Editor's Note: The market sentiment has been overly sold off due to negative factors such as the SOL crime incident and the BYBIT hacker attack, with crypto assets being the earliest hit. The impact of the tariff issue on BTC has been misinterpreted. Although the market has been traumatized in the short term, ETF fund flows remain stable, and BTC still has the characteristic of "chaotic hedging". The market was hit after the Trump trade news, but is expected to rebound before Friday. If the tariffs remain deadlocked or an agreement is reached, BTC may see some relief. In addition, the market has priced in the Friday event too low, and the actual impact may be greater. After a short-term correction, BTC is expected to return to the $90,000 level.
The following is the original content (edited for easier reading):
I'll start by stating my position directly: I am long, and I started going long from a higher position, so I may be biased (although we added a lot of positions at the lows).
Yesterday we mentioned that the 82 level was an interesting point last night, and it still is, but as the price goes up or down, the range of risk will also change accordingly. Here, I will share some thoughts on why this position has a certain degree of asymmetry, which is usually difficult to obtain.
We believe that the current market situation is quite complex (and unique) because multiple unique factors are intertwined, putting pressure on pricing. Therefore, to predict what might happen in the future, we must first understand how we got to this point.
Since I tweeted about "SBR-Lite-Lite" on January 23, I believe we started to lean towards going short earlier than others (which needs further verification), and this position was based solely on the view that the natural decline of the market alone, without other factors, would be enough to drive the price down.
Of course, there were also many positive factors at the time, such as the FASB 121 accounting standard adjustment and the rising interest in stablecoin payments, but I believe these had relatively limited actual impact and were unable to shake the capital flows (Saylor's buying demand + ETF inflows) that had previously supported prices above $100,000.
The upcoming tariff policy in early February further reinforced this view, and we actually underestimated the market noise this could bring, with a dramatic 10% drop in digital assets (ETH fell even more). This range is very critical, and it is worth noting that during this period, the stock market did not see a significant correction, and the ETF inflows on the first trading day after the weekend played a significant buffering role.
Subsequently, the market saw higher-than-expected CPI data. We believe that due to the gamma effect, vanna, and charm of the options market on the stock market, the market pricing will not deteriorate significantly before OPEX (options expiration). We expect OPEX to be a key point for the market to decline, driving the previously suppressed downward trend to be released.
The following week (February 25), the CME futures basis began to collapse, which caught our attention. I believe many market analysts have wrongly believed that this change has little impact on the market. However, the reality is:
"Looking back at the market volatility last year (but unable to effectively break through 50K-60K), the CME futures basis was still relatively high (reaching double digits), and domestic investors (natives) were overall more short-biased than traditional institutions (Trad) (this can be seen from the stability of the basis or changes in interest rates).
Now the situation seems to have reversed, with traditional institutions withdrawing, while the perpetual contract funding rate remains above 10%.
In my view, this misalignment is very worthy of attention, as the main demand driving the price increase is largely dominated by traditional institutions in the second half of 2024.
If this capital flow is declining (affected by various factors), then these funds may first not flow back, and second, it suggests that the price may correct to its previous level. In other words, traditional institutions may be more inclined to collect profits in the first half of 2024 rather than making directional bets. By the fourth quarter of 2024, as the basis rises, they may start to increase their directional bets, and the situation is now starting to reverse.
...This may indicate that the decline in BTC demand is faster than expected, and we may need to reconsider including BTC in our short portfolio."
It is worth noting that the withdrawal signal from traditional institutions indicates a depletion of market liquidity and an overall decline in risk appetite. This ultimately led to what we believe is the LTF (long-term trend) support level - slightly below $80,000, which is also the position where we chose to rebuild our short positions.
As an early trend judgment, we believe that the market momentum has been oversold. The recent series of negative events (the PF SOL crime and the BYBIT ETH hacker attack) have exacerbated this situation, although these events are not the main driving factors.
We chose to go long last weekend based on the following judgments:
"We mentioned before that the divergence between the crypto community/retail traders and passive capital is widening. This divergence has been an important feature of the US stock market over the past five years, and the crypto market is now showing a similar trend. ETF capital actively bought after the massive sell-off, while domestic investors did not dare to enter the market.
This is not a simple 'event-driven' trade, but a continuation and evolution of the change in market structure. I believe that if this event had occurred in any previous week, the market's reaction would have been more positive. The current cautious sentiment (although reasonable) is mainly due to the losses caused by leveraged buying. Due to the fact that the market on weekends is mainly dominated by domestic investors, while the trading of traditional institutions mainly occurs on weekdays, the vacuum effect of this capital structure makes the short-term market trend more biased.
