice left in the tank. I think it's going to keep going for a while still. I think once it sort of breaks out of its all-time high, it's going to capture even more attention. so I don't know that I would necessarily rotate into or out of either one.

22:43Like if you're holding ETH, I would say definitely keep holding ETH right now. Like if I had a, I kind of wish I had more ETH than I do, you know. But at some point, yes, it is going to reverse. And so what would that look like? I think what you probably want to do is of course look at the ETH alt pair on TradingView and let's just kind of pull up a couple here and take a look at what we're seeing. So right now, a lot of these look really ugly. Like this is the Solana ETH chart. And most of them are going to be this. Like ETH is just crushing everything at the moment. But eventually, it will run out of steam.

23:16It will kind of wear out. And you will be looking for reversals. And so really what you want to be looking for is, you know, start to look for just kind of a bottoming pattern. And maybe actually zoom in on the daily time frame. The weekly is probably a little too sort of blunt. But look on the, like here's Solana ETH on the daily time frame. We can start to see with this bullish divergence indicator, we're getting bullish divergences starting to form. And what I mean by that is even though, yeah, the price is continuing to go down, like here's a perfect example. Like in this dip right here where it bottomed, we had this really low bottoming sort of peak, I guess, in the RSI.

23:56But in the subsequent price dip, the RSI actually was not as low. It was higher. So this is actually a bullish divergence, meaning effectively this downtrend is starting to lose momentum. It hasn't rolled over yet. It still has a ways to go. But you just start to look for technical reversals like on the daily time frame. So what I'd want to see is first we want to see these momentum divergences like this. And then we want to see price start to basically start to work its way back above these moving averages. You know, start closing above the 10-day moving average and then the 20-day moving average and just start to, you know, start to see some trend reversals.

24:32As soon as we see that, then we'll see that maybe ETH is starting to run out of steam and maybe the money is starting to rotate back out into these alts. And that would be the time to maybe take some of your ETH profits and start rolling them back into these alt positions. So this is the Solana. Let's look at SWE real quick and see. It's going to be mostly the same thing. I mean, again, all these charts look terrible against ETH right now. But that's okay because we know that it goes in waves. We know that it's cyclical and they'll come back around. So don't panic necessarily because ETH isn't going to just dominate the whole rest of the market for the rest of the way.

25:08It's only going to go up so much. It might do whatever, a 2, 3, 4x in there. Whereas a lot of these charts, even though they look terrible against ETH in this moment, might still have a 5 or a 10x left in the tank because their market caps are so much lower than ETH. And so, but anyway, here's another one, very overextended to the downside, still a slight bullish divergence, very slight in that this peak here is only is slightly above this previous one here. But same thing, we're going to be looking for a reversal of these candles, some green candles where they start closing above these moving averages.

25:41And then maybe look at XRP real quick. I mean, it's all going to be the same thing. That's effectively the criteria. You just want to be looking on the daily chart for bullish divergences and for reversals and closes above like a pair of moving averages, whether it's 10 and 20 or 14 and 7 and 14 or whichever pair you want to eat. It doesn't really matter. It's just as long as there's a fast one and a slow moving one, you want to see. And ideally, you want to see the faster moving average cross back up over the slow moving average. and that's going to give you, you know, really strong signal that it looks like these coins are reversing against ETH.