Short Term Pain

With Bitcoin going from $109,000 to $78,000 and most altcoins going down 60-90%, price action is only indicating that we’re in a bear market. But price is the byproduct of many moving pieces and everyone’s top question is: “Where are we in the cycle?”.

Over the past three weeks I’ve spent my time trying to better understand where we are in the cycle and where we’re going next.

Here are my findings.

Stick with me for 10 minutes. You’ll thank me later.

Where are we, really? (Hint: It's not what you think)

Let me be straight: I don’t think the real bull run has happened. Here’s why.

Objectively, a bull market is at least characterized by the Top 10 tokens going deep into new all time highs and here only Bitcoin did that, all the rest are either under or really close to previous all time highs. So what happened?

Whether you look at SOL, ETH or DeFi tokens like UNI and LINK, none of them went into significant new highs. Sometimes assets are already fairly valued and cannot run but that’s not the case of all of the big caps. The only outlier was Bitcoin.

But Bitcoin received “special treatment” this time and if it wasn’t for ETFs and Saylor’s Strategy pouring literal billions of dollars, it would still be trading somewhere around high $60,000s/low $70,000s. As an outlier, it cannot be used to generalize where we are in the cycle.

But then you’d think: “what about agents, memes and some RWA tokens running very high? Is that not a bull run?”. Yes, it is, but these started at near-$0 valuations, their only way was up; the same happened in summer 2020 with DeFi tokens: a new narrative starting from low valuations. These are where most of the money is made but they also don’t characterize a cycle.

“But cycles have changed!”. That’s true and making money will keep getting harder as time passes but you’ll always have new tokens making it into the Top 10 and some that are already there that hold their place by running hard. None of that happened.

We’re known for our visuals, so here is the best way to explain where we are.

The bottom line: If your portfolio has multiplied and hit new highs compared to 1–3 years ago, you’re already ahead of most people and that stronger balance gives you a better starting point when the overall environment finally turns up.

When will “environment turn up”?

Now I must take you into the old, manipulated world of macroeconomics. Bear with me—understanding this can be your biggest edge.

Two key concepts:

• Risk-On: Investors hungry for gains pour into risky assets (like crypto).
• Risk-off: Investors flee risk, rushing into safe havens like bonds or gold.

A bull run needs a risk-on environment and that is mainly created by the Federal Reserve (U.S. Central Bank). Imagine a world where borrowing is so cheap that everyone rushes to build businesses and buy assets. That’s what happens when the Federal Reserve (the U.S. central bank) keeps interest rates near zero and floods the market with new dollars (quantitative easing). Crypto, stocks—everything shoots up in value. We saw this exact scenario in 2020, when the Fed printed money at 0% rates, and crypto soared.

Of course, printing too much money can push inflation dangerously high. Once inflation starts rising, the Fed steps in, slamming the brakes on “easy money” by tapering the cash flow and raising interest rates. That’s exactly what happened in November 2021, marking the top for crypto as liquidity dried up and investors went risk-off. By 2024, inflation trended down toward the Fed’s 2% target, and they gradually cut rates again (from 5.5% to 4.5%), giving markets a brief sigh of relief. AI Agents, in particular, rallied fast in this environment.

But then Trump came, and he wanted to fix a broken system, he wanted the government to spend less than it makes and export more than it imports. It’s a sound goal but his approach was very harsh on the markets. He cut government jobs in an effort to reduce the spending and put tariffs (taxes) on imports to try and rebalance things. When you add a tax on imports, price of goods in the US rises and that is seen as inflation. CPI (fancy acronym used for “inflation”) in February came in higher than expected and all investors got scared that the Fed would now stop rate cuts leading to a sharp drop in stocks and crypto as investors went risk-off.

Here’s where the story gets interesting: some data providers (like Truflation) show daily inflation readings trending downward. Even though their exact numbers aren’t too accurate, their overall trajectory usually hints at what’s coming. If inflation does cool off, the Fed will resume cutting rates, stimulating markets—and a crypto bull run.

My best theory is that Trump is trying to front-load the pain—get it over with quickly—so we don’t face a drawn-out period of economic suffering. And while that’s rough for crypto now, it sets the stage for a rebound.

