Yeakub Durjoy

When this bull run kicked off, I was convinced $BTC would top out around $200K. Then the market shifted, politics got messier, and I trimmed my target to $150K.
Turns out I was dead wrong and yeah, you can blame the noise, the skeptics, and half the “crypto experts” online.
Because like clockwork, every few months the same crowd shows up to announce Bitcoin is “dead” again. A dip happens, regulators start talking, some geopolitical headline hits, and suddenly it’s doomsday.
They’ve been calling it for 16 years. And they’ve missed the point every single time.
If you’ve been around long enough, you already know Bitcoin isn’t dying. It’s leveling up. It’s quietly turning into the base layer of a new financial system, with a clear path to $500K+ over the next decade.
And honestly, the bigger picture is even more bullish than that.
Bitcoin isn’t going to zero. It’s laying the groundwork to go way higher, with $1M per coin not just possible, but increasingly realistic.

The Institutional Wall of Money
The biggest difference between now and the 2017 “Wild West” isn’t the chart, it’s the buyer.
This isn’t just retail traders tapping buy on their phones anymore. It’s the biggest financial institutions on the planet stepping in with size.
BlackRock, Fidelity, and even legacy giants like JPMorgan aren’t simply observing from the sidelines now, they’re actively getting involved.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs reportedly pulled in around $22B in net inflows in 2025 even with late year weakness, and BlackRock’s IBIT alone was said to be $25B+ and turning into one of their meaningful revenue engines.
Institutions are estimated to hold roughly a quarter of Bitcoin ETPs, and surveys suggest about 85% of firms either already have exposure or plan to soon. On top of that, you’ve got U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve conversations floating around and pension funds like Wisconsin and Michigan expanding their positions.
This is the key shift. Bitcoin isn’t being treated like a side bet anymore, it’s being wired into the plumbing of the global financial system. When the world’s largest asset managers start treating Bitcoin like a core portfolio pillar, the “it’s going to zero” argument basically stops being serious.
Michael Saylor put it in his usual loud way:
“My forecast is $13 million a coin by the year 2045, and what I tell everybody is every bitcoin you don’t buy today is going to cost you $13 million in the future.”

The Skeptics Are Wrong Again
While governments keep printing fiat at a pace that feels nonstop, Bitcoin stays locked to pure math, 21 million coins, no exceptions. It’s one of the few assets on earth where demand can surge but supply simply can’t respond.
Cathie Wood at ARK has been hammering this scarcity point for years, even as the market structure evolves and stablecoins play a bigger role.

Wood put it like this:
“Our bull case for Bitcoin is $1.5 million by 2030… Bitcoin is still strengthening its role as a global store of value.”

Prepare for the Noise
Does that mean we go straight up from here?
Not even close.
The road to $1M is going to be messy, full of 20%, 30%, even 50% drops. And every single time it happens, headlines will scream “crash” like it’s the end of crypto.
Critics will jump on every dip with the usual “told you so.”
But volatility is the fee you pay for the upside. Institutions aren’t glued to the 24 hour chart. They’re thinking in 5 to 10 year cycles.
So expect deep drawdowns that get sensationalized. That’s normal. What matters is the long game, adoption, liquidity, and the fundamentals improving in the background.
Tune out the FUD, stay focused on the base case.
Best time to accumulate was yesterday. Next best time is today.
What’s your take on all these crypto price predictions?

In crypto, it’s normal to see “useless” things reach insane valuations. Dogecoin in the tens of billions. Monkey NFTs selling for millions. On the surface, no clear utility. So what are we really valuing?
A memecoins like $DOGE , $PEPE , $pippin are just a token on a blockchain. Self custody, transparency, censorship resistance. Technically, it shares the same base properties as Bitcoin. Early on, even Bitcoin had “better” versions like Litecoin claiming to be faster and cheaper. History decided otherwise.
So why are memecoins called useless?

Because most crypto tokens promise utility inside a protocol. Memecoins usually do not. They lack the extra layer of functional purpose. But utility is only one way value forms.
Value is simply what people are willing to pay. Businesses are valued on future cash flow. Art is valued on emotion, culture, and status. A sports jersey has little practical use, yet fans gladly pay to signal belonging. The purchase itself becomes a statement.
Memecoins work in a similar way. They materialize shared culture. A meme that captures a global mood holds attention. Buying the token becomes a way to participate, to belong, even to sacrifice for the tribe.
At the same time, memecoins are pure speculation. They function like a global casino. You bet on attention and momentum. You win or lose. Exchanges benefit from volume, and memecoins generate endless volume because they are not anchored to earnings or fundamentals.
That is why they will not disappear

Some explode because they are profitable for insiders. Others because the meme genuinely resonates. Most die.
My takeaway is simple. A strong meme lowers the barrier to community growth. It does not guarantee success, but it makes coordination easier. If you play this game, look for tight communities around powerful cultural symbols. In smaller ecosystems, moves are clearer and risks are easier to read.
Memecoins are psychology, culture, and gambling wrapped into one token. Understand that, and you understand the game.

When people think of crypto, the first two names that usually pop up are Bitcoin and Ethereum. For a lot of folks, the third is $XRP .
For me, the third crypto is actually Solana but we’re not talking about that today.

