Trader Taiki Predicts a 'God Candle' for Bitcoin, Maintains Small Zcash Position

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Host: Taiki Maeda

Podcast source: Taiki Maeda

Why Bitcoin Is About to Form a God Candle

Broadcast date: May 5, 2026

In this video, Taiki Maeda provides an in-depth analysis of Bitcoin's (BTC) current market movement and shares his latest insights on this market cycle.

He believes the current market has largely absorbed marginal selling pressure, yet the traditional narrative of Bitcoin’s four-year halving cycle has caused many investors to exit too early. Meanwhile, Michael Saylor’s continuous purchases of BTC through STRC are driving the market into a self-reinforcing upward trend.

In Taiki’s view, Bitcoin’s most important current support is not market sentiment, but the quantifiable, monthly structural buying demand. As long as structural demand for Bitcoin persists, BTC is likely to continue climbing steadily “up the wall of worry.”

Based on this assessment, Taiki also shared why he wants to move beyond the "midcurve bias" (the tendency to overcomplicate and misjudge investments) and instead take a small position in Zcash ($ZEC), viewing it as an asset with the highest reflexivity (where market sentiment and price movements reinforce each other). He further explained why he is confident that this market cycle will be led by Bitcoin’s initial rise, gradually spreading to more volatile crypto assets.

The logic behind bullish BTC and the失效 of the "four-year cycle"

• When the previous market top formed, marginal buyers had largely been exhausted, and the DATs driving further valuation increases had also run out of steam; now, the situation is reversed—marginal sellers, in my view, have been mostly depleted, while DATs are regaining momentum.
• When BTC was around $65,000 to $66,000, pessimism among people was even greater than after the collapses of Luna, 3AC, and the pandemic downturn.
• The best time to buy is usually when it doesn’t feel comfortable; everyone wants to wait until social media becomes uniformly bullish again, but by then, it’s often no longer the best price.
• Many people think everyone can sell together at the top and then wait together to buy the dip in Q4, but I see this as a lazy expectation that the market has already priced in for the past six to seven months.
• If everyone who wanted to sell has already sold, who would be left to drive prices to a new low in Q4?

About the reflexive flywheel of STRC (Saylor)

• In March, he purchased approximately $1.5 billion in Bitcoin; in April, he bought another $3.4 billion in BTC. More importantly, these purchases were largely concentrated in the second week of each month.
• In the early stages and the previous market cycle, Saylor often aggressively bought in after the market had already surged and sentiment had become extremely bullish—that was his role. But over the past few months, he has actually been buying on dips, which is highly significant.
• Saylor’s repeated announcements of multi-billion-dollar BTC purchases over several weeks naturally push up the price of Bitcoin; as Bitcoin rises, MSTR’s mNAV rebounds, reinforcing shareholder confidence in his leveraged strategy to increase BTC holdings per share; with the mNAV rebounding, he finds it easier to secure further financing to buy even more Bitcoin.
• As long as STRC’s price is above $100, Saylor can issue new shares to raise funds for purchasing BTC. In other words, he is adding to his Bitcoin position at an approximate cost of 11.5% in dollar terms. As long as BTC’s price increases exceed this threshold, this model can continue to function.
• Starting in mid-July this year, he plans to split his monthly large Bitcoin purchase into two transactions, scheduled for mid-month and month-end. This adjustment helps prevent the market from anticipating his buying activity, and in the future, he may further increase the frequency to weekly purchases.

About overcoming "Midcurve Bias"

• In my first cycle, I was too conservative; in the second, I was too middle-of-the-road. So in the third cycle, I decided to try a new approach: combining what I’d learned from the first two—maintaining sensitivity to risk, but not letting bear market PTSD trap me forever in the “middle ground.”
• Markets often don’t reward those who make the best PowerPoint presentations, but rather those who truly capture the main upward trend. So this time, I’d like to try positioning at least a small portion of my portfolio toward the direction of “maximum reflexivity.”

