Summary Bitcoin is nearing a terminal high around $100,000, driven by market sentiment and the halving event, but a crash is imminent. The Trump news cycle has buoyed Bitcoin, but this effect is fading; expect a pre-empted peak before the inauguration. I sold my Bitcoin near $100,000, am still cautiously holding Ethereum, but Solana is the one to watch. Market peaks are fleeting and often untradeable - the tradable level will be much lower. Altcoin and meme coin frenzies signal the cycle's endgame. I drew this chart here in July . ADVFN I wrote: “However, I have to say there is a solid chance for the longed-for breakout. Firstly, a Trump pump has legs if he continues to lead the polls. Then there is in the market itself the sort of calm in the crypto news-flow that suggests the market is naturally bullish, not artificially pumped by boosters exulting crypto at every turn.” The reason I bring this up is because what I’m now predicting is this cycle will go into reverse after the coming high is hit. I’m not a permanent Bull, and while I’ve been right so far if I’m correct about what is coming next, we are in the final run and then after a terminal high, we are in for that famous Bitcoin (BTC-USD) crash action we should all be familiar with. …but not just yet. So, Bitcoin has as near as it could, hit $100,000 a coin (Friday, 22nd November 2024). This has been the destination for the last leg of the Bitcoin cycle for a long time. The terminus is possibly $120,000, but $100,000 is the level where the top is approaching. Markets love round numbers and $100,000 is very round, but the basis of the price goes back to the halving when Bitcoin’s new supply halves and the value consequentially doubles. All this is not fate, prices for assets are the outcome of people’s beliefs and intent. Whatever the reason, here we are around $100,000 a B itcoin because of the crypto Bitcoin brand and there is still likely gas in the tank to push it higher. So what next? Here is my road map. ADVFN Now the more aggressive true believers will see this: ADVFN It could happen. The idea will be that Bitcoin will continue to rise up to the inauguration, but there are problems with that argument. Most people think the target is the moon when a bubble hits its peak; it never is, and then the asset tanks. Bitcoin is approaching that catharsis and everyone will soon be chanting $1,000,000 a Bitcoin as the price then rolls over. The very top as seen on the chart or in the records can be much higher than the tradable level because the final move lasts minutes, even seconds, and you are not there to catch it. So the high might be mighty, but it was not actually tradable. The tradable level will be much lower. If everyone thinks the high will be around the Trump inauguration, it will be pre-empted, so the high will be earlier. The Trump news cycle, which is buoying Bitcoin, is about to get stale. Famous last words possibly. Normally, I get out (too) early; I sold my B itcoin on Saturday, 23rd November, at around the $100,000 area. I will run my laggard Ethereum (ETH-USD) position to see if it runs up in the final phase of the cycle and a few weeks beyond the Bitcoin top as it did last time. However, Solana (SOL-USD) is looking like the cool kid on the blockchain right now, so this Ethereum play might prove fruitless. Unlike many, the higher the market goes the less enthusiastic I become. It’s a weird but profitable foible and right now, I don’t care much about crypto, it was much more exciting when it was cheap and succulent. The altcoin insanity in the last cycle, is, in this incarnation, ‘meme coins’ and I admit to being too old and dumb to play these too new and dumb ‘assets.’ They have explosive upsides/downsides, but I’ve had enough of that with my malformed tip here on Bakkt (BKKT), which I was lucky enough to escape this week with a tidy profit rather than a thumbing loss after rumors of a Trump takeover launched the stock price on the sort of moonshot desperate underwater speculators dream of. Thank you, Donald, for that, but being right for the wrong reasons is no comfort. The audience in markets has a high element of outright gamblers. Gambling is a use case, but when the trading game becomes a pure gambling skill game like ‘crab racing,’ it is not for me. It is, however, emblematic of the last leg of the Bitcoin cycle and, without doubt, the basic premise that BKKT was crypto and crypto would be wild did play out, if not in the way it should have. So, as we approach the final weeks of this cycle, remember to try not to ride your Hodl all the way up and then back down again. The only reason to hold through the next crypto winter might be your capital gain tax situation. Otherwise, only the most hardened crypto ‘never sell and die a B itcoin billionaire’ type should forget about trying to go into ‘fiat’ at the top. We are finally near this Bitcoin cycle’s end game. Get your plan in and try to stick to it through all the craziness coming up.
