In another reality, Bill Noble would be just another guy in a suit behind a big desk at the Fed or SEC, probably muttering negative incantations like “crypto is bad.”
He certainly has the track record for it: JP Morgan, UBS, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs. But this is Noble in an evil mirror dimension. In our world, he’s a real crypto guy who talks to me in a t-shirt with bikes in the back of the room. He turned away from the dark side and joined the rebels.
He is known for his popular YouTube podcasts and TV appearances. He is currently a Senior Market Analyst at Token Metrics.
Wall Street career
While studying economics (1987-1991) at Rutgers University in New Jersey, he managed to snag one of only two coveted internships at JP Morgan’s Wall Street forex desk at the time. Noble started when trading technology was primitive and much analysis was done by hand on paper. In August 1990, he was put in charge of reception while everyone went on vacation, “because nothing happens in August, put the boy in.” Then Iraq invaded Kuwait and all sorts of madness broke out in the markets.
John J. Murphy’s charting made easy.
“The price volatility seemed so extreme to me. I had no idea how anyone could keep track of that. So I went to the technical analyst associated with the currency unit. I said, ‘I bet everyone comes to you looking for help to figure this out.’”
“He says, ‘Actually, nobody does that.’ So he gave me John Murphy’s map book [Charting Made Easy] and took me out to sushi. And from there it went with charts to the races.”
During his years of career in the conventional Wall Street milieu, he became a seasoned technical analyst, which he combined with writing reports on various markets. When it came to meltdowns and black swan events – like the 1998 Long Term Capital Management implosion that nearly devastated western finance – Noble was the go-to resource. “I’m like a firefighter: if everyone runs out of the burning building, I run in,” he jokes.
From stocks and bonds to cryptanalysis
In 2017 he became fascinated with crypto. He went to a Bitcoin conference in Austin, Texas and started hand-crafting charts for Ether, which eventually grew into a gigantic scroll as the price rose and fell. Then he met bitcoin early adopter Charlie Schrem walking through an airport (who had a crypto career with spectacular ups and downs and even served time in prison linked to the Silk Road market implosion). They came together in crypto.IQ, a consulting service that aims to improve the analysis of cryptocurrencies with stocks, bonds, interest rates and other mainstream data, which nobody else was doing at the time.
Bill Noble on stage at DCentral Miami. Source: Twitter
In September 2019, Noble joined Token Metrics as a Senior Market Analyst. Led by CEO Ian Balina, the subscription service offers retailers AI-driven insights combined with the work of analysts who study the volatile cryptocurrency markets to make profitable trades regardless of general conditions.
He explains that it brings an “artificial intelligence system together with my mapping. They effectively have a quantitative research product, an institutional quantitative research product that we can supply to retailers, which as you know doesn’t really exist. I mean, there are data and service providers, but we can provide you with tools that you can use yourself. Plus we have top analysts looking at everything from chart macros to NFTs.”
As far as I remember, the fall in sterling is usually the start of contagion. $GBP has always been a canary in the coal mine. #DXY
— Bill Noble (@crypto_noble) September 26, 2022
Noble has 17,600 Twitter followers, a popular YouTube channel and, with his Tony Soprano-esque, no-nonsense New Jersey accent, is a sought-after guest analyst on crypto-TV.
He benefits from crypto’s volatility: “It’s up 10% or down 10% every day,” he says. “I don’t have to wait five years between crises. In fact, I only have to wait about 45 minutes.”
Noble emphasizes that when it comes to cryptographic analysis, you need to be very flexible and not tied to a methodology. Surprisingly, he looks to the distant past for his basic systems: “Gann works very well [William Gann, an influential early charting pioneer]. I think the systems – Wyckoff is another – are all that worked in the early 20th century when stocks were the Wild West and there were 50 listed car companies [work well]. I find Fibonacci is helpful too; Tom DeMark’s work is excellent.”
The current market situation
Taking a somewhat contrarian stance, he sees a long-term benefit in the current crypto winter: cleaning up the market and liquidating terrible projects.
“The surge so far has been fueled by a massive injection of liquidity from central banks. Then, when the central banks had to withdraw liquidity, there was the “2008 crash” of crypto. Speculative assets that should never have gone up initially went to zero.”
Noble predicts that we may see the beginning of spring for the crypto economy, a resumption of growth after the crash, similar to the many crises it has weathered in conventional financial markets, such as 2008 or 1987. He points out that various gurus like Warren Buffett wrote off the internet and Amazon after the 2002 crash. Buffett told CNBC in 2019 that in the past he’d “been a jerk for not buying Amazon stock.”
Noble is drawn to the volatility and ever-changing nature of crypto.
“Bear markets are good times to do your homework because Mr. Market is now sorting out who wins – and who loses.” He’s bullish on Ethereum as a Web3 backbone. “Web3 is the next internet, connected by Ethereum and Polkadot.”
Noble is also bullish on privacy coins, endorsing quotes from United States National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden: “One day, your assets could be held against you.” Central banks’ push towards centralized digital currencies, meaning that all Transactions being monitored by Big Brother will give impetus to privacy coins like Zcash. “Privacy coins will go from pirates to normal people.”
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psychology of trade
Psychology plays a big part in trading. Noble explains that many of the best traders exercise early in the morning to prepare for the rigors of trading.
“It’s really about emotional management,” he says. “They also established a research framework and adhered to it. You have to have a method or a style and you have to learn to get there.”
He explains that legendary trader Bill Williams (who invented numerous indicators including Great oscillatorthe Alligator indicator and the Market Facilitation Index) had his students write three pages of Stream of Consciousness before letting them act to clear their minds of emotional and intellectual blocks to action. Noble encourages people to read Williams’ book trading chaos.
Bill Noble and Julian Jackson prove that not everyone in crypto is 23 years old.
Noble recommends more emotional investors take a long-term approach rather than chasing the intense ups and downs of day trading. Hold a portfolio for a long time and only make a few trades per month or year. With yield farming, you would still get a return on your investment.
And of course, if you can persevere, then Noble says the long-term future is bright.
“During a tightening cycle, crypto will take damage like anything else, but when the tightening cycle comes to an end, crypto is the future of money.”
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