Treasury Just Flipped the Setup for BTC & Gold w/ Kris Bullock & Bijan Maleki | Trading the Markets Aug. 19, 2026

0:06Kris Bullock:Happy Wednesday, everyone, and welcome back to another edition of Trading the Markets. We had a different show prepared for you today, but I think about half an hour before we're about to go on, everything just completely, well, maybe not everything, but quite a few things changed. If you've looked at your portfolio right now, you probably are enjoying the green candles that you haven't seen in a while, especially if you are more heavily into crypto. So we welcome that. We're going to dive into that, see what's going on in the market, why things are green. But is this a bear trap? Some people in the community think so.

0:49Kris Bullock:But we're going to look at the charts to really see if that is the case. Chris, happy Wednesday. How are you?

0:59Bijan Maleki:Yes, I'm doing well. I'm looking forward to this, actually. Like I said, there's a lot going on right now. It's kind of exciting. I'm going to push back. I think it's a little bit more durable than just a flag, but we'll see. I mean, obviously tomorrow will tell. But I think based on what I've discovered and kind of gone through and what I'm going to lay out, I think it's a little bit more durable than that. I think we're seeing a little bit more to it. But before we get into everything I want to first start by saying I've tweaked my my Visual settings on my trading view layout to make the contrast better in an effort to make it more readable And so I'm gonna do a couple different things here I'm gonna start the show in the dark mode as I usually have it though It is an enhanced dark mode with with better contrast So I want you to look at this as we go through the show watch this See what you think and then about halfway through the show.

1:49Bijan Maleki:I'm gonna flip it to light mode and see what that looks like. And then at the end of the show, I want you to leave a comment on the platform and tell me which one you think is better and I'll see what we think going forward. And so I'm trying to make this ultimately a better viewing experience for as many people as possible. So we'll see how it goes. But yeah, I'm gonna start with that and moving along. Now, what's going on? Well, it kind of, I think the big catalyst that all started this off was the treasury announcing this morning that they're going to double buybacks basically on the 10 and the 30 year beginning September 9th.

2:28Bijan Maleki:So that means major buying of treasuries basically. And so what that did is that dropped the long end of the yields way down. We had these big red candles on the 10 year, on the 30 year, this ultimately is bullish. So this resulted in a drop in the dollar, which we see here, which is also bullish. So those things are very bullish for Bitcoin, very bullish for gold, things like that. That was kind of the thing that sort of started all of this off. We had the bond yields coming down drastically. We had the dollar coming down drastically. And then kind of along the same lines yesterday, the CFTC and the SEC announced some pretty major policy announcements that are very favorable towards crypto that are going to take place regardless of whether the Clarity Act comes online or not.

3:21Bijan Maleki:They have like this regulation crypto assets proposal, clearer token classifications, staking and DeFi guidance, broader regulated crypto market access. So the SEC is doing favorable things. The yield, the treasury is doing favorable things. This has kind of resulted in an inflow in ETFs, which we see here. So we're having a pretty decent week in ETFs coming up. So like all of these things are starting to pile on. The macro became favorable, sort of the financial conditions became a little bit more favorable, which is causing big money to kind of start dipping in a little bit more. We had a down week last week, but a decent positive week this week.

4:01Bijan Maleki:And so all of those things kind of aligned and caught a lot of crypto people off guard. And it resulted in a very big short squeeze that we can see that's happening right now. Now, this is a 90 day timeframe, but this is the biggest short squeeze, not only in the last 90 days, but actually going all the way back to as far back as this chart here goes back to 2023, outside of the events of October 10th, October, yeah, right here, or October 8th, rather, whatever, wherever this is. But those were mostly long liquidations. There were quite a few shorts. But outside of that, this is the biggest shorts we've had in like years.

4:45Bijan Maleki:And so that's why everything is massively green right now, because shorts, there's just massive forced buying, basically, to cover all these shorts, because everybody was like net short in crypto and they're getting their faces melted off right now. So that's why we've got big green candles pretty much across the board today. So now, is this durable? I think so. And the reason I think so is because, again, it's not just like a short squeeze. It's coming from macro changes. It's coming from treasury changes. It's coming from Fed policy changes in terms of like the SEC and the FTC. It's coming from institutional flows.

