Stormrake - Insights #Bitcoin correction

From Global War Tensions to Green in just 12 Days

Thu, 10 Jul 2025 16:20:07 +1000

What a wild couple of months we’ve had since our last article. There’s been no shortage of excitement in the market – to say the least! We’ve witnessed Bitcoin not only just break All Time High’s once again since the retail panic of April (well done Tarriff scalpers!) but we’ve now just speedrun a potentially devastating and prolonged conflict in the Middle-east. From Israel’s initial attack into Iranian territory, all coming to a conclusive yet miraculous ceasefire in a mere 12 days, now being coined the “12-Day-War” by the White House. Trump truly has quickly become one of the most influential and strongly mandated POTUS’ of our time. Not only is he leading America’s economic boom as we’re seeing asset prices resurge back to All Time High’s across the board despite some initial policy trepidation surrounding trade policy, but now we’ve got Donald “Daddy” Trump actually making serious inroads for the ever elusive notion for peace in the Middle-east, even if it comes at the price of “Kinetic Diplomacy” in the form of highly sophisticated Bunker Buster missiles and advanced stealth bomber capability on a strategically planned Sunday evening at midnight. Since then, we’ve seen nothing but green on the charts for Risk-on assets, signaling that despite the macro-uncertainty of the first half of 2025, we’re good to move forward now and finish off H2 with conviction and strength. Let’s take a look at how Bitcoin has not only survived but thrived throughout the last few months.

Bitcoin has kept maintaining momentum to the upside for the most part over the last few weeks since bouncing off our predicted major support zone around the mid-$70K range. Actually, as mentioned earlier, we saw Bitcoin briefly push to new All Time High’s once again for a few days, reaching a peak of exactly $112K before coming into the current sideways price action we’re currently in. Another stark reminder that it wasn’t even a month prior to the new highs that people were panicked about Trump’s Tarriff policies and many retail traders were in a perplexed state of “deep fear” as seen on the Fear & Greed Index. Not us however; we remained steadfast in our long positions and doubled down on telling our clients how this was a prime-time for loading up the truck and adding to position sizes. Those that took action have done exceptionally well in a short amount of time, as we knew back then that those exceptional market opportunities come seldom and remain few and far between. So why the sideways price action for the last two months then since the huge rally in May? To that, all I have to say is one word you’ve heard me repeat time and time again this cycle; Accumulation. This is nothing to fear, rather – again providing excellent opportunity for market participants to add to their positions, especially those that missed out on when we called bottoms back in April. Looking at the Price Action on the charts, we can in fact see we’re currently in the midst of another Bull Flag pattern and have been since late-May when we pushed the $112K high.

A clearer view of the chart can be found here: https://www.tradingview.com/x/CGhOb49p/

Not only is this a Bull Flag, but keen eyes and avid readers of my previous articles will notice a similar pattern of price progression; that being the ever-subtle yet exciting Inverse Head and Shoulders pattern. Two of these bullish patterns together provides excellent confluence and further signals the notion that the market lows are well and truly in, now with much more upside to come sooner rather than later. To further solidify the Inverse Head and Shoulders, we can see that it’s following a textbook “smaller right-shoulder” and has held steadfast when testing the strong support found at $98K.

A clearer view of the chart can be found here:https://www.tradingview.com/x/FRC6U6UI/

The strong bounce off this level happened exactly in the midst of Operation Hammer and the near-immediate ceasefire that followed shortly after. Just like I’ve outlined many times before, don’t follow the news narratives, rather look at the charts – they’ll tell you all you need to know. As a result we’ve seen a nice modest gain since then across risk-on markets, although we’re still within the broader accumulation range, therefore the opportunity for those still on the sidelines currently waiting to allocate further capital is still clear and present, however I doubt it will remain this lucrative for much longer now as the cascade of bullish price action and strong fundamentals narratives are ramping up to create the beginnings of a euphoric cacophony. Whilst Bitcoin remains on its historic tear despite all the macro headwinds, let’s take a look over and see how the altcoin market is doing.

The rest of the crypto market remains undervalued for the most part, yet all the top 10 majors appear to be in their own versions of an accumulation structure. Ultimately, market lows seem to be in across the board since the Trump Tarriff dip which was absolutely necessary and needs to be the case for the stronger Alt-assets to remain bullish for the remainder of the cycle, although we haven’t seen them break out of their aforementioned accumulation zones either quite yet. This means even for the major alts, the opportunity to buy low before moving higher also remains clear and present just like Bitcoin. Ethereum as the number #2 asset is still undervalued, yet holding its accumulation zone of support that we’ve outlined in previous articles. This is slowly but surely stacking the odds in its favor that there’s a lot more upside than downside risk from here on out. Holders almost always have their patience rewarded for holding in periods of “boring” accumulation periods such as this - just remember it’s not about timeframes; it’s about levels and trend. Trend is holding for ETH, so being bearish on it here in nominal terms is a massive counter-trade and usually these kinds of market participants that spread fear and “pile-on” an underperforming asset right at its market lows. Just like the Fear and Greed Index that we outlined in previous articles, if you counter-trade the sentiment of the masses, the odds are already in your favor. ETH/BTC is still above our projected must hold level, likely to keep increasing in the coming months. I believe this will align with when Bitcoin surges past the $112K high with momentous rise and slingshots to the next $150K target.

A clearer view of the chart can be found here:https://www.tradingview.com/x/cXFjh6Ni/

Historically, these big moves later in the cycle become the perfect catalyst for retail trades who missed the earlier cycle gains in Bitcoin, who’re looking for the “next-best-thing”, and just has its done the previous two cycles, I believe ETH will still retain the #2 podium place for a while longer and will fit that criteria as a moderately safe play for many newer investors looking for an excellent deal. In contrast, let’s take a look and see how XRP is performing relative to its counterparts as despite the macro-headwinds of late, it’s maintained the top 3 podium position (excluding Tether) and appears to be well poised for an exceptional late-cycle rally.

