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Taihuttu family in Phuket, Thailand

Didi Taihuttu

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 family home in Lagos, Portugal

MacKenzie Sigalos

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.”

Didi Taihuttu in Lagos, Portugal

MacKenzie Sigalos

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 three 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 surpassed the $19,000 price threshold, so they’re “not doing so bad.”

It also helps that the nomadic family’s primary domicile is in Portugal — Europe’s ultimate crypto tax haven.

“You don’t pay any capital gains tax or anything else in Portugal on cryptocurrency,” said Taihuttu. “As long as you don’t earn cryptocurrency for providing services in Portugal, you’re in the clear.”

“That’s a very beautiful bitcoin heaven,” he said.

Didi Taihuttu in Lagos, Portugal

Didi Taihuttu

How the ‘BAM BAM’ indicator works

When Taihuttu began day trading tokens, he initially turned to traditional predictive metrics like the stock-to-flow model and the Mayer Multiple — a measure calculated by dividing the current price of bitcoin by the 200-day moving average in order to help identify frothy moments in the market when an asset’s value eclipses its intrinsic value.

But spending the time reading the tea leaves of all these somewhat related measures didn’t seem like a particularly productive use of his time, so Taihuttu decided to create his own proprietary blend of the best indicators on the market.

“It’s not just enough to know which indicators go into a formula,” explained Taihuttu. “What you can’t see is the calculus and the code that implements over the stock conditions. Those calculations display in charts.”

So beginning in 2019, Taihuttu started to incubate and perfect a custom-built predictive trading tool that would weigh multiple technical indicators — plus a bit of astrology — and then spit out real-time insights into potential price swings.

“It’s a combination of Bollinger Bands, Lower and Upper Bands, NMA, Red/Green Ribbon, NormStoch, RSI, Price Oscillator, Plot, MACD, Cross, Chande Momentum Oscillator, RSI-EMA, Full Moon, and New Moon,” explained Taihuttu, naming a dozen of the most popular market signals that crypto traders watch when they make investment decisions.

“Short and long signals and confirmation signals are shown on the charts when it could be a great moment to buy or sell,” continued Taihuttu.

Taihuttu family in Lagos, Portugal

MacKenzie Sigalos

Here is a quick breakdown of the technicals that underly the model:

  • Bollinger Bands focus on price volatility over time. The model consists of a simple moving average line with two standard deviation lines known as the Upper and Lower Bands. Price moves outside those outer bands can indicate whether an asset is oversold — or vice versa.
  • N-day Moving Average (NMA) is a type of moving average that takes the mean of the closing price of an asset over a variable period of time, or “N” days.
  • Red/Green Ribbon indicators depict bullish, or green, and bearish, or red, market conditions.
  • The Normalized Stochastic (NormStoch) looks at price momentum. It is a variation of the Stochastic Oscillator — an indicator which compares the closing price of an asset to its price variation over a designated period of time.
  • Similar to the Bollinger Bands, the Relative Strength Index (RSI) assesses whether an asset is oversold or overbought. The index, which ranges from 0 to 100, measures the speed and the scale of an asset’s recent price swings.
  • Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) compares two moving averages of a cryptocurrency’s price by subtracting the 26-period exponential moving average (EMA) from the 12-period EMA.
  • The Percentage Price Oscillator (PPO) takes the MACD reading and divides it by the 26-period EMA. It is possible to compare the PPO measures of different assets with larger price discrepancies, because it is expressed as a percentage.
  • With bitcoin, when the line charting the 50-day moving average crosses above a rising 200-day moving average, it is read as a bullish indicator known as a Golden Cross. When the 50-day moving average crosses below a falling 200-day moving average, it is known as the Death Cross, signaling a bear market may be imminent.
  • Chande Momentum Oscillator is a technical momentum indicator similar to the Relative Strength Index and the Stochastic Oscillator, except that it reacts faster to price changes.
  • As the name implies, the Relative Strength Index-Exponential Moving Average (RSI-EMA) combines both measures into a single indicator.

Price chart showing the ‘Didi BAM BAM’ market indicator

Didi Taihuttu

And then there are the intangible price influencers — like moon phases.

“I’m not saying it always affects the price of bitcoin, but the moon influences a lot,” said Taihuttu.

Taihuttu has found that when there is a full moon or a half moon, people tend to trade more.

“They tend to buy more, they tend to sell more,” he said. “Maybe it’s a coincidence, but if you look at the chart, you can see that mostly at the full moon, depending on where we are in the cycle, there’s a dump or a pump.”