5:22Bijan Maleki:It's impacting gold also. It's not just crypto. So I think there's some durability to this. Now, I think what we need to see, obviously, there's going to be Fed minutes that come out towards the end of today that are either going to reinforce this falling yield liquidity narrative or they're going to push back against it. And so that announcement, how the Fed minutes sort of reacts to what's going on is, I think, going to determine if this is a one day thing or if this is a durable thing. So that's really what I'm waiting for. But based on all of the different elements that have gone into this, I do think that there is more durability to it than not.

5:59Bijan Maleki:So I'm leaning towards it's pretty good. So yeah, I mean, I like what I'm seeing. I think based on this, let's obviously dig through a bunch of charts and see what we see in terms of what levels are we at? Are we breaking through some levels? Are we breaking through some resistance? What looks good? What looks better than others? And just kind of get a, you know, check of where we're at. But I like what I'm seeing. And I think that I'm not saying the bottom is in. I'm not saying that, but I'm just saying this. I think it has some legs. I will say that. And so we'll see. Maybe the bottom is in.

6:29Bijan Maleki:That would be cool. I would be happy with that. So, yeah, that's the that's the quick breakdown in a nutshell of what's going on and why everything is green. And it's it's pretty exciting stuff, really.

6:44Kris Bullock:I love that. Yeah, we have, I mean, quite a few assets are like, you know, approaching double digit percentage gains on the 24 hours, right? Bitcoin up almost a little over 6%, ETH almost up 10%, hype up over 6%. I think Zcash is up, you know, nearing 10%. So quite a few assets are definitely running right now. is it just a case of and now like so what should we be looking for here in in moments like this yeah maybe the bottom's not in right maybe it is that's not really the question at hand here but what should we looking like what should we be looking for in this moment now that things are going up is it just as simple as you want to see the asset going up more than bitcoin is in these types of moments or is there more to it than that?

7:39Bijan Maleki:I mean, certainly, in the case of alts, of course, yes, you want to see it going up more. I think what I'm really looking for ultimately is what's going to tell me that this is durable? What's going to tell me that we're seeing the major things that I keep looking for, like in terms of ETFs, are ETFs actually improving? Another thing that caught my eye along the same lines that I've been talking about was the the Coinbase Premium Index. Now, we know it's been red for sort of historic lengths. It actually poked slightly up into the... I mean, you probably can't even see this, but it did, just believe me, it did poke up into the green for the first time in literally months.

8:22Bijan Maleki:So, I mean, and it's back down in the red now. So it's not like everything. But I mean, literally, let me kind of zoom this out for just a second. So when was it last, not even... hold on like when was it last green at all period was way back here on june 11th so um more than two months and even then it was just a quick peak above and another quick peak above it really wasn't sort of sustained green until you know back all the way back in april so it's been a minute and this is the first time it's been since june 11. so i'll take that that's a step in the right direction that's the step that's showing me that u.s retail at least has of Pulse, which I'll take that.

9:05Bijan Maleki:I'll take a heartbeat from US retail. That's something. They're still alive. They're still out there somewhere. They're just sort of hiding in the shadows, waiting. So that's good. But if we can get a little bit more interest on that side of things, if we can get some more convincing buys, convincing, I should say, net positive inflows on ETFs more than just a few days here and there, that's going to tell me that the I mean, I've talked about just briefly real quick. The reason we're seeing a lot of ETFs come in, ETF buys come in is because I go back to this financial conditions thing. We want to see real rates come down.

9:44Bijan Maleki:And when the Fed automatically drops the 10-year and the 30-year yields, that's a direct catalyst on that. That's a direct mechanical change in these real rates, which is going to push money out the risk curve. It's going to force money out of these safe haven accounts and out the risk curve. That's why we're seeing it go into gold and Bitcoin. So as long as the Fed is actually impacting bonds, that's going to force that money out. So that's also why I think it's durable and why I think it's got some legs to it. So there's some things that are going to keep the money moving in the right direction.