XRP pulled back with the rest of the market exactly where we predicted, in-line with BTC’s pullback at $109K back in December. Just as XRP pumped with Bitcoin in December, and has pulled back in price during bitcoin accumulation correction since then. I suspect it’s waiting for Bitcoin’s moment to resurge with conviction well past those December highs in order to keep up the pace once again. XRP during this accumulation period has held our previously predicted major support level perfectly at the lows of $1.60 since April and has bounced off with conviction and momentum since. Despite the recent 12-Day-War turbulence of late, we can see XRP is still making Higher Lows, again - retesting the top end of our support channel at $1.90 and continuing to push to higher local prices. Although we haven’t made a confirmed local Higher-High just yet, we can see that XRP over the last few months has solidified its price support and appears to be forming one of our favorite patterns this cycle; the Bull Flag.

A clearer view of the chart can be found here:https://www.tradingview.com/x/COZi7pG3/

So long as XRP holds the green zone of support above the 2021 highs, then I see XRP only gaining momentum from here once Bitcoin has given the green light to the Altcoin market that the final “melt-up” phase of the Bull run is ready for liftoff.

As for the discussion on Interest Rates and the narratives surrounding monetary policy coming out of the FED, as of July 1st, Chairman of the Federal Reserve – Jerome Powell was clear that Interest Rates remain in a sort of proverbial “holding-pattern” shifting the reasoning for this towards Trump’s ever evolving Tariff policies. It appears the FED want more certainty surrounding economic data before pulling their one-and-only lever to maintain fiscal stability; the lowering of interest rates. Trump being the everenigma tic and comedic leader of the free world, naturally sends a handwritten letter to Powell stating “You are as usual ‘too late’. You have cost the USA a FORTUNE and continue to do so – you should lower the rate by a lot!” making sure there are no misconceptions on his stance towards relatively hawkish monetary policy under his Presidency. The FED being a self-governed body however don’t answer to the whichever POTUS is currently in power, therefore we’ll need to see if there’s any further headbu􀆫ng from here between the two as Trump’s economic roadmap for America’s golden-age does actually hinge on easily accessible capital and free-flowing debt to keep the Fiat-driven equity markets propped up and drunk on cheap money for consistent long-term growth in post-GFC world.

What we’ve witnessed over the last few months is nothing short of a masterclass in how markets respond not just to macro events, but to the sentiment and positioning that follows them. From the chaos of global conflict to the calming green of market recovery, we’ve seen how quickly narratives can shift, however the charts always tell the truth. Bitcoin continues to lead with strength, supported by classic bullish patterns, while Ethereum and the altcoin majors remain quietly coiling in powerful accumulation zones. The 12-Day-War, Trump's kinetic diplomacy, and the ongoing tension between fiscal and monetary powers have only fueled the urgency for smart capital allocation in this cycle. As we move deeper into H2 2025, the window of opportunity narrows. The charts are aligned, sentiment is cautious, and the setups are clear; those who remain focused and positioned now may well be the ones leading the charge when the next leg of the bull run ignites. The message remains the same - stay informed, stay patient, and stay in position.

Written by James Ryan

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Welcome to Moon Season (We’re so back)

Tue, 20 May 2025 15:43:43 +1000

After all of the Fear, uncertainty and doubt since the beginning of the year, those who saw what we saw and took the necessary action to add to their positions during such a prime market opportunity are being rewarded in spades as we speak! With full market-wide reversals back to the upside, we’re very glad to see that since the last article I wrote back at the beginning of April before the final sell-off and capitulation leg took place, we’ve not only hit our targeted support zones across BTC and other Major-alt coins, but we’re back on track regaining the previously lost local trend with extreme bullish momentum that is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. Ultimately, this means that the broader market crash in response to global narratives we saw is now nothing but a blip on the radar as we continue the Bullrun. Trend wasn’t lost across any of the major assets, even looking over at US Indices; the S&P500 (yes – we keep a very close eye on this too) didn’t lose major trend support and completed a fairly textbook retest correction which is now being followed by a continuation to the upside, likely to All Time High prices again with feverous momentum – another great sign that the bottom is in. Even the Fear and Greed Index is pushing 70+ again, now in “Greed” territory, compared to when sentiment was down in the slumps in “Extreme Fear” around 15 just a mere 6 weeks ago. Make no mistake, that’s just how quickly things change in this space. Let’s take a look at where we think things are going from here, so we stay ahead of the curve once again as we melt-up into the retail euphoria phase that is to come.

Since our last article, we’ve seen the capitulation and market sell-off reaction that we predicted in response to Trump’s Tariffs. This has taken us to the zone of support which I outlined in the previous April article for a great deal of assets that we’ve been actively trading, the most notable one being Bitcoin of course. We got the final leg of the sell-off very quickly for BTC and for the broader market as a whole within days of publishing the article which gave the heads up to our clients that this was a high likelihood. As a result, it should’ve been no surprise too that we also landed into the strong support zone I outlined in that article, which consequently saw us bottom at precisely $74,434, of which we then started to move back up hard and fast with a “V-Shape” reversal pattern.

A clearer view of the chart can be found here:https://www.tradingview.com/x/EPRxOLse/

Not only did we start heading back up hard and fast, which is to be expected after a large emotional sell-off, but we also with haste started breaking through multiple local weekly resistance levels in order to solidify the notion that the bottom is well and truly in. These levels are derived from the previous trend resistance and landed us both $86,084 and $96,262, both of which price is holding well above now at a whopping $102,000 again (That didn’t take long!) All that’s left now is for BTC to keep up the momentum and crack the previous $109,356 High that we set in December, so that we can carry on melting up as we enter the later stages of this Crypto Bullrun.

