Stormrake - Insights , The Morning Note

The Odyssey of Satoshi's Son: Bitcoin's Long Way Home

Sat, 25 Jul 2026 13:59:53 +1000

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A Foreword From the Desk

Every so often a market cycle deserves more than a chart. This one earned an epic myth. Twelve months ago, Bitcoin stood atop the walls of Troy - the undisputed victor of the 2025 bull run, an all-time high near its back, the war seemingly won. What followed was not a straight sail home. It was a decade compressed into a year: storms, monsters, false paradises, and a descent into the underworld itself, before a long-awaited return to a throne that assumed would never come. Homer told this story about a king named Odysseus 3,000 years ago. This is the same story, only twelve months long, and it just reached its final chapter.

Book I: The Fall of Troy

In Homer’s telling, Odysseus stands victorious after ten years of war, the wooden horse’s trick complete, Troy in ruins behind him. He is, in this moment, the greatest man alive. He also has no idea that getting home will take him another ten years.

October 6, 2025. Bitcoin reaches its all-time high, the culmination of a bull run that had convinced an entire generation of holders the war was over and the crown was permanent. Like Odysseus at Troy’s smoking walls, the victory was real, and also the beginning of the hardest stretch of the entire journey. Nobody boards the ships home from Troy expecting a decade at sea. Nobody buys the top expecting the year that followed.

Book II: The Storm Off Cape Malea

The first disaster in the Odyssey isn’t a monster or a curse - it’s simply a storm, violent and sudden, that blows Odysseus’s fleet catastrophically off course before he’s even had time to celebrate making it out of the war zone.

October 10, 2025. Days after the high, a violent, cascading liquidation event tore through leveraged positions across the market - a storm with no single villain, just forced selling begetting forced selling, blowing the fleet far off the course anyone expected. Odysseus didn’t lose his ships to a monster off Cape Malea. He lost them to wind and wave, the market’s own structure turning against it in a moment of overextension. This is where the real journey - the hardest one, actually begins.

Book III: Polyphemus and the Curse That Follows

Trapped in the Cyclops’s cave, Odysseus escapes by blinding Polyphemus and fleeing under a false name - “Nobody.” But pride gets the better of him. Sailing away, he shouts his true name back at the wounded giant, who happens to be the son of Poseidon, god of the sea. Polyphemus prays to his father for vengeance. That curse, not the storm, not the Cyclops himself, is what dooms Odysseus to a decade of suffering.

November and December 2025. The cascade that followed the October liquidation wasn’t one clean event, it was a curse that kept compounding, a sell-off begetting a sell-off, the market’s own leverage and positioning turning into Poseidon’s grudge: not a single blow, but a a god who now had every reason to make the rest of the journey as difficult as possible. Every rally into year-end met new selling. Every bounce got tested. The wound from October hadn’t healed - it had summoned something that would follow the fleet for months.

Book X: Circe’s Island and the Illusion of Arrival

Circe’s island looks, for a moment, like salvation - comfort, feasting, a beautiful enchantress. It is also a trap. Odysseus’s men are turned into swine before he even realises what kind of island he’s landed on. He stays a full year before his crew has to remind him there’s still a journey to finish.

April 2026. Bitcoin rallies hard off its lows, climbing back towards $83,000, and for a few weeks, it looks like the homecoming. Doubters go quiet. Bulls declare the bottom confirmed, the war over, the crew ready to feast. Then the trap reveals itself. The rally fails, the level holds as resistance instead of a floor, and what looked like Ithaca on the horizon turns out to be Circe’s island; comfortable, convincing, and not actually home. The hardest part of any bear market isn’t the obvious pain. It’s the false arrival that gets everyone to let their guard down before the real crossing.

Book XI: The Descent Into the Underworld

To find his way home, Odysseus must first sail to the edge of the world and descend into Hades itself - the land of the dead. There he meets the shade of Achilles, greatest warrior of the age, who tells him plainly: it is better to be a living slave to a poor man than a king over all the dead. Even the underworld’s most celebrated hero counsels despair. This is the lowest point in the entire poem.

Late June 2026, Bitcoin falls to new lower lows near $57,000 - beneath the October panic, beneath the November-December grind, a level low enough that the loudest, most confident voices in the market declare the cycle dead for good. Not “correcting.” Not “consolidating.” Dead. The bull market’s own greatest champions, the loudest believers of 2025, are the ones now counselling despair, the Achilles of the previous cycle telling anyone who’ll listen that it’s better to accept the loss than keep believing. This is Hades. This is the bottom not just of price, but of belief itself - the moment a journey requires facing its own possible death before it can continue at all.

Book XXI: The Bow Only Odysseus Can String

Odysseus returns to Ithaca not as a conquering king but disguised as a beggar - unrecognised, mocked, his own home overrun by suitors who assumed he was dead and started dividing his kingdom among themselves. His wife Penelope sets one final test: only the true Odysseus can string his old hunting bow. Every suitor tries. Every suitor fails. Then the beggar picks it up.

July 2026. Bitcoin returns to levels last associated with confidence and strength - not by announcement, not by consensus, but the way Odysseus actually came home: quietly, disguised, doubted by nearly everyone in the room. The suitors in this version of the story are the loud voices from Book XI, still seated at the table, still certain the king isn’t coming back. They’ve had a year to convince themselves and everyone else that the throne is simply open now. They are, this month, finding out otherwise.

Book XXII: Reclaiming the Hall

The recognition happens fast, once it happens. The disguise drops. The bow strings. The suitors who spent a year assuming the king was gone find out, all at once, exactly how wrong they were and the hall that they’d made themselves comfortable in belongs to someone else.

