In a bear market you often see price make a small range, push above it and then quickly retrace and trap people.
This is what we call a deviation and eventually is also the move that makes the lower high.
This bear market price has done that EVERY TIME.
That move happens UNTIL the bear market is over. Once it doesn't anymore it usually highlights the end.
Meaning we'll likely find out soon enough if this is more than a bear market retracement or more of the start of a new bull market.
There are some promising arguments this time though.
1/ The current local bottom is effectively in the region of the previous cycle all-time high (historically bottom strong)
2/ The current range is already 6 months + lasting. This is longer than previous ranges this cycle.
3/ The 4-year cycle theory. If you believe in the strength of the 4-year cycle we are VERY close.
1-2 months off is perfectly reasonable.
4/ 60k is the first range that didn't break easily. Look at the chart below. Every range eventually broke down once it made a NEW range lower.
We made a new range this time. But 60k barely broke. A few wicks below but that's it. Current range is almost at the same local bottom as the last one.
5/ Probably more reasons to mention but these were already just out of the top of my head
So it has been decided? The bottom is in? Well it ain't that easy but there are multiple arguments that actually do favor a bottom.
We technically didn't make a new higher high yet (hence why it ain't that easy).
But there are pro arguments why this move can be the one that puts it in.
Early thesis as it's frontrunning the evidence on the charts but there are pro arguments that lead the move.
The last time both cohorts reached these levels, Bitcoin was trading near $75K.
If these flows remain elevated and BTC reclaims the range highs, the next expansion will have the strongest participation behind it in months.
On the other hand, if buying pressure continues rising while price fails to make progress, it would show that enough supply remains to keep $BTC trapped inside the range.
This is the basic trading law of effort versus result.
Either price expands to reflect the buying pressure, or that pressure eventually exhausts itself inside the range.
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Weโre now seeing retail volume on $BTC approaching its highest levels of this bear market.
The market has no shortage of retail participants willing to accumulate and absorb dips at these prices.
It has a shortage of larger participants willing to stop selling.
Retail Volume Delta currently sits at approximately positive $686.5M.
Meanwhile, mid-sized CVD sits at negative $8.8B, while institutional-sized CVD has fallen to negative $12B.
That helps explain why BTC has struggled to produce a sustained recovery despite retail interest continuously moving higher.
Retail has absorbed a significant amount of supply from larger participants, but that demand has simply not been enough to reverse the direction of the larger flows.
This doesnโt automatically mean retail is wrong. Over the next few years, I doubt anyone will be complaining about accumulating at these prices.
The risk is that retail eventually becomes exhausted after spending months accumulating the decline.
If $BTC continues falling while this divergence remains intact, those participants become trapped.
The irony is that their eventual capitulation could create exactly the supply larger participants need to begin accumulating at lower prices.
That is the transition Iโm personally looking for within this metric.
Retail conviction begins to weaken, institutional selling starts slowing and larger participants begin absorbing the capitulation they previously helped create.
Historically, that transition has been one of the clearest signs that Bitcoin is forming a major bottom.