A friend recently told me to seriously look into XRP. I did. And after digging through the numbers, the legal history, and the real-world adoption, I personally decided to add it to my portfolio and keep stacking.

In this article, I’ll break down the moral debate, the financial case, and the real facts behind XRP.

Let’s get into it.
The legal battle that changed everything

Before anyone talks about XRP as an investment, the SEC lawsuit has to be addressed.

In December 2020, the SEC sued Ripple Labs, claiming XRP was sold as an unregistered security. XRP got crushed, delisted from major U.S. exchanges, and basically became “toxic” in the U.S. market.
Then came the turning point.

In July 2023, Judge Analisa Torres ruled:

Retail XRP sales on exchanges were not securities

Institutional sales were treated differently

Ripple paid $125M, far less than the $2B the SEC demanded

By 2025, the SEC backed off. Appeals were dropped, money was returned, and by August 2025 the case was officially done.

This matters more than most people realize. XRP went from being at risk of getting wiped out in the U.S. to having regulatory clarity almost no other crypto has.
What XRP actually does

XRP isn’t trying to replace Bitcoin or compete with Ethereum.
Its focus is simple: cross-border payments.
The current system is outdated. International transfers can take 2 to 5 days, cost heavy fees, and move through multiple banks. It’s slow, expensive, and inefficient.
XRPL solves this by settling transactions in seconds with near-zero fees.

The real breakthrough is On-Demand Liquidity:

Convert local currency into XRP instantly

Send XRP in seconds

Convert into the destination currency immediately

No need to pre-fund foreign accounts

No capital locked up

This is the difference between moving money like the 1970s and moving money like the internet.
Who’s actually using it

What convinced me to take XRP seriously is adoption.

This isn’t just another crypto with a “future roadmap.” Institutions are already integrating Ripple’s tech. Japan’s SBI has been one of the biggest supporters, and Ripple’s payment network is active across dozens of markets.
These aren’t just pilots. This is real payment infrastructure being used in production.

The financial case and why I’m stacking

XRP is currently sitting around the 1.5 range and still ranks as one of the biggest cryptocurrencies in the market.

What changed my mind:

Legal clarity: XRP fought the SEC and survived

Real adoption: banks are actually using Ripple’s rails

Massive market size: SWIFT moves trillions daily

Institutional access: futures and ETF narratives are building

Risk/reward: clearer than most altcoins
Could XRP drop hard? Yes. If the macro environment turns ugly, it can fall back to lower.
But compared to most projects, XRP has something rare: a clear use case, real adoption, and legal clarity.
The moral debate

Yes, XRP is more centralized than many people like. Ripple created the supply upfront and still holds influence.

But honestly, that may be the reason banks are willing to work with it.
If your goal is pure decentralization and anti-bank ideology, XRP probably isn’t your play.
If your goal is owning a crypto asset that institutions can realistically adopt, XRP makes sense.

My strategy

I added XRP at around a 5% to 10% portfolio allocation.
Not an all-in bet. But enough exposure that if this plays out, it matters.

My plan is simple:
DCA over the next 2 to 3 months
Hold for at least 1 to 2 years
Accept volatility
Take profits in stages
What could go wrong:

A new bear market
Banks use Ripple tech without using XRP
Regulations shift again
Competition from CBDCs and other settlement systems

Still, after weighing everything, the setup looks stronger than most crypto narratives.
The bottom line

The real story behind XRP is this:
It was built for global payments. It got crushed by the SEC. It survived. Now it has a level of regulatory clarity and institutional traction that most crypto projects can only dream about.
It’s not trying to be Bitcoin or Ethereum. It’s solving a massive problem, making international transfers faster and cheaper.

Is it guaranteed to pump? No.

Can it still drop 50%? Absolutely.
But after looking at the facts, the adoption, and the market opportunity, I’m confident enough to keep stacking.
Not financial advice. Always do your own research.

And for full transparency, AI was used during drafting mainly for source referencing and writing improvements.
Anyway, wish everyone a great day.

Good luck.

Bitcoin $BTC is only a hair above $67K right now, but it’s still standing. After this week, simply holding that level feels like a win.
This Friday stream had two moods running in parallel: a lot of tension, but also a few subtle clues that smart money isn’t freaking out.

The Market’s in a Bad Mood, But It’s Not Falling Apart

CPI came in a touch cooler than expected at 2.4% versus 2.5%. That’s why futures shifted from “this looks ugly” to “okay, relax,” and the Dow and S&P nearly flipped green.
Rate cuts still aren’t a sure thing, but the odds ticked up from around 5% yesterday to close to 10% today, according to George. Simple takeaway: softer inflation helps, even if the Fed hasn’t fully changed its stance.
The problem is confidence is still missing.
Trade talks, tariff headlines, and the China Taiwan tension don’t really damage Bitcoin directly, but they do mess with sentiment and that’s what’s driving the mood right now.

The ETF Detail Everyone Misreads

Yeah, headlines like “$410M flows out” are designed to spike your stress.
But a BlackRock rep basically pointed out that if hedge funds were truly unwinding major ETF positions, you’d be seeing billions in outflows, not a relatively small slice redeeming. A lot of the real mess during moves like this comes from exchanges forcing liquidations and clearing out leveraged loans.
So the big money isn’t “gone.” It’s just not in a mood to push price up right now, and there aren’t any green candles to chase.

