For those who were trading in 2017 or earlier bull markets this may be obvious, but these kinds of corrections are typically driven by overleveraged longs, not whales dumping on you. That hasn’t started yet. Let me break down why it happens and why it is worse on the weekends.

I should probably have data to back this up, but I haven’t kept up to date with the latest trading data so much of this is based on intuition and experience trading through 2016-2018. If you have data that invalidates this please provide it, happy to be wrong here!
Firstly in an early bull market you have some OG holders taking profit around previous ATH, they have “learned their lesson” and are trying to not get rekt like last time. Once they finish taking some profits or hedging they are riding this up to multiples of previous ATH.
For example I sold around 5-10% of my ETH into stables between $500-$1200, over $1,200 you would need to claw it out of my cold dead hands before we hit $3k. If we don’t get there this cycle (we will) then I will just keep holding. I know a lot of people who did the same.
The problem with this is that the new money coming in and pushing the price up is highly leveraged, and the people with the most conviction are mainly holding and so while they might buy some dips they probably don’t have the dry powder to soak up huge liquidated positions.
That is why you get these very sharp corrections in a bull market, it is not people who held for years suddenly capitulating in a directional bull market, it is just longs being liquidated or delevered.
The most interesting thing about this BTC movement is that it appears to have been kicked off by institutional buying. If that is true what we can guess is they are not buying with leverage, and they are convicted enough they are not unwinding a position based on a -5% move.
That is why all of these deleveraging events keep getting bought up, but @fintechfrank is right, tomorrow (if we don’t bounce by then) will be a big test of that theory. If this dip is bought up Monday morning US time that would be strong evidence in favour.
Many of you remember this gem of a tweet: https://t.co/wpKpYWxlBp the question is why was I so wrong? Mainly because I kind of gave up on the institutions are coming narrative in 2018.
If institutions have actually arrived, we should see lower volatility during weekdays and high volatility on the weekends which over the last few weeks has started to become a pattern.
There is also a chance there is some unexplained magical process going on that lags the halvening by like six months that causes BTC to rally massively. I was never 100% convinced of this, but I mean three times now…
I’m confident the DeFi rally of summer 2020 would have picked up steam again this year without a massive BTC rally adding tailwinds, but this is obviously hugely helpful to both ETH and DeFi generally.
The key takeaway here is that if you are a new entrant to the market or you have been here for a while don’t be spooked by a -10% daily candle. While we all carry a little PTSD from late the 2018 capitulation it is important not to overreact to intraday moves, or even intraweek.
Make sure you are neither over-leveraged or over-exposed so you can comfortably ride out a few volatile days!

More from Bitcoin

The defi matrix

As each asset class goes on-chain, it can be stored in a digital wallet. And it can be traded against other such assets. Not just cryptocurrencies, but national digital currencies, personal tokens, etc.

We’re about to enter an age of global monetary competition.

The defi matrix is the table of all pair wise trades. It’s the fiat/stablecoin pairs, the fiat/crypto pairs, the crypto/crypto pairs, and much more besides.

Uniswap-style automatic market making for everything. Every possession you have, constantly marked to market by ~2040.

More liquidity, less currency?

This is an interesting point. Cash doesn’t make you money. In fact, it can lose you money in an inflating environment.

Reliable, 24/7 mark-to-market on everything is hard — but if achieved, means less % of assets in cash.


AMMs boost BTC. Here's why.

- All assets trade against all assets in the defi matrix
- Automated market makers give liquidity for rare pairs
- Everything is marked-to-market 24/7
- Value of cash drops, as you can liquidate instantly
- The new no-op is to keep your assets in BTC

Basically, automated market makers like @Uniswap boost BTC in the long term, because they allow *everything* to be priced in BTC terms, and *anyone* to switch out of BTC into their asset of choice.

Though in practice this may mean WBTC/RenBTC [or ETH!] rather than BTC itself.
$BTC: Two Bitcoin FUDs to address this Thanksgiving weekend:

1. China PlusToken FUD: Old news. Please see linked thread.

2. U.S. Treasury FUD: Read thread below...


1/ These news are much more relevant, as they imply severe trade-offs for people who want to keep their bitcoins undoxxed, with the cost and risks of doing so. I would not disqualify the tweet as mere FUD in the sense that what he posted is false. It should be taken seriously.

2/ For all we know, his decision of making it public before TG weekend may come out of the urgency of informing CT of a poignant anti-Bitcoin move by a Trump administration trying to cut lose ends before leaving office—not just "price manipulation" as I've seen suggested around.

3/ It implies the acceleration of a process already planned for for months in advance, not something he just came up with to "crash the market."

4/ In practicality, assuming this passes, it will have two major consencuences:

a. Armstrong's analysis is correct. And I would go further in saying, this regulation would leave the U.S. severely handicapped to continue to be the leader in the cryptocurrency industry worldwide.
1/ #Bitcoin FUD-busting time!

claim: bitcoin ownership is heavily concentrated.

@business published an article claiming "2% of accounts control 95% of all Bitcoin" 🤣

truth: the facts, my friends, simple don't line up. let's dive in!

2/ interrogating on-chain addresses is tricky.

address =/ account.

one person can control multiple addresses.

one address can hold bitcoin belonging to multiple ppl.

exchanges and trading firms will have addresses with large balances that represent client funds.

3/ the fine folks @glassnode published an excellent analysis of on-chain address balances in January

the ownership distribution of bitcoin among wallets is actually much more diverse than one might expect.

full piece here:
https://t.co/n5IdIQdNoA


4/ 31% of BTC is held in addresses not identified as exchange wallets.

these are likely institutions, funds, custodians, and OTC desks.

our analysis at @CoinSharesCo indicates >15% of all bitcoin is held in third party custody, including @coinbase and our own @KomainuCustody

5/ in fact, between asset managers @Grayscale ($36B in BTC) and our @xbtprovider ($4B in BTC), 4% of bitcoin is locked up by fund providers and asset managers!

our @CoinSharesCo research team publishes an EXCELLENT weekly report on fund flows and AUMs -

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