It’s funny how quickly the $40K calls return when $BTC has its first proper pullback. We rallied roughly 50% from the bottom. Now we’ve corrected less than 15%, and people are already calling for new lows. Apparently Bitcoin has to go straight up for the bullish case to remain valid. Recoveries have pullbacks. Price retests previous ranges, consolidates and builds higher lows. Where’s the actual argument for $40K beyond the fact that price is going down this week? My view remains that Bitcoin has new highs ahead before we see new lows again. It’s going to take more than this correction to change that. Bookmark the $40K calls. Especially the ones being delivered with absolute certainty. If Bitcoin recovers and breaks into new highs, watch how quickly those same accounts start telling you to buy at significantly higher prices. I’d like to see them explain what happened to $40K before giving everyone their next upside target.

Decision time for $ZEC. We’ve seen a clear ascending triangle develop from the $1,050 lows, where buyers stepped in to defend the neckline area of the potential macro head and shoulders. We’ve also had multiple attempts to break through $1,370, with price still holding the trend line that’s been developing from those lows. If we hold the trend line and finally break through $1,370, we should see a sizeable squeeze, considering how much short liquidity is stacked above this pivot. That would carry us back towards the recent highs around $1,500–$1,700. I’m personally still short from $1,420, but I’ll close all my shorts and flip long if we break above $1,370. However, until that breakout happens, I’m still expecting the macro downtrend to continue. If we get the compound breakdown below the trend line and $1,210 support, I’d be looking for a move back towards $1,100, putting the larger neckline area under pressure again. If this recent rally forms the right shoulder and we then lose $1,100, I’d expect a flush into the prior cycle-high liquidity. As I’ve said before, if we do get that flush, I believe it would mark the final stage of the macro correction before price stabilises and begins trending higher.

Bitcoin pumps to $86K. $ASTER is $0.70. Bitcoin dumps to $76K $ASTER is still $0.70. If you know, you know. https://t.co/GmW8niaHyw

I’m adding to my $BTC longs here at $76K. As I’ve repeatedly mentioned over the last month, the $70Ks were always the likely area for the next higher low to develop. The plan was to add on a pullback into that range. If you wanted to buy Bitcoin lower, what did you expect the chart to look like when it got there? We’ve now corrected roughly 13% from the local high and returned to the prior range. I’m not going to spend a month identifying an area where I want to buy, then let a few red candles scare me out of buying it. Could we go another 5–10% lower? Absolutely. I’m fully prepared for that. What I’m not prepared to do is make my participation in the next cycle depend on getting every entry right. I’m positioning for the upside I see over the next 12–18 months, and I don’t need to catch the exact bottom to do that. If Bitcoin trades at $180K over the next few years, I doubt I’ll be complaining that I bought at $76K rather than a few thousand dollars lower. When positioning for a cycle, your job as a trader is to build a position on major pullbacks and give it time to develop. Catching the exact low would be nice, but it isn’t a requirement. I believe we’re approaching the point where the $70Ks won’t be available again.

I think $BTC is holding up well considering the biggest exchange in the industry was just hacked. On the weekly, we’re simply retesting Bitcoin's Adaptive EMA. During the previous cycle’s recovery after the initial breakout, Bitcoin found support around this EMA on the two pullbacks highlighted here before continuing higher. Those corrections were part of the recovery to new highs. We’re now seeing a similar test after the rally off the lows. The headline seems significant, but the weekly chart is basically doing what we’ve seen before. What we need to see now is buyers continuing to defend this area into the weekly close. So far, the pullback remains consistent with a higher low developing. Considering the circumstances, I find that encouraging.

As long as $BTC’s spot order book liquidity keeps rebuilding like this, I wouldn’t get too comfortable waiting for $60K. When BTC started the bear market last October, combined spot depth was around 13M. Today it’s close to 120M. Nearly 10× the resting liquidity within 1% of price. When the spot order book is thin, sellers don’t need much to send price considerably lower. Falling prices then trigger liquidations, forcing even more selling into an already thin book. Precisely what we saw during the bear market. But with nearly 10× the liquidity depth, there’s more capacity to absorb any aggressive bears without forcing price down as far. So why should we expect the next correction to be as violent as the declines over the last 12 months? My view remains that we’re building towards a higher low in the $70Ks before another expansion. Further downside fits that view perfectly well. A return to $60K is a very different argument. And the more these books rebuild, the less interested I am in waiting for it to add to my positions.

Funny seeing this much panic over $BTC when the weekly chart looks like this. We spent months printing lower highs and lower lows. Now we’ve rallied off the bottom, pushed above the previous rally high, and are pulling back well above the lows that started the move. To me, this is the weekly chart working on a higher low. Yet people are reacting as though we’re back in the middle of the collapse. Make no mistake, I see this as a regime transition from contraction to expansion. Consolidation and pullbacks are part of that process. Expecting the market to recover does not mean expecting it to go straight up. After months of watching rallies fail, I understand why people are quick to distrust the next one. But at some point, you have to judge the structure in front of you rather than keep expecting the market you remember. The question is where this pullback finds buyers relative to the previous lows. So far, that looks considerably different from what we saw on the way down. "When in doubt, zoom out."

We’ve seen a significant shift in $ZEC’s cycle, and it goes beyond breaking the previous highs. After Bitcoin bottomed in 2018 and 2022, Zcash took another 455 and 588 days to reach its own low. It kept weakening long after BTC had started recovering. This time, ZEC’s correction low came 147 days before Bitcoin’s June low. Nearly five months earlier, with the recovery already underway while Bitcoin was still finding its bottom. It then went on to exceed the 2021 and January 2018 highs. So we have an earlier recovery, stronger performance against Bitcoin, and a break above the highs that previous recoveries couldn’t reach. Years of failed breakouts make it understandable to question whether this one will last. Fair enough. But expecting the same outcome after such a different recovery is a pretty big assumption. I think we’re going to see a very different Zcash this cycle.

Now that.. is a f*ck ton of short liquidity sitting above $1,400 on $ZEC. Pretty obvious what happens to those shorts if we break $1,370. shortsqueeze.exe https://t.co/b0T16UObIc

Accumulate these $BTC pullbacks into the range. I genuinely believe we’re approaching the last opportunity to buy Bitcoin in the $70Ks. I’ve been expecting this correction. Why would I suddenly become bearish when price reaches the area I wanted to buy? Could we trade deeper into the range? Of course. That’s why you accumulate instead of betting everything on one entry. But don’t spend months waiting for lower prices only to let a few red candles convince you that you no longer want them.