Today’s core message:

Being wrong is normal.
Refusing to update your beliefs when the evidence changes is a choice.

---

The older I get, the more I realize the lessons I’ve learned while mastering my own trading psychology can be applied to a hell of a lot more than just Investing.

Chief among them: being unable to admit when you’re wrong.

It is one of the most financially destructive qualities an Investor can possess.
It also happens to be one of the most costly qualities you can bring into a friendship.

The absence of humility eventually infects every aspect of a relationship, and usually manifests itself in one of these ways:

• Refusing to discuss things logically

• Treating disagreement as insubordination

• Escalating disagreements into ultimatums

• Choosing pride over conflict resolution

• Choosing not to respond when the friendship itself is genuinely on the line

Different behaviors. Same root problem.

Pride | Hubris | Insecurity | Perceived status | Poor metacognition

It is stupefying to me how many allegedly grown adult men possess some combination of these traits.

Something else I don’t think gets discussed nearly enough:

Success can change relationships.

Nobody prepares you for how differently some people will treat you once your life starts moving in a clearly successful direction.

• They become condescending

• They minimize or challenge your wins

• They become combative for no apparent reason

• They become uncharacteristically emotional over things that should otherwise be trivial

Maybe it’s jealousy, maybe it’s insecurity, maybe it’s a feeling of inferiority.
Maybe they simply don’t believe you deserve the success that they want for themselves.
Maybe new circumstances expose relationship dynamics that were always present, but remained hidden underneath the surface.

I can’t tell you what it is. Maybe it’s a combination of all of the above.
What I can tell you for certain, is that you will notice the change.

IT IS BLATANT.

Night and day. Like their entire personality flips 180°.
It is genuinely bizarre to experience first-hand.

A real friend does not need to agree with you. They do not need to validate every decision you make, stroke your ego, accept your ultimatums, or tell you that you’re right when you are obviously wrong.

A real friend should be capable of celebrating your wins with you, challenging your errors honestly, admitting when they are obviously wrong, and showing up when the friendship itself is at stake.

If they can’t do that, are they even a real friend?

Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t perfect in this situation either.

I intentionally escalated things; I said things I knew were inflammatory.
I deliberately pushed buttons once I realized the conversation had no chance at becoming productive. And I did it because I have absolutely zero time or patience for people who refuse to acknowledge black-and-white factual evidence. Especially when they respond to said evidence by doubling down on their error and issuing authoritarian ultimatums.

I own my part, but owning my antagonism does not require pretending it was the reason the friendship died.

There is a monumental difference between escalating an already broken conversation, and creating the conditions that broke it in the first place. At one point, this person actually told me disagreeing with them was comparable to a mid-level employee telling a CEO how to run their company.

Think about that dynamic for a second…

Between supposed “friends.”

There are no employment dynamics between friends. There are no hierarchies. Friendships are innately peer-to-peer. That kind of mentality is both delusional and extremely toxic. Not to mention, the best CEOs in the world are the ones who ingest contradictory information, and admit when they’re wrong exceptionally quickly.

Accept that success will cost you some relationships.

Not because success changes you, but because it changes the balance.
It changes perceived status dynamics between people. It exposes insecurities in others that may have remained dormant under old relationship dynamics. It also reveals behaviors in others you never had a good reason to notice before.

• Pay attention to people who celebrate your successes with you, and those who diminish them

• Pay attention to people who willingly engage with facts, evidence, and logical arguments—without turning them into status contests

• Pay attention to those who clutch onto ultimatums the moment they can no longer defend their position

• Pay attention to those who can admit they are wrong quickly, without it becoming a personal loss or failure

Real friendships survive disagreement. They survive distance. They survive enormous changes in life. Others just reveal how surface-level they were the moment meaningful circumstances change.

Learn the difference, and be prepared for your social circle to shrink when you achieve real success.

^{Intro & last edition recap:}

Twenty-three days have passed since I published my Emergency Crypto Issue where we confirmed the start of a new bull market. If you still don’t think we’ve entered a fresh bull market by now, there is no helping you.

The proof is in the pudding:

---

1. $BTC officially broke the bear market structure on August 20th.
Price reclaimed and closed beyond the 20 / 50 / 100 / 200D moving averages.

^{FUN FACT: Bitcoin has only once in its entire 18-year history (COVID included) printed a false Bull Market signal when price has closed above all Daily moving averages simultaneously, with the 20D crossing up through the 200D - regardless of whether you use EMA or SMA. That year was 2014.}

2. $TOTAL3ES exploded +35% from roughly $370B into the ~$500B area.
Concrete evidence of enormous broad-risk expansion.

3. $ETH finally became a market leader and rallied ~35% across 5 days to ~$2,540.
Price has since consolidated in a textbook technical flag rather than immediately round-tripping.

4. Stablecoin dominance COLLAPSED: $STABLE.C.D moving down from ~14.30% towards ~11.60% while crypto capitalization expanded, is direct evidence that capital stopped hiding in cash equivalents and rotated into broad-risk names.

Despite this overwhelming evidence, I can still hear someone screaming about the 50W SMA.

Historically, reclaiming the 50W Simple Moving Average has been one of the most obvious confirmations that a Bitcoin (Crypto) bear market is actually over.
But confirmation is all that it is; CONFIRMATION.

The 50-week SMA is averaging almost an entire year of pricing data. If you’re relying on that single indicator before acknowledging the market has fundamentally changed before your eyes, you’re not identifying true regime change. You’re waiting for the regime shift to become painfully obvious to everyone.

Being wrong is normal.
Refusing to update your beliefs when the evidence changes is a choice.

---

This is not a theoretical lesson. My portfolio is +260% since mid-August.
Not because I waited until every indicator on the board finally gave me permission to be bullish, but because I recognized the regime shift early enough to act while the asymmetry was still exceptional. That’s the entire point.

Final confirmation makes you feel safe. It also arrives AFTER much of the early-cycle asymmetry has already been repriced. Every single market participant is looking at the same shit you are; if you want to beat them, you need to understand more than blatantly obvious confirmation signals.

When you observe consecutive correlated macro signals: Bitcoin exploding through Daily structure, Ethereum waking up and leading Alts, Stablecoin dominance collapsing, $TOTAL3ES exploding +35%, and legitimate leadership rotation appearing across the Alt market, you should probably reconsider your exclusive reliance on one lagging indicator.

That doesn’t make the 50W irrelevant—it just makes it the lowest-value FINAL receipt.

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^{What did I get wrong?}

I got the immediate continuation call wrong on $BTC and $ETH.
Both are now trading around ~$77K and ~$2,500 respectively, almost exactly where they were when I published the last issue three weeks ago.

Where I was absolutely correct, was the broader Alt universe:

Those are enormous raw moves across ~23 days. In some cases nearly +2% per day.
So I’ll amend my prior advice to say [outside of the two market leaders] you risked missing violent expansion moves on relative-strength Alts. Therefore, when we are presented with future pullbacks, don’t miss your shot at asymmetric entry prices.

One such pullback is well underway this weekend, so let’s look at the data.

Arguably the most important chart for the next 18+ months

$TOTAL3ES

What the hell are we looking at? You might be asking…
This right here is your new Alt Market Bible. It will tell you more about current market conditions than any other indicator. If this MCAP sinks, Alts sink - if it rises, Alts rise.

