From Yesterday's Simply Bitcoin Live | Episode 1590
The Numbers
Price stalled just under the $83,000 level bulls say has to break before the run is confirmed real.
The News
Matt Hougan went on record this week with Bitwise's long game call, Bitcoin at $1.3 million by 2035, and said a run back to $100,000 this year is "relatively easy." He's not alone. Willy Woo says his liquidity model shows a structural bottom with over 90% confidence, not a fakeout.
The hosts are leaning the same way. Price kissed $80,000 this week before slipping back to $77,800, and nobody panicked. Jesse Myers pegs the setup as a fresh two to three year bull market. Sazmining CEO Kent Halliburton called himself "bullarded" and said the only thing left to clear is $83,000 on a weekly close.
The four year cycle didn't die, it just got benched for a longer game.
Kent Halliburton says Bitcoin mining is living through its first real hash rate bear market in 16 years, and it has nothing to do with Bitcoin itself. AI is outbidding miners for cheap power and land, machines are getting unplugged, and hardware prices have fallen far enough that manufacturers are shutting down production lines.
The math makes the split permanent. A megawatt of Bitcoin mining infrastructure costs about $1 million to build. The same megawatt for AI runs $15 million to $20 million, and nobody unwinds that to go back to mining. Halliburton expects hash rate to stay flat for up to 18 months while price runs, widening the gap between mining cost and market price.
Miners just got the best entry point in the industry's history, courtesy of AI's data center binge.
At a Dallas rally this week, Trump pointed to 80 stock market all-time highs as proof his policies are working, then pitched a $5,000 payout to voters if Republicans keep the midterms. The hosts pegged the plan's cost near $1.3 trillion, well above the roughly $250 billion price tag on the 2020 stimulus checks.
They ran the numbers on that comparison too. A $1,200 stimulus check from 2020, put straight into Bitcoin, would be worth somewhere around $13,000 to $14,000 today. Another round of checks just means another round of free Bitcoin for whoever bothers to convert it.
Every stimulus check Washington prints just becomes someone else's cost basis.
Opti and Sazmining's Kent Halliburton break down why this bear market never really broke Bitcoin, and how AI's power grab turned mining into the best entry point in years.
Watch on YouTube →