I thought we'd make it closer to Q3 before the big sell wave came, but that's obviously taking place already.

The 82-84k rejection I kept talking about played out, momentum to the downside is pretty strong, and I think it's likely we trade down into the 60s from here.

TLDR; I'm not trying to buy this yet. I want to see one more breakdown into a liquidation cascade first, and that's where I'd be looking to take a trade.

Next stop, 69-72k

We've come back to the old Feb-Apr range.

We put in our first mini-composite below the highest comp, then built one lower and broke down from that too. So I'd eyeball the next comp somewhere between 69 and 72k, maybe a little tighter, like 70 to 71.

What's keeping me patient is how short-lived that last comp was.

It was only a few days when I expected more like a week, and that tells me this is acceleration of the downtrend. Classic auction market theory I've taught you says when your comps start long and get shorter and shorter in one direction, the trend is speeding up.

So I expect we build this new comp around 70k, break down again, and that next breakdown is probably a liquidation move where we cascade.

That cascade this week or next is the thing I'm watching for. Most likely it's not the macro bottom to be aping, but from a trading standpoint it's probably a short-term reversion bottom worth taking.

If we get into the 60s and things just look terrible and we're still bleeding, then maybe we start calling for the 50s. One step at a time.

The Sailor wash-out

We've hit the first wave of Sailor actually selling.

He owns like 4% of supply, so if he gets forced to sell enormous amounts it cascades and takes us down a lot lower than I originally thought.

We've seen this before in past cycles: people get overly levered, price pressures them, and they’re forced to sell.

Historically that's created some of the best opportunities for us to buy.

Medium term it represents a significant threat, but long term him not being the main character anymore could be really good for us.

Not over here doomsdaying 12k, but let's see how we interact once we get into the 60s.

I'm 60% TradFi now

I was logging into my port this morning, and about 60% of it is now in TradFi.

As somebody who “made it” with crypto, it's a shocking thing to realize.

In 2021 I had like 90 to 95% of my net worth in crypto, and with how much it's underperformed and how much equities have outperformed since, the balance just keeps skewing toward equities.

If I get another quarter where risk assets rip and Bitcoin underperforms, I'm probably going to size down the Bitcoin and reallocate, not selling it all, just leaning toward the stuff that's actually working.

New stuff

To keep things fresh, I always want to keep learning new things so I'm looking into trading volatility and single names in equities. I’ll be sharing as I develop more concrete thoughts.

That's it for me, guys. Good luck out there.

I've been off for a few weeks and barely trading, but I woke up this morning actually excited to look at charts again, so the spark's coming back.

The plan hasn't really changed since February: I'm moving profits into spot Bitcoin and treating anything in the 60ks or below as a good high time frame bid.

I made my monthly buy over the weekend around 73K and didn't hedge it. I'm in no rush. This could be the cycle accumulation range, but it'll take a long time to play out.

The way I think about it, 60K this cycle is like 20K last cycle.

If you bought 22 to 25K back then, you sat underwater for a while, especially through the FTX news.

It would have made you sweat a little, but you were very happy you did when it printed 100K.

Another thing to keep in mind is bear markets run about a year and we're only 8 months in. We could set new lows, dip into the 50s, maybe even the high 40s.

That's exactly why I’m not going all in on one buy.

The levels I'm watching

68K is the line.

It's the lower bound of the all-time-high anchored value area, and it stacks right on top of the yearly value low around 66.7 and the 2SD quarterly value low.

When we get there I want to see the 12-hour downtrend flip and a little compression, that's what tells me we've put in a local bottom instead of bleeding to zero.

Lose 68K and the bears get the green light to make it ugly.

Where I'm buying

That overlapping cluster in the high 60s is where I look for an interim bottom. Getting there would mark about a 20% correction from the April-May move.

That's where I’d look to double the stack. A high-60ks average is a good place to build off for the rest of the cycle. Again, it’s probably not the bottom, but I assume BTC makes new ATHs eventually and I want to shift my mindset to a HTF bull swing trader over the coming months.

Holding spot down here also lets me hedge the relief rallies. I’ll take swing shorts on these 20, 30% pops Bitcoin keeps giving us like I have been doing from the top.

I've decided to be bull curious

I went defensive early last time, around 100K in December 2024, and watched it run to 126K without being fully risk-on.

I do think Bitcoin makes new all-time highs. If I didn't, what am I even doing here?

So I'm shifting to the high time frame, and you'll hear me talk a lot more about altcoins and value buys as the year goes on.

Have a good one.