Today’s Volatility Trigger: Options Expiry

Roughly $2.9B in BTC and ETH options expire today. Around expiry, whales often try to nudge price toward levels that benefit their positioning, so things can get weird fast.

The main “magnet” levels George highlighted were:

Bitcoin around $74K

Ethereum around $2,100, he said $21,000 but it was obviously a slip
If BTC moves this weekend, expect it to be fast and a little irrational.

The Rare Signal: Buying Into the Dip

This is the part I’d pay the most attention to.
George pointed out that accumulation addresses are climbing hard while price is still sliding. That’s classic smart money behavior: buy quietly, don’t hype the chart, and let retail panic first.
He also showed weekly RSI pushing into levels we haven’t seen since 2022, and before that 2019. Those were major crypto winter bottoms.
That doesn’t mean price can’t dip at all, but it does suggest you’re much closer to the bottom than the top, even if a red day makes it feel like you’re miles away.
Also yeah… Coinbase really used Subway Surfers

Coinbase dropped earnings clips with a brain rot game layered on top just to keep people watching. It’s hilarious, and honestly it fits the moment perfectly.
That’s basically the market right now.

A lot of money is moving, but everyone else needs a dopamine video just to stay locked in.
What you do with this

This is where DCA stops being a cute concept and turns into an actual plan if you’ve got dry powder.

If you don’t have cash ready, the other simple move is to just hold, stop rage checking the chart, and let the leverage gamblers get shaken out.
This weekend could be quiet, or it could get ugly fast with options expiring. Either way, the “rare signals” are pointing to the same thing. Someone with real size is buying while most people are overthinking every tick.
#MarketRebound

Ethereum $ETH , the second biggest blockchain, still processes transactions one after another, which is why it often gets labeled as slow. Meanwhile, newer Ethereum compatible chains that run transactions in parallel, like Sei and Monad, market themselves as “autobahn” chains, implying they scale better and move way faster than Ethereum.

Parallel execution can absolutely make a blockchain faster because the architecture is built for it. But it’s worth being skeptical of the hype. A lot of chains that advertise parallel execution do look quicker on paper, yet they haven’t seen the real world usage needed to prove they can consistently handle the transaction volumes they claim.
In many cases, the parallel design is there, but the demand isn’t, so the benefits stay mostly unused. And while the architecture is meant to be efficient, it still hasn’t been stress tested at scale enough to know whether all the extra complexity needed to manage parallel execution edge cases is actually worth it.

This article takes a closer look at parallel execution designs, especially within the EVM ecosystem, with Sei and Monad as the main case studies. The goal is to evaluate how much of a real speed advantage asynchronous parallel execution offers compared to traditional synchronous sequential processing.

Defining parallel execution

Parallel execution means running multiple tasks at the same time, which is naturally faster than sequential execution, where tasks happen one after another. Think of it like cooking: making several dishes in parallel while other parts are prepping is much quicker than finishing each dish from start to finish before starting the next.

In computing, the same principle applies. Parallel processing can enhance EVM based architectures, even though the chains using it today are not yet as widely adopted.
At its core, a blockchain is a distributed and immutable ledger that records transactions as they are processed. You can think of it like a tamper proof SQL database that keeps track of wallet addresses, contract addresses often represented by tokens, and the balances tied to each wallet and token. Every time someone makes a transaction, that database updates to reflect the change. Updating one entry at a time is naturally slower than updating several at once.
Many established blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum rely on sequential execution, meaning transactions are processed and recorded one by one.
In contrast, newer networks like Solana, Sei, Sui, and Monad are built around parallel execution, allowing multiple transactions to be processed at the same time.

Architecture of Parallel Execution
Even though parallel execution is naturally faster, blockchains that rely on it need more complex architectures to handle the challenges that come with processing many transactions at once.
To run tasks simultaneously, you need multiple groups of workers or machines operating in parallel. In blockchain terms, this means splitting nodes, the computers that maintain the network and handle transaction processing and finalization, into groups that can execute transactions concurrently.

In most designs, parallel execution is handled by running multiple cores or “instance groups” that process transactions at the same time. During finalization, networks may use a separate group to reduce the risk that any single node gains enough control to collude or undermine security [1]. Sei’s source code suggests it uses 500 workers for parallel execution, although its documentation says that number can scale up or down depending on demand. Monad does not publicly disclose how many nodes or workers it runs today.
Parallel execution clearly improves throughput, but as parallelism becomes more common in EVM style environments, the architecture may evolve into more targeted models. Some researchers argue that splitting execution across multiple node groups is unnecessarily complex. A potentially cleaner approach is to parallelize only the heavy work, like smart contract deployment or computation-heavy calls, while keeping simpler actions, like basic token transfers, sequential [1]. There are also proposals where nodes that choose to parallelize could earn additional rewards for processing more transactions [2].
The hard part is correctness under concurrency. Parallel chains need robust ways to detect and resolve conflicts when transactions touch the same state at the same time. Without those safeguards, you open the door to issues like a form of double spend, where the same tokens appear to be used twice. For example, User A has 10 tokens, sends all 10 to User B, then immediately sends 5 to User C, even though their balance should already be empty.