Look, there’s no world where crypto dies, not from here, not after White House and nation state endorsements, crypto has always been the “logical next step” for finance. I am confident that at some point this year, interest rates will go down, the Fed likely stops reducing the liquidity in the system (ends quantitative tightening) and “maybe” goes as far as printing. Trump is aware that the US is losing to China and he’s trying their strategy of planning for the next 100 years rather than the next quarter, and while sound, I doubt the US changes its short-termism behaviour. Plus they have a severe debt problem and their only way out is inflation (inflate the currency to make the debt small relative to GDP).

But I’m not jumping all in yet because we need to see clear signs from the Fed before the market reverses completely.

How much lower?

I don’t know. No one does. Everyone has theories but clarity is lacking. So, I split things into scenarios that help me act under any condition:

1. Bearish Scenario: Stocks continue bleeding, macro uncertainty drags on, and Bitcoin goes all the way down to $65,000-$73,000. In that case ETH would go to ~$1,500 and SOL to its ~$80 support. Other Alts will continue to bleed another ~50% from here; VIRTUAL for example would go back to $0.30 where I first posted about it.
2. Average Scenario: Bitcoin keeps ranging here, maybe tests $75,000. ETH ranges in ($1,750-$2,150), and SOL trades between ($110-$130). Alts start ranging too, building accumulation regions. This scenario will see short-lived runs on some alts that end up with downside back into the lower ranges again. This scenario means most of the pain is done.
3. Bullish Scenario: Bitcoin somehow manages to close today’s candle above $90,000, bottom is in, everything runs 50-200% from here, gets a pullback, ranges a little and then we start shifting towards the “New Highs” part of the cycle and by summer the run is over.

I Don’t “Think”—I Act.

If stocks bottom and BTC breaks above $92K, I’ll lean toward the Bullish Scenario. If we see Bitcoin close a daily candle below $80K, the Bearish Scenario looks more likely. Until then, it’s Scenario 2 territory.

What will I do? Continue to observe BTC while I continue to research AI Agents as a sector, looking for newcomers because this is where the money will be whenever the environment turns up. I kid you not, I never thought we’d ever get the chance to buy AI tokens so cheap again, I mean some infrastructures like ARC are trading sub-$100m in valuations and we’re gonna go so much higher. But I won’t be risking more here because things can go down another 50% before any upside. There are more than 10 tokens I will be a buyer of, but I need better conditions to pull the trigger (of course I’ll post).

Note: I’m very happy with the developments BRAIN, LISTEN and ACOLYT are doing even though price hasn’t been encouraging. ASKJ in theory remains attractive but they haven’t pushed any significant update for weeks, I don’t like that and I’ll continue waiting and would not buy it again unless I see immense action from the team’s behalf.

Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SBR)

People underestimate how big of a deal this is, and I get it because price is down. But nation states are about to become buyers, banks will use DeFi (and agents will onboard the next billion people into this new system).

The SBR will include BTC that’s been seized from illegal activities (Silk Road and Bitfinex hack) and that’s about 200,000 BTC. But they will give back a portion to Bitfinex hack victims, we just don’t know how much yet.

The SBR can also buy new BTC, just not with taxpayer money. That could be converting selling gold to BTC, selling cheese to BTC (the US has a $3 billion reserve of cheese lol), sell bonds for BTC or use the Exchange Stabilization Fund that already has $40 billion. We don’t which, or if they’ll use any of these but there are many options and a US reserve will certainly not include less BTC than Michael Saylor has. I don’t focus on the alts for now, I also don’t think a government should own them (they don’t own stocks, why own tokens?)—I would if they talk about actually buying any in size.

It’s important that this reserve turns from being created by an Executive Order to one passed by Congress, otherwise the next president can shut it down. But that becomes relevant in 2-3 years, not now.

The Bottom Line: How to Prepare

If you take nothing else away, remember this:

• Markets move in cycles, and we’re not yet in a true bull.
• Inflation and macro are everything.
• If your portfolio has multiplied and hit new highs compared to 1–3 years ago, you’re already ahead.

Stay sharp. Stay ahead. The real bull run is still ahead of us.

(If this helped, share your take in the comments below. Your insights can shape our next discussion!)