Conversation with trader Taiki Maeda: The market is already in a reasonable allocation window, and these three sectors are about to surge massively

Source: Taiki Maeda

Compiled & Edited: Deep Tide TechFlow

On camera: Taiki Maeda, crypto trader, YouTube content creator

Original headline: Crypto is Bottoming. We're About to Go Much Higher.

Broadcast date: July 15, 2026

Declaration of interests: The author publicly discloses holding long positions in ZEC, HYPE, and LIT in the video, uses Variational recommendation codes, and runs a paid Discord community. This article faithfully presents the author’s personal views and does not constitute investment advice.

Key takeaways

Taiki Maeda is a trader who has been consistently producing crypto investment research content on YouTube, preaching Hyperliquid’s ecosystem repeatedly over the past two years. In this episode, he did something many people wouldn’t dare to do: he publicly admitted that last month he got hurt badly by Zcash. During the Orchard Pool exploit panic in early June, he sold the position in full near the bottom, went to Japan for a honeymoon, and after coming back he bought it again. Even more counterintuitive, he has continued to sell Bitcoin to add to his Zcash position.

His core logic has three lines. First, the market is already in the process of bottoming, and the real frenzy top was in July to August 2025 (BTC $125K, ETH $5K). The new high in October $126K was “weak,” didn’t trigger an altcoin season, and doesn’t count as a true cycle top. Second, the next growth engine for perpetual contract DEX tokens (HYPE, LIT) comes from RWA perpetual contracts and adoption by traditional finance users—not crypto-native players cutting each other. Third, Saylor continues to dump BTC to fill STRK preferred stock dividends, compounded by the threat of quantum computing and the inaction of Bitcoin developers, making it “increasingly hard for people to wholeheartedly support” Bitcoin. Zcash’s Ironwood upgrade (goes live on July 28) will achieve quantum security and use formal verification to rule out vulnerabilities. If the ZEC/BTC exchange rate breaks above 1% from the current 0.8%, it will trigger a narrative-level reflexivity loop of positive and negative feedback.

Highlights and point-by-point opinions

About the market cycle

“October’s $126K new high doesn’t count. It went up and immediately fell back down—there was no altcoin season. The real frenzy was in July and August.”

“If the real top was in July, then we’ve already gone through a full year of a bear market. Those who needed to leave already left.”

“I’m not competing with the four-year cycle. My edge isn’t in short-term price prediction; it’s in a longer time horizon and my ability to build conviction in specific sectors.”

About perpetual contract DEXs

“The next wave of growth for perpetual contract DEXs won’t come from people inside the crypto world buying tokens. It will come from traditional finance and retail users using perpetual contracts to bet instead of options.”

“Most altcoins will go to zero. Doing only perpetual DEX in crypto is just scraping leftovers. What I’m betting on are projects that will fight for share in RWA perpetuals.”

“You don’t need to bet on just one. You can hold both HYPE and LIT. With Variational mining, you can also get convexity from future airdrops.”

About Zcash

“If Zcash can recover from this crash, it becomes a form of anti-fragile asset. Each time it was supposed to die but didn’t, the probability it dies in the future gets lower.”

“I went in hard in April, went in again in May, and then sold the whole position at the bottom. Then it started to rise, but not with me. Honestly, it’s pretty painful.”

“Zcash is currently under 1% of Bitcoin’s market cap. If this ratio breaks above 1%, the ZEC price would exceed $700—technical and narrative resonance at the same time.”

About Saylor and Bitcoin

“Saylor makes Bitcoin harder to support than it was two years ago, four years ago, or six years ago. This isn’t a problem with Bitcoin itself, but Saylor is too big a part of the narrative.”

“The quantum threat is real. Bitcoin developers don’t have a sense of urgency about it, and that prevents me from putting my entire net worth into Bitcoin again.”

“Zcash and Bitcoin can be like gold and silver in the crypto world: there are trade-offs, but it’s worth holding both.” Main text follows:

1. Market cycle: the top was last July, not October

Many people fixate on the moment BTC set the $126K new high last October and think that was the cycle top. But Taiki doesn’t see it that way. Technically, it did make a new high, but that new high wasn’t at all euphoric. It went up and immediately dropped back down. It didn’t trigger an altcoin season. Other than a few coins moving, there were no signs of real frenzy across the overall market. He describes it as a “weak” new high.

The real frenzy actually happened in July and August. That’s when BTC first touched $125K and ETH surged to $5k. People rushed to buy Bitmine, believing Bitmine was the future of finance. Tom Lee was calling trades, and DAT frenzy (whether SDR or Bitmine) marked the peak of sentiment. Later it turned out that the future of finance wasn’t that simple.