One of the major inefficiencies of parallel execution is the need to abort and resubmit transactions to avoid double spending or inconsistent state updates [1].
In practice, some level of sequential handling may still be required to guarantee correctness. Networks like Sei and Monad use optimistic parallel execution. Transactions are processed in parallel first, but the final state is not confirmed until conflicts are checked and resolved. Transactions are placed in a temporary state, scanned for overlaps as new ones arrive, and any conflicting transactions are removed and replayed in sequential order to ensure accuracy [2].
For instance, imagine User A has 10 tokens and sends 3 to User B. Before that transaction is fully finalized, User A sends another 3 tokens to User C. A parallel process might initially read User A’s balance as 10 for both transactions, even though after the first transfer the real balance should be 7. Without conflict resolution, the system could momentarily reflect incorrect data, which is why reordering and reprocessing are necessary safeguards.

Transaction execution data
Blockchains with parallel execution claim higher transaction processing speeds but lack sufficient usage to prove it. Instead, analyzing the speed of individual transaction execution provides greater clarity.
Sequential execution chains execute a single or double-digit number of transactions per second. Bitcoin can handle 3.3 to 7 transactions per second (TPS), whereas Ethereum can process 15 to 30 TPS.
Blockchains that use parallel execution claim to be magnitude times faster. Sei states they can handle anywhere from 1,500 TPS to 15,000 TPS, depending on the type of transaction. Monad reports a general 10,000 TPS.
The challenge with these claims is that neither Sei nor Monad has ever met these usage levels. Even at the mainnet launch (production version), Monad peaked at over 100 TPS. In recent months, Sei reached over 4 million daily transactions, well below the average of 50 TPS. Most EVM users have not experienced the full benefits of parallelization, as Sei and Monad have not reached the adoption levels of Ethereum and its L2s (for example, Base recently peaked at 20 million daily transactions, with an average of 150 TPS).

It is more insightful to look at individual transaction execution times and gas costs rather than just TPS when assessing how parallel execution improves EVM environments.
Blockchains do not typically publish raw execution time metrics, but finalization times can offer a rough proxy for performance. One simulation found that introducing parallelization within the same architecture improved transaction finalization speed by about 1.54 times [3]. On the network level, Ethereum finalizes transactions in roughly 15 minutes, while Sei does so in about 400 milliseconds and Monad in around 800 milliseconds.
Parallelization can also lower gas fees. Because blockchains rely on surge style pricing, greater capacity helps absorb higher demand, which reduces fee pressure. Sei and Monad both have much lower base gas costs than Ethereum. A simple ERC 20 token transfer costs approximately $0.000098 on Sei, compared to about $0.03 on Ethereum.
Even if these networks are not yet operating at their theoretical TPS limits, parallel execution still delivers meaningful gains in speed and cost efficiency.
Overall,
Parallel execution clearly strengthens Ethereum compatible blockchains, arguably by more than just a marginal amount.
Legacy networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum rely on sequential execution. That approach is dependable and straightforward, but it comes with tradeoffs in speed and cost.
Parallel execution is designed to make blockchains faster and more affordable, improving their chances of broader adoption. Sei and Monad, which currently see far less usage than Ethereum, are the two main EVM compatible networks that have implemented this model at scale.
However, because their transaction volumes remain relatively low, the full capacity of parallel execution has not yet been tested. Its more intricate architecture still needs to prove itself under sustained, real world demand at the levels it aspires to support.
Sources
Liu, J., Cheng, R., Asokan, N., & Song, D. (2020). Parallel and Asynchronous Smart Contract Execution. Journal of LaTeX Class Files, 14(8). https://arxiv.org/pdf/2306.05007Marsh, B., Landers, S., & Jog, J. (2025, November 18). Sei Giga v0.2. Sei Labs. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2505.14914Das, S., Bäumer, J., Preechakul, K., Patel, R., & Li, J. J. (2025, April 2). Accelerating Blockchain Scalability: New Models for Parallel Transaction Execution in the EVM. University of California, Berkeley. https://arxiv.org/html/2504.01370v1

In crypto, pulling off big trades comes down to three things: liquidity, speed, and keeping slippage low.
Pro tip: What’s price slippage?

It’s when your order executes at a different price than you expected, usually because the market moves fast or liquidity is thin.
If you trade serious size, this can make or break the deal. Without enough liquidity and solid execution rails, large orders can move the market, so the price you planned for isn’t the price you actually get.

Next, let’s break down why liquidity depth matters for large crypto transactions, and how platforms like ChangeNOW help execute them with minimal slippage.
Key takeaways

Liquidity depth keeps slippage low

Deep liquidity, especially when it’s aggregated across CEX and DEX venues like ChangeNOW does, helps large orders fill faster with less price impact, so you can execute size without getting wrecked on the entry or exit.