Taihuttu added that the lunar phases also typically sync with the opening and closing of bitcoin’s monthly puts and options.

“So if we are in the top of the Bollinger Band in combination with a full moon, then you know that we are going to run,” continued Taihuttu, suggesting a market sell-off is imminent.

Losing his edge to ChatGPT

Taihuttu used to sell the Didi Bam Bam indicator to traders, but he says he will soon make give the trading tool away to selected bitcoin evangelists in order to help spur adoption.

But he also admits that his business model is disappearing.

“Anyone in the world can now go into ChatGPT and tell them, ‘Write me an indicator based on the moving averages and this cycle or that cycle. And write me a script that I can implement into TradingView and then they can make their own indicators,'” explained Taihuttu.

“I’m losing business there.”

‘Bitcoin Family’ in Thailand

Didi Taihuttu

Generative AI is a specific form of AI that is able to produce content from scratch. The systems take inputs from the user and feed them into powerful algorithms fueled by large datasets to generate new text, images, and video in a way that can appear almost human-like.

The technology captured the spotlight following widespread public adoption of OpenAI’s GPT language processing technology. ChatGPT, which uses massive language models to create human-sounding responses to questions, has ignited an arms race among some companies over what is seen as the next “paradigm shift” in tech.

While ChatGPT isn’t able to deliver a querent a trading algorithm in Pine Script, which is TradingView’s programming language, the technology does challenge the role of investment advisers.

In March, Goldman Sachs‘ chief information officer, Marco Argenti, told CNBC the bank is experimenting with generative AI tools internally to help its developers automatically generate and test code.

More recently, in May, Goldman spun off the first startup from the bank’s internal incubator — an AI-powered social media company for corporate use called Louisa. The push into AI is part of a larger effort by CEO David Solomon to expedite the bank’s digital makeover.

Morgan Stanley, meanwhile, is using it to inform its financial advisors on queries they may have. The bank has been testing an OpenAI-powered chatbot with 300 advisors so far, with a view to ultimately aid its roughly 16,000 advisors in making use of Morgan Stanley’s repository of research and data, according to Jeff McMillan, head of analytics and data at the firm’s wealth management division.

Taihuttu uses ChatGPT himself — but more for writing articles about subjects like bitcoin and the Lightning Networks. But he notes that while it is a productivity hack, the output doesn’t necessarily rank highly in search results.

“They will still find out that it’s ChatGPT,” he says. “But it’s still saving you a lot of time.”

— CNBC’s Ryan Browne contributed to this report.

It just got harder and less profitable to mine for bitcoin as algorithm adjusts

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BYD previews new flagship EV SUV and sedan for the first time

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December 16, 2025

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BYD previews new flagship EV SUV and sedan for the first time

BYD-new-flagship-EV-sedan-SUV

BYD offered a first look at its new flagship electric SUV and sedan, claiming the new EVs redefine high-end standards.

BYD preps to launch new flagship EV sedan and SUV

With over 480,000 new energy vehicles (NEVs) sold in November, BYD is coming off its best sales month of 2025. With new technology and vehicles launching across multiple segments, the company expects momentum to pick up in 2026.

That will include a pair of high-end flagship EVs, the Seal 08 sedan and Sealion 08 SUV. BYD confirmed the names for the first time on Monday alongside teaser images revealing the silhouette of each.

According to CarNewsChina, both models are set to debut in the first three months of 2026 and will feature BYD’s latest tech and software.

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Both models are based on the Ocean S concept BYD revealed in April at the Shanghai Auto Show, featuring its latest design theme, Ocean Aesthetic 2.0.

Although China’s MIIT released a sales license for a BYD vehicle named the Seal 08 earlier this year, it launched as the Seal 06 EV this summer.

BYD-new-flagship-EV-sedan-SUV
BYD previews new flagship Seal 08 sedan (Source: BYD)

At 4,720 mm long, 1,880 mm wide, and 1,495 mm tall, the electric sedan is about the size of the Tesla Model 3. It’s offered with 46.1 kWh or 56.6 kWh battery packs, delivering a CLTC range of 470 km and 545 km, respectively.

Although BYD has yet to reveal prices or any other details, the Seal 08 is expected to deliver a longer driving range with added power.

Local news outlet 163 claims the new Sealion 08 will be 5,040 mm long, or slightly bigger than the Tesla Model Y-sized Sealion 07 SUV.