From this perspective, if the real frenzy top was in July, then we’ve already been in a full year of a bear market. Most of the people who should have left have left, and there are fewer scams left in the market. Even if you disagree with his conclusion and think Q4 will still make new lows, he believes at least it’s time to start slowly building positions. Last year’s cycle bottom began when BTC dropped from June to $20K (after the 3AC collapse). Even though there were lower prices after that, those who had laid out assets well in that window went on to earn very well over the next 12 to 18 months.

He admits he’s no longer trying to fight the four-year cycle, and he doesn’t think he has any edge in short-term price prediction. His self-described “advantage” is a longer time horizon, plus his ability to build conviction in the fundamentals of specific sectors, narratives, and projects. From that angle, slowly allocating now makes sense.

There’s also a self-fulfilling factor: everyone is waiting for the Q4 bottom and preparing to buy in Q4. If the market bottoms in Q3 instead, these waiting people will only buy at higher prices. Even if Q3 doesn’t rally, with so much capital queuing up to wait for Q4, how much downside room can there really be? Laying out early might be smarter than waiting to act until Q4.

2. Perpetual contract DEX: the real growth engine is in RWA perpetuals

Hyperliquid has been talking about it for more than two years—always urging people to mine. Lighter is a more recent position. These are among the few tokens that set new highs while the broader crypto majors were weak, completely decoupled from the moves of BTC and ETH.

On the surface, you could say this is because of strong buyback pressure. Hyperliquid has bought back roughly 3.4% of circulating supply since the beginning of the year; Lighter has bought back roughly 6.3%. Hyperliquid’s market share versus centralized exchanges is rising, and Robinhood partnering with Lighter is also a positive. But Taiki thinks these are just surface-level stories.

If you go even more pessimistic, you could say Hyperliquid’s market is already saturated, and Lighter’s partnership with Robinhood is just a catalyst-level pulse. But to truly build a long thesis for a perpetual contract DEX, you have to look further ahead.

A structural issue in the current crypto market is that most altcoins don’t have real fundamentals; they rise only when BTC and ETH are already going up. But perpetual contract DEXs are different. They have real fee revenue and buyback mechanisms. More importantly, Taiki believes the real growth of perpetual contract DEX tokens comes from two directions: adoption by traditional finance and retail, and the growth of RWA perpetual contracts.

He has a hard call: most crypto altcoins will go to zero. So just doing perpetual DEX in crypto is competing for scraps in a shrinking pool. What he likes more is RWA perpetuals—perpetual contracts on gold, crude oil, and stock index derivatives. These markets are still small in size right now, but in 6 to 12 months they should far exceed the volume of crypto perpetuals.

“The next wave of growth for perpetual contract DEX won’t come from people inside the crypto world buying tokens. It will come from traditional finance and retail users using perpetual contracts to bet instead of options.” In crypto circles, this logic is too obvious. Tokens have already pumped a lot, and it feels late. But the next wave of buyers aren’t even people from the crypto world.

Jez’s perpetual theory also influences his view: perpetuals, as a delta leverage tool, are simpler and easier to use than options. He expects perpetuals to keep taking market share from options. This isn’t a complex judgment—it’s more like, “the thing that should happen will happen sooner or later,” and crypto people have a recognition edge on it.

3. Hyperliquid, Lighter, and Variational: position allocation

Taiki holds three positions related to perpetual contract DEXes, with different strategies.

Hyperliquid (HYPE) is his core position. He built it a few months ago. There was a period in between where he waited for a pullback to add, but he never got the chance—so he just bought back directly. The key indicator he’s watching is that the open interest of HIP-3 RWA perpetual contracts keeps growing. As long as this number keeps rising, he stays bullish on HYPE and can’t see a reason to stop.

Lighter (LIT) is a more recent position. During his honeymoon, his mind was full of LIT to the point where he felt it was telling him something subconsciously, so he bought at market price. LIT’s logic is the distribution-channel advantage brought by the Robinhood partnership, which will be a massive leverage for traditional finance users adopting perpetual contracts.

Variational is his main mining battleground. Over the past year, almost all of his trades have been on Variational. This platform currently has roughly $125k to $130 million in open interest (OI), with about 25% coming from TradFi markets. That ratio makes him very bullish. The points project is expected to end by Q3, so there are still a few months of mining window.

