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

The core argument. Kris Bullock, running through charts live on Real Vision's Trading the Markets, argues the sharp green day across crypto and gold on August 19 is not simply a short squeeze unwinding but a durable regime shift driven by a stack of coincident macro catalysts. He is explicit about the limits of the call: "I'm not saying the bottom is in... but I think it has some legs".

The mechanism. The catalyst chain starts with Treasury's announcement that it will double buybacks on the 10- and 30-year beginning September 9, which dropped long-end yields sharply and pulled the dollar down with them. Lower real rates mechanically push money out of safe-haven cash and "out the risk curve" into gold and bitcoin — Bullock stresses this isn't QE and no money is being printed, but it produces liquidity effects that similarly favor risk assets. Layered on top: the SEC and CFTC issued crypto-favorable policy signals — a Regulation Crypto Assets proposal, clearer token classifications, and staking/DeFi guidance — that take effect regardless of whether the CLARITY Act passes. The combination triggered what Bullock calls the largest crypto short squeeze in his data going back to 2023, excluding the October 8/10 liquidation event. Confirming signals: ETF inflows turned positive this week after a down week, and the Coinbase Premium Index — a retail proxy that had been red for months — ticked green for the first time since June 11.

What has to be true. Bullock's durability thesis hinges on today's Fed minutes release, which he says will either reinforce or push back against the falling-yield liquidity narrative and determine whether this is "a one-day thing or a durable thing". Beyond that, he wants to see sustained positive ETF inflows (not just a few days) and continued retail participation via Coinbase premium before treating this as more than a bounce.

Technical levels — majors. Bitcoin has pushed back into its moving-average cloud and is on the verge of flipping its weekly megatrend green; it needs a weekly close above this week's wick high to confirm a bottom signal, and remains just under its 20-week moving average. Ethereum already flipped its weekly signal green intraday (up 8.5% vs. bitcoin's 5.5%) and trades above its 20-week MA, putting it a step ahead pending Sunday's weekly close. Solana's megatrend flipped green earlier but had been invalidated by recurring red dots; it just lost that red dot and is pushing back toward June highs. Sui still carries a red dot and sits below its 10-week MA but shows bullish RSI divergence. XRP is described as still bleeding with no bullish divergence. Near held support at its 200-day cloud and lost its bearish dot but is lagging today's leaders despite outperforming over the cycle. Hyperliquid completed a V-shaped recovery off its 200-day SMA and reconfirmed an uptrend with a green dot.

The standout: Pump. Pump broke out with green dots and momentum thrust arrows across the board, and Bullock highlights that it ranks third in 30-day protocol revenue across all of crypto — behind only Tether and Circle, ahead of Hyperliquid and Tron — with revenue accruing to token holders. He flags it as overextended short-term (outside weekly Bollinger Bands, a DeMark count of six toward a nine/thirteen exhaustion signal) and due a pullback, though he notes it could still run further before that happens. He's also watching the newly launched Ansem token/launchpad, which routes Pump.fun listings through Ansem's community for promotion and airdrops; it's about a week old with a recent volume spike.

Other names in play. Venice never lost its weekly uptrend through its correction and regained its green dot. Morpho is flagged as quietly outperforming — up versus its October highs while most of crypto is down 50–80% from cycle peaks — with Bullock saying it deserves to be mentioned alongside Hyperliquid and Venice. Link shows a breakout setup with two consecutive green dots and a reclaim of its 200-day MA, despite Bullock's prior skepticism on the asset. Uniswap is also breaking out after losing some momentum. Zcash (up ~8% on the day) is coiling in a volatility squeeze near a breakout, and Monero, up and reversing trend with all major moving averages (10/20/50-day) flipped bullish, is Bullock's preferred technical setup of the two — a "steady healthy grind" versus Pump's overextension. Pengu remains range-bound with red dots still present (not yet a buy, despite bullish RSI divergence). Ondo, Aerodrome, Syrup (Maple Finance) and Aave are named as DeFi assets he expects to lead the next cycle on revenue/real-world usage but that haven't yet caught a bid, with Aave the furthest along.

Portfolio action. Bullock says he had planned to dollar-cost-average into bitcoin but is now leaning toward diversifying into alts — naming Pump, Morpho, Monero, Zcash and Link as candidates — with a decision to be published in his Thursday report; he remains overweight Hyperliquid in his model portfolio and is not selling it. Separately, he flags Robinhood's chain, live roughly two months, already ranked 13th among Layer-1s by protocol count (187 active protocols), above Avalanche, Sui and Optimism, and newly hosting agentic trading via Claude/ChatGPT integration — though he found no standout native token yet among names like Cashcat, Pipedog and others, calling the ecosystem "total degen casino land" for now.