At the far left side (on August 21st) Alts pushed into ~$502B and rejected hard.
That is now blatant sell supply. We know that level is not trivial, and it will be difficult to break through without time consolidation. Then the prior local high of $485B (May 2025) became a secondary sell supply rejection zone.

This lines up almost perfectly with Bitcoin’s price action, which you’ll see below in the next section.

We subsequently chopped around over the following ~11 days while liquidity rotated between different Alt leaders. We then retested ~$450B on September 2nd (-10% total drawdown) before attempt number two at the ~$500B level just several days ago.

We’ve now clearly rejected from that ~$500B sell supply again. And worse, we’ve also decisively lost the $485B line. All while a bearish divergence prints on the 6hr RSI.

Why I’m not concerned (yet)

I also said last issue that unless $440B is lost, I am tranquilo bro.

$440B represents the major 200D EMA line, and is still almost +20% away from the June lows. It is absolutely normal and healthy for price to retest major support (demand) zones during the transition out of a bear market. It would be extremely concerning if we had simply wicked up to ~$500B and then reverted the following week. That is NOT what has happened, not by a long shot.

^{What’s worth buying here?}

I’m going to start this section with a very clear disclaimer:

UNTIL ~$485B IS RECLAIMED + HELD…
LONGS REQUIRE ENORMOUS BURDEN OF PROOF.

---

I’m not shorting much right now, and until that critical level is reclaimed, my near-term bias is split roughly between sideways chop, and deeper LTF correction.

One comparison worth making here is the end of the 2022 bear market vs. today’s Bitcoin charts. They line up with TOTAL3ES almost perfectly, specifically the prior local high interactions.

Bitcoin 2022-2023:

Bitcoin Present Day:

You could easily be mistaken for thinking these Bitcoin charts are nearly identical, save for the 4-year time gap. That’s because they practically are.

You’ll notice four orange circles: In the 2022 chart those circles identify the local August high of $25K, followed by the retest/rejection of that level in March, 2023. Traders who mistook that rejection back down to ~$20K for evidence that the Bull Market wasn’t real, missed arguably the 2nd best entry of the entire ATH run.

Fast forward to today, and we’ve already retested May’s ~$82K local high, and have started rejecting it. If you mistake this for a sign the Bull Market isn’t real, you have an extremely high probability of repeating that same 2023 mistake. Bitcoin could correct from here back down to the mid-$60K range, and it would not invalidate the Bull Market in any way, shape or form.

So long as price continues to closes above ~$60K and forms a higher-low structure, the bull remains in tact.

$ZEC - still a dominant market leader.

We’ve started what “could” be a meaningful correction here, but I’m a buyer anywhere between $1,000 / $888 / $759.

Those would be phenomenal reload zones. Conversely, if we start closing back above ~$1,170 I expect rapid trend continuation and price discovery.

$UNI - another dominant relative-strength monster.

We’ve lost 6hr Trendline, but this is a relatively shallow pullback. It also happens to coincide with the Daily Trendline which is the controlling timeframe. This could be the best reload station we get for a while.

I’m a buyer here until $5.89 is lost. If we start closing under that, then the odds of deeper correction increase substantially.

$ DASH - Personally my favorite ticker.

This thing is foolish. The upside potential here is beyond words.
This could arguably be the strongest Weekly chart in the Alt universe.

We’ve already closed beyond the 200W EMA and I want to see it turned into support;
it would also be the best reload station imaginable. The only ejection seat for me on this one is if we start closing price < ~$43.

The Daily price levels coincide with the Weekly chart beautifully.
The 2025 local high was ~$150 and the previous All Time High is ~$480.

There is NO guarantee we approach prior ATH levels, but at minimum we have an easy 3x from here. The fundamentals on Dashpay are exceptional, and we’re still well under ~$700M MCAP. Long-term this is an easy multi-billion dollar company.
Adoption and awareness have just started increasing.

This was an extremely long issue. It took me the better part of two days to author an essay focused on friendship that I felt was actually worthy of publication, but I’m glad I did it. Those lessons extend far beyond personal relationships; they are directly relevant to Trading Psychology, decision-making, and how we respond when reality contradicts our beliefs. As Investors, as Humans.

I can think of nothing more important to teach you.
It will be relevant for the rest of your life.

There are nearly another dozen Alts I’m actively tracking. The names covered above are simply the strongest macro charts on my radar right now. If you want expanded access to the rest of my analysis, you know what to do!

Live market analysis is shared daily via X and in my free Discord community
The Heron Room.

As always—Trade Smart, Reduce Your Risk, and Stay Safe!

— DTS

• Intro & Last Edition Recap:

In Edition No. 6 [08/09/2026] we reviewed the TOTAL3ES structure and found that not much had changed for Alts since June.

Well, ALL BETS ARE NOW OFF.

There is now a very high probability [75-80%] that the end of the Bear Market cycle has already occurred, and the very beginning of the 2026 Bull Market has begun for Crypto. We are in a midterm election year, and the last time this exact scenario began unfolding was late 2022. We all know what happened from then on.

If you believe the Crypto 4-year cycle has been broken, think again. So far history continues playing out in near perfect order.

I mean seriously… how long did you think the Stock Market could erupt higher and higher while Crypto remained this underpriced? Virtually every single Crypto ticker has gone vertical since Wednesday, the 19th August.

DO YOU THINK YOU’VE ALREADY MISSED IT ANON?! NOT EVEN CLOSE.

Do not panic enter, do not FOMO long. There will be many opportunities to buy back into support structures, and this weekend is the first meaningful area to do so.

LET’S DIVE IN!

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• First things first; TOTAL3ES & STABLE.C.D:

I said LOUDLY and often that a chart like TOTAL3ES–

(which is Crypto’s TOTAL Market Cap Excluding BTC, ETH AND Stablecoins)

–had a very high probability of breaking up or down violently, and my intuition was always that [based on the macro backdrop] there was a much higher probability of breaking to the upside here, rather than the downside.

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On August 12th I laid the groundwork for what was coming - I will always keep receipts and admit when I’m wrong.

So if you aren’t following me on X yet, you’re missing the PRIMARY place I share all of my trade setups. My Newsletter is great for the macro view, but it isn’t going to help you against the most important component of swing trading; TIME.

Setups in Crypto are here and gone in hours. If you’re reading this 24hrs late, you’ve likely missed the majority of a fresh move. But, that’s the purpose of this article - to shed light on likely pullback zones so you can get in before the next leg higher begins.

This pullback zone may very well be available -ONLY- this weekend.

The confirmation chart which is a mandatory complement to TOTAL3ES for measuring true regime change, is STABLE.C.D–

(which measures the market wide dominance of all Stablecoins such as USDT, USDC etc.)

–when combined, it tells us more than either chart could alone. We have a very clear Daily breakout on TOTAL3ES, and an equally clear breakdown on STABLE.C.D:

That is extraordinarily meaningful contemporaneous evidence towards legitimate regime change. This is not just a corrective higher low inside a bear structure. This is market wide, violent repricing.

For those following me on X, you know I also called for the STABLE.C.D “Double Top” back in late June. While premature, the structure was in fact a confirmed double top.

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• So what’s the Pullback Zone?

