Bitcoin Preparing for a Big Move

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I have been big bear on Bitcoin' in 2018 up until June. Catching the April bullish move from the lows and the Juni/Juli upwards move. Predicting these bullish moves was VERY difficult because most of the (TA) signs were showing more bearish movement, especially in April. Just like the most of the highs i predicted in that period, these were also very difficult calls. It is not easy going against extreme sentiment in combination with TA signs confirming that as well. That's why being/staying objective all the time is extremely important.

My 2 biggest advantages were:
- I have no personal attachment/interest in Crypto.
- The FOMO virus is no longer part of me, which has been the nr 1 problem for Crypto traders in 2018. The professional traders have been feeding on this through 2018.

FOMO is not just a problem in Crypto, it is a problem in every market AND on each time frame. In hyped markets it's obviously much extremer, like most of you have learned the hard way in 2018. Reading all those predictions of famous crypto preachers, saying Bitcoin' is going to 50K or 250K. What kind of idiot would you have been for NOT buying bitcoin' at 8K or at 10K "knowing" price is going above the 100K. It is VERY difficult to ignore all of these influences. A simple example where Goldman Sachs predicts the stock markets to go much higher 2 months ago and Tech stocks like Amazon and AMD' were being pushed higher (like alts coins in crypto) creating FOMO even in the stock market. We have seen what happened the past weeks in the stock market, record dumping even. It's up to us to do our own research and i can tell you, logical (objective) thinking is always the best strategy.
cnbc.com/2018/08/13/goldman-says-rosy-scenario-could-see-the-stock-market-surge-from-here.html

I personally paid my dues during the Dot Com bubble and also learned it the hard way, that FOMO is something we need to learn to let go completely. Because even if you catch a huge win, it will be just a matter of time until you give it all back again. It will give you so much more peace of mind when FOMO is no langer part of your system.

Back to business, i had switched sides a bit from big bear to neutral/bullish the past 3 months. For reasons i have mentioned several times in the analysis i posted the past few months. But the past month things have changed again and i am almost ready to throw my bullish towel in the ring. I had already switched to neutral the past month or so because the bearish factors just kept increasing, with the low volume being the nr 1 problem at the moment. I had a few reasons for being bullish the past few months and some were the following:

- The 6000 support zone was getting stronger and was slowly even moving up (higher lows)
- Alts made a panic low 2/3 months ago with high volume showing allot of accumulation was going on
- It became much harder to read the sentiment here on TV, but what i could see there were more bears than bulls the past months.

The biggest problem for the market the past few months is the low volume, which is decreasing everyday. It was already bad a month ago but it's just getting worse every week. In general this means there is no/low interest in this market, at the current price. So in general the price has to drop to a level where the market DOES have interest. Is that at 5500 or at 4800 or maybe at 2000, impossible to know upfront of course. The only confusing thing in Crypto is, the short covering part. This has been a (too) big factor in crypto. I give it a small chance this time that for example Bitcoin' would have a short squeeze to above 7000 that all of a sudden allot of volume enters the market again to start a new rally. Actually like we did in April. This has been working both ways though, meaning there have also been LONG squeezes.

At the moment the longs are at a low level on Bitfinex and the open shorts are higher, so if they pull a trick with this it will probably be a short squeeze. But don't expect much from Bitfinex though because volume there has dropped extremely!
Much more important and significant at the moment, is the OI (open intrest) on Bitmex, even though the volume has dropped like 80/90% there as well, the OI has reached the highest level in quite some time now. So a big move will probably just be a matter of time. OI is at 840 mil now and usually it drops to a level around 600 mil, so this will probably be 250 mil Dollars of fuel that will get pushed in to the market in usually a few minutes. With the daily volume on Bitmex being even below 500 mil nowadays (where it used to have an average of 4.000 mil) it will trigger a big move. Bitmex price has been moving above the mark price ( average price of Bitstamp, Coinbase and Kraken) showing there are bulls willing to buy here.
Now the question is, is this smart money accumulating here or are these bulls the ones getting fooled.

