CPI 8.2%

Woke up this morning and the market had chosen violence.

All the liquidity on Coinbase was just gone. Price was sloshing back and forth like crazy, something that we normally see during 30%-50% price swings (in both directions). Volatility is volatile.

The crazy thing about all of this is that it's very clear that Bitcoin is decoupling from the stock market. This pseudo dump only reinforces that concept. Bears dumped so so so much Bitcoin on this news, and we are basically down 3% and still firmly inside the descending triangle... pretty weird.

Even with this bad news, I'm not very convinced we will get an extension on the bear market (price of $17500 and below). And even if we do, my bottom prediction is around $16k. Whatever happens, it feels like the time to be bearish has long since past. The last opportunity to make real gains was selling at $30k back in June.

That being said I do have bills to pay, and I may have to sell the bottom to do it. Very sad. I pulled enough out today to make it a couple months, but at this stage of the game I have to wonder if it would be smarter to budget for an entire year so that I have dry powder laying around.

As I write this the dump is being bought back up to the $19k level very aggressively. I'm quite convinced that bulls are using this opportunity to scoop up massive amounts of Bitcoin without increasing the price. With all the adoption popping up around the globe, it only takes one or two billionaires buying in to stop us from crashing below $17500.

Banks and tech companies are fully capitulating. They are no longer trying to create their own solutions. CBDC is a distraction that can never happen. It has no value, and everyone knows it has no value. Hundreds of thousands of people canceled their Paypal accounts instantly on the news that the terms of service changed. Imagine what happens if they try to force a CBDC, ban cash, eliminate all bank accounts... honestly it's hard to understand why people can't see that this is a non-starter. Just because some college kids got paid to build something doesn't mean it's ever going to get used, just like enterprise blockchain. Exactly the same thing. This isn't China, and even if it was we see that BTC is still active a dozen bans later.

So the point here is that how many big banks and tech executives need to enter to hold this support? One? Two? Three? The value proposition of Bitcoin and the price have never been this divergent. Everyone is still treating it like the most risk-on asset on the planet. It is not. It's a sure thing. So many people know this (most don't), but the majority are too afraid of this rampaging bear market to pull the trigger. These things can turn around quickly.

At this stage in the game we have to be prepared for a very poor-performing Q4. The federal reserve is committed to crashing this plane into the mountain no matter how many cracks in the foundation appear.

The ice is cold!

When the economy falls into a frozen lake, hot damn it is not going to be pretty. The FED will not reverse course until the world economy is completely fucked and it's too late to fix it. What else would we expect from an institution that claimed to sell all their stocks at the tippy top of the market because of a "conflict of interest". They are all blatantly insider trading the crash that they created. Should have been more obvious I suppose. Everyone at the FED sells their stocks... maybe you should sell too. Oops.

2023: The year of the maximalist.

I made this prediction over a year ago, and I still think it might play out considering everything I'm seeing right now. Do not be surprised if BTC continues to trade sideways as it sucks up liquidity from alts and increases dominance. When we trade at rock-bottom levels this is something that tends to happen. Bitcoin is king in the bear market. Balance accordingly.

When your lifeboat looks like this, you know you won't be riding in style... but it sure beats drowning in the ocean. Bitcoin is a lot like that. Crypto needs a helluva lot more infrastructure. It lacks any and all polish. Still early.

Oh No, it's dying!

Look at the chart. Bears just got fleeced. 8.2% CPI is TERRIBLE news when speculating on what the FED will do next. Again, this market has proven three times now that this level has infinite support and buying power. The buy wall is invisible, but it does seem to be there. Of course I do have a habit of eating my words hours after I make a speculative post like this, so I guess we'll just have to see. Ultimately I'm just waiting for that damn triangle to come to a point. I can't believe we are still stuck inside that beast for four months now. Wild. Only a week or two to go now.

Of course the chance that we just keep trading sideways is pretty strong. Hard to imagine making any significant gains in this environment. Simply not crashing 30% from here is a gain at this point.

Conclusion

The CPI report is disappointing, but not entirely surprising. Nothing the FED does is going to fix the situation we find ourselves in. They are insider trading the dump that they created. They will push it down until something big breaks. It won't be long now.

Now is potentially the time to rebalance a good chunk of assets into Bitcoin. We can't trust the alts in a climate like this. Anyone who survived the 2018 bear market knows quite well how BTC is king of the bear market. Now is one of the worst times to get greedy and employ overleveraged positions. Do not be that degen who increases their risk here so they can "make it all back and then some". If you want to make it all back and then some: get more Bitcoin (in a hardware wallet). Guaranteed. You can then rotate back into alts in 12 months or whatever when we are out of these woods. That's my strategy anyway... and it's one that has worked quite well and got me the majority of my Hive stack.