When you begin potential market-wide regime change like this, you need to zoom the fuck out. Micro timeframes like 15m or 1hr aren’t going to tell you anything meaningful. You need to live and breathe on the Weekly and Daily chart structures.

Looking at the Weekly charts for both TOTAL3ES and STABLE.C.D, paints a pretty clear picture in my view:

There is enormous confluence across current price and the EMA cluster above our Trendline region at approx. ~$470B. It is the 200W EMA and 50W EMA intersection. If we close this week ANYWHERE above the 20W EMA of ~$420B, that is an outrageously BULLISH signal. You can see from the wick we’ve already poked ~$510B and re-traced back into the Trendline. That is violent expansion! It is therefore completely normal behavior to wick back under, and remains structurally valid for continuation higher.

If for some reason (low probability) we closed this week < ~$420B, you can start arguing for the case of a “failed breakout attempt.”
Not bloody likely!

Enter the Stablecoin chart. This is what provides materially higher confirmation of true regime change. Stables have been decimated in one week, falling from 14.30% dominance to just under 12% at trendline, and a touch above our 50W EMA.

A bounce from this support zone would be completely normal (and is to be expected) without invalidating any HTF structure. You can see we’ve already poked down into 11.51% and have slightly re-traced back up to 11.87%

When you look at the Daily chart, it becomes even more clear. Even if we bounced up into trendline resistance back at ~13 to ~14%, nothing changes. You can absolutely have Stable dominance rising while Alts and Crypto MCAP also expands.

The line in the sand here is if we start closing back above 14% and it recovers, turning the zone back into support. We are fine as long as this level acts as RESISTANCE or sell supply.

Let’s look at the market leaders for even further clarity:

BTC weekly looks identical to TOTAL3ES. Huge weekly breakout candle, already beyond the 200W EMA and pushing directly into the trendline and 100W / 50W EMA intersection. A weekly close anywhere above ~69k is enormously bullish for Crypto as a whole.

Dare I say it; THE BOTTOM IS IN!!! (Maybe)

Our fast TSICCI indicator has confirmed bullish expansion and is ~30hrs away from printing a confirmed weekly bull cross + signal. The slow TSICCI has simultaneously curled up rapidly this week from -85 to -42.7

The Daily BTC chart is showing a very obvious breakout trend and is well above the 200D EMA. We could experience some turbulence as we go through the prior local high range of ~82k, but there is no guarantee of resistance during a bull regime shift.

VERY possible for price to smash through it–you can see it’s done that exact thing through the 200D without experiencing any resistance whatsoever. MEGA bullish signal.

On to ETH… Practically identical Weekly chart. That’s 3 for 3… You can see why I’m calling this market wide regime change.

Huge breakout directly into weekly EMA cluster where the 200W and 100W EMA sit. We are already well above the 20EMA and Trendline. Our fast TSICCI indicator has been a confirmed bull cross + signal since Aug 03, and our slow TSICCI is attempting to print the first bottom bull cross +.

ETH closing the week anywhere above ~2100 is very bullish for Crypto and Alts.

Looking at ETH daily is even more clear. This is a violent ERUPTION beyond 200D EMA stack. The previous local high range of ~2400 is already showing attempts at being made into support.

I gave this setup away for FREE from ~$1920 [+26%] on August 17th:

If ~2400 was heavily rejected we could argue for a potential weaker expansion or maybe even a failed breakout attempt. The fact that 200D EMA showed absolutely no resistance AND the prior level is already being turned into support is an unbelievable signal of strength.

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• Additional Market Leaders and Outperformers:

I will share the charts which are simply undeniable based on the past 4 days of price action. First up is ZEC:

It does not get more bullish than this. I’m in a 4x long from ~$516 and I’ve already taken partial profit. I’m now leaving a substantial runner on the heels of the ZEC ETF announcement.

PS I’m a huge fan of Gareth Soloway (Verified Investing), if you’re not hooked into his side of things I strongly recommend it!

This is a runaway freight train of a chart–if you’re not already in, you can try hunting a wick such as the one we saw on this 4hr chart around 1am ET today–or on 1hr support zones. The sheer momentum of ZEC will be hard to pin down, so depending on your leverage and size it might be worth chasing. As always, risk management is crucial here.

Buying anything around < ~800 was the zone today. Early bird gets the worm!

Next up is LINK:

Already confirmed week #2 with a green dot, well above 20W EMA and trendline. Poked 100W EMA at $12.60 and rejected slightly. If this thing closes tomorrow anywhere above ~$10.70 it’s outrageously bullish.

You can see on Daily we’ve already had a flush wick, similar to ZEC. This is how Alts work baby. It’s why you need wide stops if you’re playing with leverage, which means you need exceptionally strong entries and asymmetry.

Wicks will differ per exchange and liquidity / trading volume, but if you were a buyer anywhere around 1am ET today on that 1hr 200EMA retest, you have a great asymmetric entry price.

I don’t currently love the 1hr structure just underneath trendline and 20 EMA, but the 4hr is still very much in tact. Best case scenario here would be a few days basing around these prices and setting up a support zone. I’m in a 5x long from $9.57 and my SL is still entered at $9.32 because of these Alt wicks. They are fucking NASTY.

If you can catch one–they act as great entries during a bull run regime change. If LINK starts losing $11.25 and fails to reclaim it, I will likely substantially kill my trade and wait for the next setup. This is crypto, setups happen every single week.

Next up is HYPE–this is a foolish chart:

I might almost argue this is more bullish than ZEC because this is true ATH territory for HYPE, whereas ZEC is technically still down -99% lifetime.

The daily is ALREADY trying to close over the previous ATH of ~76.70

The 4hr gave us a small pullback into trendline and 20 EMA around 1am ET this morning, that was your chance. But I like it here as well. Frankly, given the ATH pricing, HYPE is about to discover an air pocket. You can probably chase here fairly safely.

Again, risk management.

I gave you this entry from ~$55 for FREE [+42%] on August 10th:

• In Conclusion:

Outside of exposure to ZEC, LINK, & HYPE, I am heavily long ETH, SOL, XLM, TRX, DASH and ONDO.

Of those tickers, I am particularly impressed by the relative strength of HYPE, ZEC, LINK, XLM and DASH. Those 5 are running harder than almost anything right now.

Exposure to ETH and SOL is of course critical as they are the market Alt leaders, but end of the day we are simply trying to extract USD and compound the portfolio to buy more spot Bitcoin.

You’ll notice I’m not typically swing trading BTC, and that is nothing other than a chart cleanliness issue. It tends to be less clear than ETH or SOL for my indicator toolkit. Since ETH and SOL are the largest high beta Alts, when they look good it’s fairly easy to anticipate even higher-beta setups. That’s where violent moves happen, and it’s how you extract the most money from the markets.

KEY LEVELS:

• BTC ~69K
• ETH ~2100
• TOTAL3ES ~440B, ~420B
• STABLE.C.D < 14%

Losing any of these levels would make me very uncomfortable, and I’d consider killing the majority of my exposure.

If you’re not following me on X yet what are you waiting for? You could’ve been long ETH from ~$1910 and HYPE from ~$55.

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If I’m correct and we’re starting a fresh Bull Run, there will be many opportunities over the following weeks and months. Using EMA zones to reload during price pullbacks is how you attack this market.

The vast majority of my Trade setups will be shared via X or in my free discord community The Heron Room.