With this being said, clearly Bitcoin has performed tremendously as the leading asset for the Crypto-space this cycle. Despite being in the later stages of the Bullrun, its strength this cycle cannot be underestimated; however, as we’ve detailed in previous articles, the dominance of Bitcoin has always reached a plateau each and every cycle where despite continuing to rise nominally in price, its strength relative to its altcoin counterparts starts to diminish as retail and now institutional investors will begin to hunt down those fundamentally sound and resilient projects that are somewhat undervalued in order to close out the maximum possible gains for their portfolios as prices start to get crazy from here.

Looking at BTC’s Dominance chart once again, we can see the channel of resistance we outlined earlier in the year to clients still holds true as the index appears to be topping precisely where we anticipated, and it couldn’t come at a more opportune time.

A clearer view of the chart can be found here:https://www.tradingview.com/x/BZ2q2inw/

At the start of May, once the recovery in nominal prices across the board started to pick up speed, we consequently saw BTC’s Dominance top-out around 65% which was the top of our predicted resistance zone. Since then, we’ve started to pullback and given that major altcoins individually remain bullish from here, this correction in BTC’s Dominance is likely to continue; therefore, meaning that Altcoins are gaining quicker in gains relative to Bitcoin. Again, this doesn’t mean that Bitcoin is going down in nominal prices, rather that altcoins are going up quicker and faster in % gains relative to BTC’s continued upwards growth. I suspect BTC Dominance will likely continue to fall from here for the remainder of this Crypto Bull run cycle, at least until shortly after the major altcoins top-out in their respective nominal dollar prices; of which then when the bear market eventually starts to set in, BTC will renormalize and re-absorb the majority of Cryptocurrency liquidity once again despite being in a bear market, just as it’s done historically in previous cycles. Let’s take a look at two of the Major altcoins now that we’ve been keeping a close eye on which we believe are likely to perform well from here on out over the coming months.

Ethereum took a beating with the rest of the market during the Trump Tariff scare which makes a lot of sense as FUD (Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt) doesn’t discriminate when it takes hold and isn’t rooted in much logical reasoning. As a result, we saw ETH lose its previous support and double-bottoming structure, falling into another major trend support level at $1554 where it has since held firmly.

A clearer view of the chart can be found here:https://www.tradingview.com/x/BiQ2pPUB/

The good news is that despite what might appear as ugly price action at first, this has positioned ETH to be extremely undervalued whilst still retaining the #2 place in the Crypto pecking-order in terms of Market Cap this entire time. These types of “good deals” amongst major tokens are EXTREMELY rare and should not be ignored. This is why since the bottom has come in across the entire market, we’ve seen ETH not only reverse back up too, but we’ve seen it in fact outperform significantly compared to not only other major altcoins, but the entire market as a whole, pumping near a whopping 100% in just the last 5 weeks. This because “The harder they fall, the harder they pump” and the ETH/BTC chart echoes this sentiment as well, showing that it’s currently holding the long-term Macro Bottom from pre-covid, therefore meaning we likely will bottom out here again creating a very strong “Double-Bottom” support, further giving credence to the notion that ETH will continue to outperform BTC from here despite falling out of favor in the eyes of retail earlier this cycle.

A clearer view of the chart can be found here:https://www.tradingview.com/x/BWQmuWqW/

The fundamental narrative that’s shifting for ETH now which is helping support this shift in Price Action is that the Pectra Upgrade has gone live; simply meaning that ETH is finally starting to correct its scalability issues that created high gas fees and network congestion which has been plaguing users of the network for a number of years.

While it’s nice to see ETH finally catching a break, there’s another major Altcoin asset that had once previously fallen out of favor too, but this cycle has seen it truly come back with a vengeance, and we don’t have to look far down the market capitalization list to find it…

XRP, the token of Ripple I remember wasn’t even on people’s radar last cycle due to the now determined unsubstantial lawsuit filed by the SEC and the delistings that followed the suit. Since then, Ripple have reclaimed their deserved place in the top 3 pecking order of assets (not including Tether), their token; XRP has truly held up well this cycle, undoing any of the previous cycles poor performance and is well poised to take advantage of this cycle’s continued growth. From a Price Action standpoint, XRP is holding up much better than ETH as it didn’t lose structural trend despite falling a sizeable 52% from peak to trough from when we were predicting an imminent market pullback in December of last year.

A clearer view of the chart can be found here:https://www.tradingview.com/x/1Umm4GiG/

XRP held its uptrend on the weekly timeframe, unlike ETH; therefore, despite XRP falling to a low of $1.61 where we correctly targeted our support zone months prior, it shouldn’t prove too difficult to keep creeping up higher from here as there’s far less headwind in ways of resistance to stop continued price appreciation. Conversely, XRP has also been setting up two different yet very bullish patterns over the last few months, both a Bull flag and an Inverse Head and Shoulders. Similar to what we predicted BTC would do around $50K pre-US Elections, I wouldn’t be surprised to see XRP do something similar from here. Given its strong narrative and ETF-hype as a well-positioned American-based Cryptocurrency project with close ties to the Trump Administration, this one is looking finally ready for incoming All Time Highs for the first time since January of 2018.

Finally, there’s a combination of Bullish narratives hitting the market all at once since the market’s price recovery; between the beginnings of a deal for the China & USA trade war negotiations, a potential ceasefire for the Ukraine and Russia war, US CPI Inflation data coming in lower than forecast once again last week and of course Trump’s 90 Day pause on Tariffs, there’s no wonder prices are reflecting the bullish sentiment that we’re going higher from here. Even the S&P500 has done a textbook V-shape reversal off its major support at 4825, now back at near 6000 again; a very similar recovery to how the index pumped coming out of the March 2020 covid crash. It’s clear that the market’s perception of all these cascading narratives has shifted radically from “It’s over” to “We’re so back.” All of this is great for Cryptocurrency, and with the first glimpses of a late-stage alt season truly beginning, make sure you’re ahead of the curve with us at Stormrake and ready to seize the opportunity like many of our clients did in the last 6 weeks – because believe it or not, you’re still early.