BYD-new-flagship-EV-sedan-SUV
BYD previews new flagship Sealion 08 SUV (Source: BYD)

The new flagship SUV and sedan will join other BYD Ocean Series models, including the Seagull, Dolphin, Seal, and Song Plus.

Although November was BYD’s best sales month of the year, growth has slowed in 2025. BYD’s chairman and president, Wang Chuanfu, told investors (via CnEVPost) that the company’s biggest advantage lies in its advanced technologies, including next-gen batteries, smart driving features, charging, and other related EV tech.

“I say our technology isn’t sufficiently advanced now because we have major technological announcements coming, but I can’t disclose details at this time,” Wang said earlier this month.

BYD is also aggressively expanding overseas to drive growth. Last month, BYD’s exports surged 325% with a record nearly 132,000 vehicles shipped overseas.


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Velotric Christmas Sale drops Summit 1 e-bike bundle back at $1,799 low, Heybike dual-battery Hauler e-bike at new $999 low, more

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December 16, 2025

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Velotric Christmas Sale drops Summit 1 e-bike bundle back at ,799 low, Heybike dual-battery Hauler e-bike at new 9 low, more


Headlining our Tuesday Green Deals this week is Velotric’s Christmas Gift Season Sale that is not only taking up to $400 off a select number of its e-bikes, but is also offering a FREE $100 gift card with purchases of $2,500 or more. Among the lineup, we spotted the Velotric Summit 1 Versatile Multi-Terrain e-bike with a $160 FREE bundle of gear back at its $1,799 low. Right behind it is Heybike’s Hauler Dual-Battery Cargo e-bike that comes with $89+ in FREE gear/gifts at a new $999 low, as well as Bluetti’s Elite 30 V2 Power Station at $204, an Autel EV Charger at its second-best pricing, and many more Christmas deals waiting for you below. And don’t forget about the hangover deals that are collected together at the bottom of the page, like yesterday’s Hiboy Christmas EV Sale, the latest EcoFlow 48-hour flash sale that ends tonight, and more.

Head below for other New Green Deals we’ve found today and, of course, Electrek’s best EV buying and leasing deals. Also, check out the new Electrek Tesla Shop for the best deals on Tesla accessories.

With its weekend flash sale now over, Velotric has switched gears and has launched its Christmas Gift Season Sale with select e-bike discounts of up to $400, free gifts, and even a free $100 gift card promotion when spending $2,500 or more. Among the small selection of deals, a standout is Velotric’s newer Summit 1 Versatile Multi-Terrain e-bike in a Royal Blue colorway with $160 in FREE gear at $1,799 shipped, matching its Black Friday pricing. This e-bike alone would normally cost $1,999 at full price (and $2,059 with the bundled gear), which we only saw 2025 discounts to $1,899 until Black Friday/Cyber Monday, when this same low price came around for the second time since 2024. Now, you’re getting another chance to score the best tracked price, with $200 cut from the tag and a total $360 savings in all. Head below to learn more about it and the other offers during this Christmas sale.

Coming in as a more affordable all-terrain trekker over Velotric’s premium Nomad 2X e-bike, the Summit 1 e-bike still provides plenty of support, regardless of the terrain you’re venturing across. It arrives equipped with a 750W rear hub motor (that peaks at 1,300W) and a 705.6Wh battery, giving you up to 20/28 MPH top speeds (depending on your laws) and up to 70 miles of PAS-supported travel. While the brand claims that throttle-only riding can continue for up to 60 miles, it’s best to expect less from using pure electric action.

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One notable standout among this e-bike’s features is the SensorSwap inclusion, which allows you to utilize both a cadence and torque sensor as you ride after simply switching between them, giving you more versatile support depending on what kind of terrain you’re passing over. Other features include Shimano hydraulic disc brakes and an 8-speed derailleur, Kenda puncture-resistant tires, a light-sensing LED headlight, a brake-activated taillight, Apple Find My security integration, a 2.8 full color display with a USB port, and more.