The investment thesis and reflexivity of Zcash ($ZEC)

• Once it drops below $50, the market immediately thinks, “Who even cares about privacy?”; but once it rises to around $400, public opinion shifts to, “Privacy is a human right—it’s one of the most important sectors.” In other words, many of Zcash’s narratives are originally ignited by price movements.
• Naval also said, “Bitcoin is insurance against fiat currency, and Zcash is insurance against Bitcoin.”
• Because it has the same 21 million supply and halving schedule as BTC, and its current market cap is only about 0.5% of BTC’s, the market could potentially begin to tell a new story at some point: Why can’t Zcash reach 1%, 2%, or even more of BTC’s market cap?

About the rotation relationship between BTC and altcoins

• The most important thing in the first phase of a bear market transitioning to a bull market is for BTC to lead the rally. I don’t believe in the scenario where “the market just hit bottom, and Ethereum immediately takes off on its own”—to rebuild confidence across the entire industry, Bitcoin must lead the way.
• The smarter move is to accept a higher purchase price and use your already-earned BTC profits to switch into higher-beta assets, rather than prematurely allocating large amounts to narratives you’re not fully confident about.
• Stories around VC Tech, L1, and DeFi are not currently the most readily accepted by capital. In contrast, narratives like Bitcoin’s “store of value” or Zcash’s “privacy” are simpler, more direct, and easier for the market to quickly grasp during a bull run.

On Trading Mindset and the Logic of Big Money

• I’m increasingly convinced that investing should aim for a “sleep-quality-adjusted return.” In the long run, being able to sleep well, live comfortably, and hold assets you truly believe in is often more sustainable than constantly stressing over market fluctuations.
• Many people think profits come from frequent trading, but I believe most of the money in the market is made by holding assets that appreciate over time, rather than constantly switching between them.
• In this highly reflexive crypto market, often just one or two strong bullish candles are enough to immediately restore investor sentiment. When prices rise, people once again feel smart, become willing to take risks, and regain faith in the industry’s future. The green candles themselves generate new buying pressure.
• Short sellers often sound smarter, and in bull markets, they always have elaborate risk stories to tell; but in reality, optimists are more likely to make big profits.
• Real wealth isn’t made by buying and selling, but by waiting. You make money in a bull market; you become rich in a bear market.

Taiki Maeda:

I believe Bitcoin is about to form a massive bullish candle strong enough to silence the bears, delivering the market its long-overdue “green candle therapy.” In this video, I’ll explain why I remain bullish on BTC, why I’ve added Zcash to my medium- to long-term portfolio, and what my overall strategy is moving forward.

Let me first explain why I believe the market has bottomed out and is entering a new bull cycle. For the past several months, I’ve emphasized this view: when the previous market top formed, marginal buyers had largely been exhausted, and the DATs driving further valuation increases had run out of steam. Now, the situation is reversed—marginal sellers, in my view, have been largely depleted, while DATs have regained momentum. By DAT, I’m primarily referring to structural buyers like Michael Saylor and Strategy. And I believe that as long as Saylor’s approach continues to work, more participants will inevitably follow suit.

Over the past six months, I’ve been most focused on capital flows. When assessing the market, I repeatedly ask myself three questions: Where are people positioned right now? Who still has more to sell? And who still has more to buy? Six or seven months ago, when Bitcoin was still around the six-digit range, the market consensus was that BTC would reach $250,000 and ETH would hit $8,000 to $10,000, with the altcoin season in Q4 almost treated as a certainty; in that environment, the truly correct move was to sell positions to these uniformly bullish traders.

An important signal I observed was MSTR’s mNAV beginning to collapse in October and November last year, which I interpreted as a warning that a major market cycle was coming to an end. But over the past few months, market sentiment has completely reversed. Whenever BTC drops to around $60,000, people start predicting $40,000 or $50,000 as the next support level; when Ethereum returns to $1,000, everyone insists Q4 will bring an even better bottom. In my view, this kind of reasoning is extremely lazy. During the Iran conflict, U.S. stocks briefly dropped 10%, yet Bitcoin held at $65,000—while the Fear & Greed Index recorded its lowest monthly reading since its launch in 2017. In other words, when BTC was still trading around $65,000 to $66,000, investor pessimism exceeded even the levels seen after the Luna, 3AC, and pandemic crashes.