He made an interesting estimate: if Variational airdrops 25% of its tokens, and it launches at a $1 billion valuation, that roughly corresponds to about $27 per point. He wouldn’t be surprised to see FDV launch in the range of $5k to $3 billion. It depends on how HYPE and LIT perform.

He also mentions a “Texas hedge” strategy: not only going long HYPE, but also getting exposure to future perpetual contract DEX tokens through Variational mining. For example, if he shorts ETH, he chooses to do it on Variational rather than on Hyperliquid or Lighter. If it loses, it doesn’t matter, because the airdrop points will compensate; if it wins, even better—the points are even more. That’s the beauty of airdrop mining: setting convexity returns for your future self.

Regarding SUI, he doesn’t like the token itself, so he shorts SUI on Variational to hedge his spot position. If SUI rises, his spot position would very likely rise as well; if the market falls, SUI would also fall. This is a combination hedge.

He’s against the “tribalism” mindset common in crypto circles—having HYPE means you only trade on Hyperliquid. He believes you can hold multiple tokens at the same time and get more robust exposure through portfolio configuration.

On Variational’s competitors, he mentions Ostium also has incentive projects, but its scale is far smaller than Variational’s. Ostium is still in expansion phase, but in the short term it doesn’t pose a threat.

4. Zcash sell-off recap: from collapse to buying back in

Zcash is Taiki’s most纠结 position. In his previous video, he had just talked about the experience of being cut badly by Zcash. In this one, he admits he bought it back again.

What happened: In early June, news surfaced that there might be an infinite minting vulnerability in the Orchard Pool (Zcash’s shielded pool). The ZEC price dropped straight down by 60%. Taiki sold the whole position near the bottom. His reason was very straightforward: he was going abroad for a honeymoon at the time, and he didn’t want to hold a high-risk position in that state. He said he needed to remove the pain first. He even did tax-loss harvesting, joking that it was a “ultimate self-comfort.”

What he was truly worried about then was that this FUD would completely destroy market confidence in Zcash. Just like BTC, Zcash has no cash flows. Its value comes from whether people treat it as a store-of-value tool. If confidence collapses, it might never come back. The vulnerability itself was secondary.

But he gave himself time to observe, and then made a key judgment: if Zcash can recover from this crash, it becomes an anti-fragile asset. Every time it was supposed to die but didn’t, the probability it dies in the future gets lower—exactly like the historical logic of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is strong because, in the past, it had countless reasons to die, but it didn’t die.

Using Munger’s reverse thinking: this crash was likely a massive flushing event that cleared the way for a big rally later. If the price can recover, it proves the asset has resilience—so it’s worth buying back.

He said he went in hard in April, went in again in May, and then sold the whole position at the bottom. Now it has risen back—without lifting him along the way. He uses “goldfish memory” to describe the mindset needed in trading: let the past be the past; focus on “can this asset recover? If it recovers, how far can it go?”

He admits he’s not psychologically mature, but he thinks he’s improved compared with three or four years ago. Back then, he probably wouldn’t have been able to buy back the same asset after selling it at a loss.

5. Ironwood upgrade: quantum security and formal verification

Zcash’s next key catalyst is the Ironwood shielded pool upgrade that goes live on July 28.

Ironwood brings two core improvements. First, quantum security. Second, formal verification to eliminate all future undetectable forged-coin vulnerabilities. Zcash founder Zooko also used an Anthropic model to audit the protocol.

He summarized the current state with an AI prompt: does the Orchard Pool have vulnerabilities? Yes. Have they been exploited? Unknown. Is there any public evidence of exploitation? No. Can Ironwood fix the vulnerabilities? Expectedly yes. Can you guarantee Ironwood has no undiscovered vulnerabilities? No. That’s the inherent trade-off of privacy protocols: you can’t fully confirm whether it has been exploited.

But the Ironwood upgrade will essentially prove that Orchard hasn’t been exploited in practice. Vitalik has also written about formal verification, and Taiki believes this will become standard for every crypto project in the future.

From a trading and narrative perspective, full price recovery will very likely kick off a narrative revival and a reflexivity loop of positive and negative feedback. That’s what he wants to position for early.

6. Saylor’s dilemma: why Bitcoin is “getting harder to support”

Saylor (Michael Saylor) has been selling Bitcoin to fill STRK (Strategy Preferred Stock Strife) dividends and increase cash reserves. Taiki believes that in the foreseeable future, Saylor could remain a net seller of BTC.

For the past six years, Saylor was a consistent net buyer of BTC. Now he starts to slowly sell monthly or every two months—how will BTC react? No one knows. Taiki isn’t sure whether BTC will be dragged down by Saylor’s selling actions, but he also doesn’t want to bet that it won’t.

