GM to all of you nutcases. It’s Crypto Nutshell #781 buildin’ the snowmen… ⛄🥜

We’re the crypto newsletter that’s more nerve-racking than a pilot stranded on the ocean with nothing but instinct to survive… ✈️🌊

What we’ve cooked up for you today…

What’s in the Crypto Nutshell Portfolio?

BREAKING: Declining mining activity flashes 'bullish signal' for bitcoin price, VanEck says

Bitcoin has had a brutal year…

Down nearly 30% from its October high. Lagging the Nasdaq 100 by roughly 50% year-to-date. Even gold crushed it - up over 70%.

But VanEck just called Bitcoin the "top performer" for 2026. 🤔

David Schassler, VanEck's head of multi-asset solutions, says this year's underperformance is setting up a major comeback.

His thesis: fiat debasement is accelerating. Liquidity is returning. And Bitcoin historically responds sharply to both.

"We have been buying" he said.

Schassler expects gold to surge to $5,000 next year. And he thinks Bitcoin will follow gold's breakout, driven by returning liquidity and long-term demand for scarce assets.

Miner capitulation signals bottom

VanEck's research team also flagged a bullish contrarian signal: miner capitulation.

Bitcoin's hashrate dropped 4% in the month through December 15 - the sharpest decline since April 2024.

Historically, that's been bullish.

Since 2014, Bitcoin's 90-day forward returns were positive 65% of the time when hashrate was declining, compared to 54% when hashrate was rising.

Over longer periods, the pattern strengthens. When hashrate compression persists, positive 180-day returns occur 77% of the time with an average gain of 72%.

Institutions are accumulating

While miners capitulate, institutions are buying.

Digital asset treasuries added roughly 42,000 BTC from mid-November to mid-December - the largest monthly purchase since mid-July to mid-August, when they added over 128,000 BTC.

Total treasury holdings now sit at 1.09 million BTC.

Why this matters

VanEck's thesis ties Bitcoin to monetary debasement and the rise of hard assets.

Funding future liabilities will increasingly rely on money printing, pushing investors toward scarce stores of value.

Gold is already running. Bitcoin lagged this year due to soft risk appetite and tight liquidity.

But if liquidity returns and debasement accelerates as VanEck expects, the gap between Bitcoin and traditional assets could close violently in 2026. 🚀

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Eric Trump isn’t a crypto influencer. He isn’t a trader.

And he isn’t speaking from the sidelines.

He’s the son of the sitting U.S. President - and someone who has a front-row view into how capital, regulation, and power actually move in America.

That’s why his latest crypto comments on CoinDesk raised eyebrows. 🤨

Eric wasn’t talking about price targets. He wasn’t talking about four-year cycles.

He was talking about where crypto sits in history.

Here’s what he said, verbatim:

That’s a very different framing than “are we near a top?”

He’s not describing a late-cycle asset.
He’s describing early-stage infrastructure.

Then he made the bigger point:

That’s how capital markets work.

When the U.S. legitimizes something, the rest of the world doesn’t debate it - they adapt to it.

So while traders argue about 4-year cycles and timelines, Eric’s view is simpler:

Crypto hasn’t peaked. It’s being absorbed.

Call it political if you want - but understand the signal.

When someone this close to power talks about crypto as inevitable infrastructure, not a speculative trade…

That’s not noise. That’s the dam opening. 🌊

Today we're looking at BTC Risk - a simple way to gauge where we are in the cycle.

BTC Risk compresses years of price action into a number between 0 and 1:

It doesn't call exact tops or bottoms. It shows you when risk-reward is tilted in your favour.

Current BTC Risk: 0.416 (Two weeks ago: 0.424)

That puts us below the 0.5 line, firmly in the low to mid-risk zone.

We're well below the spikes that marked prior blow-off tops, and comfortably above the despair levels of deep bear markets.

The slight drop from two weeks ago suggests risk is easing, not building.

If BTC Risk drifts lower, the signal gets more attractive for buyers.

If it grinds up toward 0.8+, that's when you start thinking about trimming, not topping up. 📊

Fact check: Bitcoin never really hit $100,000 in 2025 when you apply real world data. The internet celebrated six figures, but in real purchasing power, the price topped out at a devastatingly lower number.

Bitcoin’s lack of ‘crazy’ year-end price means no hard crash in Q1: Pomp. Anthony Pompliano says it would be “very surprising” for Bitcoin to experience another 70% to 80% drawdown in 2026, with its price already so suppressed.

Coinbase (COIN), Bullish (BLSH) Galaxy (GLXY) may benefit from JPMorgan's crypto moves. The Wall Street giant's move — should it come to pass — would further legitimize crypto and increase distribution channels, said ClearStreet's Owan Lau.

Crypto.com hiring quant trader for sports event prediction market making in the US. The posting suggests Crypto.com is looking to beef up its in-house pricing and liquidity for sports contracts as prediction market volumes grow into the billions.

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Because what would the crypto world be without its share of memes?

Trivia Answer: 50% 🥳

Binance committed to burning BNB until 50% of the total 200 million supply (100 million tokens) is destroyed. They've burned over 50 million BNB so far through quarterly burns based on trading volume, plus an auto-burn mechanism introduced in 2021.

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DISCLAIMER: The content of this newsletter is not financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice. Please be careful and do your own research.