This is the part of the story that plays out over the coming months, and the myth is unambiguous about how it goes. Odysseus doesn’t linger at the door once the bow is strung - he turns and empties the hall. The suitors who spent a year feasting on the assumption the king was gone don’t get a grace period; they get the reckoning they’d stopped believing was coming. That’s the chapter Bitcoin is walking into now. The loudest doubters, the ones who called the throne empty at $57,000, are about to find out how wrong they were, the same way the suitors did, all at once, with nowhere left to stand. The king strings the bow. The hall empties. The doubt doesn’t get to linger once he’s home.

Our Take on Bitcoin’s Odyssey Thus Far…

Myths persist because they describe a real pattern, not because they predict a specific outcome - worth being clear about that distinction rather than treating this as a forecast dressed up in verse. What the Odyssey actually captures well is the shape of a long, painful recovery: a single moment of overreach at the top, a curse that compounds rather than resolves quickly, a false arrival that traps the unprepared, and a genuine descent into despair before anything resembling a real bottom. Whether Bitcoin’s own Book XXII ends the way Odysseus’s did is not something a chart or a myth can promise. What both stories agree on is this: the hardest, most convincing despair - the shade of Achilles telling you to give up, the market’s loudest voices calling it dead - has historically shown up right before the part of the story everyone forgets to expect.

Commune with your Stormrake broker today, and be shown the path of Zeus’ law, where clarity, conviction, and all the favours the Gods can bestow await those who know where to look.

Stormrake Spotlight: Pax Gold (PAXG) ($4,040)

PAXG continues to move with the herd and broader markets today, closing in the red by approximately 2% for the day, after tagging it’s short-term resistance, being the Moving Average 50, which saw price resistance come in at $4,137. As the asset continues to accumulate here, it’s beginning to establish the much needed foundation before seeing another leg higher.

BTC/USD Key Levels and Price Action:

A rally…a correction…a bigger structure forming. This is the clear path Bitcoin is on. After tagging the $66,849 level in textbook fashion, we’ve seen a correction of profit-takers. Bearish suitors that don’t believe the rally are in denial - this is the best part of the story. Let them enjoy and relish in this correction, for it is likely their last to splendour. If we see a higher low come in between $61,000 and $62,000, taking out some of the liquidity below the recent lows - then we quickly pump thereafter, there will be no mercy for the bears, only retribution and a reclaiming of the throne for the one true king as we quickly soar thereafter.

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*All prices are denominated in USD unless stated otherwise*

Written by James Ryan

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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.

Stormrake is not a financial adviser and does not provide financial product advice. You should consider seeking independent legal, financial, taxation or other advice to check how the information relates to your unique circumstances. Stormrake is not liable for any loss caused, whether due to negligence or otherwise arising from the use of, or reliance on, the information provided directly or indirectly, by this newsletter.

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Q3 2026 Outlook Breakdown – Part 4: What History Says About the Final Leg

Thu, 23 Jul 2026 10:41:59 +1000

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So far in this series we’ve built the case from Bitcoin’s own drawdown data, the Wyckoff mirror at the top and bottom, and a rotation setup against traditional markets. Today we zoom into the price action itself, and look at a structure that has shown up before the end of a previous cycle too.

Two Lower Highs and a New Cycle Low

The chart below maps Bitcoin’s price action from the 2025 peak. After the all-time high, Bitcoin printed a lower high, then fell into a bear flag, a descending consolidation pattern that typically resolves in the direction of the prior trend. Inside that flag, price carved out a further lower high and a lower low, before eventually breaking down to a new cycle low.

This sequence, a lower high, a consolidation, another lower high, another lower low, then a breakdown, isn’t unique to this cycle. It’s a structure that has shown up before at the tail end of a bear market, immediately before the final capitulation.

The 2022 Mirror

The chart below shows the 2022 bear market, and the structure is close to identical to what we’re seeing now. After the all-time high, Bitcoin printed a lower high, then another lower high, before breaking down hard into a bear flag of its own, complete with its own lower high and lower low inside the flag.

What followed that bear flag is the part worth paying attention to. Price didn’t reverse the moment the flag broke down. It moved into an extended, choppy range that this chart marks as the Final Washout, a drawn-out period of lower prices that eventually gave way to the FTX collapse and the eventual cycle low, before the real recovery began.

That same sequence, all time high, lower high, lower high, bear flag, then a final washout phase before the bottom, is exactly the structure we mapped on the current cycle’s chart in the previous section. The two charts aren’t just similar. They’re close to identical in shape.

Why the Pattern Matters More Than Any Single Level

The value of recognising this structure isn’t in pinpointing an exact price. It’s in recognising the shape of price action that has, before, appeared right before a cycle’s final move rather than in the middle of an extended decline. A market carving out repeated lower highs and lower lows within a narrowing range is a market running out of sellers willing to hold at successively lower prices, not one with fresh conviction to break down further indefinitely.

We’re not treating this as confirmation that the bottom is in. We’re treating it as another data point, alongside the drawdown framework from Part 1 and the Wyckoff mirror from Part 2, that lines up with the idea that we are in the closing stages of this move rather than its early ones.

For the full breakdown behind this framework, read our complete Q3 2026 Outlook report here.

Stormrake Spotlight: Pax Gold (PAXG) ($4,122)

PAXG has increased by 1.2% and finally gotten back above the 21 exponential moving average. We mentioned that PAXG was at make or break, either getting above the overhead resistance or breaking below the key support. It seems the bulls are attempting the former, but this isn’t the first time we’ve seen a break of the 21ema. For this move to have substance, it needs to continue higher and stay above it, otherwise the bears will maintain momentum.

BTC/USD Key Levels and Price Action:

Bitcoin reached the key resistance level of $66.8k and has pulled back over the last 24 hours. Despite the pullback, the bulls remain in control of momentum and structure, and we can expect another retest of this key resistance over the next day or so.

