Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.
GM!
Today’s top news:
The bull hopium may have just run out.
Bitcoin dropped more than 7% over the weekend, sliding from around $84,000 to briefly touching $75,500 (now back over $78,000).
The move pushed BTC below its True Market Mean ($80,500) for the first time in 30 months (the last time was late 2023 when Bitcoin traded at just $29,000).
This led to ~$5B in liquidations across the weekend, almost all longs.
Ethereum got hit hardest with $1.15B in ETH positions wiped out as ETH fell as much as 17% at one point.
Solana lost nearly $200M in liquidations and also lost its $100 handle.
So what caused the dump?
But overall, it seems like the simplest explanation is that the crypto 4-year cycle is simply playing out again.
“Bitcoin topped on apathy and has had a slow bleed.
Silver topped on euphoria and had a sharp correction.
Good to understand market behavior after different types of tops.” - Benjamin Cowen
This is the largest liquidation cascade since October 10, when $19B got wiped in a single day.
The difference?
October 10 sparked conspiracy theories about Binance and broken market structure.
This time, the culprit is less clear but may simply boil down to: too many longs, not enough buyers.
The irony?
While prices tumble, the institutions are still building.
Coinbase found that 71% of institutional investors believe BTC is undervalued between $85K-$95K, and 80% said they’d hold or increase exposure after a 10% decline.
So where does this leave us?
My gut read is it gets worse before it gets better. I was a staunch “4 year cycle” denier, but the evidence is piling up on the other side. Bitcoin and majors look like they’re in a bear market trend.
We will likely know more by the end of this week…
