March 2020 was also technically still in a bear market, at least with a lower macro high and a 50% drop already. So although a rare liquidity event, it's not something to wait patiently for in a bull market.
I agree with quite a bit of what you said in your post, but the technical definition of a bear market in terms of bitcoin can go fuck itself, as far as I am concerned.
That's fair enough, given in the
long long-term, Bitcoin has never been in a bear market you could argue. It's never
really broken below the 200 Week MA.
Fuck that.
I am not saying that either.
Fair enough, guess I misinterpreted what you were saying. Apologies if so.
I will repeat just for the sake of clarity - and currently we have 1) stock to flow, 2) four-year fractal and 3) exponential s-curve adoption based on network effects and Metcalfe principles..
Sure I think these are the most valid, but regardless of bull & bear market. That's also why I'm willing to let positions drop in half or further when I'm wrong, based on the fundamentals.
I like to trade from time to time, but otherwise am a patient person. As long as you don't sell Bitcoin at a loss, then you don't lose fiat value as far as I'm concerned.
Not investing or trading with more than you can afford to lose is obviously also a good start as well...
I guess I mean mid-term bear market was what made the covid crash possible, whereas the technicals are very different right now.
Yes.. I quibble with a lot of folks about this kind of terminology in terms of do we call corrections or short term to medium term momentum as bear markets.. and I am not going to do it.. .
Probably best ignored then. The truth is, it's only after the fact when things become clearer. To me the March crash looked like end of bull market, even if temporarily, after it didn't look like it so much.
Sure from time to time, we may well be in correction mode that can be described in a variety of ways, but I doubt that it is very helpful at all to be describing the overall dynamics of bitcoin as bouncing between bull and bear and bull and all of that, unless it is attempted to be captured within already existing data that has so far followed four year cycles..
Of course I couldn't agree more, definitions of bull & bear markets are effectively short-term concepts compared to the longer-term concepts of Bitcoin's cycles.
and surely of course, we may well not continue to follow such 4-year cycles, but personally, I am not going to prematurely assume them to be dead, pronounce them as dead or even use terminology that bounces back and forth between bear and bull markets that ends up downplaying actual BTC price dynamics that I believe to continue to exist.
Me neither, until I see a valid contradiction in Bitcoin's price and it's cycles, which has yet to be seen.
I had stated this a number of times that it seems that bitcoin has been in a bull market from about April 2019 and known to be in a bullmarket as of about May 2019.. we have not bounced out of such bull market even if there were several pretty decently large corrections along the way, including in late 2019 and then again March 2020..
I can see value in each side of the theory really.
I don't see much value in your supposed perspective of being above and beyond it all and being able to supposedly see both sides.
Far from it. I don't consider myself to be above and beyond, that's probably a misinterpretation of what I meant... no offence taken either.
I have my own beliefs - for example - what happened in 2020 with the covid crash. But for me this doesn't nullify the relevance of other theories, as I prefer to remain open-minded. Prior to the crash, I considered bear market was over, but in hindsight I felt I'd overlooked a key variable that had yet to confirm a "full blown" bull market I believe, as was lagging.
Namely, that the 21 Week MA was crossing below the 50 Week MA, after a bull-cross the year before. At the time it looked like nothing more than key support, that at the time I was heavily buying, but in reality dropping down to $8.5K wasn't what caused this type of "death cross", it was based on the over-extension of price from the 2019 move, that drew down the shorter-term MA below the 50 Week. Indicating a further correction was likely, or consolidation at minimum, which is exactly what happened.
I'm by no means trying to claim that dropping to sub $4K was inevitable, but by means of very simple long-term moving averages, a further decline was expected, or at least the most probable outcome.
This is exactly what happened...
Yes there was a liquidation of longs, so we can easily blame this, but there was also a reason for this over-leverage - due to a rapid increase in Bitcoin's price during what I believe was still a bear market, based on shorts liquidations. I'm not even suggesting this was a good sell signal either, as the bull signal (the bullish cross later) arrived at $11.6K, significantly higher than the $8.5K sell signal. Even buying the re-test of the 21 Week MA, which is what I did with the last of my capital, was around $10K. Notably again higher by 20% than the delayed(?) sell signal of $8K. Sometimes it's less about sell signals, and more about "remaining cautious" signals. Kind of like recently with price getting rejection at new ATH, then building resistance at $60K. It didn't suggest to sell, but that better discounts were likely. Fortunately I didn't make this mistake again.
You could argue that the rejection from $9.8K was the first sell signal, but I find with a rising 50 Week MA is a weak argument and only applicable to the short-term of buying the dip again, await discount. The point is there was sufficient data to remain cautious at these $8K levels before price dropped in half, at least if you were buying the dip, which I promptly ignored based on the belief the bear market was over. In hindsight, it's one of the few times I wish I had bothered to listen to the likes of Tone Vays who remained confident that based on the MA movements, price had yet to confirm a bull market, and thus a further drop was most likely. In hindsight it also seems relatively obvious. Price only moved 4x based on liquidation of shorts, then drops 75% based on liquidation of longs. Some pretty simplistic balance being met it seems.
