Is This The Crypto Bear Market?
523: How To Survive The Current Crypto Market
Stop.
Put down the tequila soda or Modelo and make sure you read this before Saturday night’s festivities begin in earnest if you have crypto exposure.
I would say good evening but we are witnessing a brutal sell off in crypto after an incredibly volatile week in equity and metal markets.
HIDE YO KIDS HIDE YO WIFE BECAUSE THEY LIQUIDATING ERRBODY OUT HERE.
Given we are currently the #2 crypto publication on Substack I feel I owe it to all of you to drop a post over the weekend and review where we are, where I think we’re going, and how to deal with this turbo dump.
If you have been around in crypto for awhile none of this probably phases you. Well maybe it does a little bit since there seems to be no bottom and there hasn’t been a single recovery bounce for months now.
I’m just playing (kind of).
More importantly, if you have followed the recommended strategies we talk about here you are probably hurting less than others and you’re less emotional about this move. That’s always been the goal long term. I do not promise snake oil 20xs or 100% gains in hours.
I give out basic pointers that have helped me survive and make money for 7 years now.
If you anchor with BTC/ETH (which are obviously the less risky plays over time compared to alts/memes) it makes it MUCH easier to weather the volatility.
This isn’t supposed to be comfy or fun, there’s no denying it’s shitty.
Today what I want to spend a good amount of time talking about is the current state of the market. There are a bunch of updates we need to examine, some concerning, and some less so:
$230,000,000,000 got wiped out from crypto market cap today - liquidations were vicious
$2.5B in long liquidations have taken place, more than the Covid crash and FTX debacle
Bitcoin has dipped below $77,500 and Ethereum is now below $2,400
All gains made in Bitcoin since President Trump took office are now erased
Tom Lee’s Bitmine is sitting on a $6 billion unrealized loss on its ETH holdings
It’s chaos across the board. Garret Bullish, a trader who absolutely printed on the 10/10 liquidation fest, got completely bodied by this move down (see below).
So yeah your night could be worse.
Polymarket still has a 25% chance at present of Bitcoin surpassing $130,000 in 2026.
While there may be some new aspects and considerations for this move down, many things about crypto haven’t changed.
You are seeing immense panic. You are seeing people thrown in the towel and give up. Anger. Frustration. Anxiety about where we go next is all over the X and internet timeline.
These moments always feel unique when you’re inside them or losing. The narratives shift, the excuses change, the reasons sound smarter, but the emotional pattern is the same.
When price moves fast and liquidity disappears the space’s confidence evaporates. Crypto veterans know the pattern.
But here’s the thing kings. This is when weak positioning gets exposed. This is when leveraged degens get severely punished.
This is when your conviction is tested.
If you remain bullish on the space, these events are gifts. Even prolonged bear markets are gifts.
Over the past few years, crypto has moved from a true fringe trade to something the largest institutions in the world now openly build around. Spot Bitcoin ETFs didn’t just get approved, they became some of the fastest-growing ETFs in financial markets history. Major asset managers didn’t dip their toes in hesitantly they cannonballed with fat stacks of capital, billions of dollars.
Stablecoins went from an experiment to real financial plumbing, settling trillions of dollars a year and quietly becoming the rails for global dollar demand. Tokenization (which I am still bullish as all hell on) moved off the whiteboard and onto balance sheets, with traditional finance firms actively putting real assets on chain.
On the infrastructure side, custody improved, compliance matured, and the blowups that had to happen already happened. Excess leverage got purged. Bad actors continue to get wiped. The space survived events that were supposed to kill it, multiple times over the last 10 years.
That’s the tell.
Crypto doesn’t survive because it’s popular. It survives because it’s useful, resilient, and increasingly integrated into the traditional financial system, whether people like it or not.
Tonight we’re looking at:
Why we are dumping, who is selling, is this a bear market?
Risk management and when to cut/vs. hold positions
My strategy and moves today for this market
The trends to monitor closely moving forward
Let’s dive right in.
Going to be a sleepless weekend for some….
What is Going On?
Let’s address the elephant in the room. After its insane run to all time highs, crypto has lost momentum.