Velotric Christmas Gift Season Sale offers:

  • Fold 1 Step-Thru Folding e-bike w/ FREE $48 bundle: $1,099 (Reg. $1,547)
    • 20/28 MPH for up to 55 miles
  • Velotric T1 ST Plus Lightweight Urban e-bike w/ FREE $162 bundle: $1,299 (Reg. $2,059)
    • 20/28 MPH for up to 70 miles
  • Breeze 1 Cruiser e-bike w/ $150 FREE bundled gear: $1,799 (Reg. $1,949)
    • 20/28 MPH for up to 70 miles
  • Summit 1 Multi-Terrain e-bike w/ FREE $160 bundle: $1,799 (Reg. $2,059)
    • 20/28 MPH for up to 70 miles
father and son on trail with Heybike Hauler e-bikes

Carry packages, people, more on Heybike’s 85-mile dual-battery Hauler cargo e-bike with FREE gear/gifts at a new $999 low

As part of Heybike’s ongoing Christmas e-bike Sale, which has returned the ALPHA All-Terrain Mid-Drive model back to its lowest price, we also spotted a new cut on the Hauler Dual-Battery Cargo e-bike for $999 shipped and coming with FREE dual rear side baskets ($89 value) and a holiday gift pack. This long-range variant goes for $1,899 outside of sales, which we’ve only seen taken as low as $1,099 previously during the brand’s Black Friday sale. Now, for Christmas, you’re looking at even more savings – $989+ total – that lands it down at a new all-time low price at just $100 more than the single-battery model was before selling out of stock.

If you want to learn more about this long-range e-bike, be sure to check out our original coverage of this new low price here.

man and woman camping outdoors with Bluetti power station at table

Bluetti Elite 30 V2 288Wh LiFePO4 power station and its many colorways start from $204 and arrive before Xmas

Bluetti’s official Amazon storefront is undercutting the brand’s direct Christmas Sale pricing on its Elite 30 V2 Portable Power Station at $204 shipped in a standard black colorway, while its sand grey and twilight purple colorways are priced higher at $209 shipped – the latter of these deals matching the price directly from Bluetti, where sadly, they are not eligible for the exclusive bonus savings. These stations all carry $304 MSRPs on the direct site, while Amazon starts them off a little lower at $299. Today’s rates are only beaten out by cuts further to $199 and $189 that we’ve sporadically seen, most recently during last month’s Black Friday events, with you still getting solid $95 and $90 markdowns.

If you want to learn more about this power station, be sure to check out our original coverage of this deal here.

man charging vehicle with Autel EV charger

Autel’s MaxiCharger Home 40A level 2 EV charging station arrives ahead of Christmas for $319

Through the official Autel Amazon storefront, you can pick up the brand’s MaxiCharger Home 40A Level 2 EV Charger at $319 shipped, which matches the price directly from the brand. It’s coming down from its $470 full price here with a $151 markdown, landing it at the second-lowest rate we have tracked – just $8 above the low we spotted during July’s Prime Day event. If you want an even more advanced model, you can also currently find the MaxiCharger AC Lite Home 40A Smart AI Level 2 EV Charger with voice controls at this same price – with either of these stations arriving ahead of Christmas for the time being.

If you want to learn more about this EV charging solution, be sure to check out our original coverage of this deal here.

Anker SOLIX power stations on sled in Christmas sale banner
Samsung smart appliances in the kitchen
Lectric e-bike Christmas banner

Best Winter EV deals!

Best new Green Deals landing this week

The savings this week are also continuing to a collection of other markdowns. To the same tune as the offers above, these all help you take a more energy-conscious approach to your routine. Winter means you can lock in even better off-season price cuts on electric tools for the lawn while saving on EVs and tons of other gear.


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I tested Tesla’s latest ‘mind blowing’ Full Self-Driving v14

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December 16, 2025

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I tested Tesla's latest 'mind blowing' Full Self-Driving v14

Tesla Full Self-Driving

I’ve put over 200 km (125 miles) on Tesla’s latest ‘Full Self-Driving Supervised’ (FSD) v14 update, and I’ve gathered my thoughts in this article.

In short, Tesla FSD v14 is an incremental improvement to the automaker’s advanced driver-assist system (ADAS) and the most impressive Level 2 system available in a consumer vehicle today.

However, it is still far from what Tesla sold to car buyers: unsupervised self-driving.

I briefly tested FSD v14 in a friend’s car when it launched two months ago, but now that I’ve picked up a new Model 3 with HW4, I’ve spent much more time with it and can share more thoughts.

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First off, for context, I was already a somewhat heavy user of FSD on my Model 3 with HW3, which is stuck on FSD v12 because the computer has reached its limits. I’ve been using it for years.

With v12, FSD was involved in roughly 80% of my driving – mainly on the highway. I’m a responsible FSD user because I always pay attention to the road and am ready to take control at all times. I do appreciate FSD taking over most of the driving tasks so I can focus on scanning the road.

It tried to kill me a couple of times, but it is something you sign up for when you are basically a beta tester.