Written by James Ryan

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Buy when there’s Blood in the Streets

Wed, 02 Apr 2025 14:33:07 +1100

Between the deluge of sensational narratives, extreme retail sentiment swings, and the overall uncertainty of how Trump’s macro-economic policies will affect the US and global markets as a whole, it’s no surprise everyone has their own theories of where things are going from here. One thing is certain though, history may never repeat; but it sure does rhyme. The great and illustrious Warren Buffett once said: “Buy when there’s blood in the streets, even if the blood is your own.” The difference between those that survive multiple cycles and those that chop up their gains in this game are the ones who look at the bigger picture, seeing where we were before and where we’re going from here. As are many things in life, consistency is key, and if nothing’s changed – we keep stacking. Despite our BTC price pullback of 30% and our predicted mid-cycle highs at $102K, if we look back historically, we can see that we’re well within historical tolerances for a BTC retracement. Such optimal buying opportunities are generally rare in the later stages of a bull run and we don’t plan on letting it slip away from us! Let’s take a look at how this mid-cycle correction stacks up over Bitcoin’s 15-year history as an asset class.

We can see in the last two cycles where Bitcoin started to reach the mainstream, during the early stages of its maturity Bitcoin has always taken the opportunity in its later stages of a bull run to have a sizeable correction before creating what’s known as a “blow-off top,” going on to print eye-watering all-time high prices before eventually topping out. Back in 2017, this happened in September of that year giving us a whopping -40% correction before then going on to gain a blistering +560% gain in just the following three months.

A clearer view of the chart can be found here:https://www.tradingview.com/x/QtmXYQPP/

Being someone who was buying hand-over-fist as a bullish market participant back then too, watching this all unfold; those bears who sold their bags too early were absolutely livid to say the least. It was the “China-Ban” narrative back then which caused the sell-off, of which might’ve sounded daunting to newbies at the time, but it ultimately didn’t change anything in the long run for ever-growing demand to acquire BTC globally. Ironically, similar FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) surrounding China creeps into every market cycle. Historically, those who’ve bought these dips have always done well. I suspect the current rhetoric in relation to Trump’s Trade War with China will fare no differently as BTC demand is largely very correlated to the exponential expansion of currency circulation globally, in turn creating a perpetual risk-on environment where BTC thrives in the long run. Bitcoin was created as a remedy for reckless currency expansion and as much as the market is hanging out for further rate cuts from the US FED and here locally by our own RBA, the stark reality is that while this makes the cost-of-living more affordable in the short-to-medium term, lowering rates is a sure way to devalue your local currency further, and this devaluation is exactly what makes Bitcoin and other risk-on assets extremely bullish long term.

Going back to the bull cycle in 2021, during the month of April the markets were at a point where they had been climbing aggressively for 6 months straight, so much so that we got retail euphoria almost too quickly which led to an overabundance of retail leverage trading which in turn created an inevitable yet brutal correction seeing BTC declining a staggering -55% in just three months. When the market eventually recovered after this correction in the following months, although it printed a marginally higher-high and all-time high of $69,000, unfortunately the momentum had mostly already been lost as retail had less new capital to enter the markets after the huge liquidation surge and ultimately new capital was scared away as the macro-economic narrative also started to shift towards a rising interest rate environment in the later part of the year.

A clearer view of the chart can be found here: https://www.tradingview.com/x/Q2vPFVCC/

This was the nail in the coffin for risk-on and speculative assets such as cryptocurrency and is the primary reason why the 2022 bear market followed swiftly thereafter. With this being said however, it’s clear that in both the 2017 and 2021 cycles, when the inevitable mid-cycle correction came in, once averaged out, both had average corrections of approximately 47.5%, of which new all-time highs still were printed that cycle within the following months before the new top was in. This current cycle correction has seen us pull back so far only a mere 30% from $109,358 down to $76,555; therefore, we’re well within expected tolerances for a mid-cycle correction. It’s still possible with the uncertainty in the market currently that we might want to make another local lower-low. If this is the case, we’re looking at headhunting a retest from the breakout of the previous highs. This would land us around $72K, which also coincides with a very juicy 0.618% Fibonacci retracement.

A clearer view of the chart can be found here: https://www.tradingview.com/x/fQsoA5rf/

If prices go here however, we will need to see a significant bounce because any further short-term bearishness at this stage will make us lose trend on higher timeframes and consequently force us into a bear market cycle. In the end, these types of “must hold” supports end up serving as great opportunities to see some quick gains as a large bounce from here is likely, given its high importance to hold.

Ultimately, this means our projections for a continued bull run in the coming months remain unchanged and serve to prove the age-old adage that if history rhymes yet again, that any buying here would be highly opportunistic and may make for some excellent and potential fast gains for risk-tolerant traders given the advantage of prices having had come down to these levels across the board first before moving higher. Given that these sell-offs are generally emotional and sentiment-driven, funnily enough we can chart this too with something known as the “Fear & Greed Index” which is also publicly available and provided by coinmarketcap.com.

This is an excellent tool we can use in order to gauge retail sentiment for the crypto market as a whole, giving us a clear indication based on order book volumes and buying/selling metrics on-chain to determine if crypto may be either overbought or oversold at any point in time. This index gets updated daily and we’ve used it with a high degree of accuracy in conjunction with technical and macro-economic analysis to predict market tops, bottoms, and even mid-cycle corrections in between, the latter of which we’ve been experiencing post-Trump victory rally.