As always, Trade Smart, Reduce Your Risk, and Stay Safe!

— DTS

Part of Great Blue Digital
www.greatbluedigital.ca
www.daytradersteve.com

• Intro & Last Edition Recap:

Last edition we took a hard look at the reality of where Crypto had landed after nearly 7 months of bear market conditions. $BTC had already blown through my original $75k bull market invalidation line, eventually establishing a potential bottom around $60k before retesting that exact zone again in June.

The 4-year Bitcoin cycle is ALIVE and well. Full stop.

We also looked at the complete disappointment that was “Alt-season.”

$BTC topped around $126k instead of the ridiculous $250k-$300k projections floating around CT.

$ETH didn’t even manage a 4x from prior cycle lows, and most Alts performed exactly how you’d expect when the underlying market leader underperforms.

However, TOTAL3ES is still sitting roughly 100% above the 2022 cycle lows, showing that despite dilution and awful relative performance, real capital was still finding its way into stronger names like $TAO, $HYPE and $TON. The takeaway was simple: there was no guarantee the bottom was in, but if we could exercise some patience and caution, the next year could provide some extremely interesting accumulation opportunities.

• Fast Forward to Now:

Nothing much is different. 6 weeks of hugging the trendlines, price action could not be more boring. There is practically no volatility to speak of. Capital is on vacation - literally.

It’s unbelievable how many industries are seasonal, finance being the main one. Everyone is on summer break, so we can expect things to pick back up going into Q4.

Take a look at last edition’s TOTAL3ES chart vs. today’s:

06/21/2026

08/09/2026

$357B was tested again around the end of June, just immediately after edition no. 5 was published. I asked if we thought this level would hold, and my assumption was that it would. I can’t overstate how important this level is for Alts and the crypto industry as a whole.

I’m not saying it can’t be broken - but my estimation is that it will be extremely short lived and signal true bottom if one deviation lower actually occurs.

If you look at the previous cycle’s price action during the 2022/2023 stage 1 accumulation zone, it’s quite clear we likely have AT LEAST another 6+ months of up and down volatility before the start of another bull market run.

Again, not saying history will repeat - but it always rhymes. Everyone thought the 4 year cycle was dead. Need I say more?

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• What’s my Gameplan?

I’ve distilled my trading execution list down to the following:

Tier 1: BTC / ETH / SOL
Tier 2: HYPE / NEAR (high beta Alts)
Tier 3: XLM / TAO / ZEC / TRX / INJ
Tier 4: BNB / LINK / SUI / DOGE / DASH

Tier 1 is for accumulation - blockchain doesn’t go anywhere without these three.

Tier 2 is for swings and day trading. They are clean charts with significant volume and use case which make swing patterns easy to trade.

Tier 3 are specialist charts which I only trade on very specific timeframes built around automated alerts.

Tier 4 are noisier charts, harder to trade but still relevant projects for crypto as a whole.

EVERYTHING. ELSE. IS. NOISE.

My strategy is simple. Two buckets. That’s it.

Bucket one is that I want to accumulate as much BTC + ETH + SOL as I can over the next 6+ months. These are long-term holds that I don’t stress over. RARELY with leverage.

Spot = ownership. Perps are riskier because exchanges can die at any minute.

Bucket two is short term leveraged trades. Several weeks, several days, many times intraday. There may be long-term use case in these tokens (and that’s fine) but I don’t care. All I’m trying to do is extract USD and compound the portfolio.

That’s it for today’s quick update - I expect price action to continue being pretty boring into September, maybe even October.

In case you missed last edition’s video, I’ve linked it below for a more comprehensive overview on the TOTAL3ES CRYPTOCAP chart.

If you want to learn more about my proprietary VWAP Trading system, be sure to join The Heron Room and I’ll send you my free VWAP rulebook guide.

As always, Trade Smart, Reduce Your Risk, and Stay Safe!

— DTS

Part of Great Blue Digital
www.greatbluedigital.ca
www.daytradersteve.com

• Intro & Last Edition Recap:

It’s been almost 7 months since my last edition - and for good reason. My contrarian views finally bit me in the ass. I was as surprised as anyone to find that the masses did in fact finally crack the code, and were right, en-masse, for the first time ever.

The 4 year Bitcoin cycle is ALIVE and well.
We are currently 7-8 months through a typical 12 month correction period.

We’ve been in a crypto bear market since October, 2025. There is no arguing against it. I take solace in the fact that I at least addressed those plausible invalidation levels back in November, 2025:

Back in the first week of February 2026, we established a potential Bitcoin bottom wick into $60k - we recently retested that zone two weeks ago (06/05/2026), when we put in a small deviation wick into $59,080.

Today’s prices carry enormous confluence across the previous cycle’s All Time Highs, and the 2024 accumulation range which spanned February-October prior to the final upward push. This is obviously not a guarantee of a “true bottom,” but it’s an interesting level nonetheless.

• What have I been doing the past 7 months?

I took a 6 month break from trading between October to March - full stop.

Not one trade placed.

I learned. I researched. I fiddled. I rebranded.

It was absolutely necessary in order to develop an improved trading toolkit and execution system, after suffering enormous liquidation losses last October.

Over the past 90 days my new proprietary VWAP system has produced a 51.4% win rate at an average Win/Loss ratio of 2.35x

If this can be sustained (or even improved), it is an enormously profitable trading system.

• What Happened to Alt-season?

Hindsight is easy because it takes away uncertainty. It’s incredibly easy to look at charts after the fact and go, “Wow, how the fuck didn’t I see that coming?” It’s easy because there’s no uncertainty anymore - it happened, it’s over. When you’re looking at probabilities in real time and you don’t know whether trend will break or sustain itself, it leaves a lot of room for interpretation.

Bitcoin’s ATH run into the $126k zone disappointed a lot of people. I can’t even tell you the number of CT analyst projections talking about $250k-$300k this cycle.

NOT. EVEN. CLOSE.

We can therefore understand why Alts were even more disappointing. They are extremely high beta to BTC.

If the major crypto asset underperforms, it’s no wonder all these small MCAP Alts did effectively nothing. Huge Alts like BNB barely put in an 8x from 2022 cycle bottom to 2025 cycle high. ETH, not even 4x.

Last cycle bull run between 2020-2021 ETH put in a 47x move from around ~$100 to $4,700. 4x felt like a joke in comparison. Again, can’t even tell you how many CT analysts were calling for $10k ETH and beyond.

NOT. EVEN. CLOSE.

But this brings us to a very interesting chart: TOTAL3ES

Which is the Alts crypto market cap excluding BTC/ETH and Stablecoins (USDT/USDC etc.)

History does not repeat - but it certainly rhymes. The most interesting thing is that despite relative Alt underperformance, the entire MCAP is still 100% higher than it was during the 2022 cycle lows. Some of this is definitely dilution, more and more Alt tokens created, increasing MCAP while spreading capital thinner. However, an additional $130B is a meaningful jump in liquidity which can’t be entirely explained away by token dilution. There are real Alts thriving like TAO, HYPE, TON for example.

For a more comprehensive deep dive on Alt market structure, I’ve thrown together a quick macro pattern recognition video which compares current levels to the 2022 cycle lows:

Based on the above analysis video, it would seem at least somewhat probable that we are potentially through the worst. If we possess patience over the next year, we could find ourselves buying the absolute bottom prior to the next bull run.