I’m not someone who mechanically reads sentiment indicators, but this extreme pessimism signals one thing: many people have already sold, and many have shifted to stocks—Twitter is filled with suppressed exhaustion. If you’re a long-term believer in Bitcoin, this alone deserves serious consideration. The best times to buy are rarely comfortable; people always wait until social media becomes uniformly bullish again, but by then, the price is rarely the best.

I’m also increasingly skeptical that this four-year cycle will hold up. Many believe everyone can sell together at the top and then collectively wait until Q4 to buy the dip—but I see this as a lazy expectation that the market has already priced in six to seven months ago. Last year, when the market was around $120,000, many thought ETFs and Trump would trigger a “super cycle”; only after Bitcoin dropped 40% to 50% from its peak, falling into the $60,000–$70,000 range, did those who had been bullish at the highs finally give up and embrace the four-year cycle, convinced that Q4 is the real bottom.

The issue is, if everyone who wanted to sell has already sold, then who would be left to drive prices to new lows in Q4? Of course, black swan events like recessions or quantum computing could still occur—but looking solely at the current market structure, the state of buyers and sellers, and the relative positions of U.S. equities and crypto, I don’t see any force strong enough to push BTC significantly lower. To me, anything below $70,000 is already a level worth taking risk on, worth starting or increasing dollar-cost averaging.

One other thing I’ve been thinking about lately: even if you believe in cycles, the “true top” may not have occurred when Bitcoin briefly surged to $125,000 last October. Instead, I think the real emotional peak might have been when ETH hit $5,000 in August last year. At that time, Tom Lee was buying aggressively, and market enthusiasm for ETH felt far more like a top than Bitcoin’s brief spike and subsequent rejection. If you view that moment as the emotional peak, then we’ve likely already completed most of the bear market; from that perspective, it’s not unreasonable to see risk appetite returning this summer.

So, my core conclusion is simple: historical levels of fear, no new lows during the Iran conflict, exhausted marginal sellers, and Saylor rising like a phoenix to reignite structural buying—these factors combined make me willing to remain bullish on BTC.

Taiki Maeda:

Next, let’s look at the STRC logic I’ve been tracking over the past few months. So far, this line of thinking has largely unfolded as I anticipated, and I believe it will continue to hold.

I’ve been tracking Saylor’s purchases on a monthly basis. In March, he bought approximately $1.5 billion in Bitcoin; in April, he purchased another $3.4 billion in BTC. More importantly, these purchases were largely concentrated in the second week of each month. Since we’ve just entered May, I expect him to gradually increase his buying activity starting next week, possibly initiating with a few hundred million dollars this week, followed by a larger buying surge around mid-month.

One thing that stands out: if you list the largest Bitcoin purchase announcements in Strategy’s history, you’ll find that three of them have already occurred this year—in January, March, and April. When you map these dates onto the BTC price chart, you notice a significant difference between the past and now. In earlier cycles, Saylor often bought aggressively during market surges when sentiment was already overheated—that was his typical role. But over the past few months, he has actually been buying on dips, which is highly noteworthy.

Rather than focusing solely on price, I prefer to monitor MSTR’s mNAV. In the past, Saylor often made large purchases when the mNAV exceeded 2, as this meant he could sell MSTR’s premium to the market and use the cash to buy BTC. But in these last three major purchases, all occurred when the mNAV was around 1. This suggests that even when the premium was nearly nonexistent, he still found new funding channels to continue buying Bitcoin.

What truly matters here is the reflexive feedback loop. Saylor’s repeated announcements of multi-billion-dollar BTC purchases over several weeks naturally push Bitcoin’s price higher; as Bitcoin rises, MSTR’s mNAV rebounds, reinforcing shareholder confidence in his leveraged strategy to increase BTC per share; with the mNAV rebounding, he finds it easier to raise additional capital to buy even more Bitcoin. This logic, of course, carries risks—but in my view, we’re still in the early stages of this reflexive cycle. Rather than betting on doomsday right now, it’s wiser to acknowledge that the cycle is already in motion and to position yourself for its continuation.