Custody makes big trades smoother and safer

Custody solutions let users park assets securely before and during execution, which speeds things up and helps reduce slippage. Off-chain conversions inside custody can also cut down on on-chain fees and delays.
Fixed rate mode adds price certainty

For larger trades, ChangeNOW’s fixed rate option lets you lock a price upfront so you’re not chasing the market mid-swap. That adds predictability and lowers the risk of slippage from sudden moves.
The importance of liquidity in large trades
When you’re trading size in crypto, liquidity is everything. It’s what lets you buy or sell a large amount without moving the price too much. Deeper liquidity means less price impact and less slippage, which is why it matters so much for institutions and OTC-style execution.

OTC trades are basically large deals done off public exchanges. Instead of slamming a $10M BTC order into an order book and pushing price up, an OTC desk finds a counterparty privately and fills the trade without shaking the market.
ChangeNOW helps by aggregating liquidity across both CEX and DEX venues, so orders can route through deeper pools and execute with lower slippage.
Custody and execution
For big transactions, security and readiness matter. Custody solutions let users store assets safely and keep funds pre-positioned, so when the market gives a good window, execution can happen faster and cleaner, which also helps reduce slippage.

Fixed rate for certainty
For large trades, locking the price can be a big advantage. ChangeNOW’s fixed rate mode lets you secure a quote upfront, so you’re not exposed to market moves during execution. That adds predictability and cuts slippage risk.

How custody enhances market liquidity
Custody as a holding zone before big trades

For large transfers or swaps, custody works like a secure staging area. Clients can pre-deposit assets on the platform, so when the market window opens, execution is instant. Since the capital is already in place, trades can hit the best liquidity route at the right moment, which helps reduce slippage.
Custody enables off chain internal conversions

A big advantage of custody is internal conversions that stay inside the system instead of going on chain. That cuts network fees, confirmation delays, and chain related risk. It also reduces friction when moving value between assets or routes, which helps keep execution smooth for large size.
Custody plus a liquidity aggregator is the full package

ChangeNOW aggregates liquidity across CEX and DEX venues, giving access to deeper books and competitive spreads. Pair that with custody and you get an end to end setup for large clients: deposit funds, execute big trades with lower slippage, then keep assets in custody or move them out.
Who benefits

High volume individuals, OTC style flows, institutions, and businesses. Traders get better execution and less slippage. Institutions get secure storage plus fast routing. Businesses can plug liquidity into their own products through partner programs, offering smoother swaps without building infrastructure from scratch.
How it looks in practice

A large partner deposits assets into custody, then converts instantly through aggregated liquidity routes when conditions are best. After execution, funds can stay in custody for future use or be transferred out based on need. Simple, fast, and lower friction.
Conclusion

For big crypto trades, deep liquidity alone is not enough. You also need secure storage, fast execution, and fewer on chain delays. By combining custody with aggregated liquidity and optional internal conversions, ChangeNOW offers a practical setup for executing large transactions with more speed, control, and minimal slippage.

The psychology of letting your portfolio define you
I don’t enjoy being the one to spoil the mood, and I’m not here to celebrate anyone else’s losses. But I do need to say something a lot of people in crypto won’t want to hear. And we know they won’t want to hear it because we’ve watched the denial play out for the last six months, which is exactly the point of what I’m about to explain.
Bitcoin is heading to $40,000. Call it $50,000 if you want to be optimistic.
As I’m writing this on a Friday morning in February 2026, it’s trying to reclaim $71K after tagging $60K overnight. That 15 percent daily drop was the sharpest selloff since the FTX fallout. From the $126K peak in October 2025, we’re now down more than 50 percent.
Yet the dominant narrative across crypto is that this is a gift. A dip to buy. Diamond hands. Zoom out. Stack sats. Have fun staying poor. Few understand.
You already know the script.

We know the script because there are always loud voices at the intersection of money, tech, regulation, and human nature, making wildly irrational moves and calling it “strategy.”
And what I’ve been watching in crypto doesn’t look like a buying opportunity at all. It looks like a textbook setup for a very specific kind of collapse, one I don’t think anyone has properly named or explained yet.
Alright, let’s finally talk about the elephant in the room.
I’m going to name it, and I’m going to explain it.
I’m calling it the Belief Rigidity Cascade. (Please imagine jazz hands here. I worked hard on them.)
And look, I didn’t wake up this morning planning to invent a behavioral economics theory. I was just trying to figure out why this cycle feels so painfully familiar. Why it has that same eerie, everyone-holding-their-breath vibe that every crypto crash has… except somehow worse this time.

So I did what any reasonable person does when procrastinating emails on a Friday morning. I spiraled into a research rabbit hole involving social identity theory, phase transitions in physics, preference falsification in collapsing political regimes, and a 1993 study about college students pretending to like alcohol more than they actually did.
And here’s what I found,
The thing nobody talks about
Most theories of bubbles and crashes, and there are a lot of them, miss something that matters in crypto. Not in markets broadly, in crypto specifically.