Inexperienced retail traders tend to buy into the hype narratives, usually when everyone has found out about "x" opportunity, at this stage everyone is convinced it’s a sure bet and everyone’s already bought. Therefore, all that’s left is for sellers to come in and take profits. This is how a market top forms; because at a certain point you reach peak-market saturation where the only people filling the order books are sellers, whereas the buyers that haven’t got much capital left to keep adding to their positions quickly get overwhelmed and price spills back over to the downside. The opposite can be said for bear markets and mid-cycle corrections. When all the "paper hands" in the market have been shaken out due to uncertainty surrounding macro-economic narratives, fear, and doubt, all that’s left is for buyers to swoop in, scoop up all the good deals, and very quickly the few sellers that remain are overwhelmed by the enormous buying power and prices reverse back to the upside.

This index is rated on a scale between 1-100; and as you can see the last time the index went well into the "Fear" territory, it was back in August of 2024 right at the bottom where I was also predicting our BTC bull flag where price eventually tagged $50K USD, and quickly got bought up and pumping massively thereafter in the lead up to Trump winning the US Elections. At the bottom in August, the index reached a low of 26. If we take a look over at the current mid-cycle correction that I predicted would happen eventually once BTC hit $102K, you can see the healthy correction that we’ve since had has led us to a low on the Fear & Greed index conversely at similar levels, in fact we reached a low of 15 on the index right on March 11th just a few weeks ago. If history is to repeat, once you reach these "Extreme Fear" levels where we are now, it’s not too far-fetched to think that the opportunity for many becomes too tempting, usually followed by prices quickly reversing back to the upside. I suspect this is what we’ll see again now, given that nothing has changed in terms of the fundamentals for BTC and the macro-economic landscape still remains bullish market-wide.

In the words of the great Warren Buffett “Be fearful when others are greedy and be greedy only when others are fearful.” This couldn’t ring truer with where the market is at right now. Currently at these Extreme Fear levels, we’re at a pivotal point in the market where if the macro-economic conditions remain in favor of risk-on assets just as we’ve seen them be after every uncertain market correction, well; these entries here will be talked about with a lot of reverence one day. If nothing’s changed, our strategy remains so too. Keep stacking, keep learning and growing, because if history taught us anything, it’s that a lowering of interest rates and global currency debasement doesn’t solve itself overnight with a few tariffs. The long-term direction of the economy and broader markets are crystal clear, just like how we believe Bitcoin and other fundamentally sound cryptocurrency projects will have clear skies ahead, along with new all-time high prices to come with.

Written by James Ryan

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Reach out to us at Stormrake for further market insight and allow us to help you navigate the sea of mania and laser-eye memes, so that you can realise your goals in the market!

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The information in this newsletter is general only. It should not be taken as constituting professional advice from the author - Stormrake PTY LTD.

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Trump’s Tariffs + Trend Chop=Trading Opportunity

Sat, 15 Feb 2025 14:06:14 +1100

Since my last analysis on Christmas Eve 2024, after the massive wave of volatility post-US elections, the markets have since made the well-adjusted decision to take the needed time to cool off and enjoy some breathing room as we outlined then would be a likely possibility. This has allowed the market participants that have been Bullishly long since early in this cycle to not only take advantage of all the mounting positive narratives for Cryptocurrency, such as the deluge of Institutional Investment and unprecedented ETF inflows that have been building up over the last few years, but also seizing this current mid-cycle correction phase to provide ample opportunity in reallocating capital to undervalued positions and ensuring our strategies remain well-poised in maximizing gains ahead of the upcoming Altcoin Season.

With recent volatility pertaining to a few curveballs such as; the surprise announcement of China’s DeepSeek AI, rocking the foundations of US-based AI companies and NASDAQ heavy-hitters such as Open AI and Nvidia who’ve built businesses around limitless spending budgets and boundless excess of capital derived from the notion that “more spent = better results,” now with China swooping in and undercutting their competitors with a viable Open Source solution that’s up-to-speed meeting market demands at a fraction of the cost, it’s no surprise that the recent manic over-valuations of some of these US companies led investors into a selling frenzy realizing that these once “safe-bets” a mere twelve months ago are now being threatened simply by the free-market finding opportunity via inefficiency, thus creating viable competition. Ultimately this is all very good for the technology ecosphere in the long run, however; yes – the market needed its medicine when Nvidia’s overblown P/E Valuations were sustaining a figure above 40.0, which for the Stock Trading enthusiasts know this is deep in the over-valued territory where a sudden steep and sharp correction becomes an inevitability sooner rather than later, which we’ve now got.

This of course, spilled over into the Cryptocurrency sector and solidified our prediction that a mid-cycle correction of sorts would likely commence here started to ring true. Combined with Trump’s inevitable Tariff Shock to the broader markets, it’s clear that we’re in a deluge of uncertainty right now, however nothing fundamental has changed for the markets; mainly newer retail participants just don’t like uncertainty and tend to overreact in the short-term. Based on all the positive political shifts and executive orders Trump’s signed in the wake his inauguration combined with his feverishly bullish plan to make the United States of America the world leader for all things Crypto, there’s no doubt where this industry is heading in the future in my eyes. Let’s take a look at the charts and see what price levels we’ve needed to respect in the meantime, and where we will be going thereafter once out of the storm.

In our previous article in December, after hitting our $102K target for Bitcoin, we called for a well-deserved retracement as we stated “nothing goes up in a straight line forever.” This couldn’t have been more fortuitous, as since then Bitcoin hasn’t been able to trade consistently above that Fibonacci extension target without being sold-off consecutively each week. We noted that there were two primary entry points we were looking for when coming back down on the weekly time-frame that were also ascertained using Fibonacci’s sequence, again looking at likely psychological price levels that we could retrace back down to. Our first level at 0.236% tagged around the $96,500 mark early on, however, it was our predicted optimal level of 0.382% level sitting at a price of $89,400 where our ideal retracement level was that price ultimately came to test and hold and has been holding ever since.