HYPE's the main character on CT right now, and it feels good to be in it.

I'm up 72%, only quarter size left, and I'll be trimming the rest when I see loss of the hourly and two-hourly trend.

Honestly, I think the trade's near its end. Everyone's euphoric, making up stuff about OTC desks. Who knows.

BTC

Bitcoin's just meandering.

We lost the meme trend line and we're in a downtrend, but the former consolidation (blue box) might act as a demand zone, so I'm not getting aggressive either way.

The long is simple: build a little range at the local lows, then start running up in some diagonal structure, and that's my cue for the next rotation.

3 alts I'm actually watching

Most alts are absolute trash.

As usual, I need low-timeframe relative strength before I touch anything.

JELLYJELLY — one of the few with relative strength, retested its range, good for a continuation long. I'm smashing a little in as my warm-up trade, which is aggressive for me.

USELESS — most structurally sound chart out there, strong meme triangle. Oscillates too hard to enter cleanly. On my radar for a consolidation then a 10-20% pop to the highs.

ZEC — if-then only, no relative strength yet. There's a clean pivotal level; reclaim it and the next leg opens up. Time to short was earlier, into that lower high with a daily RSI div. I talked about it, didn't take it. Analysis without action is just analysis, not trading.

Not interested in SOL or ETH, same chart.

What I want to see

The market's so weak, and all the while SPX and US100 make new highs. Bit concerning we're seeing no risk-on in crypto.

What we really need is a structural shift in Bitcoin to confirm a fresh uptrend, then we should see some risk on.

That's the plan for the week, I'll see you in the group. Au revoir.

The 90d rolling VWAP is a good heuristic right now.

It hasn't been successfully flipped since Oct 10th of last year. In case you don't know what that means, sellers have had the upper hand.

BTC is back below it now.

Zooming in, this morning's sell-off carried BTC into a tap of the high side of consolidation value. There was a LTF reaction there with some spot buying.

I scalped a long on this, saw some liqs and spot buying.

Typically when price revisits the edge of a significant value area (consolidation built over a long period and broken out of) it offers some form of reaction.

How pathetic the reaction and follow-through is depends on real-time participation.

I remain swing short from the high 81s while scavenging for short-term trades. My thesis is still time-capitulation and a fearful summer, which hopefully offers discount prices on risk assets for long-term spot buys.

Pure speculation, but I think around August is when that opportunity shows up.

If the dynamic changes, I'll adjust accordingly.

Bitcoin is losing the major inflection point of the 12H 200 MAs, and deviating back inside of the previous multi-month range.

Unfortunately, the only argument that made us want to consider the 'bear market rally' in the first place is now dissolving as we speak.

We always viewed the analysis with a lackluster cadence, reminding ourselves, even when things seemed fine and we traded with an 80k+ handle, that we were merely looking for a relief rally before even higher timeframe trends took priority once again.

I would have preferred the proper move into 90k for a true bearish retest of our 2D 200 MAs trend and daily resistance level.

From here, there's nothing for me to do on Bitcoin but go back to the 'default' mindset which has persisted since November of last year: do nothing and wait for the next opportunity, whether it be buying a capitulation candle like we did at 60k back in February, or the subsequent reclaim from here.

I do not short, so I'm merely back to no position on BTC and will remain sidelined until something changes.

HYPE

Whilst Bitcoin underwhelms me, even though I expected the move to be underwhelming to begin with, HYPE has met my expectations.

Letting the market do the heavy lifting and leaving outperformers to run continues to be rewarded.

We've been discussing HYPE on these weekly newsletters very consistently since the initial trend breakout back in February, as it showed relative strength to the crypto market while BTC continued to bleed/range.

When HYPE reclaimed the $36-50 range back in April, we said the deviation opened up a move back into range highs at $50.

But the real appeal was the bigger move into price discovery, and with only one notable resistance level left overhead, that outcome looked likely.

After $50, my target became infinity. There is no telling how high price may go, because we’re in uncharted waters.

My methodology for trading price discovery in this case is the same as ever: I will use the next major fib extension as a 'mental checkpoint' to look to slowly scale out of the position and take profit.

At the same time, I will maintain a core position to reflect the 'infinity' target, as these are the few-and-far-between trades that account for a majority of my extraction of value from markets. I need to make the most out of it.

Along the way, and to make sure I stay grounded and able to adapt, I will use local signals to micro-manage the position effectively in the event that my next fib extension is front-run and weakness begins to present itself.

The 1H 200 MAs seem like the most efficient way to do that.