Shitcoins have come back very strong, good portion of them have completely elimanted their weekend losses and are up on the week. Bitcoin looks very tired and heavy in comparison.
To me this could mean 2 things. 1) no significant retail buying is happening with BTC anymore. or 2) BTC investors know something that the shitcoins don't, which is most likely more dumps on Monday. Or I guess both.
Don't like any of those options honestly.
For me the problem is not the lack of a retail interest. The problem is that anytime the price increases, immediately it is pulled back by the bots of Binance traders.
This is a good point I want to sharpen a bit.
I keep talking about retail being missing. And I should adjust to say that I do not think retail coming back is the "fix". In fact I am worried that the current bitcoin infrastructure (Traditional Exchanges (coinbase , kraken, et al), Neo exchanges (CashApp, Strike), the Lightning and Liquid networks etc) may be in for a rather rough stress test once the public comes back to big daddy corn.
But the issue is the retail markets are still the price oracle. I am making a HUGE bet that Bitcoin trading volume is WAY underrepresented by the TRADITIONAL exchanges because they are reporting the Retail SPOT market metrics.
The Neo Exchanges are where Gen Z is buying corn (Yeees, including Robinhood... meh), and the Traditional exchanges are probably in this hidden battle with each other to satisfy a growing OTC trade.
The the illusion is the Retail spot markets... still being led by the old guard are out of whack with what is really happening.
Traditional Exchanges: Focusing on their OTC desks
Neo Exchanges: Focusing on the DCA Millennial and under buyer.
In fact the latter is most likely one of the big customers of the former. And what this means is the market makers have found yet another way to manipulate the markets because the people setting the Price are no longer really the people selling to the masses...
I helped a woman in her 60s at my church get into bitcoin (it was around 10k.. last summer-ish) and I recommended Kraken, Gemini, and CashApp. She ended up wanting to buy more than she was allowed to at CashApp, but even though that was the case she also ended up doing 90% of her "trading" there simply because it was the easiest to deal with.
The average laser-eyes Gen-Zer is DCAing in at Swan Bitcoin rather than setting up an exchange account at Gemini.
Anyway... what I am trying to figure out now is:
-How much of this weird imbalance it what is causing these swings?
-How does it flow to a better balance?
-What does that mean will happen.
And only THEN:
-What will happen when retail comes back to bitcoin?
----Where will they be buying?
----What will this stress do to the whole eco-stucture?
And so on...