It's not like he was wrong and got it right eventually, it's that he was patiently waiting to be proven wrong, but instead price failed to hold above the 21 Week MA and thus dropped considerably. Then price failed to move above this MA and dropped even further. He was waiting for confirmation that the bear market was over basically, and with his conservative outlook it wasn't by any means. Call it nonsense if you like, sure. But he had a good reason for calling for a re-test of the 200 Week MA, like in 2015, based on a specific theory related to long-term MA movements and an over-extension of price. - not blind hopium. He was convinced the 4 year cycle would play out, that a similar double bottom pattern would occur 2 years after the top, which is more of less exactly what happened based on Bitcoin's regular cycle.
He was ready and willing to acknowledge being wrong if price held the 21 Week MA back in 2019, which is didn't, as well as break back above it, which it didn't. His conviction of scepticism therefore understandably remained stronger. So fair play really, he stuck to the cycle theory and it worked out for him. So I'm more open-minded these days to alternative theories to my mine basically!
A 75% drop in a bull market ($14K to $3.5K) doesn't sound bullish to me, but each to their own.
Yes... that's how it works sometimes... In this particular case, we did have a rise from $4,200 to $13,880 from April to June 2019 that started out the being in a bull market assessment, and then a drop down to $3,850 (about 72% down from the top and about 50% down in a day or two) in the liquidation crash of March 2020.... and yep.. we should be able to still assess that we were in a bull market the whole time, whether you want to call it something else or assess it as something else or not..
Indeed, that is sometimes how price movements go - but imo - for good reason. Over-leveraged shorts get's rekt™, then over-leveraged longs get's rekt™. Like a seesaw until a trend confirmation.
I believe that your attempt to call it something else is going to lead you to worse results in terms of knowing where we are at, how we got here or where we might be going.. .. but hey do whatever you like..
That's ok, I don't mind you calling it nonsense. But this exact type of theory and thinking is why I was over-exposed by $8K, as opposed to $5.5K. So I'll definitely do me at this point
Obviously I didn't lose any money, has had long-term price conviction and ultimately was accumulating for the long-term, but even so...
- and I could give less than two shits if you want to proclaim "technically" blah blah blah -
You mean like technically
"in a bull market from about April 2019 and known to be in a bullmarket as of about May 2019" which is what you claimed ? Sounds like a technicality to me
You are the one that used the word "technically" because you seemed to have been wanting to place bitcoin into some kind of traditional market definition of what is a bull market or what is a bear market.. and I already asserted what my assessment was.. whether that fits into some alternative technicality or not, I have already sufficiently explained it.. so no need to attempt to play gotcha.. because I already sufficiently explained what I meant. .whether you agree or not..
Personally I find that it's always been possible to place Bitcoin into traditional definitions of bull & bear markets, even more so to current price and increased exposure within these markets. Traditional markets are based on speculation, psychology and financial instruments to support that. I don't see Bitcoin being much different. Yes there are halving events, stock to flow, log growth etc, but I don't find it invalidates basic interpretations of bull vs bear, which with MAs and such naturally follow these theories. In fact, after the halving last year, the supply shock coincided
perfectly with traditional concepts of a bull market and a 4 four cycle, it didn't negate it. Shortly after, the long-term downtrend and lower high trajectory of $20K and $14K was broken. Long-term MAs turned completely bullish. Total coincidence, I think not.
it largely seems to me that those kinds of assessments are way too likely to cause people to misunderstand what the fuck is going on, including but not limited to a kind of exponential s-curve adoption that has not really stopped in it's Uppity since April 2019...
I'd argue considering price to still be in the bear market during the covid drop would have been quite helpful, instead of thinking that a bull market had just ended. Then more people would have been confident enough to buy the 200 Week MA, knowing it was simply the second re-test of long-term support, exactly like in 2015 (even if price structure was different), rater than thinking a bear market had started that would take a(another) year to cover. There are people who prefer the complexity of bull to bear bull or whatever, than the simplistically of bear market over, even if that's what happened. To each their own I say.
I don't see how your explanation helps... but I do see people involved in bitcoin price analysis flip flopping around a lot in terms of where they assert that we are at.. which seems confusing to me, and I point out such confusion when I see such confusion taking place... and just to repeat myself, I have been asserting that we have been in a bull market since about May 2019 (that had started in about April 2019).. and I don't see any subsequent BTC price movements that would have knocked us out of having had been in a bull market since then.. so yeah at any time we could attempt to reassess the situation and to change the assessment, but until then, we are still in a bull market and have been in a bull market even though there were various decently sized corrections along the way.. as you have noticed and noted.
I guess this comes down to basing the bull vs bear market within 4 year cycle, that of a double bottom after 2 years, which traditional indicators such as MAs conveniently supported.
Fortunately he accepts how wrong he was about buying $4K and selling $5K (lol), instead of selling >$10K (as a trader of course). Then he would have 2x more BTC than currently, given that he did manage to put his hodl stack back in at $4.5K. But the fact he sold a lot of that stack between $6K-8K means he wasn't really getting much of a good deal out of the price swings either.
Yes.. differences of opinions and approaches to portfolio management.