“Saylor makes Bitcoin harder to support than it was two years ago, four years ago, six years ago. This isn’t a problem with Bitcoin itself, but Saylor is too big a part of the narrative.” If Bitcoin wins, Saylor becomes the richest man on Earth, Taiki says he’s not sure how he feels about that.

STRK’s price has already recovered somewhat (over $70), but the holding experience is very bad. He even thinks Saylor should just remove this share, though he’s not sure what’s going on in Saylor’s head.

On the quantum threat, his friend Evan recently posted: Bitcoin faces quantum computing threats, and Bitcoin developers lack urgency about it, which makes him seriously concerned about going all-in BTC again. Taiki says he agrees. Two years ago, four years ago, he would have had no hesitation going all-in on BTC—and he indeed did. But quantum threat is an unknowable variable, and he doesn’t have confidence in the Bitcoin community’s ability to respond to it.

From Zcash’s perspective, you don’t need to bet that people will sell BTC to buy ZEC. A more reasonable assumption is: for someone who wants to allocate $100k to the crypto market, two years ago they might have bought 100% BTC; now they might have 90% BTC + 10% ZEC. If Zcash surges because of quantum security, it can also push Bitcoin developers to take the quantum issue more seriously. The two can coexist in a mutually beneficial way.

“Zcash and Bitcoin can be like gold and silver in the crypto world: there are trade-offs, but it’s worth holding both.”

7. ZEC/BTC exchange rate: the key threshold for a reflexivity loop

Taiki’s most important Zcash metric is the ZEC/BTC exchange rate; the ZEC/USD price is secondary.

Zcash and Bitcoin have exactly the same supply schedule: the supply halves every four years, for a total of 21 million. Currently, the ZEC/BTC exchange rate is about 0.8%. The previous resistance was in the ZEC $650 to $700 range, corresponding to a ratio of about 1%.

If the ZEC/BTC exchange rate breaks above 1%, it will trigger two things at the same time: ZEC breaks above multi-year highs (a technical signal), and the narrative that “Zcash’s market cap exceeds BTC by 1%” itself becomes a topic (a narrative signal). The two resonances together could bring in larger inflows.

He said he has been selling BTC to buy ZEC over the past two months. He did it last month, and also did some of it this month. Now he no longer continues selling; his position is comfortable. His bet is very clear: the market will become increasingly concerned with the three narratives—privacy, quantum, and Saylor—and it has nothing to do with whether Zcash is “better than Bitcoin.”

Soros’s reflexivity theory applies here: fundamentals drive prices up, price increases change people’s beliefs about an asset, belief changes in turn improve fundamentals (more developers, more users, more liquidity), which further pushes prices higher. Zcash’s reflexivity loop needs prices to move in order to start.

He adds another point: if you’re one of the people in the comments mocking him for “selling at the bottom,” and you watch ZEC rally back from the bottom and keep going—at some point it becomes very hard to keep denying what’s happening. Zcash has already accumulated many reasons to have gone to zero: it started rising before BTC topped, then it had another run in Q1 and Q2, crashed hard due to the vulnerability, and now it’s recovering. If all those negative shocks couldn’t kill the asset, then what could?

8. Position management and final reflection

Taiki’s current position ranking: Zcash overweight, HYPE second, LIT third, plus cash and Variational mining rewards.

He keeps a cash position for two reasons. First is psychological hedging: last month his ZEC position was too heavy, especially before the honeymoon, leading him to make emotional decisions. Reducing the ZEC position while holding cash is his attempt to hedge against future mistakes. Second is opportunity reserves: if there’s a new pullback or a new narrative, he has ammo to act.

About entry timing: Zcash added some recently last week. The HYPE position was built a few months ago. LIT was bought at market price during the honeymoon. His BTC position is currently floating at a loss, but “do what you need to do as needed.” The new ZEC position is floating at a profit, but adding it to the previous losses means he’s still underwater overall. He believes that if the Zcash thesis is correct, the earlier losses will be made back in the future through gains.

He admits making mistakes is as inevitable as “seeing yourself in the mirror and realizing you’re Japanese,” but the only thing you can do is move forward and take the best step you can out of it.

His final stance: go long perpetual contract DEX tokens (HYPE, LIT), keep mining more perpetual contract DEX tokens (Variational), and go long Zcash considering its unique positioning and narrative premium versus Bitcoin. Good altcoins have already bottomed. The market is forward-looking. You have to believe in something.