DeFi Squirrel

Look, everyone's been screaming the dollar's dead. I've had five guests in a row say it. Then Brent Johnson walks in and says... not so fast.

He runs Santiago Capital. Manages real money on the opposite bet. His whole thing? The Dollar Milkshake Theory. And here's the line that stuck with me:

"Imminent is not the same thing as inevitable."

He's not saying the dollar wins forever. He's saying people have been trading the collapse for eight years and getting wrecked. Things don't end just because they should.

Remember 2022? The US literally froze Russia's reserves. That was supposed to be the moment everyone runs from the dollar, right? The dollar index went from 98 to 114. The opposite happened.

His take on rates is wild too — higher rates are actually stimulative until you hit the wall. Sounds backwards but he's watched it play out.

And stablecoins? He calls them stealth dollar expansion. 99% of stablecoins are pegged to the dollar. We think we're escaping fiat, but we're just spreading it further.

He agrees it ends badly. He just thinks it drains everyone else first.

We covered why people might not want the dollar but still need it, why this is the hardest market he's seen in 26 years, and yeah — what he actually owns in $crypto.

Someone's wrong here. Either all the debasement guys or him. That's what made this one interesting.

So there's this BIS paper floating around that tries to define money as a "system" — not a thing, not a tech stack, just... a system. Cool framing, honestly. Makes you think about $BTC, gold, and stablecoins in a different light.

The real question it brings up: are we talking about an "exit" or an "alternative"? That distinction actually matters more than people realize. Like, are you trying to leave the system entirely, or just build a parallel lane?

Gold's been the OG exit for centuries. $BTC wants to be that, but also wants adoption. Stablecoins? They're more like the compromise — still plugged into the rails, just with a different coat of paint.

It's one of those debates that sounds academic until you realize it shapes how you think about your whole stack.

Market's running on fumes right now. You can tell by how fast everything bleeds when $BTC sneezes — alts just fold immediately. That's what zero confidence looks like.

This is accumulation time if you've got the stomach for it. Sit tight on what you're holding, add where it makes sense.

When the doom posts start flooding your feed — and they will — that's usually when the smart money's quietly stacking. Been through enough cycles to know that panic is often the buy signal nobody wants to admit.

$AVAX feels like it wants to slide lower here. Personally, I'd be interested around $8 if we get a retest there — not saying it's guaranteed, just where I'd start paying attention.

Right now the whole market's kinda wishy-washy. No real conviction anywhere, and altcoins are eating it. That's just how it goes when $BTC isn't leading the charge.

Once Bitcoin actually picks a direction and runs with it, you'll see alts wake back up. Until then, it's mostly noise and patience.

Been watching gold for a while now, and honestly? This correction could keep going deeper than most people expect.

Shared a chart on this earlier — the pattern's pretty clear if you've seen enough cycles. Markets don't just stop correcting because we want them to.

Personally? I'm not rushing in. The deeper it drops, the more interesting it gets. That's when the real buying opportunities show up — when everyone else is nervous and the price actually makes sense.

Patience pays in these moments. Let the market do its thing, then step in when the math works in your favor.

$SUI might've already bottomed out from this correction.

When $BTC shows weakness, alts follow — pretty standard stuff. Bitcoin went from $87k down about 10%, and alts usually correct deeper because they're way more volatile.

$SUI dropped from $1.25 to $0.95, a bit over 20%. Makes sense given the leverage and volatility in play.

Is it done correcting? Probably. We're sitting on a solid support level now, and lower timeframes are showing bearish momentum fading. Wouldn't be shocked to see a quick reversal if $SUI breaks above $1.05 — that's the key level to watch.

If that flip happens, new highs are on the table. Just gotta see if momentum picks back up.

Honestly, $BTC's picture hasn't really changed much. Still feeling pretty good about it.

This correction? It's shallow. We topped at $87k, now we're chilling around $81.6k. That's... fine. Not great, not terrible. Just fine.

The line I'm watching is $80k. If we hold above that, we're probably okay. Below it? I'd expect a quick wick down to $75k — not a slow grind, but a fast sweep. That's how these things usually go when support breaks.