Yes indeed. A lot of based on "sleeping better at night" it seems. That of being out of the market for a year or two and buying back around slightly lower.
I doubt that the lesson would be that "we should try to better time the market," even though for sure people are going to get their own various lessons in regards to how they might consider managing their BTC portfolio in regards to future UPs and DOWNs in the price, which is seeming close to inevitable that there are going to be UPs and DOWNs but I doubt that anyone really has much of a clue about where the top or the bottom might be.. except just to assert it as some kind of probability that might not even be something reliable enough to trade upon.
For sure, even Tone Vays acknowledges that hodling and DCA is a great approach, not to be argued with, which is his main approach like many. But like many others, he also trades with a small %. His main argument for why his videos aren't based on hodling and how to dca is that he wouldn't have 100K+ followers if all he did is taught people how to not sell bitcoin and how to buy it regularly.
No smart trader is ever trying to time to the top of bottom however, that only happens with dumb luck. It's a common misconception about selling tops and buying bottoms, smart traders know to buy & sell trend changes based on confirmation, not catching falling knives or selling into buying pressure. At least, I've seen many get this right, based on waiting for confirmation, rather than dumb luck.
although for some reason I do not recall seeing as much of his technical analysis after the April to June 2019 3.5x Uptrend.. and so I do recall him admitting that he did not see that coming....
Probably cos lots of people unsubscribed when he took profits around $6K-8K on the way up, in the meantime the $1K hyperwave guy was buying it
For sure, ended up being a way to reck a lot of folks who were trying to time the top in that little run that did not really seem to want to stop, until it did.
Exactly.
so he was kind of proven wrong there, but still persisted with some of his failure/refusal to appreciation BTC fundamentals -and attempts to save face technical analysis...
I'll correct you there, he was completely wrong in 2019. He only managed to regain face in 2020 when he was still waiting for sub $5K while everyone laughed at him, and then it eventually happened.
In other words, you seem to have been watching his particulars way more than me.
Yeh I have. He notices or acknowledges a lot of things many others don't. While also overlooking what many others are often aware of. So I find a lot of value in his price-based minority opinions.
After all, if I only listened to others who shared the same opinion as me, I'd have nothing to learn or consider.
Selling at $17.5K and buying at $4.5K is some good accumulation overall I'd say.
Who knows? Sure objectively and retrospectively there is no way to really dispute that selling around 4x higher and buying lower is a good thing if you are able to know with some level of certainty.. but none of us knows with any level of certainty, even if the odds might seem to be high at certain times.. just like in the case of the 3.5x BTC price run-up in April 2019... .. hardly any normie would have been able to know that the BTC price was going to go up 3.5x in 3 months.. so there were quite a few reckt traders and even shorters...
For sure, the markets are designed so that the majority lose and a small minority win, while the exchanges always turn a proftit based on a % of trading revenue. No arguments there.
So in the end, there are trade offs, and some people do not want to fuck around in those kinds of ways of managing their portfolio in terms of trying to time price moves up and down.. even if there might be some kinds of relatively prudent ways to attempt to lessen some of the volatility in your BTC holdings through such actions.. but even then there could be some balancing in which guys may well be more than willing to take some losses (or failures to gain more) and to just formulate models in order to mostly hold and accumulate BTC ..
Indeed, most people shouldn't fuck around unless they spend 1,000 or 10,000 hours studying statistical analysis and find a reliable manner to implement their strategies based on adequate risk reward management. Unless people have studied mathematics in depth, I also wouldn't bother even trying, as a basic grasp won't get you far given the competition you're up against (the rest of the market).
So sure, if you want to model or aspire to a trading approach that depends on trying to predict bottoms and/or tops (or close to bottoms and tops) to manage your BTC stash, then that is your choice...
Would definitely never recommend this, as it's the no.1 mistakes that all newbies make - they want to sell tops and buy bottoms, or close to. *slaps face*. It's not how it works, at all.
I doubt that very many normies either have such aspirations or even should want to engage in such attempts if they do not want to enter into trading as a kind of profession or serious hobby and for sure in that regard DCA tends to be a better strategy (and maybe supplemented by lump sum investing, buying on dips and just HODLing through the various ups and downs rather than trying to sell BTC in order to attempt to buy more BTC at a lower price).
For sure, DCA, as well as dip buying, even lump sums, then hodling is a much better strategy for most to stick to. There's a good reason why I hodl most of my stash, as I only want to risk 5-15% at a time with trading, as well as only when I actually want to trade. Fortunately, I think most sensible investors these days have no interest in trying to trade, due to the amount of morbid stories of newbies leverage trading and getting completely REKT™. It's probably a good thing that so many noobs get liquidated to be honest, as it encourages newer investors to not risk doing this. They benefit well from learning from this.
In summary, too many stories of
"made money then gambled it all in a 10x long". Which to a normal person sounds like; so you were making money but then got greedy and wanted to make even more money then lost if all? Did you not consider the risk of what you were doing? What was wrong with the original investment that was doing well? etc etc. There's a good reason most people shouldn't trade...
On that note; not your keys, not your Bitcoin either.
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