After the waterfall crash over the weekend, I started to think seriously: Are we heading back to 2022?
F***, every weekend I start to feel an inexplicable tension.
Because Trump this prick has a very stable habit:
He always picks moments when the U.S. stock market is closed to make big moves.
So in recent weeks, a very strange rhythm has emerged:
Every weekend, the crypto market plummets;
Every Monday, people finally find out what actually happened.
This week is no exception.
And this time is even worse.
Bitcoin was directly hammered down to around $75,000,
a price that has already broken through MicroStrategy's cost basis,
making it the most terrifying drop since the 2025 bull market began.
Many people's confidence has already been pierced by this single blow.
If the market stabilizes at the $75,000 bottom price,
we might still dream of a $100,000 Bitcoin this year;
But if this level can't be held and the price breaks through to a new low,
as Placeholder VC partner Chris Burniske said,
possibly to $58,000 or even below $50,000,
then 2026 will truly return to the bear market under the "four-year cycle theory."
In fact, the current situation is not much better than the first month of the 2022 bear market.
I remember that in January 2022, the market dropped about 35%,
and in the past month alone, we've already approached 25%.
One more step down, and it's almost certain:
We're back into the 2022 bear market rhythm.
1. The real trigger for this drop is the "re-pricing of liquidity expectations"
The biggest new information point in the market today is not on-chain, not in the projects, but in macroeconomics.
Surrounding the expected changes in the leadership of the Federal Reserve,
the market is now trading a new possibility:
Kevin Warsh becoming the next Federal Reserve Chair.
The implications of this are very straightforward:
The trading logic shifts from
"potential future easing"
to
"potential tighter policy, balance sheet reduction, and liquidity tightening."
In recent years, BTC has increasingly become a high-beta liquidity asset:
When the market expects more liquidity (interest rate cuts, balance sheet expansion, liquidity easing),
it surges faster than any other asset;
When the market expects less liquidity (balance sheet reduction, quantitative tightening, financial conditions tightening),
it also plummets harder than any other asset.
So today, it's not that Bitcoin itself is broken,
but the entire market's liquidity pricing model has been reset.
2. ETF funds are retreating, and the real bottoming buyers have disappeared
Many people haven't yet realized a change:
By 2026, a large portion of BTC's marginal pricing power
is already determined by the daily net inflows or outflows of ETFs.
When ETFs experience continuous net outflows, the market structure becomes:
Sell orders can appear at any time;
But the long-term capital that used to absorb the daily selling pressure is gone.
The data shows that ETFs have already shown significant outflows by the end of January:
For example, on January 30, there was a net outflow of about $500 million in a single day.
What does this mean?
Previously, when the price dropped, a group of people would consistently absorb the selling pressure through regular investments;
Now, that group has already left.
The floor is naturally softer.
This is also why this time, the price breaking below $80,000 appears to have almost no decent support.
3. Government shutdown + weekend liquidity, amplifying panic
This time, there's also an extremely bad background:
The U.S. government has partially shut down (furloughed).
And everyone remembers the market's miserable performance during the last shutdown.
What the market truly fears is not the shutdown itself,
but:
Will political negotiations spiral out of control?
Will it drag on for a long time?
Will it overlap with new black swan events?
Combined with Trump's unpredictable and unconventional style,
uncertainty is amplified to a very dangerous level.
Even worse is:
This drop happened on the weekend.
What does the weekend mean?
Thinnest liquidity
Most conservative market makers
Most leveraged positions
Most difficult hedging
So the price doesn't slowly decline,
but is instead layer by layer liquidated and pushed down.
This isn't "someone is dumping the market,"
this is:
Position structure collapsing.
4. Gold and silver experience epic crashes, the "digital gold" narrative is completely broken
Another detail many people have overlooked:
From the high on January 29,
gold has already retraced nearly 16%;
Silver has experienced an epic crash;
BTC's decline is almost in sync with gold.
What does this mean?
When the market truly enters a deleveraging phase,
so-called "safe-haven assets" and "risky assets" are sold together.
Gold is no longer "an asset I want to buy,"
but becomes:
an asset I must sell.
Bitcoin is naturally no exception.
The so-called "digital gold" narrative
is almost completely ineffective in this phase.
Now, Bitcoin is more like a:
high-volatility, quickly liquidable risky asset.
So it truly achieves the following:
It falls with the market, but doesn't rise with it.
5. MicroStrategy, BMNR, and Yihua are becoming "stress test targets"
You'll notice a subtle change:
The market is now focusing on those "crypto balance sheet companies."
The fact that MicroStrategy's cost line is broken doesn't mean immediate liquidation,
but it becomes a psychological target:
If BTC continues to fall, the financing capability, credit structure, and market confidence of these companies will be questioned.
Companies like BMNR are even more fragile.
Their balance sheets are almost entirely tied to ETH.
Price drops → stock prices drop → harder to raise capital → the market starts to expect "forced asset liquidation" →
Panic is then transmitted back to the price.
This is a very classic death spiral.
So when people say "the big players are targeting them directly,"
a more accurate description is:
The most fragile structures are always the first to be used by the market for stress testing.
6. Translating this candlestick into plain language: the market is pricing three things
Putting all these factors together, you get a very trader-oriented explanation:
Kevin Warsh's expected change → the market starts to worry about a tighter Fed → liquidity expectations are downgraded;
ETFs continue to have net outflows → fewer bottoming buyers → no cushion for the decline;
Government shutdown + weekend liquidity + high leverage → liquidation cascades are amplified;
Gold and silver crash → the safe-haven narrative collapses → BTC is treated as a risky asset;
MicroStrategy, BMNR, etc. → become amplifiers of panic.
In one sentence, the summary is:
The market is currently pricing in:
Less liquidity, fewer buyers, and more leverage risk.
7. Now there are only two directions left
Now, there are actually only two possible scenarios left for the market:
One: $75,000 becomes a short-term bottom
Events gradually settle, panic eases,
and the market still has a chance to challenge $100,000 this year.
The other: This is not the bottom
The price breaks through again,
and the market starts to accept the possibility of $58,000 or even below $50,000,
the bull market narrative cools down completely,
and the market enters a longer period of consolidation and confidence recovery.
These two paths are not determined by technical analysis, but the long-term upward trend of Bitcoin is certain.