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*All prices are denominated in USD unless stated otherwise*

Written by Alexandar Artis

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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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Wall Street Plumbing Goes On-Chain

Wed, 22 Jul 2026 13:48:06 +1000

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On July 15, 2026, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), the core clearinghouse responsible for clearing and settling the overwhelming majority of US securities trades worth roughly $4.7 quadrillion annually, ran live production trades using tokenised versions of real-world assets held in custody. This operational deployment extended far beyond a sandbox pilot or a press release regarding future development. Participating institutions transacted with actual US Treasuries, equities, and ETF shares converted into on-chain tokens across live delivery-versus-payment workflows.

More than 30 major financial institutions participated directly, including BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, State Street, Vanguard, CME Group, Nasdaq, Citadel Securities, Société Générale, and the NYSE. The deepest plumbing layer of traditional finance is now actively adopting the core architecture Bitcoin introduced seventeen years ago: assets settling on a shared, programmable ledger rather than through fragmented back-office intermediaries and batch processing.

Real-World Operational Workflows

The live production trades covered a broad suite of institutional use cases, including collateral pledges, securities lending, US Treasury and repo delivery-versus-payment trades, equity token transfers, and central counterparty margin workflows. In a notable operational execution, JPMorgan converted holdings of the Invesco QQQ Trust ETF into tokenised form to satisfy live margin requirements with CME Group. Concurrently, shares of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust, one of the largest ETFs globally, were tokenised and transacted within the same settlement sequence.

The technical architecture utilised two distinct environments: DTCC’s private Hyperledger Besu network and the public Canton Network. Built specifically for regulated financial entities, the Canton Network allows institutional participants to transact while maintaining strict privacy safeguards. DTCC leadership emphasised that major institutions require multi-chain flexibility tailored to specific privacy, resilience, and interoperability requirements, preferring an infrastructure-first strategy over a monolithic blockchain model. This milestone directly follows regulatory groundwork laid late last year, when the Depository Trust Company received a No-Action Letter from the SEC authorising a tokenisation service for custodied assets. A full commercial launch of the DTCC Tokenization Service is scheduled for October 2026.

Infrastructure Validation and the Bitcoin Thesis

Maintaining analytical precision requires separating infrastructure validation from direct spot market acquisition. DTCC deployed no assets onto the Bitcoin network, and this event operates independently of institutions acquiring spot BTC. Hyperledger Besu remains a permissioned network controlled by DTCC, while Canton Network functions under institutional privacy protocols, standing in contrast to Bitcoin’s fully open, permissionless, and adversarial trust model.

What this event actually validates is something profound for the broader digital asset ecosystem. The foundational concept pioneered by Bitcoin, namely assets settling transparently on a shared ledger without reliance on traditional multi-day settlement chains, has now passed production testing at maximum institutional scale. For years, a primary institutional objection to blockchain-based settlement was that the technology remained unproven at the scale and rigor required by capital markets. That specific objection is now measurably weaker. DTCC CEO Frank La Salla confirmed that the firm successfully applied traditional institutional rigor to tokenised assets without compromising systemic integrity or operational resilience.

Once the overarching category of blockchain settlement is de-risked at the highest institutional tier, remaining counter-arguments against specific digital assets pivot from technological feasibility to design choices. As traditional capital markets integrate tokenised infrastructure, the unique attributes of Bitcoin as an unencumbered, non-sovereign monetary asset become increasingly prominent.

The Future of Finance

This development represents a fundamental evolution in global financial infrastructure. Rather than a speculative price trigger, the DTCC tokenisation deployment marks the adoption of shared ledger settlement by the backbone of traditional capital markets. As legacy financial plumbing transitions onto programmable ledgers, the technological baseline for all digital assets shifts permanently. Cut through the market noise and consult your dedicated Stormrake broker today to discuss strategic spot execution frameworks as traditional finance migrates on-chain.

Stormrake Spotlight: Pax Gold (PAXG) ($4,072)

With a strong bounce across markets today, PAXG has also benefitted with a near 2% daily close in the green. This has taken price right into the Moving Average 20, however it’s notable that this is the largest volume of buyers we’ve seen in PAXG since early June. Perhaps signs of a meaningful bounce - or further accumulation needed? The weekly and monthly closes will be important to determine which direction we head sooner rather than later.

BTC/USD Key Levels and Price Action:

BOOM - there it is folks, our short-term targeted level we discussed three weeks ago just hit; $66,849 on the print last night with a small little dip back down to $66,200 off that level as expected from profit takers who got in sub $60K. Long-term holders will be very pleased to see that this move is the most “follow-through” buying momentum Bitcoin has seen since February, however this rally is looking vastly different; it’s accumulated at a much healthier price point, it’s been testing local levels on the way up, and combined with confluence like the Daily Moving Average 20 & 50 Bullish crossover, RSI Bullish Divergence and having bounced firmly from the top-end of our projected Bottoming Zone in late June - one thing is clear, this rally is actual smart money long-term accumulators seeing immense value and identifying generational opportunity. Whilst the chance of a smaller correction back into the mid-60’s is somewhat possible, don’t be surprised if you see Bitcoin zip up to $70K and beyond in the weeks ahead either with this momentum.

The early bird got the worm; don’t choose be the late bird that gets FOMO and buy much higher because you’re stuck waiting for emotional downside prices that’ll likely never come…

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*All prices are denominated in USD unless stated otherwise*

Written by James Ryan

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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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Q3 2026 Outlook Breakdown – Part 3: The Great Rotation

Tue, 21 Jul 2026 15:16:07 +1000

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We're back with our Q3 Outlook breakdown series, this time looking at Bitcoin against the backdrop of traditional markets.

So far in this series, we’ve looked inward: Bitcoin’s own drawdown history, its own chart structure, its own sentiment cycle. Today we widen the lens and look at Bitcoin relative to something else entirely, US equities.