10:18Bijan Maleki:Now, it's not QE. It's not like liquidity. It's not they're printing money or anything like that, though it can have similar similar effects to QE, even though it's technically not. Again, they're not printing money, like understand that. But it's still putting liquidity into the system in a way that directly favors Bitcoin and favors crypto and favors gold and things like that. So that's what's good. And yeah, so I think based on that, let's look at a few levels. Let's see what's where and where we're at. I mean, I don't even I'm kind of going through this in real time myself because it's all happening right now.

10:59Bijan Maleki:So we're going to sort of go through this together and just kind of see in real time what we're looking at and what we have. So Bitcoin looks good. I like that it's come all the way back up to its big major moving average cloud. It's worked its way back up into this long sideways range that it was sitting. Remember last week, it was sort of bumping up against resistance here. Let me turn my highlighter on. So it was bumping up against resistance along this line here for several weeks after just a couple of quick false breaks. And this is by far the first or the biggest sort of move back up into this range that it's had since it broke down.

11:33So obviously we'll see

11:35Bijan Maleki:where it actually closes the day. It's already building a pretty decent wick, upside wick here after these short squeezes have kind of played out. But we'll see. So I like it. It's pushed up into the moving average clouds. It's set new highs. Hopefully it can close the day with new higher highs, but this is good. This is the start of a new daily uptrend, basically. And let's look at it kind of on the weekly timeframe here. Sort of the same thing. It's been on the verge of flipping the megatrend green, but it just didn't have enough kind of momentum here. Let me kind of highlight this. So what we need to flip this, basically, is we need not only closes above the line itself, but we need closes kind of with momentum.

12:18Bijan Maleki:And this right now today is, I mean, it's the epitome of momentum. It's as good as momentum as you can get. So if it can close this week out with, you know, and keep this candle sufficiently high like this, that'll flip it green. And then if we look down here on this one, we've got a bottom signal that has flagged last week. And all it's got to do is close above the wick high of this candle this week. And that will confirm that. And that'll basically be a trend reversal on this weekly timeframe on this trading alpha. So Bitcoin is on the verge of a weekly trend reversal based off of this framework right here.

12:54Bijan Maleki:And then kind of just moving over to this set, it is bumped right up against the 20-week moving average. So in this sense, it's still just technically kind of a mean reversion in an otherwise downtrend. Last term that, and that'll basically... Sorry. What? Sorry, what was that? You're okay. My mic went crazy. Oh, okay. Anyway, so we need to close above this 20-week moving average here and kind of flip this to support. Right now, it's still a counter trend rally in an otherwise larger downtrend. But we do see that this downward moving average is starting to level off and level out and move sideways.

13:34Bijan Maleki:So even that's a good sign. That's showing that we're further along in this bottoming pattern. We're well above the 10-week moving average we can see. So we're in the process of flipping this and a close above this red line here would be a very, very strong signal, I think. And so, like I said, Bitcoin is very close to flipping a lot of a lot of good signs, a lot of good resistance levels that we've been that we've been waiting for. So I like what I'm seeing there. Moving on to Ethereum. What do we got? So Ethereum, kind of what I was just saying needed to happen has just happened with Ethereum.

14:08Bijan Maleki:So it got the big momentum move. it pushed up into that 200-day moving average cloud, and it flipped the signal green already. So it was enough of a momentum move to flip the green and to get a green dot here and to confirm last week's bottom signal here. So Ethereum is arguably slightly a step ahead of Bitcoin based off of the strength, just the outsized strength that it's showing today. I mean, it's up 8.5 % compared to Bitcoin's 5.5%. So we're seeing that's the difference right here. So ETH is now mind you this hasn't confirmed like it still needs to close the week out to confirm this this signal flip here So we got to wait till Sunday But like it's on the right track and even just kind of going over here and looking at for comparison's sake It's above that same 20 week moving average line already So whereas Bitcoin was bumping up against the bottom side of it ETH is already cruising along well above it and Showing just showing more strength in the in the moment.