A clearer view of the chart can be found here:https://www.tradingview.com/x/B9CMVoUb/

While price chopped along sideways in a channel for some time, we blocked out the noise and remained steadfast that this level would tag in some way, shape, or form, and that day came on Jan 13th in the lead-up to a forecasted “hotter-than-expected” CPI print of 2.9% Year-on-Year, +0.2% greater than previously anticipated. This gave the market the extra little bit of uncertain push back to the downside that we were hoping for, albeit still holding trend, therefore giving us a nice setup and bounce higher that came in the following days before the announcement of DeepSeek AI.

Since the eventual panic sell-off from not only DeepSeek AI challenging the overblown valuations of the US AI Sector, but also now with Trump’s 25% Tariff shock to Canada, Mexico and now being discussed which other non-US nations will need to be subject to these extra economic buffers, it was only natural that the market has priced this in and remains somewhat “choppy” and stagnant with prices mostly sideways across the board until we clear these high seas of uncertainty into clearer waters. With that being said though, in terms of Price Action, we have held what we’ve needed to, and maintained the overall uptrend that has gotten us to these eye-watering prices in the first place.

A clearer view of the chart can be found here: https://www.tradingview.com/x/l86DJqrX/

As you can see, despite the narratives that seem to just keep on coming, despite the relentless nature and wild swings of the market, Bitcoin is determined to hold the $90K line in the sand and Local Uptrend on higher-timeframes; a good sign that this is all just noise and won’t permeate into a larger and broader sell-off. The Local Trend needs to hold here (green box) to keep momentum relatively high in the medium term so that we push into fresh All Time Highs later this cycle, however, if we do end up getting a Weekly or a Monthly close below the green box zone, then we will be looking at yet another broader re-accumulation phase (similar to what happened between March – September 2024), in order to re-gain buying momentum before attempting to head higher.

Whilst we expect to see Bitcoin trailing higher once it’s ready to sustain consistent buying volume and reduced selling beyond the current $102K Resistance zone, given that historically in the first half of a Bulllrun we usually see Bitcoin lead the charge, it’s the second half of a Bullrun where BTC dominance starts to fall off, giving way to the meteoric rise of Altcoins, like we saw in cycles past. As is true for all trading opportunities, this can even be charted and critiqued using Trend Analysis and our understanding of Price Action to determine where a likely trend reversal will come in, paving the way for Alts to reign supreme again. Currently, BTC dominance has remained consistently in an uptrend since the beginning of 2023, in-line with the beginnings of a bottom forming from the FTX crash in Q4 2022.

A clearer view of the chart can be found here: https://www.tradingview.com/x/1HSdsNJi/

As Bitcoin is the grandfather of all Crypto currencies, the relationship it has relative to how the entire Crypto industry will perform as a whole later on in the cycle cannot be underestimated. However, at a certain point during a Bullrun, usually happening once Bitcoin has breached into fresh new All Time High territory in USD, often when that first major mid-cycle correction kicks in (like what we’re experiencing now!) that’s typically when BTC whales and eagle eyed market participants look at reallocating their holdings into undervalued and underperforming Altcoins in order to make the remainder of their gains seeing that Bitcoin has already done most of its rally up until this point thanks to the law of diminishing returns. Upon closer inspection, we can see BTC dominance last Bull cycle during 2021, Bitcoin reached a market saturation peak at 73.63% in December 2020, again aligning with when it started breaking above $20K USD for the first time since the 2017 Bullrun, beginning the printing of fresh highs that would last all the way until November of 2021. The question then remains – where do we see BTC Dominance topping this current cycle? Well again, thanks to the law of diminishing returns as the overall plethora of Cryptocurrencies, memecoins and broader umbrella of Web 3.0 assets available to market participants each and every cycle keeps growing, it’s unlikely we’d see the peak at those levels again, in-fact if we trade the trend on the basis that BTC.D will keep making lower macro highs on higher timeframes as a result like it’s always done given the above, I’d expect to see this cycles resistance coming in around the 60-65% zone, of which we’ve tagged twice now in the recent months and rejected off of both times. This further gives credence to the idea that whilst BTC will continue trailing higher from here nominally in USD prices, it’s performance compared relatively to its Altcoin counter-parts will start to dwindle until this cycle has reached its peak.

Speaking of undervalued and underappreciated heavy hitters in the space currently, Ethereum has remained stable yet consistently low on buying volume for the entire duration of this current Bullrun for the time being. This meant that while the sell-offs that came for the entire broader market also came of ETH naturally, as its not vastly overvalued yet like it has been in cycles prior, it meant that the sell-off didn’t send prices below support and reversing trend into becoming Bearish – in-fact we held nicely at the structural accumulation zone and proceeded to double bottom during Trumps Tariff shock cleanly at $2,100, with a sharp rebound within 24 hours straight back to the $2,600 - $2,700 range.

A clearer view of the chart can be found here: https://www.tradingview.com/x/jxkD2fXH/

This is a great indication that despite being dragged down with the rest of the market which is to be expected in times of market-wide volatility, ETH was able to respect it’s broader macro uptrend since 2023, consequently not losing trend and having buyers stepping in quickly to seize the immense “Double Bottom” opportunity. Given all this, I’d say that ETH likely is here to stay defending its #2 place in the pecking order for all Cryptocurrencies for the foreseeable future.

In the December article we also looked at how once ETH broke out of this accumulation phase, we’d likely see the completion of an Inverse Head & Shoulders Pattern, careening price up to a first Fibonacci Extension target of $7,400. While it might seem at first glance with all the recent volatility and market shocks that this may no longer be valid, if we block out all the noise of the sharp candle wick sell-offs that were bought up same-day in recent weeks, we can see the overall structural trend of ETH when changing from a Candlestick graph to a more simplistic Line graph, that nothing has changed.