The Most Expensive Stock Market in a Generation

The Shiller CAPE ratio, a measure of US equity valuations based on ten years of inflation-adjusted earnings, is currently sitting above 41. That level has only been seen once before in over 140 years of market history, at the December 1999 dot-com peak, when the ratio reached 44.19 shortly before the index lost roughly half its value over the following two and a half years. The long-run average for this measure sits around 17.3.

Put simply, US equities are trading at their richest valuation in a generation, second only to the single most infamous bubble in modern financial history.

Bitcoin, Meanwhile, Sits Deep Below Its High

Against that backdrop, Bitcoin is currently trading around 50% below its October 2025 all-time high of $126,272, and has printed a confirmed cycle low of $57,800.

That’s an unusual divergence. Historically, when equity markets are this expensive and this late-cycle, Bitcoin has tended to be more correlated to broader risk sentiment than decoupled from it. Right now we have one asset class near the most stretched valuations it has ever recorded, and another sitting in the deepest part of its own drawdown history. That gap is the setup.

Why This Gap Tends to Close

Extreme valuation gaps between asset classes don’t last indefinitely. Capital is not infinite, and when one part of the market becomes this expensive relative to its own history, the marginal dollar of new capital tends to look elsewhere for a home. Historically, some of that capital has found its way into Bitcoin during precisely these kinds of dislocations, particularly once equity valuations start to correct.

We’re not suggesting equities are about to collapse on a specific timeline, or that Bitcoin will automatically benefit the moment they do. What we are pointing out is that a market this expensive, sitting alongside an asset this depressed, has historically been the kind of setup that precedes a rotation of capital rather than a continuation of the status quo.

There’s also a timing pattern worth flagging. In both of the last two major cycles, Bitcoin didn’t turn the same week equities peaked. It lagged behind the equity reference point by a few months before properly igniting into its next major leg. That lag has shown up consistently enough across cycles that we think it’s worth watching closely for this one too, and we break down exactly where we believe we currently sit on that lag in the full report.

What Would Change This View

If US equity valuations continue climbing without correcting, and Bitcoin fails to attract any of the capital rotation this setup would typically suggest, that would be a reason to reassess this thesis. Valuation extremes can persist for longer than feels rational, and a wide gap on its own is not a trigger, only a condition that has historically preceded a shift.

Combined with the drawdown framework from Part 1, the Wyckoff mirror from Part 2, and the cycle low confirmation, this rotation setup adds a macro dimension to a thesis that has, so far, been built mostly from Bitcoin’s own price history.

For the full breakdown behind this framework, read our complete Q3 2026 Outlook report here.

Stormrake Spotlight: Pax Gold (PAXG) ($4,006)

PAXG continues to hover just on top of the support zone, with little price action to report as interest in precious metals remains low. The 21 exponential moving average remains the key hurdle and will be another test for PAXG soon as it approaches the key zone. One will have to give.

BTC/USD Key Levels and Price Action:

Bitcoin has had very productive price action. Despite increasing by less than 1%, and what feels like it hasn’t had a large move, it has quietly been grinding higher, flipping momentum and structure back to the bulls.

We can anticipate a retest of $66.8k, the overhead resistance key level…

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*All prices are denominated in USD unless stated otherwise*

Written by Alexandar Artis

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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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The Regulatory Blueprint Crypto Has Been Waiting For

Tue, 21 Jul 2026 15:10:49 +1000

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Washington continues to forge ahead with the most significant piece of digital asset legislation in American history, even as mainstream headlines hyper fixate on minor procedural delays. The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act secured an overwhelming landslide victory in the House of Representatives during July 2025, passing with a commanding 294 to 134 margin. Crucially, more than 70 Democrats crossed the aisle to support the framework, representing the most powerful bipartisan endorsement any digital asset bill has ever received in Congress. Following this historic milestone, the legislation successfully cleared the Senate Banking Committee with a 15 to 9 vote in May 2026. The bill is now officially positioned on the Senate Legislative Calendar under General Orders, leaving it fully eligible for a comprehensive floor vote. While sensationalist commentators point to the missed July 4th target as a sign of stagnation, the structural reality demonstrates that this framework has advanced further through the legislative gauntlet than any cryptocurrency bill before it. It hasn’t crossed the final line yet, which represents a very different story than the one the stalled headlines are telling.

Why the Delay Signifies Strength

Misinterpreting a calendar slip as a fatal setback overlooks the historical resilience embedded within this legislative journey. Looked at differently, the reality is the opposite: this bill has survived every stage designed to kill weaker legislation. It cleared the House by one of the largest bipartisan margins in the chamber’s history and subsequently emerged from a Senate committee that has buried far less contentious financial bills for years. Achieving a placement under General Orders on Calendar Number 423 represents a formal, procedural milestone that standard digital asset proposals never reach.

The remaining points of contention do not represent a fundamental disagreement over whether the bill should exist, as both political parties and the broader digital asset industry broadly agree on the urgent necessity of a unified market structure. Instead, the final phase of negotiations centres on a narrow, highly resolvable set of administrative disputes. These issues include an ethics and disclosure provision, a question regarding federal preemption, and the formal process of filling vacant SEC and CFTC seats. Because these challenges are typically settled through routine political compromise rather than ideological warfare, the deep bipartisan capital already invested on both sides creates an incredibly strong incentive to finalise the text rather than allowing it to expire on the calendar.

Unlocking the Institutional Gateway

Establishing definitive market structure clarity remains the single most important component of institutional infrastructure that the digital asset economy has lacked. For years, the ambiguous distinction between whether a digital token functions as a security or a commodity, along with the subsequent jurisdictional warfare between the SEC and the CFTC, has paralysed major institutional allocators. This persistent regulatory opacity is frequently highlighted by global asset managers as the primary reason they have stayed on the sidelines. A House Financial Services Committee field hearing on 17 July 2026 was titled Building the Future of Finance: How CLARITY Act Unlocks Innovation. This represents an industry and a legislature both leaning into the idea that this bill is a genuine unlock rather than a mere compliance formality.