The mechanism of STRC is not inherently complex. As long as you hold STRC before the ex-dividend date, you receive an annualized return of approximately 11.5%. When the price of STRC exceeds $100, Saylor can issue new shares to raise funds for purchasing BTC. In other words, he is leveraging U.S. dollar capital at a cost of about 11.5% to increase his Bitcoin position. As long as BTC’s price appreciation exceeds this threshold, the model continues to function.

Of course, some might say this sounds risky. Yes, it does involve leverage, but that doesn’t mean it will inevitably run into problems right away. Saylor could fully deleverage by selling MSTR, repurchasing, and retiring a portion of STRC once BTC rises further; alternatively, he could lower the yield when STRC trades consistently above $101, reducing funding costs from 11.5% toward 10% and mitigating future risk. In my view, the equilibrium yield for STRC is around 10%, and if the Fed cuts interest rates in the future, this threshold could decline even further.

When Saylor tells this story of “digital credit,” the core point is that it opens up a new group of buyers who otherwise couldn’t directly purchase BTC. For example, BlackRock’s preferred shares and income-focused ETFs already include products like STRC as significant holdings; similar products from VanEck also allocate substantial weight to them. The idea that “baby boomers will buy it for an 11.5% yield” may sound like a joke, but the reality is that as long as they buy it, Saylor can use that money to keep purchasing Bitcoin.

Moreover, if someone truly believes BTC will drop back to $40,000 or $50,000, they have no rational reason to buy STRC. For this reason, in my view, demand for STRC is essentially a more indirect way of expressing a bullish stance on BTC. You may dislike Saylor or think this will ultimately fail, but as long as the market continues to buy it with real money, it deserves respect.

For me, the most straightforward trading conclusion is this: when you know an entity reliably buys billions of dollars worth of BTC in the first two weeks of each month, the simplest way to profit is often just to hold BTC itself. I don’t know how much STRC will buy in May, but as long as STRC remains stably around $100, I tend to believe BTC still has upward momentum this month, next month, and potentially for the next several quarters.

One of the secrets to making money in the market is understanding certain things more deeply than others. Over the past few months, understanding how Stretch works has been a highly effective investment strategy. And I believe this opportunity still exists as long as Stretch continues to perform well.

Michael Saylor is set to adjust his Bitcoin purchasing strategy. Starting in mid-July this year, he plans to split his monthly large-scale Bitcoin purchases into two transactions, scheduled for mid-month and month-end. This adjustment will make his buying activity less predictable to the market, and in the future, he may further increase the frequency to weekly purchases. The benefit of this strategy is that it can enhance Bitcoin’s market liquidity, reduce volatility, and attract more institutional investors.

Currently, Saylor appears to have found a way to keep STRC operating sustainably. At present, leverage usage for STRC in the market is limited. However, if excessive leverage were to emerge in the future—such as using STRC as collateral to borrow stablecoins or USD, then using those funds to purchase more STRC and repeating the cycle in pursuit of an annualized yield (APY) as high as 40%—the risks would increase significantly. Nevertheless, this scenario has not yet materialized. As long as the market maintains a cautious approach toward Stretch and leverage remains restrained, I remain confident in holding Bitcoin and investing in other cryptocurrency risk assets.

Over the next two weeks, I expect Saylor to purchase billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin. This prediction isn’t based on clear criteria—for example, I previously anticipated he would buy $2 billion in April, but he ended up purchasing $3.5 billion. Therefore, I’m making only a conservative estimate this time, but I believe this buying could push Bitcoin’s price above $80,000. At that point, I plan to sell part of my position; I’ll elaborate on this in the subsequent portfolio section. For now, I hold a long position, but I do not intend to maintain it indefinitely.

Regarding Stretch’s future, some believe it will ultimately fail, but I don’t fully agree. I think that even if Stretch ultimately fails, it could still drive price increases for certain tokens along the way. Moreover, this isn’t an “all or nothing” scenario—Saylor could still make adjustments, such as deleveraging or lowering interest rates. I feel the market is currently too pessimistic, with many focusing only on potential catalysts for a market crash—like quantum computing or the four-year cycle—while rarely considering possible positive developments. For instance, the success of digital credit could inspire other DATs to follow suit, potentially propelling the market into a bull run and achieving a “green K-line therapy.”

