Fear and greed are not just some indicator or trading primitive. They’re the foundation of decision-making in every part of life.
Every decision gets made somewhere on the line between fear and greed.
If greed wins, fear gets shoved into the background. That’s how a maid who got a $1 tip will expect more next time, but clean just as badly, if not worse. If fear takes over, no amount of logic will help the brain make the bold move it should make. So the expired product you just bought gets tossed in the trash instead of being returned, because you’re afraid of a public scene. Social norms, what can you do.
The picture hasn’t changed, and this is more of an add-on to the trade idea from the previous reviews ↓
The RB I marked earlier as a weekly element of secondary importance did give a short-lived reaction, and that’s where the 1D VC came from ↓
I opened an anti-FOMO short with 1x risk, but I placed the stop-loss pretty far out, which makes the trade’s RR negative - I’m risking more to get less. Still, I’m holding the short limit at $67,278, with x3 the usual risk, in line with the main trade idea.
After the reaction from the weekly RB ($65,710 - $67,276), where the VC came in, the 1D price on most major exchanges closed the daily fractal, and on others it set the low very close to it. I read that as a local refuel and the creation of EQLs, Equal Lows. After that, the newly formed 1D FVG ($64,422 - $64,581), which is also the VC, got inverted by yesterday’s candle with positive volume delta. That points to a bullish 1D VC and to the narrative toward the main target at $67,276. A few of the main indicators I use also support the possibility of a continued local push up.
Since the local low at $57,775 was set, no 1W VC has come in. That says the HTF bearish narrative is still alive, and this monthly countertrend move is just building a liquidity cascade, already five fractals deep, by the way. This patch isn’t being planted for nothing. The time will come for the algorithm to harvest the crop.
Reminder: I see the target of the bounce move around $67,300. But today could print a daily seller FVG into the picture. That’s a solid argument for asking, "Did we already turn?"
Valid seller volume came in off the $64,700 daily fractal. Technically, that can be read as a cancellation of the move targeting $67,300 and a resumption of the drop toward the weekly areas, first of all around $58,600.
I’m not ignoring this. If the FVG forms, I’ll open a short from its lower boundary near $64,000, with normal risk. If I get stopped out, I’ll just re‑enter after $67,300 gets swept.
I didn’t see any reason to do the weekly review on time. Nothing changed. Price action is still moving according to the old trade plan, meaning toward the weekly level. The first level I marked was $67,730, and that’s where price looks headed now.
I’m bringing the geopolitics back into it, because the link between Middle East headlines and BTC pricing is real. Bitcoin does what it always does: up on peace, down on escalation. The picture gets uglier once you see where this is going. The US and its buddies took the loss, and the era of cheap oil is gone. What’s happening now is just a try to shove everything back where it was - direct quote from Trump’s office, by the way - and keep oil prices pinned down. In other words, there’s no fundamental case for markets going up ↓
That’s the only thing that really bothers me. I’m a hard believer in BTC cycle timing, but I also know every successful iteration doesn’t push the deviation away, it brings it closer. The market is fractal. Anything that looks like a finished trend is always just a small part of a larger move. BTC is going to have a supercycle correction, and it will definitely do something it hasn’t done before - break the structure of the perfect four-year cycles. Whether that happens now is the question.
Locally, like I said, I’m waiting for $67,730. From there I’ll be looking for short entries even on LTF. $ETH, by the way, has pulled far ahead of BTC and already reached levels where reversal patterns can be hunted. As I’ve said before, that’s a solid setup for the last big downside swing of the cycle. I plan to increase risk and toss the usual 2:1 ratio in the trash.
Earlier I already mentioned the Trader XO Macro Trend Scanner. Back then I was talking about the two-week timeframe. This time I’m looking at the monthly.
In the last cycle, the indicator printed a bearish signal about 2 months before the actual low. That same signal just showed up inside July’s candle. Roughly the same timing points to the first days of the bottom window I already mapped.
I’m looking at this case as a bundle of factors. The connection exists only with the last cycle, and leaning on one indicator alone is stupid. I’m treating it only as extra confirmation for the time window I already laid out: September 4, 2026 to October 21, 2026.
After the monthly-weekly target was hit at $58,900, buyers showed up. An FVG formed between $62,188 and $62,311, which is a straight VC signal. The new move now has a target in the weekly element, and the first one is clearly the three-candle fractal at $67 ,276. That fractal matters less as a weekly three-candle pattern and more as a five-candle daily trigger sitting inside a weekly FVG that still hasn’t been properly filled. Right there too, at $69 ,158, sits the 0.5 level of the last downside impulse.
As for other targets, any daily element inside the weekly SNR block from $70,300 to $82,811 can do the job, for example around $72,000. That’s already pretty high, and it’s a secondary target anyway, so I’m only watching $67 ,276 and the daily elements on the way to it. Why? Any one of them can cancel the bullish narrative and turn price back toward the weekly element, only this time on the downside. That target would be the newly formed RB between $59,550 and $57,755, and then the break through it.
The case for invalidation through a daily element is also backed by the moving average I keep bringing up. Right now it sits around $64,300, right inside that daily RB. Time after time, this algorithmic level acts like strong support or resistance. Until price breaks it and closes through, shorts are the better side.
