Recently, I've been watching Alpine closely, and I feel like it's struggling to catch its breath.

It's not that there’s a problem with the project itself; it's purely that the price has reached a point where the risk-reward ratio for shorting is clearly better than going long. In the past few days, I've noticed three interesting signals while watching the market:

First, regarding the price, it surged quite aggressively not long ago, but this past two weeks, each rebound has been weaker than the last. On the other hand, during the pullbacks, several times it was accompanied by increased volume, indicating that fewer people are chasing the price up, while selling pressure is quietly building up.

Next, looking at the funding rate, the perpetual contract rate has been above 0.01% for three consecutive days and is slowly climbing — this usually means that the bulls are overly crowded, quite similar to the time last year when SOL surged to $200. More crucially, the open interest (OI) has been increasing by 10% each day for the past three days, yet the price can't seem to break the previous high. This situation of "high leverage but a lagging price" is something experienced players understand; it often signals that the bears are preparing to strike.

The sentiment is even more evident. A week ago, the community was still shouting "target $15," but now the discussion volume has decreased by half, and the visible buying orders on the exchange have also significantly reduced. If the bulls want to push higher, they need new funds to step in, but in the current atmosphere, if sentiment cools even slightly, the bear counterattack could be fierce.

My strategy is simple: I won't chase the shorts, I'll wait for a rebound to key positions. If it can’t break through near the previous highs, I’ll build short positions in three batches: 20% for the first batch, add another 20% if it holds, and add the final 30% if it breaks the support level. I’ll set my stop-loss directly at the point where it last failed to break the high, which gives me a risk-reward ratio of about 1:3, providing some peace of mind.

If I make a profit, I’ll take some off the table, and for the remaining, I’ll move the stop-loss to the breakeven point, letting the profits run. Of course, if it truly breaks the high with strong volume and holds, I’ll immediately close my shorts and go long — I learned my lesson from getting burned on AVAX, and now I won’t hold onto a losing position when the trend is against me.

In short, my bearish outlook isn’t a denial of Alpine, but rather a reflection of its current position, funding structure, and sentiment, which happen to present an opportunity for shorts. After being in the crypto space for a long time, you understand that we profit from market structure, and it has nothing to do with faith.

If you’re also watching this coin or want to discuss how to set key levels, feel free to reach out to me at @bit多多 . Sometimes a stop-loss that is just 0.2 points off can lead to drastically different outcomes. (Profile on homepage)