A successful floor vote will immediately equip US exchanges, institutional custodians, and corporate allocators with an immutable rulebook instead of an ongoing guessing game. Regulatory transformation at this structural level mirrors the deep capital unlock triggered by the spot Bitcoin ETF approvals in 2024. However, while those approvals permitted institutions to interact with a specific asset, comprehensive market clarity rewrites the structural plumbing of the entire ecosystem. This shifts the paradigm from capital merely being not explicitly forbidden to being fully authorised to innovate.

A Balanced Structural Caveat

Maintaining analytical objectivity requires a candid assessment of the brief legislative window remaining before the upcoming August recess. Prediction markets have aggressively adjusted the probability of 2026 passage, sliding from a high of approximately 82% in February down to a range of 42% - 50% by mid July. This drop reflects an incredibly compressed Senate calendar rather than a collapse in underlying political appetite. A temporary scheduling delay could easily push final enactment into the 2027 legislative session, which represents a real operational risk that long term allocators must monitor. However, because advanced legislation of this magnitude rarely resets to absolute zero, a calendar slip merely delays the final implementation rather than unwinding the massive structural progress achieved thus far.

The Implications for Bitcoin

The true risk confronting digital asset markets is not legislative failure, but rather the tendency for market participants to underprice structural momentum by focusing myopically on minor timeline adjustments. A framework that commands a 160 vote majority in the House and systematically clears a divided Senate committee has already conquered the most arduous phases of the legislative process.

For the long term trajectory of Bitcoin, this legal formalisation serves as an exceptional macroeconomic tailwind. By explicitly defining boundaries and protecting digital property rights at the federal level, the CLARITY Act solidifies the regulatory bedrock required for sovereign wealth systems, corporate treasuries, and massive pension complexes to directly integrate base layer digital assets into their core architectures. This profound institutional shift eliminates the structural friction that has historically capped upside volatility, paving the way for sustained capital appreciation as Bitcoin anchors itself at the centre of a newly regularised global financial system. The ultimate destination remains unchanged, and this regulatory framework ensures that the infrastructure supporting the next macro expansion cycle will be far more robust than any cycle observed in market history.

Stormrake Spotlight: Pax Gold (PAXG) ($3,998)

PAXG managed to hold above $3,900 over the weekend, as the major support level continues to hold. With today being a green day for the asset, and price beginning to compress - a foundation of support is beginning to form.

BTC/USD Key Levels and Price Action:

Since Friday Morning’s Note - BTC went on to maintain a higher low in the $62,000 pocket, and as of this morning managed to grind it’s way higher back above $65,000 again. Every attempt at further selling-off from the bears has failed, supporting the thesis that the bottom may very well be in. When everyone is targeting lower, and price begins to chop sideways and slowly grind higher; historically this is how the bottom has formed each and every single time for Bitcoin over it’s 17 year lifespan. Risk to reward continues to favour higher prices now as we eye $66,000 as a short-term level.

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*All prices are denominated in USD unless stated otherwise*

Written by James Ryan

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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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Who Controls Your Retirement Money?

Tue, 21 Jul 2026 15:07:24 +1000

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At a superannuation roundtable in Sydney, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese outlined a controversial vision for Australia’s $4.5 trillion superannuation pool. Rather than treating this massive pool of liquidity purely as a retirement fund for individual citizens, the government argued that it should be mobilised as a national asset to support domestic economic ambitions and international diplomacy. Westpac chief executive Anthony Miller publicly pushed back against this narrative, warning the state against directing private retirement capital. This debate highlights a fundamental question for asset allocators globally: who ultimately commands the capital that is nominally yours?

What Albanese Actually Argued

Albanese noted that large pension investments provide valuable international leverage, characterising the deployment of hard money as an effective tool for soft power. The Prime Minister pointed to AustralianSuper’s recent commitment of up to $500 million to Indian infrastructure, announced alongside Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as evidence that pension capital already delivers diplomatic influence for the nation. Not everyone in the room shared that framing - AustralianSuper chairman Don Russell pushed back on the idea directly, describing the India investment as a portfolio diversification and returns decision first, with any soft-power effect a byproduct rather than the objective. Former Victorian premier Dan Andrews supported the institutional realignment Albanese was pushing for, urging the use of state finance vehicles to steer capital into specific sovereign capabilities such as housing, domestic energy transition, water security, and infrastructure.

This political desire to repurpose private funds arrives just as the institutional pension complex prepares for its first real demographic liquidity test. Westpac’s chief executive countered by arguing that the local corporate bond market has already expanded three times larger over the past year without political intervention, in his view, evidence that markets mature efficiently at their own pace without needing to be directed. More importantly, super funds have historically operated without treating liquidity as an active risk, because incoming contributions have consistently outpaced redemptions.

The Bigger Number Behind the Argument

That structural stability is shifting rapidly. UBS forecasts that by 2033, sector withdrawals via pensions and lump sums will exceed incoming contributions across the entire landscape. This demographic inversion is accelerated by the fact that approximately 1 million citizens are projected to retire before 2035. Major funds like Aware Super, which manages $230 billion in assets, are already actively de-risking portfolios and rotating into fixed income to prepare for these redemptions. APRA’s own stress testing modelled an extreme but plausible macro shock that could cut aggregate balances by as much as 25% - a scenario the regulator said the system withstood without breaking, though the exercise itself underlines how much less room for error the sector will have as the demographic shift accelerates.

