There are a lot of doomers these days preaching total catastrophe, multi-decade recession.

I'm not going to lean in that direction.

More often than not, when things are uncertain it creates sell pressure, which in my life has pretty much always created opportunities to buy.

That said, I’m still holding off on any large buys right now.

Bullish accumulation?

I feel confident in how this range is developing, we have some value shifting up, some higher lows along the way. In a perfect world we'd get a stronger stab down into the range lows for me to buy.

I'd love to see a bid in the upper 50s, but if demand is as strong, I’ll probably have to bid the lower 60s, maybe the mid 60s.

The lows probably aren't set yet, but I don't want to be caught flat-footed and forget about the bigger picture goal, which for me is to acquire Bitcoin.

We're a lot closer to value territory now at 70k-60k than we were at 120k+.

Momentum shifts slowly

Price doesn’t just flip the VWAP one time and go up in a straight line. It chops around it a while.

If we do get a bullish shift, there's a low volume node from 72k all the way into the 80s. Once we get over 72k, I think price will move very fast.

I'm still hedged on perps from about 90.8k, collecting funding every day, but I’m looking for opportunities to get long.

That's pretty much it. Slow and steady is the name of the game.

Short thesis from last week played out, so let me update you on what I was thinking when I entered.

Managing the short

Weeks ago, we put forward the short idea from the quarterly VWAP

And we got it: first test/best test, perps getting very aggressive at the highs, spot tapering off.

I was very patient through the chop, and the thesis played out pretty much exactly as planned.

[IMAGE: Doc's swing trade — sells near 76k at QVWAP, buys near 67.3k at the weekend lows]

How to avoid roundtripping: Evolving R

This was my original plan.

But I closed out the majority of the short before the squeeze today. Why?

Evolving R

As price approaches my target, my risk:reward gets worse and worse.

So I take the bulk of profits at the first target, reduce my exposure, and let a small piece ride to the full target.

Another reason I took profit: We got a high-volume move down off news over the weekend. And since price tends to bottom on bad news and top on good news, this was another opportunity to lock in gains.

Meanwhile I was playing counter-trend longs on the intraday account very aggressively around 68.8 without disturbing the swing positioning at all. Two separate accounts, two separate strategies, no conflict.

Intraday mode this week

Right now I don’t have high conviction on direction for swings.

The 4-hour trend is broken to the upside, and the ABCs of trend loss says base case is chop. How this chop resolves is a flow-based argument.

That said, this 71-72k area is the composite value area high and previous week's VWAP, so it’s a decently significant bearish checkpoint.

The move from 74 down to 71 was very thin, so if bullish aggression gets rewarded through 71k, there's a thin profile to trade through all the way up toward 74.

If spot buys turn off and all we have is perps trying continuation longs, that positioning is pretty shaky and could BART back down.

But if fresh spot flows step in and people are willing to buy $1-2k dips towards the highs, BTC likely gets continuation.

Perp profits into spot

I'm going to keep doing what I've been doing, emptying perp profits every month into spot BTC.

Do I think buying 71k is the best? I would prefer low 60s and below.

But betting on Bitcoin during FUD has been a winning strategy in the long-term (i.e. over years).

I think I've timed it really well because the market looks like absolute dog shit, and I’m off to Japan on Thursday for almost 3 weeks.

This breakout tells the story

Starting with TradFi for once.

Bond yields were capped at 4.8% for over three years, series of higher lows, and now it's finally broken out.

I'm not a macro dude, but TA tells you a story, right? If this was an altcoin you'd say buyers are stepping in at consistently higher prices.

And when yields go up massively, everything else derisks.

BTC mid-range, nothing doing

Bitcoin is back in the range, I got stopped, and that was GG.

Still in the high time frame downtrend, and with bonds doing what they're doing it's not getting any better.

Is this where we load up on fresh longs or shorts?

Absolutely not.

I can't justify trading in the middle of a range.

Still got the perp short from the 90s, but this is a no trade zone. With a war going on and everything in Iran being horrific, risk is not coming back to crypto quickly.

Alts are in the bin

Pretty much every chart is at the bottom of an absolutely brutal downtrend, no narrative as far as I can see.

Even HYPE is starting to look like shit again, lower highs, lower lows. But if we get something around $33 I'll be tempted.

But I’d want to enter on the higher low, not just jumping in because it's a low price.

Classic parabola break on gold

For anyone who says parabolas don’t work, show them this:

Everyone rushes to buy but as soon as it goes the other way, people’s resolve gets tested for the first time and they panic.

TLDR

I can't give a load of trade ideas that aren't there.

I can only trade what the market says, and being risk off is the best thing to do.

BTC has established a rotational regime on the daily chart thus far. The war headlines have been leading to quick intraday moves but BTC has remained resilient with higher lows.

That said, this remains a high time frame downtrend with weekly trend capped in the 80s. Unless this area is flipped, holding positions long for upside is at the whim of news and volatility.

H4 paints the picture of extension from value reverting back to the mean.

Currently sitting right under the high side of value once again. Balanced regime since Feb and any break to the downside would bring in substantial reflexivity while the upside behavior remains contained under the 80s. Not being a decisive bull unless this behavior changes.

Expect more of the same until proven otherwise. Show me evidence, and I will change my view.

I'm still viewing this as within the realms of a bullish retest.

In previous weeks I assumed price would break out, and when it did, I called it a breakout.

This isn't the ideal, cookie-cutter scenario I'd like to see at this inflection point, but I think that’s mostly due to uncertainty and the macro environment (war) as opposed to a clear invalidation. I can’t justify throwing in the towel just yet.

Regardless of whether we get a larger relief rally, the environment as a whole remains unfavorable.

The higher timeframe bearish arguments that made us sound like doomer extremists above 100k persist today. My analysis is gauging whether we'll be allowed a bit of fun before the lingering weakness in the broader market plagues us once again. Nothing more.

If we have to concede on the relief rally, I go back into defensive mode the same way I have by default for the past ~6 months. Resumed downtrend across all timeframes, based on the same context that informed that view before.

HYPE

The relative strength we discussed in previous weeks became more pronounced over time. Winning concepts win long-term, and it's great to see it in real-time.

We discussed the initial reclaim of this trend and how we'd compound on that strength if price deviated back inside the $36-50 range from months ago. A deviation back inside implies price can work its way to the other side, with a pit-stop at mid-range.

After pulling back, HYPE rejected off mid-range and returned to our Range Lows, with confluence of the same trend that sparked this rally in the first place.

This is a key inflection point. If we were to go to Range Highs, I'd imagine this region is the best place for price to stall its subtle downtrend and reverse upwards once again.

Losing this region entirely likely presents an even more exaggerated pullback on higher timeframe outlooks.