Current market sentiment is insane.
It's crazy to think that we are seeing similar levels of fear right now as we saw way back during the FTX collapse at $16k. Meanwhile Bitcoin has been crabbing in the same 30% range for over a year now. $100k remains the ultimate unit bias final boss of all time. As far as I'm concerned at this point everything between $72k-$130k is basically just a magnet around $100k. How much longer are we going to be stuck here? Nobody knows!
Of course the real fear isn't so much where we are at now but rather where we are going in the future. All the bears are bracing for impact on a perceived 70% dip that could happen next year according to 4-year cycle theory. Of course I remain utterly unconvinced that such a thing could happen. 70% from a peak of $126k would be... $38k... yeah that's not happening. $58k is still possible in my opinion but we'd have to crash through two huge supports to get to the final $58k boss.... and even then this would be a price point that revealed itself across 3 separate four year cycles, which is a thing that's never happened. My guess is that we will never trade under $72k ever again on a monthly candle.
Liquidity void buffer is nigh!
Taking a look at this chart I just started reaccumulating a tiny long position after fully capitulating at $98k and $95k. Even in the bearish scenarios we'll end up touching that super aggressive downtrend line. The current downtrend we find ourselves in is the first one since March, and judging by the slope of that line it will be broken quickly at a key support. Obviously I was thinking that key support would be $100k but I guess not. A perfectly normal 30% dip from the top would be $126k >> $88.2k. This is almost exactly where we are at right now so it's a true buy-the-dip opportunity for anyone who isn't terrified of 2026 and the 4-year cycle.
Liquidity void reminder.
The void was created when Trump won the presidency and everyone collectively thought that would be good for markets. How naïve that was, eh? It didn't take long to fill that gap and bust out to all time highs back in May. Considering how it all went down there is massive support in this band from $85k >> $77k. There's even more support at $72k: being the top of the 2024 crab market. Bitcoin is very close to a rock bottom level that it could easily recover from while also tricking people into panic selling the exact bottom. Markets are quite good at that.
We can also see that the CME gap from way back in April has just now been filled. This is the kind of thing that can result in a parabolic rally to the upside, but I'm honestly not looking to spread that kind of hopium considering the current situation. I'd be perfectly happy with more crab instead of a gut wrenching 2026 bear. To be fair the 4-year cycle can still be completely intact if something crazy happens and we get a massive peak toward the end of February. That being said not much has happened since the halving event, and there isn't much reason to suspect that will change going forward.
Putting this cycle into perspective.
The orange line is the current cycle. There just quite simply was no bubble to pop especially considering the rampant institutional adoption we've been seeing. Retail is no longer in charge, and smart institutional money trends more on algorithms and high volume buying and selling, which is exactly what we've been seeing since Blackrock entered the game.
Day trading zoom-in
The downtrend doesn't cross $100k until November 25th which is why it seems like a good idea to long here, at least for another week. Will continue to add to it if we get closer to $85k. There's also a big death-cross incoming within a few days between the MA(100) and MA(200). In any case if we are trading back at $100k at any time in the short term I'm going to flip short again. The trendline doesn't hit $85k until Christmas so I guess it would be a nice present for the market to recover there. All averages in free fall except for the MA(200) which is currently flatlining. Again, none of this has the feeling of being topped out. Looking at every other cycle this one is completely different no matter how you slice it.
Macro zoom out
It's also interesting that the price point we are trading at right now is very rare. We've traded in this $90k area less than all the other price points around it. The market tends to love coming back to prices that it blew past in previous months, which is how I was able to draw the blue-band liquidity void way before we were trading in that area. We seem to be doing it again right now. A recovery is imminent... even if short lived dead bounce. Still, a downtrend is a down trend and I have to respect it, for now.
BTC.Dominance
The dominance chart tells a very interesting story... the breakdown from $100k should have crippled alts further, but instead of Bitcoin stomping the market like it always does it's lost a little dominance. Interesting. Again, this time is provably different at this point.
