‘Bitcoin Family’ has a trading algorithm that tracks moon cycles

LAGOS, PORTUGAL — In the small coastal town of Lagos in the heart of Portugal’s southern Algarve region, Didi Taihuttu begins most days on the rooftop of his villa — an unassuming home with rustic charm set atop a hill that slopes up from the Atlantic Ocean. The Mediterranean sun bounces off the bright white stucco walls of the house, illuminating the orange terracotta roof and casting a glow over Taihuttu, who sits on a plastic chair tucked under a round table of the same make. The Dutch patriarch of the ‘Bitcoin Family’ drinks black coffee and pores over cryptocurrency price charts on his MacBook Pro as he decides which trades will begin his day.

“We just need a few thousand per month to live on so our performance is not really important to us,” Taihuttu tells CNBC from his deck overlooking an expansive stretch of cobalt-colored water, cliff-backed beaches and bougainvillea.

Taihuttu’s self-effacement and modest surroundings belie the 45-year-old’s success. In 2017, Taihuttu, along with his wife and three kids, liquidated all of their assets, trading a 2,500-square-foot house and most of their earthly possessions for bitcoin and a life on the road. This was back when the price of bitcoin was around $900. Bitcoin is currently trading at over $30,000, down from an all-time high of nearly $70,000 in Nov. 2021.

Those extreme price swings have helped grow the Dutch family’s crypto nest egg.

For seven years, the investor has regularly been swapping his bitcoin for U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins in order to capitalize on the volatility in the price of the world’s largest cryptocurrency. When Taihuttu thinks that bitcoin is reaching a bull market peak, he trades his bitcoin into stablecoins like tether, USDC, and DAI — and when it appears as though bitcoin is touching cycle lows during a bear market, he starts buying it back. So far, Taihuttu says the gamble is working out great thanks to a market indicator he created himself dubbed the “Didi BAM BAM.”

Taihuttu’s indicator considers a mix of inputs, including directional trading data and moon cycles. It’s guided all of Taihuttu’s investing decisions since he built it before the pandemic.

“From mid-November to the start of December 2022, we saw the first signs the bear market was completely over,” said Taihuttu. “It was confirmed in January 2023 when the long flag appeared in the model.”

He added, “People should have been buying bitcoin already, because every bitcoin you bought at $16k, it’s at $30k now, so that’s almost 90% upside.”

The father of five says his bitcoin investment is up about 50% since the bottom of the most recent bear market.

The Taihuttus declined to share with CNBC the current dollar amount of their crypto investment in aggregate — but Didi did disclose that they had fully bought back into bitcoin by the time the coin…