15:06Bijan Maleki:So ETH looks really solid. Let's check out Solana. Solana's getting there. So Solana's a little bit different in that it flipped its Megatrend green quite a while back. But it's funny, I wouldn't have still bought here because we had loads of red dots here. So these red dots would have kind of invalidated this Megatrend signal. But if we look closely, you know, we finally lost the red dot here. And so we're on the verge of kind of pushing out and breaking out, but it's still not as far along as Bitcoin or Ethereum. It's still it's further. I mean, it's got a little ways to go, but it looks good.

15:44Bijan Maleki:I mean, again, it's pushing back up against previous highs that were set back in June here. So it's doing what it needs to do. Everything's going to kind of look good today. Sweet, less so. I mean, it is technically above its megatrend. It still has a red dot. It's still below its 10-week moving average here.

16:06Bijan Maleki:So, SWE is holding the lows, but I mean, whatever. It's got a bullish divergence here. It's got some bullish divergence flags, which looks good. Generally, the RSI is trending in the right direction, so it's showing a bullish divergence on the RSI, whereas this is moving up, even though this is kind of trending down still. So the downside momentum is continuing to wane, I think, with SWE, but it's not as far along as the other ones we've just looked at. Briefly, let's look at Tron. Tron is just kind of cruising. I want to look at, well, let's look at XRP. XRP needs to bottom out, too. XRP is really just bleeding, like bleeding, bleeding, not really catching up, not really.

16:46Bijan Maleki:It kind of looks like SWE to a large degree. It's, yeah, I mean, it's bad. It's not even like showing bullish divergences on the RSI or anything even. So that's not great. Let's look at NIR. NIR has been one that's been kind of on everybody's radar lately. Let's see what it looks like. So NIR actually was green. It has broken down, but it did hold support on the bottom side of this 200-day moving average cloud and has bounced nicely off of it. And then what do we got here? it kind of held its green candles but it had green dots and it's lost its dot here so looking looking pretty good it's rebounding which i like um so it's trending with the rest of the market i mean it's up six six and a half percent today so i like that um but it's it's sort of lagging behind the the leaders of the day even though it's been generally outperforming overall and has looked better overall than some of the other ones it's kind of lagging behind in the moment, which I think is noteworthy.

17:45Bijan Maleki:I'm going to skip down here a few and let's look at Hyperliquid because Hyperliquid has been one that a lot of people were concerned with because it was kind of bleeding, but Hyperliquid has done a good thing here. So Hyperliquid bounced nicely off of the top side, off of its 200-day SMA moving average and has bounced big off of it. It's right back in the mix, basically, like a good solid V-shaped recovery, which I've been looking for. And it's heading right back up towards its megatrend. And if we look here, not only that, but it got its green dot back. So Hyperliquid is in full sort of reversal, bull trend, uptrend at this point.

18:27Bijan Maleki:It's confirmed its reversal. It's reconfirmed its uptrend. And it's, you know, yeah, I mean, it's doing well. But one thing that's caught my eye and one thing that I want to talk about is pump. And pump is actually kind of, you know, it bottomed and it's ripping out of the lows. And not only is it ripping out of lows, I mean, it's green, green, green across the board here. Green dots, green arrow, like green sort of thrust arrows, which shows that it's got major, major momentum to the upside. It's broken out in all levels. And not only that, what's really interesting about Pump is if I go over here, let me see if I can zoom this in a little bit.

19:08Bijan Maleki:If I look at total like protocols, like crypto digital asset protocols running in the whole crypto sphere, it's ranked number three. It's only behind Tether and Circle in terms of 30 day revenue. Notice it's above Hyperliquid. Notice it's above Tron. I mean, notice it's above, you know, Canton and some of these other ones. Pump is the third most valuable in terms of revenue in the last 30 days asset in all of crypto right now. Like, again, more than Hyperliquid, which has been kind of the darling of everything in terms of revenue. And, of course, it's accruing some of that value back to the token holders.