Of course, I'm not a prophet and cannot predict the future. I'm simply someone trying to understand the reflexivity and flywheel effects in the crypto market, and I hope to share these concepts with you.

Taiki Maeda:

Going further, I’d like to discuss why I recently started actively overcoming my "medium-level cognitive bias," and share my emotional journey through the past few cryptocurrency cycles.

If you've been through several cycles in the crypto market, you may relate to this psychological shift. In my first cycle, I was completely on the left side of the curve: chasing the fastest-rising projects without regard for risk. At the time, my most-watched YouTube video was even teaching others how to participate in high-yield projects on Polygon.

By the 2022 bear market, although I sold at the top, I tried to buy the bottom too early and still suffered heavy losses. Precisely because of this setback during the previous bear market, from 2023 to 2025, I completely transformed into a mid-cycle player. During that time, I focused primarily on cash flow, buying ETH, studying DeFi, and analyzing Uniswap and MakerDAO—and I did make some profits. But looking back, I clearly underperformed.

In other words, my first cycle was too far to the left, and my second cycle was too centered—so in the third cycle, I began to consider a new approach. I wanted to combine what I’d learned from the first two cycles: maintaining sensitivity to risk, but not letting bear market PTSD trap me indefinitely in the “middle ground.” If we’ve truly entered a new bull market, I’d prefer to bet on assets with the strongest reflexivity—those most likely to amplify their narratives further as prices rise.

This doesn’t mean I’ll put my entire position into the most speculative asset—rather, I no longer want to limit my returns solely through over-rationalization. The market often doesn’t reward those who make the best presentations, but those who truly capture the main upward trend. So this time, I’d like to at least allocate a small portion of my position toward the direction of “maximum reflexivity.”

Taiki Maeda:

Under this framework, I bought some Zcash—my position is small, but I find it one of the most typical and interesting reflexive assets I’ve seen recently.

My understanding of reflexivity is simple: when prices rise, it strengthens market confidence in an asset’s fundamentals and narrative. Zcash’s history perfectly exemplifies this. Over the past nine years, its price has largely oscillated within a wide range. But whenever it drops below $50, the market immediately concludes, “Who even cares about privacy?”; whereas when it rises near $400, the narrative shifts to, “Privacy is a human right—it’s one of the most important sectors.” In other words, many of Zcash’s narratives were originally ignited by price movements themselves.

I remember last October, Balaji, Naval, Mert, and Arthur Hayes all began promoting Zcash almost in unison. At the time, my first reaction was confusion—especially when Naval said, “Bitcoin is insurance against fiat currency, and Zcash is insurance against Bitcoin.” Back then, I was primarily shorting altcoins and ETH and had no interest in it. But anything that suddenly surges in price inevitably forces you to take a closer look, so I began re-examining it.

After researching, I admit it does have some points I can’t entirely ignore. First, it has been around for nearly nine years and is not a VC-backed project fueled solely by short-term narratives. Second, the SEC’s multi-year investigation into the Zcash Foundation has concluded without any action taken. Third, Zcash’s Open Development Lab recently raised additional funding from institutions such as a16z and Paradigm. Meanwhile, I’ve also observed growing advocacy and progress around compliant privacy coins.

Many people compare Monero and Zcash, claiming that Monero is the “purer” privacy coin. But in my view, the ultimate winner in this space will depend more on social consensus than on technical specifications alone. Just as Bitcoin may not be the most practical currency for everyday payments, it still prevails because more people see it as “better money” than Litecoin. Zcash could also evolve into a position as a “more compliant privacy coin,” and with future changes in legal or regulatory environments, it may still have a chance to regain market recognition.

Another angle I believe cannot be entirely ignored is quantum computing. Since I already hold a significant amount of BTC, I’m not oblivious to quantum risks, and I agree that the Bitcoin community seems overly complacent about this issue. In this sense, Zcash can某种程度上 be understood as a hedge against Bitcoin. Moreover, if the price rises first, narratives around privacy and quantum resistance will only grow stronger, making its reflexivity even more pronounced.