They miss this: Bitcoin isn’t just an investment. It’s an identity.
And I don’t mean that in a soft, vague “people really love their Bitcoin” way. I mean it in the social-psychology sense. “Bitcoin maxi” functions like a social identity category the way “Democrat,” “Catholic,” or “Marine” does. It comes with behavioral rules (HODL, buy the dip, evangelize, stack sats), rewards for conformity (status, engagement on X, conference invites, that “few understand” aura), and punishments for deviation (mockery, social exile, “paper hands,” “you don’t get it,” and the ultimate curse: NGMI).
This is not how people relate to index funds. Nobody gets labeled “paper hands” for rebalancing a 401(k). Nobody is posting “gm” in a Vanguard Total Market community, although honestly someone should do it just for the trolling value. There’s no “laser eyes” equivalent for Treasury holders. Nobody tells you “have fun staying poor” because you bought municipal bonds.

That identity difference is the whole game. Because once an investment becomes part of who you are instead of something you own, the decision-making system changes. Selling stops being a financial choice and becomes an identity crisis. And people will do almost anything to avoid an identity crisis, including losing comically large amounts of money.

The closest historical parallel isn’t even a financial market. It’s the 1980s farm crisis, where “farmer” wasn’t just a job, it was a bloodline. Your grandfather’s land. Your family name on the mailbox.
Yes, I found a way to talk about farming in an essay about Bitcoin. Fun Bitcoin fact: the first time I ever heard of Bitcoin, it was from a farmer. He was very right for about a decade, and then very wrong, which is basically the thesis of this essay in miniature.
They were told to “get big or get out,” and they got big, buying land at ridiculous multiples of productive value because “land never goes down,” “they’re not making more of it,” and because if you weren’t expanding, you weren’t a real farmer. Narrative piled on narrative. Identity hardened. Community pressure kept people holding on. In some ways it ran deeper than crypto because it was tied to place, lineage, and physical labor in a way a wallet address never will be.
Farmers held until banks took the land. The human cost was brutal.
But here’s the critical difference. Farmland produces something. It generates revenue. Even when prices collapsed, there was a floor: the productive value of the soil.
Bitcoin doesn’t have that floor. There’s no crop. No rental yield. No discounted cash flow that tells you what a Bitcoin is worth independent of what the next person will pay.
That’s the difference between a painful correction and a phase transition.
The six stages of how this plays out

So what does this actually look like in real life? I took all the theory-brain stuff and mapped it into a six-stage process. The uncomfortable part is we’re already in the later innings. Here’s the flow.
Stage 1: The stories pile up

Every narrative asset starts by stacking explanations. Bitcoin was peer to peer electronic cash. Then it was an inflation hedge. Then digital gold. Then a store of value. Then an uncorrelated asset. Then a portfolio diversifier. Then protection from government overreach. Then an institutional grade asset class. Then a strategic reserve asset. I’m out of breath just typing that, and I’m not even done with the coping arc.

Here’s the tell. Each new narrative is harder to disprove than the last.
Peer to peer electronic cash is testable. Are people actually buying coffee with Bitcoin? No.

Inflation hedge is testable. Does Bitcoin reliably rise when inflation rises? It absolutely did not in 2022.

But “store of value” and “digital gold” are basically vibes. You can’t falsify a vibe.
And that’s not random. It’s selection.
The narratives that can be tested eventually get tested, fail, and die. The narratives that can’t be tested survive. Over time you end up with an investment thesis that’s almost immune to evidence. It feels like strength, but it’s really the start of fragility.
Every story that collapses gets replaced by a story that’s harder to knock down, until eventually all that’s left is vibes.

Stage 2: You become your bag, and your bag is not Hermès

This is where it stops being finance and starts being psychology.
As the stories stack and price goes up, holding BTC becomes part of your identity. Not “I own Bitcoin.” More like “I’m a Bitcoiner.” And once that happens, selling doesn’t feel like a trade. It feels like betrayal. Like admitting you were wrong. Like losing status and community. So even when selling is the smart move financially, it still feels awful. And people avoid that pain.
Stage 3: The belief moat

After identity locks in, your brain starts auto defending the position. Not with lies you can see, but with “analysis.”

Dip? Weak hands.

Bigger dip? Generational entry.

Bad news? Actually bullish.

Regulation? They’re scared.

Adoption slowing? We’re early.

Every negative signal gets flipped into a positive one. Not because people are dumb, but because when your identity is on the line, the bar for “good enough logic” drops hard.
And behavior changes too. In normal markets, long drawdowns slowly shake people out. In crypto, you often get the opposite: people hold harder, even buy more. The pressure doesn’t release, it builds behind a conviction dam.
Stage 4: The stories start breaking

While everyone is busy “staying strong,” the old narratives quietly die.

Inflation hedge, uncorrelated asset, institutional wave… they all sound great until the chart keeps disagreeing. So the market falls back on the unfalsifiable ones: store of value, digital gold.

Problem is, those aren’t great at bringing in fresh buyers. They mainly keep existing believers in. So the price starts depending less on new demand and more on current holders refusing to sell. That’s a sketchy setup because it means the most emotional people in the market become the load bearing walls.

Stage 5: Everyone is acting confident

This is the late stage vibe.
A lot of people are privately nervous, checking price nonstop, doing exit math, feeling the narratives weaken. But publicly they still post conviction because everyone else looks confident too.
So you get this weird situation where most people are unsure, but nobody wants to be the first to say it. The community ends up propping up a confidence that isn’t really there.
Stage 6: The break, and the overshoot

Then a chunk of people finally cracks.
Once selling becomes socially “allowed,” it spreads fast. And it doesn’t unwind gently, because identity doesn’t unwind gently.