And while the window can’t be pinned down exactly, that’s the whole point of a window, a range, there’s always uncertainty and room for an outside move. Still, assuming the bear phase ends this early, after only two months, is reckless.
The bear phase of the 4-year cycle is playing out with a clean order flow structure. After a sharp leg down, a monthly seller FVG forms, then price action tests that zone, gets a VC, and keeps dumping by repeating the same playbook.
The target of the current narrative sits on the monthly timeframe. But just hitting a level is only the first part. What matters is confirmation, meaning VC. Only then can you even talk about a reversal. In practice, this is just a back-and-forth between elements on a given timeframe: price reaches a 1M element, forms a 1W VC, then heads toward the next 1M element in the opposite direction. The point is simple: until an X-1 VC forms, 1W for 1M, you cannot say the target has been reached. You have to work from the next element on the main timeframe.
Potential targets for the current monthly downside narrative:
* $59,888 | This level has already been hit, along with the valid $58,900 target. It’s completely fair that a 1W VC could come from here and flip the structure. I allow for that, even though the bottom window is marked for September and the price window opens below $52,000. The very fact that these ranges exist shows that each cycle has its own variability, which means the current one can also stretch beyond the expected frame, in either direction.
* $52,500 | The next live target. This is a weekly fractal, but inside the monthly SNR block at $71,400 - $48,900. The point of an SNR block is that inside its boundaries, X-1 timeframe elements can be treated as valid. So a weekly element gets read as a monthly one. The catch is that the February correction already interacted with this SNR block and later formed a 1W VC, which in practice means the element was already fully delivered.
In my ticker list, the only charts I don’t want to touch after the autumn wipeout event are $BTC , $ETH , and $HYPE . $APT shows up there sometimes too. The first three are obvious. Aptos, though, is a clean mirror of the altcoin market as a whole, so whenever I talk about $APT , you can mentally swap in pretty much any other altcoin ticker, technically and fundamentally.
Technically, $APT - read that as any other ticker - is in free fall, or in the process of finding fair value. That’s where fundamentals come in. As long as the project has not announced its own funeral, and the team still exists in practice, it’s a live system, and it has a fair price, whether that’s a billion-dollar valuation or a couple hundred bucks ↓
Statistically, and it feels weird even having to say this, it doesn’t matter how tightly the token is tied to the project - good news means a reaction on the chart. That again underlines the whole point of finding good prices both for buying and for selling.
Fundamentally, there’s nothing supporting a $1B+ valuation. In the traditional sector, there are plenty of examples of what companies with that kind of valuation are supposed to look like.
The asset moves along the path of least resistance, meaning down. As I’ve said before, big funds buy equity, the token is just the premium. Employees, when they get token bonuses, dump those too. We’re standing in the middle of an apple orchard where one apple somehow costs a brand-new sapling, and until the price gets pushed down to almost free, nobody’s buying.
In the last update, I was waiting for levels around $64,500 to open shorts. Price got there, and I opened a $BTC trade with x3 the usual risk, stop-loss at $67,270 and a target near $59,080. I opened a symmetrical $ETH trade too, but with my normal risk ↓
Now for the risk. In that same update I already said I was fine with a local flip above $67,270, meaning getting stopped out. That’s not a problem. On the contrary ↓
In the current setup, VC came from the weekly FVG area. The $67,200 fractal now acts as the trigger inside that zone, and the 0.5 level of that area still hasn’t been tested. Technically, it can happen, and even needs to. If it stops me out, I’ll just re-enter with a better RR. As long as the trade is alive, the first important level for me is the $62,200 fractal. Once price gets there, I’ll move the trade to breakeven. Same story on ETH.
The rest of the plan stays the same. The only thing worth stressing is the importance of moving the short to breakeven at the $62,200 fractal. It acts like a trigger inside the 1W RB range of $63,300 - $59,080. And as I said earlier, that element is weekly too, which means it can also serve as a delivery target.
That’s the local picture. I’ll map out the bigger one in a separate post.
Reminder: under the main plan, delivery into the weekly element was expected. First up was the $65,770 - $72,460 FVG ↓
By yesterday’s candle close, the daily FVG between $65,317 and $64,781 got inverted ↓
Since the volume delta is negative, this can be read as a full VC, and therefore as a cancellation of the local upward impulse and a continuation of the drop, at least to the first weekly target, which is the $59,081 fractal, with $58,900 right behind it.
Today’s close may print a full seller 1D FVG, which would directly confirm the incoming VC. I’d treat that as a signal to open shorts with elevated risk. Important detail: I fully allow for the position getting stopped out at $67 ,270, but that level would still act as the trigger and give a chance to look for new entries on lower timeframes.
One last point. Since any fractal contains a lower-timeframe fractal inside it, the sweep of a level can be viewed across different timeframes. So when the $59,888 monthly fractal was swept, the weekly fractal was swept too, which in turn formed a weekly RB in the $63,300 - $59,080 range. That area is basically the primary target, and it would be more correct to treat it as the main POI rather than the $59,081 and $58,900 fractals. Or use it as the zone to move the trade to breakeven. That’s it.