Sideways and Silent, Waiting for Thunder

The market for Bitcoin seems to have hit the pause button, moving lazily within a narrow range, much like a cat dozing in the summer afternoon. Many people are starting to feel anxious—does this sideways movement signal the end of the bull market? Does shrinking trading volume mean that whales are retreating?

But looking back at the history, such calm often hides the thunder: in July 2016, Bitcoin started a thousand-fold increase after 87 days of sideways trading at 650; in September 2020, the dull fluctuations around 11000 lasted for 42 days, followed by a surge to 64000 in the next six months. Data shows that 85% of Bitcoin's epic rises in the past ten years were born during the market's most lethargic moments.

The current calm is a gift of time to the awakened. Miners upgrade their equipment during the sideways period, developers refine protocols during the downturn, and smart money quietly adjusts their regular investment plans from monthly to weekly. Meanwhile, those who frequently refresh the market are compressing their future profit margins into the cents of transaction fees.

The weekend's sideways movement is like a mirror—some see boredom, some see accumulation of strength, and some see the gauge of their holding patience. The news that 200,000 Bitcoins are locked in the U.S. Strategic Reserve is currently generating a new supply-demand equation on the blockchain; perhaps the dormant spot accounts in exchanges are brewing buy orders that will break 100,000 next week.

Put down the five-minute candlestick chart, read half of 'The Bitcoin Standard,' or send a message to an old friend who failed to buy the dip three years ago. When the market is temporarily silent, true believers are doing two things: checking whether their wallet mnemonic is safely stored and practicing how to calmly close the market software on a night of soaring prices.

Remember: what the manipulators fear most is not your precise bottom-fishing but rather you looking at the heart-rate-like candlestick chart and smiling as you say—

"The weekend should be sideways, so that when the market rallies on Monday, it won't wake up those pretending to sleep."