When things were not difficult enough already, tether has been throwing it's weight into the market as well the past month. Creating even more uncertainty into this market. From the looks of it we can hopefully see this coming to an end soon because it keeps getting closer towards the $1.00 level again.

For the short term i see a few options:

- A quick move down towards 6150 and a quick move up again, if this happens this all might have been a bear trap and that big move i am predicting will probably be to the upside.
- The current bear flag will reach it's target of around 6050, when this happens we will probably see much more downwards movement the coming period.
- Current important support at 6200/6250 holds and we will see a possible Bart move up back above the 6400, creating a higher low.

I have changed the slightly upwards trend line to a horizontal trend line, showing us a bearish triangle. I have changed this because the higher lows pattern i was talking about in the beginning is not looking anymore like it should be. So if the 6000/6200 breaks, i see no other scenario than a drop towards the 5000. I have drawn a possible blue trend line around the 5000 where we should see some support. On the left i have drawn a blue line as well, showing us that the 6100/6150 is a big support level as well because the price has bounced up from this level many times the past months.

I have tried to give an objective view here, but the low volume of the past months is making TA very difficult and unreliable because manipulation is even easier than it used to be. Only 'safe' play i see here for now, is staying out of this market until we see a break of 6500 or 6000.

Questions and comments are welcome and i will try to answer them when i can.

Please don't forget to like if you appreciate this :)

Previous analysis:

Bitcoin triangle, breakout soon, waiting for Tether

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If the current bear flag could be a Bart move, not that likely because i am missing those spikes we usually see in these Bart moves, as we can see in those yellow circles. However, there is one difference though, volume is lower now.

If we see the a break of this bear flag, as i mentioned above there are 2 things that can happen. Here we see those 2 options:

- A small bear trap around the important 6150 support level or just a standard bear flag move down breaking the 6150 as well and will probably be the beginning for more downwards movement the coming weeks.

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To give more of a general view of what i think, so i think a big move will happen and it could happen to both sides of course. But because of the extreme low volume, upside move is less likely. Even if it does happen it is very likely it will just be temporary again. Unless we see some real fundamental news coming in, a real catalyst that brings in allot of interest/money into this market again

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Seems many don't know what OI (open intrest) means, so i will explain it here.
It's very simple actually, but you have to know the difference between OI and what we see on the open long/short on Bitfinex.

Example, we have 4 traders, A,B,C and D. OI is zero at the moment.

A and B want to go long with each 10 contracts
C and D want to go short with each 10 contracts. If they put their orders in A and B will have each 10 long (so 20 total long) and C/D will have each 10 short (20 total. This would mean that the OI goes from zero to 20.

A: 10 long
B: 10 long
C: 10 short
D: 10 short
Now to make things clear how it works i will give another example.

A is bullish and wants to buy 10 more contracts, if C/D sell 10 more than OI would go up to 30.
A: 20 long
B: 10 long
C: 15 short
D: 15 short

But now here it comes, A still wants to buy those 10 more but if B is having doubts with his long position and wants to sell than the OI does NOT change and stays at 20.

A: 20 long
B: 0 long
C: 10 short
D: 10 short

So the higher the OI the more contracts are open in the market, meaning more positions are open to exposure of the movement of the market. This is why we always see big movements when the OI goes up allot, because more people have positions. In other words, more people can loose money again. When you hear me talk about fuel for a long or short squeeze, this is what i mean with this.

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Things are getting very strange at the moment, difference between Bitmex and Finex has dropped to 25 points now, even though the price difference should be around 60 (because of Tether difference. Looks like allot of accumulating at Bitmex going on today, because exchanges like Bitstamp/Gdax are 20 points lower than Bitmex.

This is quite unique, so their are 2 options now:

1) There are some very dumb BIG buyers on Bitmex who like to loose money
2) These same big buyers are setting something up and know EXACTLY what their doing (accumulating) to push it higher at some point.

Wish i could say which one it is, but with these low volumes i have stopped doing that because i have seen too many false signals lately.

Now Tether price went up all of a sudden while writing this, just don't know if the Tether price on TV is delayed or not.

