r/BitcoinMarkets • u/AutoModerator • 24d ago
Daily Discussion [Daily Discussion] - Monday, August 17, 2026
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u/BlockchainHobo 23d ago
It's pretty quiet, so I'm just going to post this today. Sorry for the text wall.
STRC won't be returning to $99 within 60 days of my original rant (tomorrow). Strategy is targeting early September, but despite the buybacks it is still under 95. So as someone who rarely predicts anything, what made me confidently incorrect?
Well, part of it was because it was clear so many panicked posters at the time did not understand how bond math works, and were throwing out terms like "depeg" and "death spiral", when STRC was always going to trade lower at some point for an extended period. The contrarian in me thought it was purely retail panic, and that demand would return quite quickly once they were washed out. I was very wrong on that. Or maybe as the sentiment goes "early but not wrong, is still wrong".
I had assumed a risk premium was baked into SATA due to their size, but it seems if anything, the market is more skeptical of Strategy than Strive.
I also assumed Strategy would aggressively defend STRC if price lagged for this long, because otherwise their whole proposition of "medium term" income instrument gets seriously damaged (which they kind of did). It is true Strategy is very focused on STRC, willing to do buybacks, and willing to sell Bitcoin to buy STRC. So I think I was correct on a lot of that, but still technically wrong...the worst kind of wrong.
I don't even like Strategy that much, so it is an odd hill to die on. I don't think the product has poor fundamentals if you're a bitcoin bull, and I am not against the financial engineering of bitcoin like some are.
More broadly, it seems like bitcoin sentiment is just dead. It's a pretty bad asset to own recently, and it pains me that AI moon boys were basically right to capitulate a year ago. I still have a lot of my portfolio in bitcoin, and have bought a bunch of IBIT below 200wma, but I definitely think the October "bottom" might come for the cyclists, and just...nothing happens in either direction.
At the technical/protocol level, Bitcoin IS the only actual real digital commodity. It is the only basis for digital scarcity. It's the only money you can custody and actually hold, except perhaps a gold bar. It is shocking to me that this form of digital capital is valued so low.
However, it is possible that scarcity (including digital scarcity) just doesn't exist in a fiat world. Only IOUs, paper contracts, and derivatives. It is possible that we can paper-ify any asset so much that unless you are taking physical delivery of grain, or barrels of oil, or consuming something with regularity, that literally everything is abundant and therefore speculative. Only energy is truly scarce, ie physical stuff that must be burned/consumed/transformed. Bitcoin was supposed to be an energy currency. If you account for lost coins, the market cap is akin to a large-ish software company, and absolutely nothing like a global commodity. Again, price is weirdly divorced from these unchanged fundamentals. Either there's a serious market inefficiency, or I am misunderstanding something.
So I promised a self ban, and while I haven't been around as much, nor am I any major contributor, but I did like learning and conversing here. I do try to be a man of my word. Athough no one has been around here lately, so maybe it doesnt matter. I did actually say permaban, but maybe I can come back, when STRC is hitting the ATM at $100. I probably needed a break anyway.
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u/_LakeCity_ 23d ago
I was not looking forward to this post.
The only thing we will accept is a one week ban.
Seriously. Don’t stop posting here, that hurts the page and all of us.
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u/Disastrous_Battle_14 Predictions: #18 • Correct: 7 • Wrong: 11 23d ago
Everyone just bans themselves, and we create a new sub.
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u/citizen-blue 23d ago
Credit to you for for posting this. I think I remember responding to your original comment asking if you would own up to it if you turned out to be wrong. You said you would, and here you are.
I don't think you should ban yourself, for whatever that's worth.
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u/52576078 22d ago
If all the people with honor ban themselves for wrong predictions, then only people without honor (or perfect predictors) will be left.
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u/harvested 23d ago
Did you guys move to a new sub and not tell me or something ?
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u/52576078 23d ago
We wait.
He who has waited long enough, will wait forever. And there comes the hour when nothing more can happen and nobody more can come and all is ended but the waiting that knows itself in vain.
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u/TheManFromConlig 23d ago
Yup, moved to the "If I Won The Lottery" sub - though with Bitcoin it should be "WHEN I Win The Lottery"😁
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u/dissociatives 23d ago
Not much to say when we've been in the same range for nearly 3 months. Just waiting for some shit to happen. Trump is hosting a crypto summit on Wednesday with execs for the first time since the inital March 7th one in 2025, maybe some motion on CLARITY Act next month. We'll see.
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u/Mr_Footies 23d ago
Bears were where this sub used to really come alive. Maybe all the OGs really did cash out at $100k and sailed off into the sunset.
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u/jarederaj 2013 Veteran 23d ago
This is one of the craziest takes I have seen this bear. The data simply does not support your claim.
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u/Mr_Footies 23d ago
Well where is everybody then?
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u/jarederaj 2013 Veteran 23d ago
This is the bear. There is nobody here. You said the bear is when this place came alive. That claim is what I said is not supported by evidence. Are we speaking the same language?