People don’t scale out like a calm investor. They rage sell. They nuke the position. They go from “diamond hands forever” to “I can’t believe I bought this.” And that emotional flip is why crypto crashes overshoot so hard.
It’s not just a market move. It’s a social move, plus an identity break, priced in all at once.
Where we are right now

Here’s a tighter, more casual version that keeps the punch but cuts the essay weight.
So let me map this onto the current cycle, because the market is literally acting it out in real time.

Bitcoin topped around $126K in October 2025. Since then it’s been bleeding lower for months, grinding through $100K, then $90K, then $80K. And every level had the same chorus: “buy the dip”… just a little less confident each time.
Then this week happened.

Bitcoin dropped 30% in five days. On Thursday night it nuked 15% in a single session, worst day since FTX, briefly breaking below $61K. Over $2B in leveraged positions got wiped, and more than $2T in total crypto market cap has disappeared since the year started.
And then this morning it bounced back above $70K.
That bounce is the part you need to watch.
Because it’s not a recovery. It’s Stage 3.

This is the Belief Rigidity Cascade playing out live. Price hits a brutal drawdown level, and the most identity-entrenched holders do what they always do: they buy it aggressively. The market rips back, and the narrative instantly snaps into place.

“See? Bottom is in.”

“Diamond hands win again.”

“This was the dip you were supposed to buy.”

The copium writes itself.

That’s the belief moat doing its job. The biggest red candle in four years gets turned into proof that everything is fine… within hours.
But here’s what the bounce doesn’t tell you.

The institutional story is actively breaking. ETFs that were buying hard last year are now net sellers. The biggest bullish narrative of this cycle, “Wall Street is here,” is literally dying in the data. That’s Stage 4 happening in real time.
The technical damage is also nasty. Bitcoin just broke below its 365-day moving average for the first time since early 2022. That’s not a cute dip. That’s a regime shift.
And the leverage feedback loop is waking up. If BTC slips another 10%, miners start getting stressed, forced selling ramps up, and the whole thing turns into a self-reinforcing liquidation machine. That’s when leverage unwinding and identity panic start feeding each other.

The question isn’t whether we bounce. Crypto always bounces.

The question is whether this bounce can actually make new highs.

If $71K becomes just another lower high, after $126K, then $100K, then $90K, then $78K, then $71K… the script stays the same. Each bounce gets weaker, each narrative gets shakier, and it takes more effort to pretend everything is fine.
Watch the next week.
If the vibe is loud and triumphant, “see, we’re saved,” that’s Stage 3 denial still holding.

If it’s quieter and defensive, “well… at least we bounced,” that’s conviction fraying.

And if people are tweeting WAGMI while wallets are quietly moving coins to exchanges and stablecoins are piling up, that’s Stage 5 starting to show.
Basically, they’re saying “few understand”… while their on-chain behavior is screaming “I’m nervous.”

HODL waves have been expanding during this drop. Long term holders aren’t selling, they’re accumulating. That’s the dam getting taller while the pressure behind it keeps rising.
Meanwhile the narratives are collapsing one by one.

“Strategic reserve” didn’t deliver what people promised.

“Institutional adoption” didn’t stop the drawdown.

Now we’re back to the unfalsifiable stuff: “digital gold” and “store of value.”
Which works great for believers, but does nothing to pull in fresh buyers.
So my view hasn’t changed. If anything, this week sped up the timeline.
Bitcoin goes to $40K to $50K. That’s a normal 60 to 70 percent drawdown for crypto. It fits every cycle.
And the trigger will be something that looks shocking in the moment, but obvious in hindsight. It always is.
Today’s bounce feels like hope. The theory says it’s the dam flexing. And the scary part is simple. The dam doesn’t leak. It breaks.

Sources
Akerlof, G. A., & Kranton, R. E. (2000). Economics and Identity. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 115(3), 715–753.
Centola, D., Becker, J., Brackbill, D., & Baronchelli, A. (2018). Experimental evidence for tipping points in social convention. Science, 360(6393), 1116–1119.
Festinger, L. (1957). A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Stanford University Press.
Kindleberger, C. P., & Aliber, R. Z. (2005). Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises (5th ed.). John Wiley & Sons.
Kunda, Z. (1990). The case for motivated reasoning. Psychological Bulletin, 108(3), 480–498.
Kuran, T. (1995). Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification. Harvard University Press.
Minsky, H. P. (1986). Stabilizing an Unstable Economy. Yale University Press.
Prentice, D. A., & Miller, D. T. (1993). Pluralistic ignorance and alcohol use on campus: Some consequences of misperceiving the social norm. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64(2), 243–256.
Shiller, R. J. (2019). Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events. Princeton University Press.
Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. In W. G. Austin & S. Worchel (Eds.), The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations (pp. 33–47). Brooks/Cole.

This essay is adapted from a longer academic paper, “The Belief Rigidity Cascade: Identity-Driven Phase Transitions in Narrative-Anchored Asset Markets” (Cline, 2026), which includes formal modeling, a full literature review, and detailed case studies of five historical BRC events.