A clearer view of the chart can be found here: https://www.tradingview.com/x/9FiUA51b/

Actually, if we end the month of February back at around $3,000 or higher, we could easily see the aforementioned “smaller Right Shoulder” easily form here, therefore keeping the original analysis unchanged from December. Sometimes in the market, discerning trend can be difficult when the charts are full of long wicks to the downside where buyers have longed with capital hard and fast to “Buy The Dip”, however that noise can sometimes get in the way of seeing the bigger picture, hence the Line chart in this instance removes that singular day’s extra volatility to the down-side, seeing it got bought up virtually instantly anyway, demonstrating that essentoally nothing has changed in the grand scheme of weekly or monthly timeframe trading. This is exactly what you want to see during a mid-cycle corrective phase, as newer retail participants sometimes trade solely off the noise, hype and mania, where-as veteran traders tend to look at the overall trend structure and bigger picture to make their analysis for the Long term.

Now taking a look over at the current Macro-Economic landscape, ultimately the trend is still the same there too. The US FED are still being extra cautious to make sure they don’t cut rates too quickly and send us straight into a heated-up second wave of consumer inflation. As a result, despite Trump’s vocal conviction that the FED must start cuƫng rates ASAP, for the month of January, the FED decided to keep rates on hold at a forecasted 4.50%.

Source: https://www.investing.com/

Whilst Trump would have preferred they started cuttng right off the bat once coming into office, when asked, he commented that the decision rather to hold rates steady here for the time being was “probably the right move”. The market was happy with this response as it didn’t sell-off again due to any further uncertainty surrounding this, likely in-part to Trump’s tepid and understanding tone.

Coming into 2025 with moderate enthusiasm, a bit of uncertainty yet overall unchanged macro trajectory I think was the best possible outcome for the longevity and remainder of this Bullrun. Remembering the last cycle, we came into 2021 as hot and ever, hittng the ground running with memecoins galore making insane gains, which sounded nice at first, however I very quickly remember by late Feb, early March we started losing steam quickly, which ultimately led to an entire market top in just mid-April, which saw us sharply over-correct to the downside minimum 50% in some cases. The market then struggled for the months following creating uncertainty for far too long, meaning that BTC was never able to regain the $60K peak again with any form of consistency there-afer, eventually bleeding out and spilling all of its gains quickly once 2022 rolled around. This left many feeling like it was an underperforming cycle upon looking back, of which I’m glad we’re not repeating again. Moderate, yet extensively quick market-wide liquidations like we’ve seen in the last few weeks which we forecasted in our December article, the fact that we’re experiencing those now and they’re well within expected correction drawdown tolerances, means that we’re settng up to have a healthy and fruitful 2025 ahead. With a Crypto-pro Trump at the helm of the largest and arguably most impactful economy in the world – I’m confident we’ll see clearer skies ahead in the near future, with fresh narrative and retail euphoria quickly washing away the much needed tepidness of January. Allow us at Stormrake to show you the way through the noise so that you and your portfolio can prosper in a world where the pendulum is swinging back the other way, making not just America great again, but making the whole world have something to look forward to in a new Tech-driven Golden Age where future possibilities of innovation and growth are boundless and exciting once again.

Written by James Ryan

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The Six Figure Dream becomes Reality – Where to from here?

Tue, 24 Dec 2024 14:51:59 +1100

What an amazing month we’ve had since the US Elections! Not only was our prediction on the money with how a Trump victory would positively affect the markets, but in just a very short amount of time we both sustained the breakout momentum of the Bull Flag pattern we’d been following and careened straight into our first price target at $102,000 USD using our Fibonacci extension strategy outlined last month. While retail mania has started to seep in again naturally with many meme coins pumping and speculation running rampant given the substantial gains across the board, the question many are asking is – where to from here? Let’s take a look into some possible scenarios for Bitcoin and what might be next after the Godfather of Cryptocurrency taps out and hands over the reins to its younger brother later this cycle…

After hitting $102,000, Bitcoin naturally sustained some trading momentum over the subsequent days and weeks allowing us to actually overshoot our target by a small margin and tag a local high as of three days at $108,364. This is to be expected in Bull runs as some overperformance almost always takes place in a volatile market as retail participants somewhat late to the game in this cycle will naturally chase a sea of green for a quick buck. However, as the saying goes; nothing goes up in a straight line forever. Price corrections are a healthy part of any market cycle with Bitcoin being no different. I suspect we’ve reached somewhat of a plateau for now and could be seeing the beginning of a healthy correction. Currently the daily trend is still holding, although a short sharp liquidation of the over-leveraged longs here is starting to take place now as expected. Bitcoin has a history of the very hard and fast price spills in order to weed out some of the bad money in the system, usually finishing of the larger timeframe candles such as the weekly or monthly with a large bottoming-wick, solidifying a base of support before continuing to print higher. Using Fibonacci’s sequence for a retracement here would make sense given it’s a psychologically bearing indicator being used on an emotionally fuelled pump, post-election mania. Right now, we are getting a nice sell-off, which hopefully could allow us to do a retracement into the 0.382% Fib level, getting us to $89,430.

A clearer view of the above chart can be found here: https://www.tradingview.com/x/cICk8mHy/

If this was the case (which is a pretty optimistic one, we might not go that low), it likely means we close out of the month of December with a red month, although as mentioned above if we can get a nice long bottoming wick due to buyers swooping in and buying the dip, we could start moving back upwards rather quickly at these levels which are perceived as a relative “good deal”; this would consequently set us up very bullishly leading into the New Year for 2025 and beyond.