Now if we can hold here and push through $83k resistance? Then yeah, party mode. That would set us up for a solid bullish quarter.

So basically: hold $80k, break $83k, and we're good. Lose $80k, and buckle up for a ride down.

Alright, here's the vibe I'm getting — same old thesis, nothing's fundamentally changed. We're just seeing a normal correction this week, maybe bleeding into next week. $BTC, alts, the whole market's pulling back a bit. Feels like we're hunting for a bottom somewhere in this window.

Once we find it? We rotate back up. Next leg begins. Pretty textbook stuff if you've been around long enough.

$BTC already touched its low earlier, so it's ahead of the curve. Everything else is just catching up.

Personally, I see these dips as buying opportunities. Not financial advice, just how I read the room. If you've got conviction and cash on the side, corrections like this are when you load up — not when everything's already pumping and people are screaming "to the moon."

Stay patient. Let the market do its thing. The setup's still intact.

Look, if you've been around long enough, you know the real game isn't about chasing every shiny thing — it's about finding those rare setups where the upside wildly outweighs the downside. Asymmetric bets. That's the whole point.

And honestly? If you're paying attention to macro trends, geopolitics, currency chaos, the works — there's one move that keeps making sense: just stack $BTC.

Gold's had its moment. Don't get me wrong, it's done well. But forward-looking? After that recent run-up, the risk-reward isn't nearly as juicy. You're buying into volatility that's already played out.

$BTC though? Still hasn't had that same explosive move yet. Demand's still flowing in, institutional interest is real, and the setup feels different. Not saying it's a sure thing — nothing ever is — but the asymmetry is there.

So yeah. Keep it simple. Stack $BTC.

Altcoin market cap's pulling back a bit, but honestly? Still looks bullish to me. The overall trend's pointing up, even with these dips. I've seen enough cycles to know corrections don't kill momentum — they're just part of the ride. People panic when they see red, but zoom out and the structure's still there. This is normal price action, not a breakdown. If you've been around long enough, you learn to read the vibe beyond the daily noise.

Brazilian yields are wild — and they mess with stablecoin demand in ways most people don't think about.

When local rates are sitting at 10%+ (which happens), why would anyone park money in a dollar stablecoin yielding 4-5%? You wouldn't. You'd convert back to reais and take the local rate.

But here's the flip: when inflation's eating your lunch or the currency's sliding, that 10% yield isn't really 10%. Suddenly stablecoins start looking like the safer bet — even at lower nominal rates.

It's this constant push-pull. High yields pull capital into local currency. Currency risk pushes it back into stables. And in Brazil, both forces are always present.

Stablecoin adoption isn't just about tech or rails — it's about whether holding dollars makes more sense than holding reais this month. That calculation changes fast.

RWAs coming onchain? Yeah, I'm into it. Been watching this space for a while now, and the whole tokenization thing just makes sense if you think about it.

Liquidity goes up. Efficiency goes up. And suddenly regular people can access stuff that used to be locked behind walls — real estate, bonds, whatever. That's not some magic trick, it's just better infrastructure.

What caught my eye lately is platforms letting you trade these RWAs with leverage and build strategies without needing a PhD in finance. It's like... finally, the tools are catching up to the idea.

I'll be messing around with this over the next month or two, seeing what actually works and what's just hype. If it pans out, I'll share the real numbers and how you could try it yourself.

No guarantees, just vibes and experiments. But that's how you learn in this space anyway.

$BTC's just doing that thing where it pretends to care about direction but doesn't actually commit to anything. No breakdown that matters, no breakout worth getting excited about — just endless chop that'll drain your soul if you're trying to time anything. Classic sideways grind. If you've been around long enough, you know this phase: it's boring until suddenly it isn't, and by then you've already stopped paying attention.

Two years of bleeding, and this week my altcoin bag finally crawled back into the green.

Hit a new yearly high — $205k — and we're barely out of the gate. Most alts haven't even twitched yet. But here's the thing: the best moves I made this week weren't buys. I scaled out of $NEAR, took profit on $W, stacked some at $0.012–0.014, dumped a chunk at $0.03, and just… built cash.