As we move forward, I’ll start exploring the strongest charts and tokens which deserve your attention.

If you want to learn more about my new proprietary VWAP Trading system, be sure to join The Heron Room.

As always, Trade Smart, Reduce Your Risk, and Stay Safe!

— DTS

Part of Great Blue Digital
www.greatbluedigital.ca
www.daytradersteve.com

A lot has happened in the Crypto market since my October 27th issue; most critically $BTC has been in free-fall since I pointed out several key resistance levels over the past month. Had you simply gone SHORT since Bitcoin poked our $117k resistance level on 10/27, you’d have made a nice 25-30% ROI. +1% ROI per day isn’t bad (if you can capture it).

Last edition I mentioned from a [purely technical perspective I would not open a “set it and forget it” long position] on Bitcoin, as we were seeing a Daily EMA death cross. This is when the 20D EMA crosses down through the 200D EMA. Price ultimately poked the 200D EMA and trendline, before rejecting it AGAIN, and riding the waterslide down from $108k to the low of $80k. You can also see how much more extended the death cross EMA stacks are, with price riding well underneath it.

$BTC 1D:

Looking at my chart above, you can see the major resistance failure from 10/27 circled in yellow, subsequent cascade down to about $100k, where price stalled and tested support for 4 days (long lower wicks) before a final gasping breath up into the $107k green horizontal line area [this points out the price failure which poked just above the 20D EMA (white line) and the Alpha Trendline (red)]

We spent the following 10 days in down-only price action, reaching a wick low of $80.6k, as shown by the low horizontal green line. This was MASSIVE because we lost the long-term $100k psychological support, and ascending yellow trendline.

Last issue we also discussed $ETH and the problematic chart which was showing first warning signs of a 200D EMA rejection around $3,600. Safe to say this came true. Ethereum shit the bed and fell -25% in ONLY two weeks, essentially TWICE as fast as $BTC [which by the way is completely normal and to be expected, ETH is essentially a 2x leveraged chart compared to BTC from a price action perspective].

$ETH 1D

In my chart above you can see the first green horizontal line displaying the $3,600 price rejection which was against MAJOR resistance bands: 200D EMA (yellow curve), 20D EMA (white line), Alpha Trendline (red line). Those 3 levels were intersecting at the exact same time price was retesting those levels, which is almost NEVER a sign of strength or bull momentum. We subsequently puked -$1,000 down into the $2,600 wick (second horizontal green line).

As for the other Alts we discussed last edition, it’s fairly obvious they’ve also been decimated, because if the No. 1 and No. 2 Crypto coins bleed, EVERYTHING else bleeds harder [with very few exceptions].

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• So what now?

To point back to my subtitle, everyone (and I mean everyone) is screaming “it’s over, the 4-year cycle is complete”, and we’re about to enter at least a one year bear market. I’ve even seen some respected analysts on Crypto Twitter (X) flip bearish with the crowd, essentially screaming in the same echo chamber. “Macro signal broken” this, “Elliot Wave invalidated” that. This tells me one thing, most people are losing money, seasoned Traders & Investors alike, which means MM’s, Institutions and Whales are winning (as always). And most importantly, it tells me the majority are going to be offside, again.

Now, I will not sit here and guarantee anyone that we’ve bottomed. It is absolutely possible that the crowd has finally cracked the code, and they’ll be right, en-masse, for the first time ever. But there is no fucking way I am taking that bet. Instead, I will illustrate the reasons why I believe we’re approaching a local bottom, at a higher probability than ever.

First things first, did everyone seriously forget that Powell just put a concrete end date on QT (Quantitative Tightening)? ICYMI, December 1st is the official end date of QT. While that doesn’t signal the automatic start of QE, it damn-sure makes it a lot more likely. If you don’t understand these terms, strongly recommend a quick Google brush up.

Secondly, as I mentioned last edition, Trump announced his plans for a fresh round of Stimulus checks, in order to spread the Tariff revenue with US Citizens. Again, I explained what happened last time the US gov’t handed everyone ‘Stimmies. Crypto went on a 12-month face melting run.

So let’s paint a clearer Macro picture:

We’re still seeing FED rate cuts in the near term, reasonable to think in 2026 the US Gov’t has no choice but to begin QE [the exact reasons being an extremely long discussion, but essentially boils down to stabilizing the economy due to mass-job-loss, bank failure, repo / bankruptcy rates, etc.], Trump wants everyone to love him and his ‘Stimmy checks, he will go to ANY length to bail the US out of debt, he HATES when the markets are red, and we’ve seen Institutional adoption of Bitcoin and Crypto at an unprecedented rate.

On that final point alone; when you have the BlackRock’s, Fidelity’s, VanEck’s, Grayscale’s, and Microstrategy’s of the world bullying their way into Bitcoin at MAMMOTH scale, you can bet any semblance of normal structure or cycles ARE OVER.

There is a near zero percent chance that we will simply repeat the same cyclical behavior when retail once dominated the asset. Retail is now the minority, so you must pivot your thesis and pay attention to Institutional charts if you’re going to have any chance of predicting future cycle or chart behavior. For this, I look no further than the SP500.

On my above $SPX chart, we have approximately 6 years worth of data, which includes the previous BTC cycle of 2020-2024. There are 5 major vertical horizontal lines pointing out cycle lows and highs.

March 2020, Bitcoin bottomed literal days before the SP500, and both assets rose nearly in unison over the following 420 days (1.16 years) before Bitcoin put in its first local top around $63k. This was the first deviation between BTC & the SPX, it was also during the time of the FTX collapse, which directly influenced Crypto, not the stock market.

December 2021 into Jan 2022, Bitcoin put in its second local top WELL before the SPX topped (approximately 55 days earlier) creating a divergent top which ignited the year long bear market. SPX followed suit, albeit with more volatility and bouncing along the way. BTC fell from highs of $66k down to $16k, -75% in a year. In contrast, the SPX fell from highs of $4,800 down to $3,500, -26% in a year. That’s essentially 3x more downside for BTC.

October 2022, the SPX actually bottomed BEFORE Bitcoin, about 30-50 days sooner. We all know Oct-Nov 2022 was the local bottom across financial markets. Had you bought ANYTHING there you’d be laughing today. Over the following 900+ days (2.5 years) the SPX gained +70% and BTC +575%. Everything wobbled around December-February last winter, SPX crashed -20% in 45 days and BTC -30.6%

April 2025, another local bottom across the board. You could’ve bought SPX at $4,800 and BTC at $75k give or take.

Which brings us to now, the last green vertical line, November 1st 2025, and we’re watching both assets roll over in real time, Bitcoin still leading risk markets approximately ~30 days earlier. BTC is down -36% from it’s $125k ATH, and SPX is down -5%.

Do you see the pattern yet? Bitcoin’s corrections are becoming less severe, the chart looks more similar to the SPX from a structural perspective after 2022, it’s more muted, almost like it’s being guided. Am I saying they are the same? No. I’m saying you cannot deny the Institutional adoption and price patterns which are forming in real time.

Explain it like I’m 5

Hopefully you’ve already put together what I’m trying to argue, that BTC looks poised to mirror the longer term SPX chart patterns, with more “stair stepping” rises and falls. There will absolutely still be volatility to capture, but I personally believe at a much more muted rate.

