As I wrote before, ahead of a real major sell-off, the market needs to give people a sense of euphoria and trap as many participants as possible in a bull trap. So far, that’s pretty much exactly what’s happening. Bitcoin was pushed above 81000. I thought this area could be the final point before the reversal, but it looks like I was wrong about that. I still think we could see one more strong move higher before the major drop. Why? It’s simple. One of my main ideas in this market is to trade against the crowd. And right now, the crowd is starting to short aggressively again. According to the CoinGlass liquidation map: - If bitcoin:native makes a sharp move to around 87200, potential SHORT liquidations would exceed $5.12B. - If ethereum:native moves sharply to around 2730, potential SHORT liquidations would exceed $2.57B. That’s a huge amount of liquidity for the market. So I can definitely see another pump happening. First, wipe out the remaining shorts, and then convince regular market participants that the bear market is over and a new bull run has begun. And that process is already happening. I’m seeing more and more posts like: 1. Bitcoin Cycle Momentum has returned to positive territory for the first time after eight months of bearish momentum. The conclusion: BTC is supposedly breaking out of its downtrend. 2. Bitcoin could repeat the structure of previous cycles: around 500 days of growth after the halving, roughly a year of correction, and a new growth cycle starting this fall. Sounds good. But to me, all of this still looks more like the perfect way to make people believe in the market again. This is exactly the kind of euphoria I wanted to see before the next major move lower. At the same time, the broader picture that made me bearish in the first place hasn’t changed. Geopolitical tensions remain high, oil is rising again, US. Treasury yields remain elevated, and the market is still operating under serious macroeconomic uncertainty. But after one strong pump, people are already ready to believe that everything is over. I’m not convinced yet. My scenario has changed slightly in terms of price levels, but the core idea remains the same. I’m waiting for the moment when the market does everything it can to make people believe that a new bull run has started. And if another few billion dollars worth of shorts get wiped out along the way, even better. Because that’s exactly when I’ll be most interested in looking for a big SHORT and opening a position on @liquidtrading.