If I must look for some "fundamentals," I’d examine its shielded pool, which has been consistently growing upward and to the right. My understanding is that you can deposit Zcash into the shielded pool and later withdraw it from a different address—essentially functioning like a mixer. The larger the pool, the larger the anonymity set, and the greater its utility. With millions of Zcash already in the pool, this at least suggests it’s not something entirely unused, reduced to nothing but a price story.

Of course, I also acknowledge that the privacy narrative itself can easily seem abstract. Zcash lacks the clear cash flow anchor that BTC has, and it doesn't have well-defined support or resistance levels, so it either surges sharply or plummets. But precisely because of this, when I already hold a significant amount of BTC and HYPE and want to add a position to my portfolio that can truly offer some "left-tail" exposure, Zcash seems like a fitting choice.

It has the same supply of 21 million coins as BTC and also undergoes halving cycles; currently, its market cap is only about 0.5% of BTC’s. So it’s entirely possible that at some point, the market will start telling a new story: why can’t Zcash reach 1%, 2%, or even more of BTC’s market cap? To be honest, I don’t know the answer. I simply acknowledge that this is an asset easily influenced by price movements and potentially capable of a sudden surge during a bull market—so I’m willing to take a small position and get in.

Taiki Maeda:

The most important sign that a bear market is transitioning into a bull market is for BTC to lead the rally. I don’t believe in scenarios where “the market just hit its bottom, and Ethereum immediately takes off on its own.” To rebuild confidence across the entire industry, Bitcoin must take the lead. If you look at the chart of BTC’s market share, you’ll notice it resembles the previous bottom phase: forming a double bottom, then rising alongside BTC. I consider this a healthy structure. For me, if Bitcoin’s market share continues to reach 60% or even 70%, it actually suggests that this cycle’s bottom is more solid.

The previous cycle gave us a clear lesson: in the first phase of a bull market following a bear market, most altcoins do not immediately show significant performance. The majority of altcoins’ outperformance typically occurs in the later stages of the bull market. Solana is a great example—it truly gained momentum only after Bitcoin rose from $16,000 to $35,000. First, the market regained confidence driven by Bitcoin, and once the wealth effect became evident, investors began chasing the “next big thing.”

So, I’d rather focus my efforts on BTC for now and wait until BTC rises sufficiently and the market naturally signals which altcoins are worth participating in. At that point, the best approach might be to accept higher entry prices and use my existing BTC profits to shift into higher-beta assets, rather than prematurely positioning myself in narratives I’m not fully confident about.

I’ve also been thinking lately that as AI and automation tools grow stronger, will they lead to more cyberattacks? Over the past few years, we’ve already seen a flood of security incidents. If vulnerabilities, attacks, and code risks become even more common in the future, the crypto narratives centered around complex technology and execution may continue to face structural headwinds. DeFi’s TVL doesn’t look particularly strong right now, and metrics like Aave’s are still declining—which is somewhat disheartening for someone like me who built their content around DeFi.

But perhaps the market is telling us one thing: stories around VC Tech, L1s, and DeFi are not currently the easiest narratives for capital to embrace. In contrast, narratives like Bitcoin as a “store of value” or Zcash as “privacy” are simpler, more direct, and easier for the market to quickly grasp during a bull run. They certainly carry execution risks, but at least investors don’t need to first understand a complex set of mechanisms to know why they should buy.

So, if you ask me what the market will care about next, my answer is probably: the simplest, most easily understood narratives that also最容易 generate reflexive feedback loops. BTC will rise first, followed by altcoin rotation.

Taiki Maeda:

I currently hold a large amount of BTC spot, along with some perpetual contract long positions, resulting in an overall long exposure of approximately 150%; I also have some Zcash and HYPE. I will likely gradually close out my BTC perpetual long positions over the next one to two months.

Saylor's buying is primarily concentrated in the second week of each month, so I might wait until this month, or even another month, and then reduce my leverage after this wave of structural buying is complete. I don’t want to live constantly watching my liquidation price and funding rates.