I believe what we’ve witnessed over the past 30 days is more likely Crypto OG’s who’ve held 3 digit entry prices, exiting into fantastic liquidity for the first time ever. If you held billions worth of Bitcoin a few years ago, what incentive did you have to sell, if your orders nuked the price? Institutions are now HAPPY to buy up every single BTC sold by the early adopters, which protects downside and gives them orderbook liquidity. This is what REAL ADOPTION looks like. For Chrissakes’ we have governments buying the asset!

• Having said all that…

There are invalidation areas and technical zones which would make me wrong on all counts. Let’s review the charts:

BTC 1W

On my above Weekly Bitcoin chart we have a very interesting potential bottom forming. We’re in fact 90 minutes away from a weekly close well above the 100W EMA. This is a great signal.

Looking at the yellow arrows, if you had bought BTC after any Weekly EMA wick over the past 3 years, you’re in profit AND you would have essentially bought the absolute bottom each time.

Now, if we lose the previous local low price of $75k, things start getting invalidated really quickly, so this is PIVOTAL. It would be very hard to argue we continue a bull run if that price is lost, even if we went down to the 200W EMA and bounced, it would be nearly impossible to run back up from $65k and create new ATHs.

BTC 1M

One month is even more interesting. We have 7 days left to close above the 20M EMA, and Alpha Trendline. This is the first month we’ve potentially lost the Green Dots since October 2023. I can’t overstate how important the next few weeklies and monthly close will be.

BTC 1D

Going back to our Daily Bitcoin chart, we’ve got some work to do. For now, we’ve theoretically made a higher low, which is a good sign for bull market continuity. But we could be looking at weeks of chop, or sideways price action to get through these EMAs. One thing to note, everyone underestimates how violently and QUICKLY Crypto charts can repair themselves and recover. If we see some kind of news or liquidity catalyst, we could blow through these zones.

We’ll firstly need to bounce into $95k zone, and probably reject on first touch, from there we’d need to close higher than $85k and start climbing over the 20D EMA. Based on the curvature of the longer EMAs, it looks like we’re going to find heavy resistance all the way back up to $100k, and if $100k rejects again, you can pretty much guarantee this bull market is toast.

In terms of mental preparation, Bitcoin is known to chop sideways for months on end. We suffered a brutal 7 month accumulation zone between March-September 2024, before finally resolving higher. And, not before the market faked everyone out by wicking down into $50k territory and threatening similar EMA death cross structure.

Market Makers, Exchanges, and Whales are incentivized to push the majority offside because it creates liquidity, which is the exact thesis I’m betting on again. Bitcoin drives the entire Crypto market, so whatever happens to this asset will cascade across the rest. Unless we truly enter an Alt season, where ETH could out perform and run up while BTC chops around sideways. If large players and Institutions start rotating into ETH, this could be the Alt season catalyst everyone has been waiting (longer than ever) for.

If the above liquidity scenarios pan out, such as QE, Trump Stimmy checks, and Institutional step-ladder bidding, then I believe we have a lot of gas left in this bull run. But I am cautiously optimistic at best, based on how fragile these charts look. I’m simply unwilling to accept that the masses are going to be correct about the start of a true bear market.

For me, failure is losing $75k Bitcoin price – which opens its own opportunities to short the bear market. Until then, I will not pivot from my bull thesis.

Until next time, Trade Smart & Reduce your Risk!

—DTS

There is a huge amount of data to unpack from the past 30 days, so let’s get into it. Last update we focused on a potential blow off top for $GOLD (now confirmed), we looked at market structure for $BTC, $ETH, $BNB, and I talked about their key resistance levels. It’s been two weeks since that issue, and nearly 30 days since the October 10th market-wide manipulation event that wiped out ~$20B from Crypto markets.

For a quick $BTC refresher, on last issue I noted, “Next up is $117k, minor horizontal resistance, but still expecting some volatility around there.” & boy did we get volatility. Not even I saw the nuke to $98,000 coming. In hindsight it’s very clear on the charts, as you’ll see below:

$BTC DAILY CHART:

On October 27th we poked the $117k resistance level (green horizontal), as well as the descending Yellow Trendline, then two Daily topping tails formed, and we closed under our Alpha Trendline. There was a small bounce off the 200D EMA (Yellow) into the 20D EMA (White), which very quickly rejected again. Over the following 8 days we saw $BTC fall and retest the CRITICAL $100k support zone, falling -15% — which is holding up, for now.

Could this be the local bottom on Bitcoin? My bias leans towards yes, especially since Trump just announced a fresh round of ‘stimmies. But from a purely technical perspective, we’ve witnessed a death cross on our Daily EMA stack > 20 EMA now sits below 200 EMA. Which means at MINIMUM, we need to reclaim the $108k level to feel even remotely safe that we aren’t heading lower.

Day trading is great here to capture intraday volatility, but I would NOT be buying a “set it and forget it” Bitcoin allocation here. Way too much downside risk.

Now on to Alts, last issue we plotted Alt strength / resistance levels for $ETH and $BNB. You’ll recall that I said regarding $ETH, “The first brick wall is the descending Yellow trendline sitting around $4,300.”

We didn’t quite get there. In fact, at $4,250 we fell through the floor. This was expected, while I didn’t quite see $BTC falling back to retest $100k, we knew Alts would be weak while $BTC failed to sustain it’s All Time Highs. $ETH subsequently fell -30% from my last issue, which would have been a beautiful short trade for any of you who followed.

$ETH DAILY CHART:

You can see we’re now at real risk of the Daily chart rejecting its 200D EMA. If this happens, it’s game over for $ETH for a while. It we reject here around $3,600 — you bring into reality several key prices, firstly $2,200 and then $1,500 if that doesn’t hold up. I don’t think I have to tell you what happens to the rest of Alts if $ETH shits the bed here. It NEEDS to reclaim its EMAs for any hope of higher or Alt season.

Which brings up $BNB, last issue I noted, “$BNB broke $1,000 for the first time this year as one of the strongest Alts. [It’s accepted the $1,000 price level (for now)], If today closes with a steep upper wick like we are currently seeing (10:52 EST) it would be a bad sign. If we close under the trendline ($1,115) it reopens the possibility for $BNB to move lower”

$BNB DAILY CHART:

That topping tail turned out to be a very clear omen, as we nuked -25% over the following 8 days. $BNB now sits below its psychological $1,000 number — the good news is it seems to have bounced off its 200D EMA, but I don’t trust this until we reclaim $1,000. It has huge significance now.

You can see how irrelevant trendlines are also, note the ascending Pink Trendline, price did not respect it AT ALL. It blew straight through it with zero hesitation. So while it’s useful to draw trendlines to visualize potential support / resistance zones, they don’t represent anything meaningful from a purely technical perspective.

So now what?

I mentioned Trump just announced fresh Tariff ‘stimmies. He’s trying to launch another round of stimulus checks on the back of his “Tariff Profits.” Essentially every US Citizen would received a few thousand bucks, this represents hundreds of Billions worth of liquidity, and if it hit’s the equity / crypto markets… things could go vertical quickly.

We saw this movie in 2020 already. Huge pandemic, economic crises, money printing, end of QT, start of QE, stimulus checks. Had you bought virtually any Cryptocurrency between March-May of 2020 you’d have made a killing. $800B+ in stimulus checks went out, and Bitcoin rose nearly +800% over the following year.