Hardfork 28
Hive did a hardfork today and the network didn't even shutter. Of course I'm not exactly sure what was changed but it did have to do with a lot of the layer 2 stuff. Why does Hive need a hardfork for layer 2? No idea; above my paygrade. Although developments like this in addition to bad price action do make me wonder if I should be building a little something on the side like I've been telling myself to do for the last 5 years. With tools like this and AI the process might be a lot easier than the last time I attempted such a feat. They say bear markets are for building, do they not?
Conclusion
Market still looks pretty bleak but that's only because we assume a crippling bear market in 2026. We also assumed Q4 2025 would be amazing but instead it's just been crab for an entire year into a complete breakdown of both the uptrend and public sentiment. Clearly this is the weirdest cycle yet and it will be interesting to see where it goes. Keep ya head down and keep grinding.
I'm at the point where I kind of wish I hadn't believed the hype and just went on with my life :)
I pretty much wasted over three years actually believing that I will be achieving financial freedom by end of 2025. Had to get a job after over eight years of not having a job... I kind of have a love hate relationship at this point...
Yeah, I am kind of in the same place except I always had the 9 to 5 job, so I am not too upset about that.
I didn't...
Right but even that assumes that you have a continued expectation of future events that haven't happened yet. We're officially in completely uncharted territory I don't know it's kind of exciting in a way knowing that 2026 can just do whatever (including go down).
Haha, yeah. I can see that perspective. I've been kind of letting go of the hope that crypto is going to change my life significantly anyway.
The dream is dead :D
no 1000x for us!
Sucks!
We are all feeling some level of pain buying into this cycle. I spent some money on another laptop and a phone and was worried that money was better spent on Crypto.
I'm now glad I have the additional laptop and phone. That was by dumb luck I put the money there instead of stacking more crypto.
I just spent money on a new washer and dryer that I wish I would have been putting into crypto... Adulting... What can I say.
Zero fun but less headaches. 😂
Wish I could say it's just crypto swings, but it's tech/AI sector wide for the most part. The account balance in the options fund has been taking a beating because it's all in stock right now, but the premiums keep flowing and that's what is important. RIOT is my bitcoin play there, so that's what I am pretty much riding. I have been building mining infrastructure and may get into self-hosted validating/witnessing for some POS chains, but haven't gotten that far. That's where all of my crypto has gone at least, lol.
These BTC price levels are starting to look interesting to me to buy some again...
With sentiment this bad and a full 30% dip it's difficult to not think about.
Even permabulls like me aren't saying "buy the dip" which probably means it's a smart bet... of course smart bets can fail 30% of the time and still be very smart on the average.
So I built something between 2020 and 2024, and while it was never actually profitable, it was getting pretty close... but then I hit a weird lag where my user usage exploded but profitability wasn't catching up AND various tools I was using in the low or free tiers suddenly required much bigger payments. Essentially my costs X5 but revenue didn't and I had to shut it down.
It was a good experience and I learnt a lot - but in hindsight I wish I had figured out a way from the start where revenue and profits always ran ahead of usage costs.
So yeah, you should totally build something, but think about revenue from the very start. Facebook/Amazon/Tesla, etc, weren't profitable for years/decades but their investors had such deep pockets - you and I don't have that luxury (I assume).
hm good point what did you build?
A social media site that paid out the majority of the advertising revenue to the content creators.
I was using free tiers for a few of the components (like the social media post editor) which was good... until they adjusted their tiers.
Ah right so you used the one thing that could have kept the site afloat to incentivize more users.
Interesting edge case that.
I was gonna say any site that gets adoption can just tap ad revenue and that will always keep it going. Not true in this case.
Yeah, initially I made the ads customizable so I could go to companies and sell ad space, but that was a ton of effort to reach out and get rejected (mainly because the site wasn't getting enough monthly users) so then I went to Google AdSense but no one really clicks on ads and the country the ad-clicker comes from really makes a difference (ie, $0.01 if they're from India, Nigeria, Venezuela, etc but $0.54 if they're from US, Canada, UK, etc).
I think the reason you see websites selling supplements, courses, etc is because you truly need millions of views to make any actual decent money from ad revenue, which is harder than ever now that Social Media and Search Engine AIs are doing everything they can to keep users from leaving their sites.
It seems that the more we try to understand the market, the more complex it becomes.
Damn it, haha!