The Alternative scenario (and more likely one) would be that these last few weeks of exhaustive and slowly diminishing gains are leading to an eventual Distribution pattern in the short term. This essentially means that as retail buying momentum starts to slow once we reach a temporary point of market saturation, eventually profit taking comes in and overpowers the few diminishing buyers that are left. Once you start getting more sell orders than buy orders in a market, an inevitable price correction happens, and we start to turn back down such as is currently taking place. Again, all of this is healthy for the markets – so long as we hold and maintain the critical levels of support, of which at this point in the cycle would be rather easy to do, especially given the macro bullishness across all sectors of the market right now. The first level of daily support I also believe to be here at $96,490 as mentioned above in order to maintain the daily uptrend we’re in

A clearer view of the above chart can be found here: https://www.tradingview.com/x/01wuTYO6/

In this liquidation slide-styled correction, even if we wick through the $96,490 level pretty hard, as long as we close daily trend around or above this price, it makes for a fantastic opportunity to add to our holdings so that we can get the last few entries in before the real mania begins. At that point, because we have closed the daily candles and weekly candles holding trend despite the hard sell-off, a strong reversal will likely come in eventually spurring on substantial buying volume followed by even more green on the charts until we fully melt up and blow out ultimately closing out this approximate four-year market cycle. In either scenario, as long as we’re holding the broader structural trend we’ve made up – we’re clear to keep printing higher from here in the coming weeks and months ahead.

In our previous articles we’ve also given credence to how an “Alt Season” may play out, meaning when Bitcoin starts to become the less dominant coin in the market and the alternative Cryptocurrencies that aren’t bitcoin start to gain significant momentum and, in some cases, even outperform BTC by the end of the Bull run. Let’s take a look at what Bitcoin’s younger brother and second largest Cryptocurrency is doing.

Ethereum is well positioned to take advantage of this upcoming “Alt season” and has shown all the technical signs it’s needed to in order to demonstrate it’s not only undervalued currently, but soon to play catch-up with the rest of the market. Historically, Bitcoin is the first major Cryptocurrency to breach new All Time High’s when a Bull run kicks off, becoming the leader that points the way for all other Cryptocurrencies to follow suit once deeper into the Bullish cycle. This is usually true up until the point of a significant “Mid-Cycle Correction” of which I believe we’re potentially in the midst of as writing this. Right now, we’re also getting a sell-off in ETH as its value is closely correlated to BTC at this stage of the cycle, however once we recover out of this, I suspect that the retail mania will ramp up to higher levels of speculation, therefore paving the way for the broader Alt Coin market to melt up even further which will position ETH as an attractive yet currently undervalued-conservative way to gain exposure to this upcoming Alt Season.

The Price Action leading up to this correction has been trending really nicely, in fact ETH has done a similar “Bull Flag” Pattern, of which we successfully predicted on BTC earlier this year. ETH broke out of its Bull Flag post-Trump Election win, pumping from it’s major support which held since early August between the 0.618% and 0.702% Fib levels, equating to lowest point held at $2,131.22 in this zone of psychological support.

A clearer view of the above chart can be found here: https://www.tradingview.com/x/FiWocl2S/

As of early December, we finally reached structural resistance for this bull flag at $4,093.57, meeting the resistance point again from which we fell from initially back in early 2024. Now that we’re correcting from there, we have come back to retest the weekly breakout level that confirmed the uptrend had resumed when we gained the $3,561.89 weekly high. This was a Lower High within the Bull flag itself that we needed to gain in order to reverse trend. Now that this has happened and we have retested this level, it’s an excellent sign that we’re likely to keep trending healthily back upwards by tagging all the needed support along the way now so that we can cleanly break the All-Time High’s and beyond, I suspect most likely by Late January – early February. Until then, this entire trading range on ETH between $4,000 and $3,000 will become an accumulation range likely for the next 30 days or so, providing ample opportunity for market participants to add to their positions before a “sea of green” really takes hold and it’s off to the races!

This deluge of bullish momentum will likely come in when Ethereum completes another more advanced yet bullish pattern which I believe to be currently forming in its final stages known as an “Inverse Head & Shoulders”. Essentially this is another bullish accumulation pattern layered over the Bull flag, indicating further confirmation that we’re likely to head higher after this correction. For the pattern to finalise, we need to form the right shoulder of the pattern, which we are currently doing by having a correction here. Then finally we need to get a breakout of the “Neckline” of the pattern which is around our same resistance at approximately $4,000 in order to cleanly break higher and soar past the All-Time Highs and into virgin territory thereafter.

A clearer view of the above chart can be found here: https://www.tradingview.com/x/dpR7OCrb/

As you can see, also using Fibonacci extensions in order to ascertain where the first target might be once above the All-Time High, it’d likely land us at $7,475.60 where the 1.618% psychological level resides, similarly to how we predicted the $102,000 first target on bitcoin with a high degree accuracy, of which it just reached and pulled back from this month.

As we correct in price here, it’s an excellent opportunity to take a look back at the absolutely stellar year we’ve already had, allowing us to achieve what was once considered impossible; a Six Figure dollar value on merely a single Bitcoin – but it’s not over yet! The most ludicrous part of this market cycle is still to come, although to maximise opportunity, we need to stay vigilant with how this correction plays out over the course of January into early 2025, because if we hold these levels here, despite the bottoming wick volatility and some daily timeframe selling and follow-through to the downside – once we zoom out in larger timeframes it’s clear to see that this is a healthy correction in the grand scheme of things, rather, I’d say it’s a blessing in disguise to veteran market participants. In further articles that are to come over the following months, we will also look at how to chart ETH relative to BTC price, as opposed to USD in order to get an even more in-depth look in how we can capitalise off this incoming Alt Season accurately using historical data and manage risk while we’re melting up in a deluge of retail (and possibly institutional this time around too!) mania. Allow us here at Stormrake to guide you through the noise and catch the hidden gems of the market in order to achieve your bounty this cycle and beyond!

Written by James Ryan

Create a brokerage account today

Get Started

Reach out to us at Stormrake for further market insight and allow us to help you navigate the sea of mania and laser-eye memes, so that you can realise your goals in the market!

No Advice Warning

The information in this newsletter is general only. It should not be taken as constituting professional advice from the author - Stormrake PTY LTD.