The core vulnerability stems from the mandatory nature of centralised retirement complexes. Because participation is legally compulsory, individual savers have no authentic exit option and cannot opt out of these institutional structures. The battle over direction is fought between the state and financial intermediaries, whilst the individual owner’s voice is represented purely by proxy.

We The People

This structural dynamic underscores the case for holding unencumbered, sovereign property. While institutional systems are inherently vulnerable to policy changes, state mandates, and sudden demographic liquidity constraints, Bitcoin operates as an entirely independent alternative. As absolute sovereign property, Bitcoin provides individuals with complete discretionary control over their wealth. It requires no intermediate permission, carries zero counterparty liabilities, and cannot be directed by state ambition. In an era where centralised pools of capital are increasingly viewed as tools for national engineering, securing digital property that exists entirely outside the legacy political apparatus becomes paramount for long-term wealth preservation.

To cut through the noise of institutional capital capture and secure true financial sovereignty, contact your dedicated Stormrake broker today to discuss direct spot property ownership.

Stormrake Spotlight: Pax Gold (PAXG) ($3,981)

PAXG has continued deeper into the accumulation zone with a close 1.65% in the red today. As it continues to find it’s price floor, more sideways chop is to be expected as selling volume begins to slow down and a base is established over the coming days and weeks ahead.

BTC/USD Key Levels and Price Action:

Bitcoin now sits on the local support level around $63,800 as the bulls and bears are in a tug of war for short-term direction now. If we get a decent bounce off this level, a continuation rally to $66,000 would be on the cards, however if bears continue to bring price down somewhat further, another re-test of the $62,000 local lows wouldn’t be out of the question either. Accumulation can look like choppiness on shorter timeframes, however the bigger picture is that it’s actually setting up the much needed foundation to begin the next multi-year macro expansion. This is a great sign, regardless of the direction price lands over the weekend.

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*All prices are denominated in USD unless stated otherwise*

Written by James Ryan

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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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Stablecoins Re-Anchor to the King of the Jungle

Tue, 21 Jul 2026 15:02:24 +1000

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Tether is preparing to issue USDT natively on the Bitcoin blockchain for the first time in roughly nine years. This rollout runs through the RGB protocol version 0.11.1, which went live on the Bitcoin mainnet in July 2025, with commercial deployment spearheaded by UTEXO, a Bitcoin native execution and settlement layer. This represents a deeply integrated strategic alliance, underscored by Tether leading the 7.5 million dollar seed funding round for UTEXO in March 2026. The commercial launch is expected within weeks of the announcement, with several major exchanges and the native Tether Wallet lined up to support it from day one.

While this infrastructure milestone is underneath daily exchange traded fund flows and Federal Reserve policy countdowns, it represents a profound paradigm shift. This development quietly reshapes where global stablecoin liquidity resides for years to come.

The Evolution of Native Bitcoin Settlement

Looking back at the structural history of digital assets, USDT originally launched on Bitcoin in 2014 via the Omni Layer, long before activity migrated to alternative smart contract platforms to escape network congestion. The RGB protocol has been in meticulous development since 2016 to resolve these core scaling bottlenecks, transforming Bitcoin into an elite settlement network.

The core innovation driving this architecture is client side validation. Client side validation ensures that the vast majority of data remains securely off chain instead of broadcasting full transactional details to the entire global ledger. By anchoring final settlement proofs directly to Bitcoin’s unparalleled security model and utilising the Lightning Network, capital moves with absolute fluid efficiency. This architecture is already functional in live environments. For instance, a Lightning based USDT transfer of 1 million dollars successfully settled on Kraken in a blistering 0.43 seconds in January 2026, providing definitive proof of instant macro scale settlement.

Structural Technical Advantages

For institutional allocators and treasury managers, this protocol optimisation offers two distinct functional advantages:

Zero Asset Fragmentation: Transactions stay entirely within the native Bitcoin and Lightning ecosystem. Allocators are no longer forced to buy and hold volatile secondary utility tokens purely to cover network gas fees.
Sustained Sovereign Privacy: RGB natively inherits Bitcoin’s unspent transaction output architecture. The system generates a brand new, unique cryptographic address for every single capital transfer, completely eliminating address reuse, which remains a primary vector for counterparty privacy failures on alternative networks.

Macro Trends and Tether’s Hard Asset Thesis

This integration arrives precisely as the global stablecoin ecosystem reaches historic scale. Adjusted on-chain stablecoin transaction volume reached an eye watering 1.79 trillion dollars in June 2026, marking a robust 63% increase month over month and a 125% surge year over year. Institutional interest is accelerating rapidly, with legacy banking giants introducing native digital stablecoin services over recent months.

Tether’s technical roadmap clearly demonstrates a profound conviction in absolute scarcity. This RGB integration follows a separate native deployment via the Taproot Assets protocol in March 2026. Crucially, this aligns with Tether’s broader balance sheet allocation strategy, as the firm was identified as the single largest buyer of physical gold in 2025, securing more than 100 tonnes of bullion. The underlying theme is undeniable: the world’s largest liquidity provider is aggressively anchoring its product suite to the only two monetary assets entirely free from central bank discretion and policy debasement - physical gold and native Bitcoin.

How This Benefits Bitcoin’s Future?

Every previous attempt to bring meaningful stablecoin volume back to Bitcoin has faced hurdles, making this a serious infrastructure bet worth watching closely. However, transforming Bitcoin from a passive store of value into the definitive, secure settlement layer for global stablecoin velocity fundamentally alters its long term demand mechanics.

As substantial transactional volume migrates back to Bitcoin native rails, it dramatically expands the network’s real world utility. This direct capture of global payment plumbing reinforces the asset’s structural scarcity by locking up massive liquidity inside Lightning channels. Consequently, this deep institutional utility creates an incredibly resilient valuation floor, perfectly setting the stage to propel further exponential BTC price appreciation as the market transitions into its next major macro expansion cycle.