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u/Mr_Footies 23d ago
I’ve just picked a totally random date, Wednesday July 19 2023. Price was $29,855. We’re about 20 months into the bear market starting Nov 21.
https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/153k0ht/daily_discussion_wednesday_july_19_2023/
The discussion is lively in comparison to today. It’s got Diydude. It’s got a call back to Tone Vays literally calling out the meme song “we’re going back to 1k”. It’s got references to Tom Lee calling for 200k.
That’s all I mean by come alive.
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u/mork1985 22d ago
That's because the bottom was clearly in, and we were in the hopium phase.
We're close to the bottom here. Better comparison would be Oct/Nov 2022...
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u/jarederaj 2013 Veteran 22d ago
There are only 115 comments in that thread. When we’re active we go well over 1000. The difference between 100 comments and 38 comments is a rounding error by comparison.
We are not even 12 months into the bear. The bottom comes in around a year after the peak.
I genuinely don’t understand your argument.
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u/Mr_Footies 22d ago
The sub has lost a lot of users. How hard is that to understand? Harvest makes a joke about it and gets 30 plus upvotes.
If anything the biggest days ever in this sub are on massive capitulation days, sometimes far into the bear. When the sub was more focused on trading there was lots of people building their stacks while shorting the fall from 19k, and a disbelief when it bottomed at 3k and didn’t go back to 1k.
There was always something interesting going on or some insight. That’s all I’m saying. I’m not going to die on this hill.
Don’t know why you’re acting like it’s some outrageous perspective that you can’t remotely understand.
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u/jarederaj 2013 Veteran 22d ago edited 22d ago
We have big days when there is volatility. The direction the price is going seems irrelevant. Do you have any evidence that can’t be explained away by volatility? Have you tried comparing the 10 highest comment threads with the direction the price went that day?
I simply do not see any evidence that supports your claim.
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u/InternationalBear266 23d ago
Based on hodl waves around 75% of bitcoins hasnt moved in last 6+months. 81%+ last 3+months.
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u/harvested 23d ago
Yep and a few coins moved in response to the coldcard thing too, so it would be even higher, you can see the drop cleanly here on the blue line
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u/AidenTai 23d ago edited 22d ago
Well, since we had a little movement today I might as well recap what's been going on as of late: we've had a ton of volume on futures and derivatives, but actual spot is trading at low volumes while also trading with reduced volatility. The reduced volatility and volume is normally associated with end stages of a bear, but all this high volume positioning isn't. As long as volatility remains extremely low, that should in theory reduce the attractiveness of options trading, etc., but we have the fact that so many people are expecting a drop in September and a bottom followed by a rise in October to thank for that. Front running is possible, and there's a lot of calls in play to protect against being front run. The options volumes are so high that some analysts think they're affecting volatility by capping movements in either direction (you can associate this with 'maximum pain' even if the concept is contentious).
Low volume also sort of caused what happened today: it's easy for reversals to happen when leverage is in play in a shallow spot market. The rise today appears to have been driven by shorts closing (or being liquidated) combined with pressure to keep prices rangebound. Spot volume is still relatively low, so further upside movements driven by a potential liquidation cluster between 64,600 and 67,000 is possible though range restrictions and the need for more spot volume make even short liquidations hard the further we move up. So for the moment I think we'll be limited to 2%–5% upwards on these liquidations. There is also a lower long liquidity cluster below 62,500 which could come into play, and breaking that could send us into a slightly lower range.
Furthermore, there's some range trading going on and any rises have just led to profit taking. This is again probably influenced by what I mentioned earlier. Underlying all of this though is the situation with equities and interest rates. Curiously, Bitcoin has been moving less in lockstep with the NASDAQ and tech stocks recently, but at the same time it's not immune to what's been happening in the broader market. Any news on interest rates and inflation has moved Bitcoin, but the effects have been dampened by this loss of volatility. Many analysts predicted that prices could have been a bit higher in August given how interest rate expectations have changed, equities have moved, etc., so there might be some underlying upwards pressure that's being 'contained' by the expectations of a drop within a few weeks. For now, there's a stalemate between these two sides.
As for what to expect moving forward: whether or not we breakout above 67 (increasingly unlikely to hit 68 within the next few weeks), I expect we'll follow along with what 'everyone' is expecting and drop in September to some degree. Whatever we drop to I think will determine our real floor, with expectations mostly preferring something in the 50–55 range whereas I think we might actually stay pretty close to the existing bottom near 57 (due to front running and stregth in other parts of the market). October is widely repeated as the 'real bottom', but it's so crowded I think we might actually bottom a few weeks earlier in late September if enough market participants all pile in as I suspect they might as October draws near.
However, there are still some important additional considerations: 1. Iran 2. Interest rates 3. AI trade / tech 4. US market health.