19:50Bijan Maleki:So this is definitely noteworthy. This is catching my eye. This is breaking out from a token standpoint. It's breaking out from a revenue standpoint. It's crushing it. Ansem's doing some stuff with it, which we can get into here in a little bit. But it's moving. And I want to call attention to it because it's now sort of, it checks those boxes, those important boxes in terms of it's a real project with real world usage that's generating real revenue that's accruing value back to the token holders. Those are the key things that we talk about. And Pump is doing that. And the price is still early.

20:25Bijan Maleki:I mean, yeah, it's, yes, it's overextended kind of in the short term. Obviously, these are big, big green weeks. You know, I mean, look, let's, what do we got here? This week is 19%. This big one here was 28%. This big one here was 36%. So it's definitely overextended a bit. I mean, it's on the, on the weekly timeframe here. We're way outside the Bollinger bands. We're at a D mark six on the setup count. So it's due like a bit of a pullback, but it could run a little bit further. still, it could run all the way to a 13. And, you know, you might not get that pullback and it might not be very deep once it happens.

21:02Bijan Maleki:It could be a shallow pullback. I mean, really this red, red sort of kind of doji candle we got last week could have been the pullback, you know, and it could rip another, another five weeks from here. So, I mean, obviously I don't know what it's going to do, but I'm just saying this one is doing all the things that we talk about that it needs to do to be sort of a viable crypto asset in this new kind of market regime that we talk about. So I wanted to bring it to people's attention because, yeah, it's in the mix and it's interesting. And yeah, let's see.

21:40Kris Bullock:Yeah, Ansem recently launched a launchpad on Solana that I think is pretty much, I haven't looked too much into it. So if anyone has any additional information, but from what I'm seeing, it's basically a very much so a competitor to pump.fund. They also burn Ansem token, all of that. Do you, what do you, how do you, how do you think of that in comparison to pump.fund? Like, do you think they're going to steal some of their market share?

22:10Bijan Maleki:No, to be clear, it's not a competitor directly to pump.fund. It actually uses Pump.Fun kind of on the underside of things. What it's doing is it's a way to hold on. I made a couple of notes here. Let me let me pull them up.

22:33Bijan Maleki:So what it's doing is basically incentivizing people to go through this platform to get more access to Ansem's audience, basically. So like before, kind of the old sort of way people would go about it is a project would come up, they'd make a project, a meme coin, whatever, they would pay an influencer, and that influencer would promote that project, and then hopefully people would come back around and buy the token. So what Ansem is doing instead is it's kind of shifting that a little bit where a project comes about, they go through Ansem's platform. this platform essentially pays Ansem's community members instead of Ansem directly and the community then promotes the project and gets project attention that way so instead of it coming from one person it's coming from an entire community of people uh and well yeah exactly so it's novel but it all the launches still actually take place on pump.fun it's just sort of rerouting a little bit of that attention and capturing some of that attention in a different way is kind of a nutshell way to explain it.

23:44Bijan Maleki:So, I mean, there's more nuance to that. But yeah, so you can launch a token through here. It ultimately does launch on Pump.Fun, but it captures Ansem's audience directly and pays them through airdrops and things like that. Like the project has to buy an allocation of token, airdrop them to Ansem's community that are signed up through this website, they get the airdrop tokens, they promote the project. So it's cool. It's novel, you know? So I wonder, you know, of course, you have to buy Ansem tokens as part of this process. So let's take a look at what that looks like. Let's look at the Ansem token here.

24:20Bijan Maleki:I mean, it's all new. It's only been out, what, a week, maybe? These are daily candles, but we can see just in the last three days, massive, massive volume spike compared to previously. So this is interesting. I mean, this is something to keep an eye on for sure. It's on my radar now, it's on my watch list now to see how well these drops go. But we know just based on what I've shown you with Pump.Fun, it's cranking out massive revenue. It's got massive activity. This is only gonna help things because we know Ansem's got a bajillion followers and his community is valuable. And so people are gonna wanna leverage that.

24:57Bijan Maleki:So this could be an interesting flywheel and it's definitely worth keeping an eye on. So I'm going to be watching the Ansem token. I'm going to be watching Pump.Fun token. Yeah, it's good stuff.