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Seems the accumulation was the right assumption. So far it seems like they are doing this blue line version. Small bear trap and push up. Tether is also moving up so getting close to healthy level. If they push it up from here above 6400 with high volume, the big move could happen on the upside. So far it's just a small move though, bears need to feel pressure. Otherwise it will just be another failed attempt. Volume is increasing at the moment.

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Bulls seem to be pushing

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This is starting to look like a reversal, not a long term one. Need a move above 6500 to have a mid-term reversal!

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If the bulls can manage to get it above the 6500, a daily candle close above 6500, we will have a mid-term reversal candle, so that would be a very big buy signal. The move up is stalling a bit now, if the bulls can keep it above that green level on the left, they should be okay. 6400ish will be a tough one to crack.

OI on Bitmex droppen from 845 to 820, so still small decrease

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Looks like a small bull flag in the making now. Do not want to see this taking hours. Rather see the next push within 30 minutes. Otherwise chances increase again for a fake move. I would be very surprised if we just start to drop again from here. Almost all the ingredients are there to push higher. If the bulls can't manage to do it now, we can expect a big dump, because that would mean the market is extremely weak.

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As we have been saying SO MANY times the past months, lack of conviction with the bulls during bull flags. Like all the bulls are waiting for the other to start buying because nobody has the confidence to do so. This has been the problem for months now with Bitcoin, hence the low volume.

Anyway, it is taking too long already but of course it's not failing yet. If the bulls can push it above the the bull flag, they might be able to trigger another (small) short squeeze. A few hours ago it looked like the BIG move was going to be on the upside, but now it's 50/50 again because if the bulls won't push this up soon, this move up could just have been a small bear shake out. Lets hope we get hour answer within a few hours.

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Still moving inside the flag, but not liking it of course because the bears are not under pressure anymore, meaning anything can happen again. If it stays above the 6280/6300 the bulls are of course still in favor, but what looked like a bear trap and a squeeze up is starting to look like it was just a retest of former support level.

Tether is also moving a bit strange, the channel i showed yesterday is starting to look like a rising wedge, indicating a drop again. This is NOT good for the market. Because of this tether nonsense it's like a tightrope walker has to throw darts into the bulls eye.

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This man is someone i have the upmost respect for, some people have described him as being crazy (economical views), but actually the ones saying this were the crazy/dumb ones. I used to follow him 10 years ago, where he predicted the crises of 2008 many years before it even happened. The world is unlucky that he never became the US president and was boycotted by the US mainstream media during the elections. There are only a few people i look up to (economical views), Ron Paul is one of them. Thought it's worth sharing it :)

ccn.com/ex-bitcoin-skeptic-ron-paul-says-crypto-could-prevent-recession/

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When looking at the Alt coins, they all show buy signals on these time frames. If these charts would have been of NON crypto assets, i would go long on all of them. 100% buy signals for another similar wave up as yesterday. But unfortunately it's crypto and the low volume makes everything very unreliable.
Bitcoin is also still moving inside that bull flag, i just don't like the fact it is taking this long. This shows there is no conviction on the bull side (yet). Not saying we will drop, but yesterday the chances were 80% for another 100/200 wave up, now it's 50/50.

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ccn.com/breaking-tether-confirms-its-banking-at-nassau-based-deltec-bank/

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OI on Bitmex went up to 850 mil again, so it increased even above yesterdays level. But can't say which way the "big" move will go. Yesterday before the move up it was quite clear it would be down, until i noticed those price differences between exchanges AND the price action i saw at some exchanges.

Tether is trying to move back to the 1.00x, probably because of the news i posted in the previous update. I am seeing a small attempt of the bulls to break up, but need much more volume for a real breakout. Volume is 325 mil on Mex now, i have never seen it this low!

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Bulls are trying, but still no real volume though, need to see more buying volume to put the bears under pressure. Maybe it will start to come if the 6400 gets broken, if we get there that is

Alts are also breaking the bull flags, a few show some volume but want to see much more

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Now we are getting volume, this could work. First big resistance is around 6400ish, real challenge will be the 6500ish.

Anything below 6400 is just a retest of former support