Am I saying we’re about to go vertical for the next year straight? No. But the current global macro-economic state of affairs REEKS of 2020.

What does my portfolio look like?

Well for one thing, I’m a Day Trader, so I carry a lot of weight in USDT (stables). I need dry gun powder at all times. That’s because I trade intraday swings, it’s how I extract USD value from the market on a daily basis, using my customized VWAP system. It means I don’t usually care what the ticker is, I care whether the price action meets my trigger system. Is it firing on my indicator alerts? Do I have 6/8 “triggers” going my way? I want high probability trades, not 50/50 guesses.

This strategy is for a very select few individuals. You need to meet the following criteria: losing money doesn’t bother you, you can handle far greater stress-loads than the average human, you are determined and driven to escape the grind, no matter the cost, and you possess a non-human level of discipline. Day Trading will annihilate your portfolio if you don’t have expert level comprehension of technical trading fundamentals.

Now speaking long term investing, Alts in general mean little or nothing to me. If it’s not Bitcoin I generally don’t GAF about it. But that doesn’t mean I don’t trade Alts, in fact, 90% of my Day Trades are on Alts like ETH, TAO, DOGE, FET, to name a few. This is because they are extremely volatile, and offer sizeable returns day to day for those who can interpret signals correctly. But the vast majority of plebs (ordinary people) should probably just convert their entire 401k / RRSP into $BTC and never look at it again. If you have 5-10 years before your retirement, that’s what I’d be doing. I would stick every single fucking dollar of my savings into Bitcoin alone. You just cannot comprehend how much Institutional & Gov’t money has flooded into this asset. If you don’t accumulate Bitcoin now, you’re essentially betting AGAINST Wall Street. People who make those bets lose every single time.

So, other than being nearly 80-90% in Bitcoin long term, I have made a few asymmetric bets on projects which I believe will outperform. They are Ethereum, Bittensor (TAO), Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (ASI or FET), and Dimitra (DMTR). In a sea of thousands of tokens, you are far better off deeply researching a select few and betting big on them. If you sprinkle holdings into dozens or even hundreds of tokens, sure you might win a few gambles on a 100x, but unless you have meaningful size allocated to it, it won’t yield life changing money.

As always, Trade Smart and Reduce Your Risk!

—DTS.

It’s been about two weeks since I launched my inaugural newsletter on the heels of the worst mass-liquidation event in Crypto history. If you haven’t read the last edition, I highly recommend catching up on it for context; as we’ll reference it a fair bit moving forward. ICYMI, more than $20B was liquidated from Crypto markets on October 10th — millions of retail Traders lost everything, and virtually everyone who held a leveraged position was wiped out.

Fast forward to today, and it looks like we might be seeing the first signs of true recovery, and the setup required to break-out, thereby continuing this bull run.
Let’s dig into it.

Has $GOLD topped?

Gold is showing late-stage behavior. If we look at the weekly charts, we don’t yet have a confirmed reversal, but we HAVE received a legitimate reversal on the Daily chart. Why does Gold matter? Because Gold is a RISK-OFF asset, it’s where the world parks its money during extreme uncertainty. BTC is still a risk-on asset, and more closely tied to the S&P500. This isn’t to say both can’t rise at the same time, but if Gold is topping here, it’s potentially a great sign for rotation into BTC & risk-on markets in general. We know Bitcoin performs well during Q4 historically…

1 WEEK:

DAILY:

How do you spot this reversal? On the Weekly you can see that the candle did not close below the previous body candle. However on the Daily you can clearly see the top candle fell aggressively through the previous close. This is classified as a “bear engulfing” meaning downward selling pressure engulfed the previous Daily close by a significant margin.

Going one step further, from a technical analysis perspective: we’ve not lost the trendline yet, but a -5% fall on $GOLD in a single day is the largest negative move on the asset in FIVE years. This is NOT a place I would buy Gold. The probability of it being a local top (or even blow-off top) are much higher than anything else.
I won’t truly say the top is in until we lose $4,000 — but we’re close. *Edit* Since writing this last night 10/26/2025 11:00pm EST, Gold has moved down further and is losing the $4,000 price (currently trading at $3,995) this is almost certainly a top confirmation if it closes here today.

For extra context, the last time Gold showed >200 on the TSICCI was August, 2020. Gold subsequently fell -18.75% over the next 214 days, and then chopped around for another THREE years before starting its next leg higher. I’ll say again, not a place I want to buy Gold.

So should I sell all my $GOLD and buy $BTC?

Short answer: probably. But there’s nuance here.

On October 10th Bitcoin was relatively unharmed. Compared to the rest of the market it only fell -17% in a single day. Sounds volatile, until you compare it to Alts. All of which fell anywhere between -25% to -80% over the same day.

This liquidation event gave us some interesting data points to analyze on the charts:

Typically when we have these flash (nuke) wicks, it’s common for price to rebound aggressively, and then bleed off, filling at least 50% of that wick. As you can see in the below image, we’ve filled more like 80% of that wick. We crashed to $101.5k, jumped aggressively back up to $115-116k, and over the next week bled back down into the $103-104k range.

We finished this week on a nice little recovery, getting back up to the $115k range. Now we have some significant resistance levels which MUST be reclaimed in order to confirm Gold holders are rotating into BTC. The good news is our bottom Yellow trendline has been reclaimed. If this rejected, it likely would have been game over.

Next up is $117k, minor horizontal resistance, but still expecting some volatility around there. Would love to see it smashed on first run-through and then turned into support.

And finally, we have the previous ATH (all time high). $123-126k needs to be left behind. Whether we see it break through, bump up against it a few times, and then finally get over it and turn it into support; we can’t confirm anything until that price is taken out. If we get beyond the $125k blocker, it becomes easier to see the case for $150-200k $BTC.

What about my PRECIOUS Alts?!

Don’t panic Gollum. To be sure, some Alts look decimated and I personally can’t see them recovering any time soon. But the majors look alright. Two weeks ago $ETH collapsed -22% and we’ve since put in similar PA (price action) to Bitcoin. We flash recovered from the $3,350 wick, jumping back up to $4,300 before bleeding off back down to $3,600 a few times.

It looks like we’ve put in a proper higher low, and the EMA stack has a chance to turn bullish on the Daily chart. But we’ve got significant resistance ahead. In the below image you’ll see the fake out reversal which should have informed us that a breakdown was coming (Oct 6 + 7).

The first brick wall is the descending Yellow trendline sitting around $4,300.
Best case we get through this quickly over the next week or two.

After that, we’ve got our ascending Yellow trendline sitting on the $4,600-4,800 range. And lastly, the previous ATH sits just under the all important psychological and round number of $5,000. Expect a TON of volatility between here and there. There’s always the small possibility of blasting up through these levels, but if we’re playing probabilities this is the lower likelihood.

$BNB broke $1,000 for the first time this year as one of the strongest Alts, peaking around $1,300-1,400 and it’s done little since; as arguably one of the strongest movers this cycle. The good news is, it’s accepted the $1,000 price level (for now) which is a large psychological barrier for traders. I expect $5,000 is a similarly strong psychological price level for $ETH, and will therefore lead to volatility. If we can turn $5,000 into support, there is no stopping Ethereum.