If you’re a Bitcoin maximalist who read all of this and you’re furious, especially today, especially after the bounce, especially because it feels like the worst is over, I get it. That’s Stage 3. I’d probably be mad too.

If you’re a Bitcoin maximalist who read all of this and felt that quiet drop in your stomach, especially today, especially because the bounce didn’t make you feel as relieved as you thought it would, that’s Stage 5. And I’m sorry.
Either way, do you, my friend.

Bitcoin is currently trading around $63K after a heavy daily breakdown candle.
And honestly… this is the kind of move that makes people panic, but for BTC, it’s not really “new”. Before talking about where BTC is going next, let’s quickly understand one thing:BTC doesn’t just move up smoothly.
It moves like a staircase… and sometimes it kicks people off the stairs.
BTC Has Always Moved Like This: Uptrend With Drops in Between

This picture basically explains BTC perfectly.
Bitcoin’s whole history is:
Slow climbSudden dumpSideways chopThen another big leg up
That’s why BTC rewards patience and destroys overconfidence.
BTC Price History (2009–2025): Drops Are Normal

If you look at BTC’s full history, it’s honestly crazy how many times it “looked dead”…
2013 crash
2017 crash
2021 crash
2022 full bear market
And every time, BTC eventually came back stronger.
That’s why I personally never treat a BTC drop like the “end of Bitcoin”.
The real question is always: Is this a normal correction, or a trend shift?
Now Let’s Talk About What’s Happening Right Now

BTC basically printed a clean bearish sequence:
lower highs
weak bounces
then one big breakdown candle straight into $63K
This type of candle usually means: Support levels got smashed + leverage got wiped out.
Why Did BTC Drop This Hard?
Why Did BTC Drop This Hard? (Simple Explanation)
A lot of people will say “BTC dropped because of fear.”
I don’t think that’s the real reason.
Here’s what makes more sense:
Risk-Off Market Mood
When markets turn risk-off, BTC behaves like a high-risk asset.
If stocks and tech are weak, crypto usually gets hit harder.
ETF Demand Isn’t Saving the Dip Right Now
Spot Bitcoin ETF flows have been weaker lately, with outflows showing up again.
That means less support on dips.

Liquidations (The Real Killer)
Once BTC broke key support, it likely triggered:
stop lossesliquidation cascadesforced selling
That’s how a normal drop turns into a waterfall.

Key Levels We Should Be Watching
This is the most important part for traders.
🟢 Support Zones (Where Buyers Might Step In)
Support 1: $63K to $65K
This is the current zone BTC is sitting on right now.
If BTC holds here, we can get a relief bounce.
Support 2: $60.6K
This is the next major level on our chart.
If BTC breaks $63K cleanly, I won’t be surprised if price gets dragged toward $60K.
Psychological numbers always attract liquidity.
🔴 Resistance Zones (Where Bounces Will Get Sold)
Resistance 1: $67.5K
If BTC can reclaim this level, short-term bounce becomes realistic.
Resistance 2: $70.5K
This is where sellers will likely defend hard.
Resistance 3: $73.5K
This one is huge.
It was supported before the breakdown, so now it has become resistant.
If BTC gets back above $73.5K and holds, then the panic narrative cools down.
Where BTC Is Going Next (3 Scenarios)
I don’t like making one prediction, because BTC doesn’t care about opinions.
So here’s the clean way to think:
✅ Scenario A: Relief Bounce (Most Likely Short-Term)
If BTC holds $63K–$65K, then we can easily see a bounce toward:
$67.5Kthen $70.5K
This would mostly be a short squeeze + dip buyers stepping in.
⚠️ Scenario B: Sideways Chop (Market Reset)
If BTC can’t reclaim $67.5K quickly, it might just chop in a range:
$63K to $70K range
This is the worst phase because people overtrade and lose slowly.
🚨 Scenario C: Deeper Dump (If $63K Breaks)
If BTC closes daily below $63K, then the next magnet becomes:
$60.6K
That’s the next major “where liquidity sits” zone.
So… Should you buy BTC here?
Personally, I’m not going all-in here.
This is what I’m doing instead:
My Plan:
If BTC holds $63K and stabilizes, I’ll consider scaling small buysIf BTC loses $63K, I’ll wait for $60K areaIf BTC reclaims $67.5K with strength, then I’ll start thinking bullish short-term again
I’d rather miss the first 3% move than catch a falling knife.

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#WhenWillBTCRebound

Watching $WMTX here, the main takeaway for me is structure, not the number on the screen. The chart shows a sharp early impulse followed by a long fade, which usually means the first wave of liquidity got absorbed and late buyers became exit liquidity.
After that, it shifted into base building with choppy candles and lots of wicks, basically the market searching for fair value instead of trending cleanly. The recent bounce looks like a reaction off that base, but one strong move alone does not confirm a trend flip.
My approach is simple. I only get interested when it starts printing higher lows and actually holds them. If it keeps whipping both sides, I treat it like a range, size down, and stay patient because ranges punish impatience more than anything.
Lesson here is that when a token moves from hype to base building, the edge is waiting for clean structure, not trying to nail the exact bottom. Are you trading the chop or waiting for a clearer trend shift?