Stormrake Spotlight: Pax Gold (PAXG) ($4,053)

PAXG has traded in a range of 1.41% today, however price is largely sideways. Whilst it’s still holding above the $4,000 support channel, it appears there’s more accumulation that needs to be had first before a larger bounce is warranted. This is common in these correction/accumulation zones in precious metals, especially when they come after a significant rally that preceded it.

BTC/USD Key Levels and Price Action:

Bitcoin, on the other hand is remaining incredibly resilient with price, achieving another local high overnight at $65,600. Even though price is back at ~ $64,800 this morning, and some more price chopping can be expected, it’s clear BTC continues to grind higher as the days as weeks go on now. It’s holding trend, and any attempt to create lower lows with quick sell-offs in recent weeks have failed. As long as BTC holds above $64,000, our $66,000 short-term target we mentioned a few weeks ago keeps getting closer and closer…

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*All prices are denominated in USD unless stated otherwise*

Written by James Ryan

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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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The Tables Turn: Warsh's First Bullish Impact

Tue, 21 Jul 2026 14:08:08 +1000

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We’re taking a short break from the Q3 Outlook series this week (Parts 3 and 4 will land next week) because today’s price action demands the attention instead. Bitcoin is up 4.3% today and back above $65k, its best single day percentage gain since April 13, on the back of comments from Fed Chair Kevin Warsh. It’s the first time his commentary has actually moved all markets higher since he officially took over as Fed Chair back in May.

It’s a good reminder that volatility brings opportunity. Yesterday we covered the hawkish comments from Fed Governor Christopher Waller, who warned the Fed shouldn’t repeat the mistake of waiting too long to hike rates, comments that dragged Bitcoin and PAXG lower ahead of the CPI release. Today the story has flipped entirely.

June’s CPI print, released yesterday, came in well under expectations. Economists had pencilled in headline inflation at 3.8% year on year, with the monthly figure expected to fall just 0.1%. Instead, headline inflation dropped 0.4% month on month, the largest single month decline since April 2020, and the annual rate fell all the way to 3.5%. Core inflation was flat on the month too. Coming in that far under consensus is what really propelled markets, taking a lot of heat out of the hike case Waller had been building just a day earlier.

Then came Warsh himself. Testifying before Congress this week (House on Tuesday, Senate today), he kept his usual caution intact, warning lawmakers against reading “mission accomplished” into one month of data. But he paired that with an unusually confident line: “if we get policy right, and we will, the inflation surge of the last five years will be a thing of the past.” Markets had already rallied hard on the CPI beat, and that line gave the move somewhere to keep going rather than fade. Combined with the softer CPI print, the market’s odds of the Fed holding rates at the July 28 to 29 meeting have jumped sharply in the space of two days.

Put it all together and altcoins are following Bitcoin higher, with traditional markets seeing green across the board too.

We’re not out of the woods though. Oil is continuing its bounce, with the conflict in the Middle East continuing to escalate rather than ease. The naval blockade on Iranian shipping was reinstated just this week. It’s also worth remembering that the CPI print markets are celebrating describes a world that no longer exists by the time it was published. June’s data captured the ceasefire window, before hostilities resumed on July 8 and oil began climbing again. July’s inflation data, the number that will actually reflect this energy shock, is still to come.

Stormrake Spotlight: Pax Gold (PAXG) ($4,048)

PAXG bounced over 1% due to the bullish appetite that spread throughout markets over the last 24 hours, but it is clear where gold and PAXG stands. Whilst it was green on the day, Bitcoin was up over 4%, equities continued to bounce and hover around all time highs, whilst PAXG is still heavily bearish, with bears continuing to reject price at the 21 exponential moving average, which was seen again overnight.

We can expect PAXG to continue lower and retest the key zone once more.

BTC/USD Key Levels and Price Action:

After looking like the bears had momentum, the bulls turned the tables and are looking to sustain this move above the key moving average that has been the battleground for the last nine days.

We now turn our attention to the bullish target of $66.8k. This would set in another high, which strengthens the bulls’ control.

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*All prices are denominated in USD unless stated otherwise*

Written by Alexandar Artis

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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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Q3 2026 Outlook Breakdown – Part 2: Wyckoff Accumulation and the Psychology of Depression

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 11:33:59 +1000

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In Part 1, we made the data-driven case for why the current drawdown is the accumulation opportunity of the cycle. Today we look at two ideas that reinforce that same case: a chart pattern known as Wyckoff, and what’s known as the Depression phase of a market cycle.

Wyckoff: How Tops and Bottoms Actually Form

Wyckoff describes how large, patient buyers and sellers build or exit positions gradually, rather than all at once. At a market top, big sellers offload slowly, in a range, while price keeps making new highs. Those final highs draw in the most confident buyers of the entire rally, right before the market turns down. That’s what happened at the top of this cycle.

The chart below shows how it played out. Wyckoff gives these moments specific names. There’s a Buying Climax (BC) at $123,236, an Upthrust (UT) at $124,517, and finally an Upthrust After Distribution (UTAD) at the all-time high of $126,272. Shortly after that final push, the bear market began, with price breaking down through $116,381.

Why the Bottom May Be Forming the Same Pattern in Reverse

The theory is that bottoms often mirror tops. Instead of one clean low, you tend to see a series of lows, each one testing whether sellers are exhausted, before the real move higher begins.

Our chart shows exactly this kind of pattern forming right now. There’s a potential Buying Climax equivalent (BC?) at $59,930 and a potential Upthrust equivalent (UT?) at $59,099. The chart flags a UTAD-equivalent as the next stage due to complete this pattern. Since the chart was published, Bitcoin has already printed a new low of $57,800, below both of those earlier levels, which tells us we’re moving deeper into this final stage rather than away from it.

