Why Bitcoin Still Can’t Catch a Bid?| Trading The Markets w/ Kris Bullock & Bijan Maleki

Global liquidity remains in a broadly negative trend despite a recent monthly bounce. The three-month, six-month, and yearly rates of change are all still pointed to the downside. The dollar bounced off its 10-day moving average at roughly the same level liquidity bottomed, consistent with their inverse relationship, and continues to show fair strength. Financial conditions have improved only marginally, with the VIX pulling back from the low 20s to around 15 to 16, credit spreads staying stable, and real rates stopping their tightening. The overall environment is characterized as slightly less bad than the prior week but not yet risk-on.

A stronger dollar disproportionately pressures non-yield-bearing, non-revenue-generating assets like Bitcoin and gold relative to tech and AI stocks, which are supported by revenues, order backlogs, and capital expenditure. Bitcoin's dollar-denominated price naturally declines when the dollar strengthens simply because the dollar itself is worth more. Bitcoin's technical picture is deteriorating further. On the daily chart it closed below a key support and resistance line for the first time, though it subsequently reclaimed that level. A bullish divergence flag and a slight RSI bullish divergence are both present but have lost momentum, and Bitcoin was rejected at its 10-day moving average. On the weekly chart, multiple wicks below the key line have not produced a close beneath it, but the weekly RSI bullish divergence has weakened considerably. The expectation is for Bitcoin to chop between now and the September to October timeframe with a real possibility of price dropping into the 50s.

ETF holdings have deteriorated sharply, dipping below the total Bitcoin held in corporate treasuries and digital asset trusts for the first time since the ETF chart was created, with ETF holdings now at their lowest level in roughly a year and giving up essentially a full year of gains. Strategy and other treasury holders have continued accumulating, so aggregate institutional Bitcoin has only given back a few months of price action. The ETF capitulation is framed as consistent with a bottoming phase of a bear market and a necessary checkbox before a durable bottom can form. The Clarity Act is reportedly being pushed into 2027, with odds of passage this year put at roughly a coin flip. Even if it passes, it would not immediately inject liquidity or launch a new bull market but would instead create a more investable regulatory environment for institutions rather than giving retail investors additional capital to deploy.

Among individual crypto assets, Hyperliquid is the strongest in the top ten, showing a neutral track line with no dots and trading above that line. Solana is a distant second, sitting above its track line with three green dots and stronger RSI, though it has broken above and back below its track line multiple times and needs confirmation. Ethereum shows no bottoming or reversal signals and is described as very ugly with a steep downward trajectory. XRP is setting lower lows, is down 72 percent from its all-time high of 3.65 dollars set last year, and is described as looking worse than Ethereum or Solana. Ethereum, Solana, and XRP are expected to remain anemic for the next three or more months.

Venice received a new funding round valuing the company at one billion dollars with approximately 20 to 30 million in new investment and is described as one of a small category of solid revenue-generating crypto assets. However its chart shows red dots despite green candles, indicating momentum building to the downside, which is characterized as concerning. Aerodrome, the DEX running on the Base chain partnered with Coinbase, is above its track line with green candles and is outpacing many other assets, though it accrues value to its token to a lesser degree than Hyperliquid. Bitcoin Cash is showing early signs of a technical bottoming pattern on the daily chart. Circle had its first red weekly candle under the indicator being used, briefly confirmed a bottom signal, then broke back down and is now firmly in downtrend territory despite stablecoins being described as one of the few genuine product-market fits blockchain technology has produced. Circle's stock price behaves more like a meme coin narrative cycle than a reflection of actual revenue, moving in correlation with Bitcoin rather than its business fundamentals.

Coinbase is approximately 66 percent down from its peak, with reduced retail trading volume cited as a primary reason the stock remains depressed. Coinbase has a more diversified revenue base than Circle, spanning institutional holdings, ETFs, treasury yields, its stake in Circle, trading fees, retail, custody, staking, Aerodrome, and the Base chain, with further expansion into perpetuals trading and prediction markets. Bijan Maleki said he is adding Coinbase to his personal watch list as a potential buy once he gains confidence in an uptick. Despite this, Coinbase remains a boom-and-bust stock tied to the broader crypto cycle, and the Coinbase-to-Bitcoin ratio chart has tracked largely sideways since 2022, with Coinbase acting as a higher-beta version of Bitcoin rather than an independent outperformer. Investors are advised to monitor that ratio chart to determine whether holding Coinbase actually produces better returns than holding Bitcoin directly.

Analyst Rect Capital observed that peaks and bottoms of prior crypto bull and bear markets have historically been accompanied by black swan events, citing the FTX collapse as a mechanical catalyst that produced final capitulation in 2022.