Wealthion · Sep 22, 2026 · 30m · 19m saved
With Brett Rentmeester, Founder and Managing Director of WindRock Wealth Management
The CLARITY Act, the bill meant to decide which US regulator oversees each crypto token, did not get enough votes to move forward. Brett Rentmeester said the rules are changing anyway.
Much of the industry treated the vote as a setback. Two days later, he said, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission issued their own findings, including an SEC exemption of five years for exchanges that work with tokenized assets, meaning stocks and other assets represented on a blockchain.
"So in layman's terms, what we think that's going to do is we think that's going to open the gates for banks and brokerage firms and all sorts of financial participants to start tokenizing assets."
Brett Rentmeester, founder and managing director of WindRock Wealth Management, on Wealthion with Maggie Lake. His firm has been in crypto since close to its founding, long enough to know the market's boom-and-bust cycles.
The full interview is covered here so you can skip it. 30 minutes of audio, 11 minutes of reading.
Here are the 10 predictions that matter.
Key Takeaways
Bitcoin's four-year cycle points to a possible last washout this fall, and he sees today's prices as good long-term entry points
The CLARITY Act stalled over ethics and over whether stablecoins can pay interest
Regulators moved anyway, with a five-year SEC exemption for exchanges handling tokenized assets
Stablecoins backed by dollars could extend the life of the dollar, by creating demand for short-term Treasuries
AI agents will need to pay for things, and he expects them to use crypto wallets rather than bank accounts
Crypto can fall 50% to 80% in a downturn, so he sizes positions for that or trims near cycle peaks
Probably 95% of crypto tokens will end up with no value, and 5% might change society
1. The Four-Year Cycle
Maggie Lake opened by saying oil and bonds had taken the headlines while crypto staged a comeback, with Bitcoin back at 85,000 and Ethereum rallying since August. She asked whether this is a new bull run.
Rallies, crashes and the halving
Rentmeester said Bitcoin and Ethereum are doing what they have always done: rallying hard, then crashing until people think the story is over, then coming back. Bitcoin has historically followed a four-year cycle around the halving, the event every four years when the rate at which new Bitcoin is created for the miners is cut in half. In past cycles the high came within about 18 months of the halving, followed by a nasty 12-month period, which is where the cycle says the market has been.
"We got to 120,000 last fall. We got as low as 58,000 plus or minus this summer." — Brett Rentmeester
Good entry points, with one caveat
On a long-term basis he thinks these are good entry points, he said. Based on the cycle alone, and not as investment advice, some people think there could be one more washout later this fall that marks a bottom. Patterns are never identical, but whether prices are at the bottom or close to it, he expects these to be relative lows before a stronger couple of years.