I’m increasingly convinced that investing should aim for a “sleep-quality-adjusted return.” Being able to sleep well, live comfortably, and hold assets you truly believe in is often more sustainable in the long run than constantly stressing over price charts. Perhaps there are only a few wild altcoin seasons each year—during those times, you can be more aggressive. But more often, what matters most is using bear markets to research, build understanding, establish positions, and then hold through the next upswing.

Many people think profits come from frequent trading, but I believe most of the money in the market is made by holding assets that appreciate over time, not by constantly switching positions. I now prefer to be a comfortable spot holder rather than someone perpetually leveraged and on edge.

On-chain, I’ve been primarily focused on farming Saturn. My reasoning is straightforward: if STRC’s model continues to grow, an on-chain version is highly likely to emerge—and on-chain capital is always seeking yield. Tokenizing such assets and further circulating and leveraging them within DeFi is almost inevitable. Whenever this happens, it will structurally continue to benefit BTC.

So I’m willing to allocate a portion of my funds to participate in these projects’ token farming. Of course, these are not risk-free products, and I wouldn’t say they’re suitable for everyone. But over the past six months, there haven’t been many on-chain “stable yield” opportunities that I found worth spending time researching or engaging with—and this type of on-chain STRC derivative is among the few that I believe merit my attention.

From a more speculative standpoint, if these projects issue tokens in the future, they could potentially become the first on-chain altcoins to receive indirect endorsement from Saylor. Saylor has consistently discussed on-chain stablecoins, risk stratification, and digital credit structures based on STRC, so I believe this space will continue to attract development. Whether it’s worthwhile and when the TGE will occur—those are questions for you to research. Personally, I’m currently involved in both sides: Saturn’s TVL has already approached $100 million, and if it continues toward $500 million, market attention toward it will likely increase further.

Taiki Maeda:

Although I am not a believer in a religious sense, I believe in Bitcoin’s divine bullish candle and the so-called “green candle therapy.”

What I really mean is that in the highly reflexive market of crypto, often just one or two strong bullish candles are enough to instantly restore people’s confidence. When prices rise, everyone suddenly feels smart again, becomes willing to take risks once more, and starts believing in the industry’s future. In a sense, this is exactly the reflexive analysis I’ve been discussing: the green candlesticks themselves generate new buying pressure.

Over the past few years, this industry has been deeply wounded by countless scams and failures, but I still believe Bitcoin will be the first to lead the entire market out of its downturn. As long as you don’t believe BTC will go to zero, its continued rise alone is enough to restore confidence in the industry. Moreover, the next peak may not come from Saylor alone. What truly warrants caution is the possibility that, over the coming months and years, more and more people will see the STRC strategy working and begin to replicate it.

Imagine if Tom Lee also started saying that "digital credit" is valid and began issuing a version based on ETH staking yields, prompting other DATs to follow suit by copying BTC, ETH, and SOL. The market would then re-enter a phase where everyone borrows money to buy coins, using price gains to further strengthen their borrowing capacity. If it reaches that point, you’ll likely want to sell into those long bullish candles, as they would be a very dangerous late-stage signal.

But before that, I still feel that too many people focus only on what could go wrong without seriously considering what might go right. Bears often sound smarter, and in bull markets, they always have a slew of polished risk stories to tell; yet the reality is often that optimists are more likely to make big profits. Especially when the Fear & Greed Index drops below 10, I believe a more reasonable choice isn’t to keep dwelling on disaster narratives, but to start viewing this industry with a more positive perspective.

True wealth isn’t made by buying and selling—it’s made by waiting. In a bull market, you make money; in a bear market, you get rich. The greatest gift a bear market gives you is time to gradually acquire quality assets from those who panic-sell at the bottom. When the market recovers, all you need to do is hold them and live your life—when you look back, the price may already be much higher.

So, what I most want to do right now is not scare myself out too early and not let bear market PTSD once again dictate my decisions. I truly believe we entered a new bull market starting in February 2026. Looking back today, this might seem bold—but I’m confident that in the future, when people look back at Bitcoin’s price around $65,000, many will ask themselves: Why didn’t I buy then? Why didn’t I recognize sooner that the market had changed?

That’s my conclusion. I like the coins I currently hold and hope they continue to rise; I believe in the green candlestick strategy and also hope short sellers continue to learn from the market.