Great market summary from someone who has played the last 2-3 years about as good as you possibly could have (mid six figures into $sol at $10-12, rotations into memecoins before they exploded, cashed out 8 figures).
Horrific, depressing and red price action for the past few weeks/months. I’ll share my personal view, as objectively as I can. No hopium or doom posting, just how I currently see it.
Macro / higher-timeframe view
- Given how the market LOOKS right now, it’s increasingly likely BTC marked its ATH around $126k and we’re transitioning into a typical crypto bear market.
- BTC topped roughly within the expected 4-year cycle window.
- A major headwind this cycle has been consistent selling from OG BTC whales once price entered six figures. Over time, supply simply outweighed demand.
- At the same time, equity markets have been extremely strong, repeatedly making new all-time highs. This gave capital little incentive to rotate into crypto when stocks were rewarding dip buyers and holders.
- Last cycle, crypto had explosive, attention-grabbing moves that pulled in TradFi and retail participants. This cycle lacked sustained momentum, so broader participation never really arrived, aside from a few short-lived periods.
Altcoin reality
- Most participants don’t hold much BTC and were positioned for a traditional alt szn blow-off move.
- That never materialised, likely due to the demand issues above.
- It’s hard to blame this purely on “macro liquidity” when equity markets are at ATHs and consistently recover after corrections.
- The hard BTC selling and the 10/10 crash almost certainly muted any chance of an end-of-year blow-off.
- As a result, many portfolios are down heavily even though BTC followed a fairly “textbook” cycle.
So… is it over?
- There isn’t a clean yes/no answer.
- From a higher-timeframe perspective, it does look like the bull phase is over.
- From a short/medium timeframe perspective, crypto is crypto. Bear-market rallies are likely.
- BTC can still do +20–40% moves.
- Alts can still do +50–200% moves.
- The danger is these rallies go just high enough to convince people we’re back, before rolling over harder. Selling “the next bounce” is much harder to execute in reality.
What should you do now? (the hard part)
- This isn’t about what I would do, it’s about what you can emotionally and financially tolerate.
- If you’re holding for a short/medium-term rally to improve your position, you must accept it may not happen or it may happen briefly and reverse violently.
- If you choose to wait, you have to fully own that decision and accept the outcome either way.
Looking further out
- In a traditional bear market, BTC correcting 50–70% from ATH puts us roughly in the $40k–$63k range.
- If the bear market low forms toward late 2026, relative to that timeline we’re not actually that far away, even though it feels like it.
- That’s why I expect a lot of chop and “fuckery” in between, including random rallies.
- As always, things are obvious in hindsight, and it’s very hard to execute big decisions in real time and stay okay with them.
Personally, I’m able to hold out in these conditions. I sold enough several times this year, and I did encourage this during the mini blow off moves we had. Many were more focused on sharing portfolio screenshots than taking profits!
A big mistake I picked up on was taking profits, then reinvesting them into dips, a pattern that can often hit a portfolio hard. I hope this has been a major learning curve and that anyone who took heavy losses can reset and apply those lessons in future cycles (if you choose to play on).
Unfortunately, there’s no straightforward perfect answer on the exact right way forward. There are simply too many factors involved but I hope you can reflect on my thoughts which will at least should help you moving forward somewhat.
PS. One may joke and see this post as a bottom signal for now. Let's see how things play out and as always, may the odds forever be in your favour
Horrific, depressing and red price action for the past few weeks/months. I’ll share my personal view, as objectively as I can. No hopium or doom posting, just how I currently see it.
Macro / higher-timeframe view
- Given how the market LOOKS right now, it’s increasingly likely BTC marked its ATH around $126k and we’re transitioning into a typical crypto bear market.
- BTC topped roughly within the expected 4-year cycle window.
- A major headwind this cycle has been consistent selling from OG BTC whales once price entered six figures. Over time, supply simply outweighed demand.
- At the same time, equity markets have been extremely strong, repeatedly making new all-time highs. This gave capital little incentive to rotate into crypto when stocks were rewarding dip buyers and holders.
- Last cycle, crypto had explosive, attention-grabbing moves that pulled in TradFi and retail participants. This cycle lacked sustained momentum, so broader participation never really arrived, aside from a few short-lived periods.
Altcoin reality
- Most participants don’t hold much BTC and were positioned for a traditional alt szn blow-off move.
- That never materialised, likely due to the demand issues above.
- It’s hard to blame this purely on “macro liquidity” when equity markets are at ATHs and consistently recover after corrections.
- The hard BTC selling and the 10/10 crash almost certainly muted any chance of an end-of-year blow-off.
- As a result, many portfolios are down heavily even though BTC followed a fairly “textbook” cycle.
So… is it over?
- There isn’t a clean yes/no answer.
- From a higher-timeframe perspective, it does look like the bull phase is over.
- From a short/medium timeframe perspective, crypto is crypto. Bear-market rallies are likely.
- BTC can still do +20–40% moves.
- Alts can still do +50–200% moves.
- The danger is these rallies go just high enough to convince people we’re back, before rolling over harder. Selling “the next bounce” is much harder to execute in reality.
What should you do now? (the hard part)
- This isn’t about what I would do, it’s about what you can emotionally and financially tolerate.
- If you’re holding for a short/medium-term rally to improve your position, you must accept it may not happen or it may happen briefly and reverse violently.
- If you choose to wait, you have to fully own that decision and accept the outcome either way.
Looking further out
- In a traditional bear market, BTC correcting 50–70% from ATH puts us roughly in the $40k–$63k range.
- If the bear market low forms toward late 2026, relative to that timeline we’re not actually that far away, even though it feels like it.
- That’s why I expect a lot of chop and “fuckery” in between, including random rallies.
- As always, things are obvious in hindsight, and it’s very hard to execute big decisions in real time and stay okay with them.
Personally, I’m able to hold out in these conditions. I sold enough several times this year, and I did encourage this during the mini blow off moves we had. Many were more focused on sharing portfolio screenshots than taking profits!
A big mistake I picked up on was taking profits, then reinvesting them into dips, a pattern that can often hit a portfolio hard. I hope this has been a major learning curve and that anyone who took heavy losses can reset and apply those lessons in future cycles (if you choose to play on).Unfortunately, there’s no straightforward perfect answer on the exact right way forward. There are simply too many factors involved but I hope you can reflect on my thoughts which will at least should help you moving forward somewhat.
PS. One may joke and see this post as a bottom signal for now. Let's see how things play out and as always, may the odds forever be in your favour