I haven’t had a significant update to FSD on my HW3 Model 3 for a year now, as Tesla has focused almost all its efforts on updates to vehicles equipped with the newer HW4 computer and its Robotaxi pilot program in Austin, Texas.

There’s now virtually no hope that Tesla vehicles with HW3 computers (most cars up to 2024) will ever deliver on Musk’s promise of unsupervised self-driving. He has been talking about a computer retrofit to help, but that was almost a year ago, and Tesla still hasn’t offered anything to HW3 owners beyond transferring FSD to a new car with HW4, which is what I reluctantly did.

The latest update, available only to cars with the HW4 (AI4) computer, is called FSD v14, and CEO Elon Musk has been hyping it as “sentient” and “mind-blowing.”

After driving more than 200 km (125 miles) with the FSD v14 update (v14.2.1.25 to be exact), here are my thoughts:

Tesla FSD V14 Pros

We already reported on the new point-to-point features of FSD v14, which now enable you to go from parking to parking only on FSD under the driver’s supervision.

That’s a noticeable improvement that removed a lot of disengagements.

However, that’s more a direct capability added to the system rather than an improvement in actual driving performance, which I’m focused on here.

Coming from v12, I can say with certitude that v14 feels more confident. It drives more like a human. It feels less robotic in its actions. Acceleration and deceleration are smoother.

Obviously, that’s going to depend heavily on the driving mode you choose. Much like v12, I find that the ‘Hurry’ mode is the best suited for me, as I generally like to drive above the speed limit, but not high enough to get a speeding ticket, which the new Mad Max mode would rack up quickly

FSD v14 finally tries to go back into the right lane after passing to the left – although emphasis on the word ‘tries’ as there’s a significant con to that in the next section.

Tesla FSD V14 Cons

The obvious one is: it’s not what Tesla sold to customers, unsupervised self-driving, and I don’t see it becoming that any time soon.

I had plenty of interventions and a couple of disengagements over those ~200 km. Fortunately, none of them were safety-related.

Two disengagements were due to FSD not entering the right lane at the right time. I gave it a chance until the last second, but it kept making me miss my exits or have a car cut me off at the last second, which is not acceptable to me.

From v12, I miss the ability to directly adjust the max speed live with the scroll depending on the situation. I hate it when automakers remove capabilities instead of just adding options.

As I mentioned in the ‘pros’ section, FSD v14 now tries to go back in the right lane after passing someone, something that it would do only half the time for me in v12. However, it only “tries” to do it. Half the time, it flashes its lights and moves to the right before returning to the middle of the left lane for seemingly no reason, even though it appears safe to return to the right lane.

It often does this little dance once or twice before either giving up or successfully moving to the right lane.

Electrek’s Take

My take on FSD has always been that if it were developed by Tesla in a vacuum, it would mostly be celebrated as a great driver-assistance system.

However, the fact that Tesla sold this to customers as something that “has all the hardware to support full autonomy” and will increase in price as the software will improve, until you can eventually go to sleep in the car and wake up at your destination, has changed everything.

Now, not only was Tesla wrong about the hardware and the price, but we also have to compare it to what was promised: unsupervised self-driving.

As long as it is not that, it is a failure. There’s no way around it.

I have a theory on people who are impressed by Tesla FSD v14. Putting aside biased people who are invested in Tesla’s stock, I think people who are impressed fall into one of two categories:

  1. People who, for whatever reason, are disconnected from Tesla selling FSD as a level 4, unsupervised self-driving system. And doing so since 2016.
  2. Bad drivers.

There are also people who have never experienced FSD before. For those, it is obviously impressive, but personally, I expected a bigger jump from v12 to v14.

Many people are bad drivers, and they are OK with FSD doing strange things that might confuse or upset other road users. Personally, I can’t accept that. As Tesla makes abundantly clear (in court, less so in its marketing), I’m the one responsible for the car. Therefore, its driving reflects me, and I refused to let it negatively affect other road users.

As for the claim that “no other consumer vehicle can do what Tesla FSD can” and that it is “the best level 2 ADAS,” to me, those points are moot compared to: Does it actually deliver what Tesla sold to customers?

The answer to that is undoubtedly a big fat no.

Can it get there? Of course. On HW4? I have serious doubts.

FSD v14 is “feature complete”. It can perform all the tasks related to driving, but it can’t reliably cover millions of miles without human supervision. It also lacks the redundancy that you need in a system that doesn’t require human supervision.

Maybe it can do it in a small geo-fenced environment with remote monitoring, but that’s not scalable to the customer fleet.


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