Value Town
Friday February 6th, 2026 - Issue # 126
(Any views expressed below are the personal views of the author and should not form the basis for making investment decisions, nor be construed as a recommendation or advice to engage in investment transactions.)
I landed back from El Salvador on Wednesday. Sun, surf, optimism…straight into freezing temperatures, 4ft snowbanks, and absolute chaos.
Perfect timing.
By Thursday, hell broke loose. Bitcoin and the rest of the market slid to levels I honestly couldn’t have imagined just weeks ago. And what’s wild is that after more than 8 years of living and breathing this market, I still catch myself thinking, “maybe this time is different.”
You’d think I’d know better by now. Clearly not.
The four-year cycle seems to be alive and well. Painfully so. And while it hasn’t been great for my personal account, it’s actually healthy for the market. Necessary, even.
Truthfully, we needed bitcoin to get dragged back to “value town.” At $100k, momentum stalled. New buyers weren’t coming in, and it was hard to blame them. Why buy something you don’t fully understand when it’s been hovering around the same all-time high for months? The only way that was changing was if bitcoin pulled a late-2017 move and ripped from $100k to $200k+ in short order.
That would’ve brought in a tidal wave of FOMO buyers…and probably wrecked them by the new year making the eventual bear market more painful.
Instead, all our late-cycle hopium was taken out back and shot on 10/10/2025. The largest crypto flash crash in history.
Roughly $20 billion in leverage wiped out. Liquidations that were ~10x larger than FTX and nearly 20x bigger than the COVID crash. Bitcoin fell from ~$117k to ~$105k in short order. Alts were absolutely annihilated. Millions of traders lost everything. Liquid funds got destroyed. Market makers blew up.
Looking back, it was always going to take time for the industry to digest that kind of event. And honestly, I think it still is in the digestion phase. We haven’t really seen any of the bodies float to the surface yet, and I suspect we will.
Side note: I just realized my wedding is on 10/10 this year. Let’s hope that date ages better in my personal life than it did for crypto 😬
Yesterday was one of the busiest days I’ve had in years. Easily 100 calls. Clients, partners, friends, everyone trying to make sense of what’s happening.
And after it all, I had a moment to reflect.
I think I got a little too comfortable last year. I could feel it in my work. Bitcoin at $100k had my foot slightly off the gas. This market has a way of humbling you when you least expect it.
Oddly enough…I missed this.
This volatility is what crypto is. This is where the real work gets done. Now that I’m back in the cold, it’s time to grind.
I’m not going to pretend I know what caused this move or whether this is the bottom. I don’t. Anyone telling you they do is lying. What I can say is that it’s refreshing to see real, individual buyers stepping in again, something we haven’t seen in a long time.
At these levels, bitcoin is mouth-watering for anyone with a long-term view and an iron stomach.
There’s a reason the phrase “HODL” exists and underpins this market. Sometimes you really do just have to close your eyes, hit the buy button, and live with the discomfort. And when it works out…they’ll tell you you got lucky.
Now, on quantum.
I’ve been thinking about quantum risk to bitcoin for a while. At first, I dismissed it like every other cycle’s FUD. Then I started paying closer attention.
Late last year, Satstreet invested in Project Eleven, an incredible team building quantum-related solutions for the digital asset space.
Since then, I’ve had countless conversations with core developers and some very serious Bitcoin engineers.
Here’s where I’ve landed: quantum risk to Bitcoin is real, but it’s likely 10+ years away. And importantly, the community is already on it.
Coinbase and Strategy have set up working groups focused specifically on Bitcoin and quantum security. There are multiple proposals on the table that look promising. I even spoke with a developer yesterday who told me Bitcoin could become quantum-resistant today if it absolutely had to — but because the threat is still far out, it makes sense to get the solution right rather than rush it.
Here’s Michael Saylor announcing their global effort to develop quantum-resistant upgrades for BTC on their earnings call yesterday.
That gave me a lot of comfort.
Once quantum risk is effectively taken off the table — and it really does feel like the brightest minds in the space are rallying around this now — I genuinely don’t see anything structural holding bitcoin back.
So, are we at the bottom? Maybe. Maybe not.
I’m not calling a bottom, particularly with Trump’s Fed Chair pick Kevin Warsh, who has been openly critical of QE. Still, this feels familiar. Front-load the correction, reset positioning, and then make sure financial conditions are far more supportive as the midterms approach. Voters tend to overlook inflation when asset prices are rising. Feeling wealthier has always been a powerful political tailwind.
This month or quarter might be messy. But zoom out.
Bitcoin is roughly 50% off the highs. If you liked it at $100k, you have to find the will, and the way, to start chipping away around here with a long-term mindset. That’s how this game has always been played. I still think we could have an amazing year.
So, stay frosty out there my friends. Grind mode activated. Stack sats when it hurts — that’s when the best opportunities show up (and when the real winners separate from the crowd).