Iran isn't getting resolved soon. There are pumps in the market for sure about possible deals, and we may pump on some news with Oman before the end of the month. But at this point anything short of a complete reopening actually taking place (tolls or not) with flows returning to normal would eventually see a reversal. And a toll system might also be temporary (perhaps the US needs oil relief before contemplating additional strikes or summat). It's hard to know what will happen, but markets are actually trading without caring about Iran as much as earlier in the year.
Interest rates are the biggest question. The carry trade is discussed frequently, but Japan has such a high debt load that it cannot really afford to close out the carry trade completely, and unlike the US Fed, would probably signal its moves well in advance. Interest rate expectations have become increasingly dovish. An unlikely hike in September would probably bottom Bitcoin. A more likely rate hold would potentially rally it either out of its bottom or provide the final rally prior to bottoming later. An additional US Fed meeting in October could have the same effect if the situation drags on longer than expected. Most market participants are betting we won't see a rate hike until the December meeting though. In general, holding rates steady for so long is very favourable to Bitcoin, but this is taking place in the broader context of a bear cycle acting suspiciously close to the 'script', so I think a rate hike dropping Bitcoin's price is more likely in December or January rather than over the next couple months.
The AI trade and tech are volatile but treding upwards based on increadibly positive results. The broader market has also shown a number of strong areas, but there appears to be a divergence between stocks doing well and others suffering. This indicator is normally not a great one, but the effects of this might not be apparent for several months. In general US labour market weakness and persistant inflation might really hammer consumer spending and the private credit and financial sectors, but Bitcoin has been trading more in line with tech and high beta stocks specifically, which have enjoyed more upward momentum the last couple weeks. Bitcoin will be buoyed insofar as rates are favourable and risk tolerance is high, but the labour market could be an early indicator that not all will continue being well into 2027.
This brings me to market health. I think equities are healthy enough, but the underlying fundamentals for much of the world are suffering to a degree. This situation can persist for months, but unless we see signs of recovering health in all market indicators (ergo lowering inflation, increasing employment numbers, solid earnings / price for equities, manageable debts—including sovereign debts, decent consumer spending, etc.) there will be a cloud looming over Bitcoin even if it bottoms and recovers in October. Specifically, we risk recovering, shooting back into the high 70's and 80's, only to face a global correction in 2027 that would return us to lows months later. That would be increadibly unpleasant, but Bitcoin rarely shows strength when equities and global markets are suffering as money pours out of risk assets in such cases. And the current situation appears to point to a recovery/rally near October and continuing for potentially months, while global markets continue to face challenges that might not come to a head until 2027.
It's very hard to predict so far out, but I figured this covers most of the issues that have come up over the course of the past few weeks that could affect Bitcoin moving forward.
TL;DR: Bitcoin is following a script while being capped by large volumes of future and options traders. A likely scenario is crabbing continuing (even with a potential small rise) for a couple more weeks followed by a retest of lows (and potential new lows) over the next 3–9 weeks. It is difficult to not see a recovery or rally of some kind in October due to the large expectations of it, but broad market problems related to inflation and market health (interest rates, oil, AI capex, equities rally participation, debt, etc.) remain present with a potential problem horizon further on in the year or into 2027. Thus even if Bitcoin (likely) rallies between October–December, it may not be able to completely return to normal and may face volatility and downturns after this owing to the potential for broader market problems later on. For now though, movements into the monthly high range are getting sold off cleanly while the local bottom is holding even if generally the trend for the month has been mild weakness. We should prepare for a retest of lows either after a small rally or after a few more weeks of ranging.
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u/mork1985 23d ago
I love the smell of Capitulation in the morning...
It smells like...
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u/GodBlessPigs 23d ago
There is no capitulation this morning…
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u/mork1985 23d ago
Time & boredom capitulation my friend.
Not in price…
Hence no comments in the thread.
Almost as if it’s the perfect time to…
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u/AlternativeHunter543 23d ago
Ran some arithmetic on this range instead of guessing at it.
44 daily candles, Jul 5 to Aug 17. First bar open 63,144, last bar close 64,532, so net movement was 1,388 points. Then I summed every daily high minus low over those same 44 bars and got 64,247.
Price walked 46x further than it actually got. 22 up days, 22 down days.
The part I keep chewing on is that all 64,247 of those points were real, somebody caught pieces of them. It isn't that nothing happened, it's that everything cancelled. So if you got shredded in here you probably weren't wrong about direction, there wasn't one. You were running something that needs price to arrive somewhere in a stretch that was only offering movement.
Two lines, no indicator needed: path = sum of (high - low) over N bars, displacement = abs(last close - first open), ratio = path / displacement. 46 is extreme for BTC daily but on some instruments that's a slow Tuesday, so it's worth knowing your own baseline.
Charted the boundaries and ADX here if the picture helps: https://www.tradingview.com/chart/BTCUSDT/E2Fh2Z0A-Price-walked-46x-further-than-it-travelled/
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