The market threw a tantrum — KOSPI sold off, CPI came in hot. Classic correction vibes. But honestly? That's healthy. People with bear-market PTSD are gonna panic-sell every dip, and that's the real risk right now. Total crypto market cap says we're in a new bull, just catching our breath.

I nailed the $W move and got out exactly where I wanted. Now I'm stacking cash into strength instead of staying fully allocated. Still no $LINK, $ETH, or $BTC in this book yet — and yeah, I know how that sounds. But I've got my levels, my take-profit zones, and I added one new position this week.

This is how you survive two years of pain and actually make it count when things finally turn.

New weekly candle just kicked off for $TAO.

Still holding above that key zone, which honestly feels like it matters. If we stay here, wouldn't be shocked to see a proper green candle this week — maybe even the start of a real move up.

Personally? Still think $TAO is way too cheap right now. Market hasn't caught up to what's actually being built here.

Watching $ARB right now feels like watching that friend who finally got their life together after a rough patch. The correction looked clean — no panic selling, no weird dumps, just natural price discovery doing its thing.

What catches my eye is how it's bouncing compared to other L2s. Not trying to pump bags here, but when something holds up this well during the shakeout and then leads on the way back up? That's usually telling you something.

I've seen enough cycles to know the pattern: organic pullback + strong relative strength = potential for another run. Could we see new highs? Honestly wouldn't shock me. The chart setup is there, the momentum is building, and most importantly — it didn't feel forced on the way down.

Of course, I've also seen setups that looked perfect turn into nothing burgers. But this one has that vibe. You know the vibe I'm talking about.

Look, $BTC isn't screaming bearish right now. But it's not exactly ripping either.

We're in that in-between zone — just need to crack the local high and things should start moving. If US markets open green, I'd expect crypto to catch a bid. Sunday's dump? Classic weekend shakeout, nothing unusual.

Zoom out to higher timeframes and this all looks pretty standard. Just a normal pullback before the next leg up. If the structure holds, $90k is the next logical target.

Not saying it's guaranteed, but the setup's there. Just gotta see if buyers show up when it counts.

Look, I get the panic. Markets dip, everyone freaks out, starts questioning their whole thesis. But here's the thing — you can't control macro. You can't control when Bitcoin decides to take a nap or when some random headline spooks retail.

What you *can* control? Your own head. Your own plan.

I'm still holding my altcoin bags. Yeah, I said it. Because we're still in what I call the "easy cycle" — that window where things haven't gone full clown mode yet, where there's still room for serious upside if you're not trading on emotion.

People forget: the biggest gains don't come from being right at the bottom. They come from staying rational when everyone else is losing it. That's the actual game. Not timing every 5% move. Not flipping in and out because some influencer changed their PFP.

Stay focused on what you can control. Your risk. Your conviction. Your ability to not be an idiot when the timeline is screaming.

That's it. That's the vibe.

Honestly? I think this week might surprise people. Everyone's doom-scrolling right now, but that's usually when things bottom.

Look, we just had a brutal week on traditional markets. $BTC and crypto? Yeah, we pulled back, but it's not some apocalyptic meltdown — just a normal correction doing its thing.

My gut says we're probably finding the low sometime this week. Indices, $BTC, the whole thing. Then we start crawling back up. Not saying we moon tomorrow, but the worst panic might already be behind us.

When everyone's bearish, that's often your signal that the selling's exhausted. We'll see.

Markets are mostly noise, honestly.

Past few weeks we've had this correction, and everyone was like "man I wish I could buy alts at these levels." Now we're actually here and suddenly it's all panic — people want to wait for even lower prices because maybe we're heading into a longer bear.

That's not really how it works though. You kinda have to go against what feels natural. When everyone's scared, that's usually when you should be looking. When everyone's greedy, that's when you pull back.

It's uncomfortable but that's the game. Most people will talk themselves out of good entries because the vibe feels wrong. But the vibe always feels wrong at bottoms.