The recent crypto market plunge, followed by some tokens’ quick bounce, helped MN Trading founder Michaël van de Poppe spot a clear new trend forming.

“If the markets didn’t have a narrative, then it has presented a new narrative, which is DeFi, I think in terms of investment perspective,” van de Poppe tells Hall of Flame.

“A net positive strategy to allocate toward ETH and DeFi — I think both will surge in the coming months,” he claims.

Van de Poppe cites Aave (AAVE), Maker (MKR), Ethereum Name Service (ENS), Bittensor (TAO), Celestia (TIA) and Rocket Pool (RPL) as tokens to watch. These projects bounced back fast and some didn’t even get hit by the dip, he explains.

“If an asset is bouncing back this strong, it shows the conviction that investors have to it,” he says.

Spotting trends and devising strategies is van de Poppe’s day-in, day-out routine as the founder of MN Trading, where he advises high-net-worth individuals on trades to make in the crypto market.

Michaël van de Poppe is not your standard crypto bro

He definitely doesn’t seem like your typical crypto bro, though. The well-known crypto analyst has 722,200 X followers but still seems like a really down-to-earth guy.

When we first start the video call, he spends a few minutes spinning around his webcam to show off the new office and surrounds for his company, MN Trading, in Amsterdam, where he’s based.

He already passed the crypto bro test, no Lamborghini in sight.

(X/Michaël van de Poppe)

Van de Poppe got into crypto back in February 2017, when Bitcoin was trading around $1,500.

“I was studying economics at the University of Amsterdam, and two important events happened in the same week,” he says.

First, a guy with a “heavy hangover” started talking about Bitcoin and crypto, but van de Poppe quickly forgot about it. But two days later, another friend brought it up again.

“I went to the pub, my friend said you need to look at these altcoins, and we called that altcoin season back in the day. That triggered me. I went home and bought Digibite, and it tripled in price and came back down the week after,” he explains.

“I was hooked — I started trading, reading the Bitcoin white paper, and set up my Twitter account,” he says. Just 11 months later, van de Poppe went all in on crypto, making it his full-time job.

How did Michaël van de Poppe achieve Twitter fame?

Van de Poppe launched his X account in October 2017 and is more than three quarters of the way toward his goal of reaching a million followers. He thinks it might happen when the crypto market “wakes up sometime in 2025.”

“If we hit a million it is going to be a real party for sure,” he laughs.

Ever since he hit 100,000 followers on X, van de Poppe has been celebrating follower milestones by throwing low-key house parties.

In his first four months on X, he had a bit of a Justin Bieber moment, racking up 50,000 followers. The way he walks you through how he built his account makes it sound like anyone could pull it off.

“I was part of a few communities back in the day, which pushed my following to a few thousand followers. Being active in the community made me an admin there, which helped me raise my X account,” he says, noting that it was the height of the 2017 bull market, and everyone was hunting for crypto tips online.

(X/Michaël van de Poppe)

But he remembers one 2017 prediction he nailed perfectly, and that made the followers come in faster and faster.

“I remember saying Bitcoin is likely to fall to 11k, bounce to 16K, then fall back to 6K. It was one of my true calls, which actually skyrocketed the account even more,” he explains.

Van de Poppe says he’s not “triggered by the number” of followers anymore, but he admits that even the rest of his crew at MN Trading is pretty pumped about the big million-follower goal.

What type of content does Michaël van de Poppe create?

Van de Poppe likes to give his followers a big-picture view of the economy along with crypto technical analysis, but he’s moved away from just throwing out price predictions, even though they’re great for engagement.

“It is macroeconomic data and news. Macroeconomic analysis, technical analysis of the markets. Those are usually the two segments, and I’m usually quite sharp when it comes to my statements,” he says.

(X/Michaël van de Poppe)

“I used to do a lot of price predictions, I started staying away from the predictions because they do not make sense,” van de Poppe laughs.

He explains that predictions are too risky because the crypto market is heavily influenced by macroeconomic events.

“If the Fed is not going to print more cash, Bitcoin is not going to hit 500K or a million, but if they do then it is a possible target,” he claims.

“If other black swan events take place you simply don’t know where the market is going to go,” he adds.

Sure, but what are Michaël van de Poppe’s predictions?

But this is Hall of Flame, and we’re not letting him go without a few insights into themarket’s direction. Van de Poppe, like many others, thinks that “Uptober” could be the month Bitcoin surpasses its current all-time high of $73,679.

“I would not be surprised if we hit a new Bitcoin all-time high in September or October,” van de Poppe says.

(X/Michaël van de Poppe)

He also predicts that global liquidity is going to increase later this year, which is “a great sign for altcoins.”

He points out Omni Network (OMNI), an altcoin he thinks has a real use case, and thinks its small market capitalization of just over $50 million means it could have the potential to do “100X.”