alpha_pls

I'm probably the most happy I've been in life since I first invested a few hundred bucks in crypto back in 2017.

I spent seven years being overexposed and mostly all in (riding cycles up and down), which came at a heavy cost. I kind of didn't realise how much of a burden it was until it was gone.

I think at some point I totally became unaware of my own emotional swings related to the market (spend enough time with volatility and you actually do become mentally ill lol).

This January I finally paid myself properly for all of the years of research and time I've put into this market and industry.

My original goal when I first started investing was to have financial security, which was a long way off as I was like minus net worth. I'm not a particularly flashy person and I didn't grow up with money. I've never thought I needed some of the vast numbers that people on here talk about.

I have that financial security now, and I'm never gonna lose that for myself or my family.

I still have plenty of crypto exposure, but it's the right level of exposure for the first time ever. I understand fully what that means now.

I'm sleeping great, and in the best physical shape I have been since I was a lot younger. I have endless time to spend with my son & wife, and I wouldn't swap that for anything.

I don't do many personal rambles on here, but I guess the point of this is to say you will never ever regret taking chips off the table in order to secure your financial future. If you get that chance don't think twice.

There will always be ample opportunities to take risk again, and you will likely be able to make much better decisions, because the pressure of losing money you can't actually afford to lose is gone.

Hyperliquid numbers are insane:

• Open interest: $8.9B
• 24h fees: $5.4M
• USDC TVL: $3.2B

And 97% of the fees are used to buyback the token.

I don't think I've ever seen a project's fundamentals and tokenomics in alignment like this.

$HYPE on the cusp of ATH.

I had a quick look at historical BTC PA within ~5% of ATH:

The data shows when BTC gets close of its previous ATH during a strong, accelerating trend with high momentum, it has historically broken out to new ATHs within a short time (days to weeks).

Strong trend is key, as in weaker trends BTC often stalls or retraces as we saw in March–May 2024.

I think BTC currently meets the criteria for a strong, high-momentum trend (we are waiting on volume tho).

If it continues to hover within 3–5% of the ATH under these conditions, historical probability favors a breakout to new highs very soon.

For some reason I feel like it is going to take longer than days this time, and weeks is more likely (maybe PTSD), or at least to actually meaningfully clear the high, rather than just a short pop above it.

Sentiment still fairly muted on here which makes sense, because no one on CT owns Bitcoin.

When Bitcoin has approached within ~5% of its ATH, it has always broken to new highs within days/weeks.

From what I can see @humafinance is actually delivering what Ripple failed to do.

When I first started looking at crypto in 2017, payments was the thing that made immediate sense to me, and I think that is still the case for a lot of retail investors, and why Ripple is attractive at first.

But $XRP as a medium for transaction settlement comes with too many risks. The price volatility of XRP is unavoidable, which is why they are trying to acquire Circle. It is kind of an admittance that their current ODL solution is sub par and flawed.

Huma made a deliberate choice to use the stablecoin USDC, avoiding the heavy burden of price fluctuations.

Ripple also took took a more “closed-loop” approach, aiming to control and manage every stage of the transaction process internally.

Whereas Huma launched their PayFi Open stack and chose to partner with leading players across multiple layers (Solana, Circle, Fireblocks etc).

Huma has already reached nearly $4 billion in transaction volume in just over a year, and they expect to hit $10B by eoy. I think they will surpass Ripple's lifetime reported transaction volume in the next few years at the rate they are going.

*FYI I have partnered with Huma - also an LP in Huma 2.0 & as always, all my thoughts are my own.

I wouldn't call what we just saw an alt szn, possibly could say mini-alt szn, but was more akin to relief bounce on stuff that was really smashed up with a few strong outliers (e.g. HYPE etc).

Majority of alts listed on Binance are still below their 200D MAs (including ETH).

We don't have the retail flows currently for something sustained. Hot ball of money is what we have.

Probably need much higher BTC price for the next retail inflows, which will coincide with looser monetary conditions.

Many trying to call the BTC.D top, but that trend remains intact right now.
No need to watch the daily candles. I'm continuing to hold spot in the alts I believe have strong fundamentals and catalysts, alongside BTC.

Patience will set you free.