Will BTC return to $90,000? In-depth analysis of the market trend after this Friday's Crypto Summit

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MarsBit
03-05
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Here is the English translation of the text, with the specified terms translated as requested: The editor's note: The market sentiment has been excessively sold off due to negative factors such as the SOL crime incident and the BYBIT hacker attack, with the crypto assets being hit the earliest. The tariff issue has been misinterpreted as impacting BTC, and although the market has been traumatized in the short term, the ETF capital inflow remains stable, and BTC still has the characteristic of "chaotic hedging". The market was hit after the Trump trade news, and is expected to rebound before Friday. If the tariffs remain deadlocked or an agreement is reached, BTC may see some relief. In addition, the market has priced in the Friday event too low, and the actual impact may be greater. After a short-term correction, BTC is expected to return to the $90,000 level. He Yi first opens by stating his position: He is long, and has been long from a higher position, so he may be biased (although they have added a lot of positions at the bottom). Yesterday, they mentioned that the 82 level was an interesting point last night, and it still is, but as the price goes up or down, the risk range will also change accordingly. Here, He Yi will share some thoughts on why this position has a certain degree of asymmetry, which is usually difficult to obtain. They believe that the current market situation is quite complex (and unique), as multiple unique factors are intertwined, putting pressure on pricing. Therefore, to predict what might happen in the future, we must first understand how we got to this point. Since He Yi tweeted about "SBR-Lite-Lite" on January 23, he believes they have been more inclined to short (which needs further verification) than others, and this position is based solely on the view that the natural decline of the market alone, rather than other factors, is sufficient to drive the price down. Of course, there were also many positive factors at the time, such as the FASB 121 accounting standard adjustment and the rising interest in stablecoin payments, but He Yi believes these had relatively limited actual impact and were unable to shake the capital flows (Saylor's buying demand + ETF inflows) that previously supported prices above $100,000. The upcoming tariff policy in early February further reinforced this view, and they actually underestimated the market noise this could bring, and the reaction of digital assets was quite violent, with a 10% sharp drop (ETH fell even more). This range is very critical, and it is worth noting that during this period, the stock market did not see a significant correction, and the ETF inflows on the first trading day after the weekend played a significant buffering role. Subsequently, the market saw higher-than-expected CPI data. They believe that due to the gamma effect, vanna, and charm of the options market on the stock market, the market pricing will not deteriorate significantly before OPEX (option expiration date). They expect OPEX to be the key point for the market's decline, driving the release of the previously suppressed downward trend. The following week (February 25), the CME futures basis began to collapse, which caught their attention. He Yi believes that many market analysts have wrongly believed that this change has little impact on the market. However, the actual situation is: "Looking back at the market volatility last year (but unable to effectively break through 50K-60K), the CME futures basis was still relatively high (reaching double digits), and the domestic investors (natives) were overall more short-biased than the traditional institutions (Trad) (this can be seen from the stability of the basis or changes in interest rates). Now the situation seems to have reversed, with traditional institutions withdrawing, while the perpetual contract funding rate remains above 10%. In my view, this misalignment is very worthy of attention, as the main demand driving the price increase was largely dominated by traditional institutions in the second half of 2024. If this capital flow is declining (affected by various factors), then this capital may first not flow back, and second, it suggests that the price may pull back to its previous levels. In other words, traditional institutions may be more inclined to collect profits in the first half of 2024, rather than making directional bets. By the fourth quarter of 2024, as the basis rises, they may start to increase their directional bets, and the situation is now starting to reverse. ... This may indicate that the decline in BTC's demand is faster than expected, and we may need to reconsider including BTC in the short portfolio." It is worth noting that the withdrawal signal from traditional institutions indicates a depletion of market liquidity and an overall decline in risk appetite. This ultimately led to the LTF (long-term trend) support level we believe - slightly below $80,000, which is also the position where we chose to rebuild the short. As an early trend judgment, they believe the market momentum has been oversold. Recent negative events (PF SOL crime, BYBIT ETH hacker attack) have exacerbated this situation, although these events are not the main driving factors. They chose to go long last weekend based on the following judgments: "We mentioned before that the divergence between the crypto community/retail traders and passive capital is widening. This divergence has been an important feature of the US stock market over the past five years, and the crypto market is now showing a similar trend. ETF capital actively bought after the massive selloff, while domestic investors dared not enter the market. This is not simply a 'event-driven' trade, but a continuation and evolution of the change in market structure. I believe that if this event had occurred in any previous week, the market's reaction would have been more positive. The current cautious sentiment (although reasonable) is mainly due to the losses caused by leveraged long positions. Due to the fact that the weekend market is mainly dominated by domestic investors, while the trading of traditional institutions mainly occurs on weekdays, the vacuum effect of this capital structure makes the short-term market trend more biased. The government window's performance this time is the first time a. a 'sell the news' event has occurred, and b. profit-taking occurred in the market 5 days before the event, making the risk-reward ratio of going long more attractive at the current level. I don't think Saylor will announce a large-scale buy-in, or just a symbolic $50 million-$100 million. But the market may see a brief rebound, prompting him to further deploy capital, especially with the narrative of SBR progress being strengthened. Most people may not have realized that Trump has announced a change in the arrangement of the committee/working group, switching to regular summits for supervision. Therefore, the current market level (roughly 95/2.5/180) may become a natural reversion point, and the market may digest and reprice as this news spreads. From the perspective of traditional institutions, the tariff issue in March/April has already been fully digested by the market, so any delay or improvement (such as an agreement, a rate below 25%, etc.) will bring upside potential. In short, I believe the market has already priced in the worst-case scenario. And Z/Trump's display shows his toughness on foreign affairs, which may prompt Mexico/Canada to compromise on the tariff issue, bringing positive news. Bessent mentioned in a weekend interview the strategy of lowering inflation by controlling the 10-year Treasury yield. Furthermore, I believe the Mexico/Canada tariff issue will become a barometer for the future trend of China-US tariffs, so there may be further upside potential in the short term. The market's overreaction to NVDA's earnings (previously seen as a liquidation event), combined with CTA position adjustments and month-end rebalancing (LOs selling $6 billion leading to momentum fatigue), have together created a 'perfect storm' that has ultimately driven a significant market rebound." They had already positioned themselves in advance at the final stage of the market's negative momentum (although early entry may also be a mistake). The extension of the tariff policy has increased the weight of the China tariff issue, which has been quickly digested by the market, leading to a 10% correction in NVDA yesterday. I believe this is a highly emotional reaction, and the market still underestimates the correlation between NVDA and BTC - these two are actually the core pillars of the current risk asset market. At the same time, the market has also ignored the US's continued investment in the semiconductor sector, which may provide some buffer for the market. Their long safety margin is mainly based on the following aspects:

1. The market is currently not pricing in the upcoming summit. This summit is likely to disappoint the market, but we initially assumed that there would be no substantive progress in Trump's first 100 days (he is more focused on foreign policy). Therefore, we need to re-evaluate the current pricing logic. 2. The market is inefficient in pricing the tariff issue. (1) The impact of tariffs has not been fully reflected in the US stock/S&P index (the market still believes to some extent that Trump is just posturing). However, we believe the impact of tariffs is mainly a distributional effect, rather than a direct shock - this has been reflected in high-risk assets such as cryptocurrencies, such as the market volatility in the first weekend of February and yesterday. (2) BTC has always been a "chaotic hedge tool" for the market, falling first when geopolitical tensions escalate, but then rebounding strongly and stabilizing in relative strength. Our research shows that BTC exhibited a similar pattern during the China-US trade war in 2018/19. For example, after the US raised tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods to 25% in May 2019, BTC rose from $5,500 to $8,000. In June, as more tariff threats emerged, BTC reached a high of $13,800. This shows that the correlation between BTC and SPX was broken during the trade war, and regression analysis also supports this conclusion - the correlation was much weaker compared to the 50-70 range in the past 2-4 years. 3. ETF fund flows remain stable, with a slowdown in outflows. The market performance last Friday and Monday shows that outflows are decreasing. Last Tuesday and Wednesday, there was over $1 billion in outflows (mainly short positions), but yesterday only about 1/10 of that volume triggered a similar market reaction, indicating that the market has released a lot of "hot air" overall. Currently, the open interest (OI) and price structure of BTC, ETH and SOL show that the market has returned to pre-election, or even pre-Trump hype, levels, meaning a lot of speculative capital has exited. The previous "glass ceiling" may now become a "glass floor", with support likely in the $70 range, provided there are no new negative catalysts. 4. Saylor did not buy last week, but we expect this situation will not continue. His silence may only be temporary, and once he resumes buying, it will provide additional support to the market. Conclusion: In the 80-85 range, we still maintain a long position and believe the market has the potential to return to the 90 range, with an overall upward bias being more operationally viable, especially given the current high volatility in market sentiment. The expected downward trend this week may reverse (it may even start to stabilize today, as many views were written at lower levels), but it will not return to last week's levels, and a clearer direction can be seen around Thursday/Friday. The market has been impacted by Trump's trade policy, and the summit may be more procedural than substantive progress. More specific views: BTC will not benefit from the tariff game, and further escalation may be net negative, and it should not be expected to exhibit negative Beta (i.e., move inversely to the US stock market). Momentum (momo) has been oversold, especially for those assets that were hit earliest. The outflow of basis trading capital is mainly a redistribution, affected by yield compression and the end of the "honeymoon period" (i.e., the market has accepted that there will be no substantive support from the government in the short term). This may not be a temporary phenomenon. If tariffs are just a protracted tug-of-war or ultimately resolved, that would be a mitigating factor for BTC. The news on Friday was mispriced by the market, more likely a "nothingburger". The current market is giving a probability of around 5-10%, but it should be closer to 25-30%.

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Disclaimer: The content above is only the author's opinion which does not represent any position of Followin, and is not intended as, and shall not be understood or construed as, investment advice from Followin.
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