You can see below on $BNB the double top which formed against $1,300, we then bled down into the 50EMA ($1,050) and price is attempting to reclaim the Daily trendline. As one of the strongest movers this cycle I expect we will move beyond the trendline and reclaim the $1,160 zone, but so far today (Monday) it’s struggling to gain acceptance. Mondays are typically days to avoid in the Crypto market. If today closes with a steep upper wick like we are currently seeing (10:52 EST) it would be a bad sign. If we close under the trendline ($1,115) it reopens the possibility for $BNB to move lower, possibly targeting the ascending Pink macro trendline which sits between the 50 & 100EMA. (Exponential moving average)

What’s my position in the market?

Mostly I’m building long positions here with tight stop-losses. There’s a lot of air to gap up through between here and significant price levels, which can be a good opportunity to scalp / swing some gains on your portfolio. But I’m cautiously optimistic (at best). There’s a lot of weight overhead, and it will probably need a catalyst or bullish headline to blast through them all.

Based on what I’m seeing in the charts today, I don’t see a clear setup for higher on anything, and there is a risk that a mass selloff on Gold brings the rest of equities down as a whole, if the market interprets this as extreme fear. If a trade deal is reached between the US & China, that could be a real catalyst to move higher in risk markets.

There’s no such thing as easy mode in Crypto.

So as always, Trade Smart, and Reduce your Risk!

—DTS

What Happened — In Plain English:

Between 10am–6pm EST on Oct 10th, Crypto was annihilated:

• BTC dumped -10% from ~$122k toward ~$102k
• ETH dumped –20% poking its 200D EMA at $3,500, and major Alts cratered!

Double-digit slides everywhere; some mid/small caps lost up to ~80% or more of their value in hours. This is not natural or organic price action, to be sure. Is it manipulation? I don’t have any concrete data, but it sure as hell cannot be considered “fair market” pricing.

Total liquidations amounted to $19–20B; which is exponentially worse than the $LUNA collapse (<$1B), the FTX collapse (<$5B), and the COVID collapse (<$5B) —because the cascade was faster and the market was more levered. Meaning, the Alt market specifically was propped up on borrowed money and exchange leverage, not spot demand.

The Immediate catalyst? Trump’s “100% tariffs on China” post [on a Friday no less.]

So was this “Just” the Tariff Headline?
Or Was It Inevitable?

The short answer is actually both. The tariff headline was the spark; the tinder was already stacked, and written in the charts for days leading up to it.

Pre-crash tells:

Overextension: $BTC had just printed a new ATH and was failing to breakout or turn the $125k level into support; several Alts were stalling at resistance. $ETH had just printed a Daily fake-out at a major resistance level.

Below: $BTC failed ATH push

Below: $ETH fake-out pattern

Structures deteriorating: H&S-style tops, lower highs, and failed breakouts across major Alts.

Sentiment was frothy → fear: Greed readings flipped to fear overnight.

Leverage stretched: OI heavy; funding not insane everywhere, but risk crowded into Alts.

Breadth was weak: Fewer alts making higher lows; more names leaking below 4h 200EMA—my “uh-oh” zone.

When the headline hit this caused forced “risk-off” selling, then thin order books did the rest.

The Whale Story (Why Everyone’s Furious)

On-chain sleuthing points to a brand-new Hyperliquid account (tied by some analysts to an old BTC “OG” wallet) that:

Loaded massive BTC/ETH shorts in the days leading up to and the final 30 minutes before the tariff announcement (≈ $1.1B notional).

Closed most shorts near the bottom for ~$190–200M in profit.

Then flip-traded around the cascade, and reportedly positioned for the bounce.

Is that insider trading? It’s definitely foreknowledge (at best). Direct proof of illegal coordination hasn’t been presented publicly. But the timing is too perfect for most people to call it luck. At minimum, one or more whales front-ran the move and extracted nine-figures while the crowd got rinsed. This suggests close ties to Gov’t, or insider info being shared. This is no different than insider trading by politicians — which happens en masse, and is seldom penalized. Why would DeFi be any different? Especially with one of the most corrupt Presidents in history sitting in office.

FYI I don’t lean to any political party; if you do, you’re allowing yourself to be part of their system of control. In Finance, and in life, it is MUCH better to be suspicious of ALL politicians, regardless of creed or party ties.

Winners vs. Victims:

Relative survivors: $BTC, $ETH, $TRX, $BNB.

TRX barely flinched (~10%) and defended its support.

BNB fell ~33%—bad, but less bad than peers.

Everything else: widespread -50% to -80%, with smalls/memes being pulled LITERALLY to zero. $PENGU was an extreme meme casualty and its Daily structure is destroyed. Price deeply underneath EMA stack.

Interpretation: In a liquidity crisis, capital flees to “blue chips” and stable ecosystems. The rest gets repriced fast.

CeFi vs DeFi: Who Broke, Who Breathed

CeFi (some majors): throttling, API hiccups, dashboards lagging. Panic worsened because traders couldn’t act.

DeFi rails (Aave/Uniswap/Hyperliquid): no downtime; smart contracts liquidated as designed. Painful? Yes. Operationally robust? Also yes.

Takeaway: The pipes worked on-chain—even if they transported carnage. My rule: if one alt looks bad, they all look bad. We had many looking bad.

Conclusion: The tariff didn’t create weakness; it accelerated it and synchronized the exit. Was it likely orchestrated / coordinated? High probability.

What I’d Tell a Friend Over Coffee:

Don’t try to buy insanity; buy the reclaim. Treat flashy wicks as liquidity events, not value unlocks. A whale with a signal (or a phone call) can move first. Your edge is process, not prediction.

Where We Go From Here

Bull case: This was a massive deleveraging event that “reset” the board; “shakeout before higher-highs.” BTC/ETH holding key long-term structure could support that view.

Bear case: Confidence damaged and lingers. Some sectors (Alts / Memes) won’t recover quickly. If macro (tariffs, policy) worsens, we could chop or bleed further.

My base case: Expect range and repair, not a V-reversal. Patience gets paid—and the second move (the reclaim) is safer than the first.

Final Word

Oct 10 wasn’t random. It was human decision → headline → leverage cascade, amplified by someone moving first. Markets will do that again, and again, and again.

We don’t need to catch the wick; we need to survive the flush and buy acceptance with defined risk. How do you do that? YOU DON’T PLAY WITH LEVERAGE.
Anyone following me for a while has heard me repeatedly explain this:

• You do not own ANYTHING on a USD marginated leverage contract.
• This means you are not “Invested” in said project.
• You are borrowing money from the CEX to gamble on price action.
• During liquidity events like this, you are first to be farmed.

Do you know who survived October 10th? SPOT INVESTORS. With the exception of maybe (up to) 4x BTC/USDT leverage traders. THAT’S IT.

This should tell you how important it is to focus your portfolio on Bitcoin, and if you dare venture into Alts, it should be long-term, macro based spot token holdings. If you don’t think a project can withstand 5-10 years, why would you buy it? Just to get rich quick? Believe me, after losing money through the COVID collapse, LUNA, FTX, and now “Tariff Tantrum,” this will not be the last time DeFi gets rugged in a single day.

Your portfolio survives when you custody tokens yourself, and when it’s not leveraged. As always; stay focused, and reduce your risk.

—DTS