We’re not calling the bottom here. But if the bottom really is mirroring the top the way this chart suggests, then Bitcoin printing a fresh low already puts us further into this final stage than we were when the chart was published, a sign we’re getting closer to the end of this move, not further away from it. At the top, that final push to a new high was the last gasp before everything turned. If the same pattern is playing out at the bottom, the last flush lower could be close.

Being one final leg away doesn’t necessarily mean it happens quickly, though. These final stages can still drag on for weeks or months before they resolve, so being close to the end structurally is not the same as being close in time.

This kind of price action doesn’t happen without matching sentiment. Right now we’re seeing the classic signs of what’s known as the Depression phase, the point in a cycle where belief in the asset drops off almost entirely: dismissive headlines, long-term holders questioning the thesis that got them in, and reduced positive engagement online. That’s not a warning sign so much as a normal part of how bottoms tend to form. The drawdown depths we covered in Part 1, the ones that have historically led to the strongest returns, only happen because sentiment gets this negative first.

Why These Two Things Matter Together

The chart pattern and the poor sentiment aren’t two separate observations. They’re the same underlying process, seen from two different angles. Price action looks this weak because sentiment is this weak, and sentiment is this weak because price action has been genuinely discouraging for some time.

Put together, the case isn’t “buy just because everyone else is fearful.” It’s that this specific combination, a mirrored chart pattern alongside genuinely poor sentiment, has historically shown up right before the stronger entries of the cycle.

For the full breakdown behind this framework, read our complete Q3 2026 Outlook report here.

Stormrake Spotlight: Pax Gold (PAXG) ($3,991)

Red candles dominated markets last night, with hawkish comments from US Fed Governor Waller around inflation and the possibility of interest rate hikes sooner than expected. Pair that with the conflict in the Middle East escalating once more, and it was a recipe for the bears to claim the day.

PAXG fell over 2% and back below $4,000, retesting the key zone as expected.

BTC/USD Key Levels and Price Action:

As a result of the bearish factors above, Bitcoin lost over 2% in the last 24 hours and may have started the breakdown we flagged yesterday from the key level at $63.8k. The bears have reclaimed short-term momentum after pushing BTC below all the moving averages.

The downside level to watch for the rest of the week is $60k.

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*All prices are denominated in USD unless stated otherwise*

Written by Alexandar Artis

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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.

Disclaimer

Q3 2026 Outlook Breakdown – Part 1: The Accumulation Window

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 10:27:22 +1000

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Today marks the beginning of our Quarter 3 Outlook breakdown series. Over the coming notes, we’ll be pulling apart the key sections of “The Final Washout”, our comprehensive Q3 report, to walk through the technical, structural, and macro forces we believe are shaping the final leg of this bear market.

We start where every accumulation strategy should: the numbers.

The bigger the drawdown, the better the risk-reward

Bitcoin has confirmed a new cycle low at $57,800, validating the 65% probability call we made in our Q2 Outlook that the bottom was not yet in. But the exact low isn’t really the story. The story is what a drawdown of this depth has historically meant for the risk-reward on offer.

Most people treat a deepening drawdown as a reason for caution. The data says the opposite. The deeper Bitcoin has fallen from its all-time high, the better the historical odds and the larger the historical reward, at every time horizon we tested. That’s the definition of an asymmetric opportunity: downside that feels uncomfortable, upside that has been disproportionately larger every time this has played out before.

This is the case for treating current levels as an accumulation zone rather than a level to fear.

Building the case with the data

We backtested every major Bitcoin drawdown going back to January 2013 and measured forward returns from each depth of pain. This is the table that underpins the entire accumulation thesis.

Table: Bitcoin Buy Zone Performance – Verified Historical Backtest (Jan 2013 – Apr 2026)

Bitcoin is currently trading just under $64,000, sitting around 50% below its October 2025 all-time high of $126,272. That puts us squarely in the -50% or worse row, the zone highlighted above, where the 3-year win rate has been 100% and the median 3-year return has been +587%.

The pattern across the whole table is the case in a single glance: as drawdown depth increases, win rate increases and median forward return increases, at every single time horizon. There is no point on this table where going deeper has historically punished the buyer. That is what asymmetric risk-reward actually looks like in the data, not just as a talking point.

Why depth of pain is the opportunity, not the warning sign

Nobody rings a bell at the low. Trying to time the exact tick is a losing game, and we’re not going to pretend otherwise. What the table gives us instead is a way to size conviction against depth of pain. Every 10 percentage points deeper we go, historically, the odds have improved rather than deteriorated.

That’s the opposite of how most people are wired to think about a drawdown. The instinct is to see -50% and feel the risk rising. The data says the risk has actually been falling the whole way down. That gap between what a drawdown feels like and what it has historically meant is the entire basis for treating current levels as an accumulation window with genuinely asymmetric upside, rather than a reason to sit on the sidelines.

What’s Next?

In Part 2, we’ll dig into the structural side of this thesis: the Wyckoff accumulation pattern currently forming, and what the shift into market psychology’s Depression phase tells us about how close we actually are to the end of this leg.

For the full breakdown behind this framework, read our complete Q3 2026 Outlook report here.

Stormrake Spotlight: Pax Gold (PAXG) ($4,074)

Last week was red for PAXG, and as it looks to begin the new trading week, we should be keeping an eye on the key support zone the bulls defended well in late June.

BTC/USD Key Levels and Price Action:

A sideways weekend for Bitcoin as it remains stuck to the key level of $63.8k, flipping above and below it constantly. We look for a resolution this week; the consolidation is likely to come to an end. The bulls do have the slight edge for a breakout from this level rather than a breakdown, but it remains a contested battle.

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*All prices are denominated in USD unless stated otherwise*

Written by Alexandar Artis

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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.