BigDrop

I still think about the QQQ and BTC ETF comparison a lot, even though I keep wanting to see some type of divergence. But rather than diverge, they continue to present similarities.
I see a lot of people screaming that it's the golden age of crypto but Bitcoin has basically done nothing but go down since January 20th (inauguration day).
QQQ topped 54 weeks after its ETF launched in 1999.
And so far BTC topped 54 weeks after its ETF launched in 2024.
It just so happened that week 54 was inauguration day.
What are the chances that the market priced in perfection on January 20th?
It turns out that a big part of "deregulation" was just presidents and celebrities having the green light to launch their own #Memecoins🤑🤑 , sucking liquidity away from retail investors.
A lot of gurus fleeced retail into believing this was a "memecoin supercycle" while almost all of the memecoins launched just went to zero all while BTC dominance trended from 38% to 64%. So many retail investors would have been better off just buying BTC in 2023/2024 than losing their money in the altcoin casino.
The most likely path for BTC dominance remains higher until quantitative tightening is over.
In the 1970s, a period filled with rising inflation and unemployment, we had 2 left-translated cycles where the peaks of the market occurred right around the change in administrations.
I'm not saying that this has to be a left-translated cycle (as long as #BTC stays above the 2024 high, then there is always a chance that the cycle can continue like it did in 2017 after BTC tested the 2016 high), but I also have to imagine that what we are experiencing right now is exactly what a left-translated cycle would feel like.
Basically a #BigDrop in Q1 2025, a countertrend rally by BTC/USD in Q2/Q3 where most ALT/BTC pairs bleed, and then a drop in Q4 2025, leading to a 2026 recession. The unclear part is if there is a countertrend rally in Q2/Q3, can BTC achieve a new high?
My guess is if BTC goes <$70k in the coming weeks, then a future rally will resolve to a lower high.
If BTC stays >$70k, then a future rally could still resolve to a higher high.
As I mentioned in other posts, there is typically a risk-off period between Feb OPEX and March OPEX so nothing is set in stone yet. Risk assets are normally weak around this time. The window of weakness is still open for a few more weeks, but if BTC goes <$70k during the next few weeks, then the odds of a left-translated cycle increase dramatically in my opinion.
The calls for an imminent "Alt Season" are making their usual rounds again, while others call those that even consider the downside risk "idiots."
It seems like now the only thing the industry cares about is figuring out how to get the US government to buy more Bitcoin. The repetitive headlines get kind of exhausting. As an industry, is this really what we focus on now? Imagine telling Satoshi that all Bitcoiners would care about in 2024/2025 was ETFs and government-owned Bitcoin. Do you think that would have aligned with his original vision?
What happened to the feeling I had about crypto 10 years ago? It was exciting seeing all the innovation and curiosity so many of us had as to how crypto may change the world.
You may say that ETFs and Strategic Reserves are changing the world. But they are not changing the world in the way many of us imagined. Sure, they are getting crypto in front of more people, but that does not necessarily improve the lives of everyday people. How do we actually integrate crypto into peoples' lives? Just talking about ETFs and strategic reserves does not feel like the right answer to me.
But deep down most people know that both ETFs and Strategic Reserves are antithetical to Bitcoin, but they choose to ignore it because the focus of this cycle has mostly been about
"How can we get more people to buy Bitcoin" rather than...
"How can we change the world with Bitcoin?"
How does Bitcoin sitting in a government wallet improve Bitcoin?
As someone who has been on the Bitcoin dominance train for the last few years, I still think dominance will go higher in the coming months.
But in my opinion this cycle has focused on all the wrong things (memecoins, ETFs, and strategic reserves). Obviously questioning the main narratives of this cycle will likely draw criticism, but it always make sense to question the things that the masses treat as "obviously good." After all, I think many people would have laughed if you told them crypto would basically be down only for a while after January 20th.
Regardless of what awaits the cryptoverse for the rest of 2025 and 2026, I hope that next cycle we can get back to what made crypto so great in the first place. #BTC #ETH #bnb
Collected from -Benjamin Cowen.
$BTC
$ETH
$BNB