The government window's performance this time is the first occurrence of a. a sell the news event, and b. profit-taking in the market 5 days before the event, making the risk-reward ratio of going long more attractive at the current level.
I don't think Saylor will announce a large-scale buy-in, or just a symbolic $50 million-$100 million. But the market may rebound briefly, prompting him to further deploy capital, especially if the SBR progress narrative is strengthened.
Most people may not have realized that Trump has announced a change in the arrangement of the committee/working group, switching to regular summits for supervision. Therefore, the current market level (roughly 95/2.5/180) may become a natural reversion point, and the market may digest and reprice as this news spreads.
From the perspective of traditional institutions, the tariff issue in March/April has already been fully digested by the market, so any delay or improvement (such as an agreement, a rate below 25%, etc.) will bring upside potential. In short, I believe the market has already priced in the worst-case scenario. And Z/Trump's display shows his tough stance on foreign affairs, which may prompt Mexico/Canada to compromise on the tariff issue, bringing positive news.
Bessent mentioned in a weekend interview the strategy of lowering inflation by controlling the 10-year Treasury yield. Furthermore, I believe the Mexico/Canada tariff issue will be a barometer for the future trend of China-US tariffs, so there may be further upside potential in the short term.
The over-reaction of the market to NVDA's earnings (previously considered a liquidation event), combined with CTA position adjustments and month-end rebalancing (LOs selling $6 billion leading to momentum depletion), have together created a 'perfect storm' that has ultimately driven a significant market rebound."
Here is the English translation:We have already positioned ourselves in advance at the final stage of the market's negative momentum (although an early entry may also be a mistake). The extension of the tariff policy has increased the weight of the China tariff issue, and this expectation has been quickly digested by the market, leading to a 10% pullback in NVDA yesterday. I believe this is a highly emotional reaction, and the market still underestimates the correlation between NVDA and BTC - these two are actually the core pillars of the current risk asset market. At the same time, the market has also ignored the continued investment of the United States in the semiconductor field, which may provide some buffer for the market.
Our long safety margin is mainly based on the following aspects:
1. The market has not priced in the upcoming summit
This summit is likely to disappoint the market, but we initially assumed that there would be no substantive progress in Trump's first 100 days (he is more focused on foreign policy). Therefore, we need to re-evaluate the current pricing logic.
2. The market's pricing of the tariff issue is inefficient
(1). The impact of tariffs has not been fully reflected in the US stocks/S&P index (the market still believes to some extent that Trump is just posturing). However, we believe that the impact of tariffs is mainly a distribution effect, rather than a direct impact - this has been reflected in high-risk assets such as cryptocurrencies, such as the market volatility in the first weekend of February and yesterday.
(2.) BTC has always been the "chaotic hedge tool" of the market, falling first when geopolitical tensions escalate, but then rebounding strongly and stabilizing in relative strength. Our research shows that BTC exhibited a similar pattern during the China-US trade war in 2018/19.
For example, after the US raised tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods to 25% in May 2019, BTC rose from $5,500 to $8,000. In June, as more tariff threats emerged, BTC reached a high of $13,800. This shows that the correlation between BTC and SPX was broken during the trade war, and regression analysis also supports this conclusion - the correlation between BTC-SPX was much weaker during the trade war period compared to the past 2-4 years (50-70%).
3. ETF fund flows remain stable, and negative fund flows are slowing
The market performance on last Friday and Monday shows that negative fund flows are decreasing. More than $1 billion in funds flowed out (mainly short positions) on Tuesday and Wednesday last week, but yesterday only about 1/10 of that volume triggered a similar market reaction, indicating that the market has already released a lot of "hot air". Currently, the open interest (OI) and price structure of BTC, ETH and SOL show that the market has returned to the level before the election, or even before Trump's hype, which means that a lot of speculative capital has withdrawn. And the previous "glass ceiling" may now become a "glass floor", with the support level likely to be above the $70 range, provided that there are no new negative catalysts.
4. Saylor did not buy last week, and we expect this situation will not last
His silence may only be temporary, and once he resumes buying, it will provide additional support to the market.
Conclusion:
In the 80-85 range, we still maintain a long position, and believe the market is likely to return to the 90 range, with an overall higher upward operability, especially in the current highly volatile market sentiment.
The downward trend this week is likely to reverse (it may even start to stabilize today, as many views were written at lower levels), but it will not return to last week's level, and a clearer direction can be seen around Thursday/Friday.
The market has been impacted by Trump's trade policy, and the summit is likely to be more procedural than substantive progress.
More specific views:
·BTC will not benefit from the tariff game, further escalation may be a net negative, and we should not expect it to exhibit negative Beta (i.e., move inversely to the US stock market).
·Market momentum (momo) has been oversold, especially for those assets that were hit the earliest. The outflow of basis trading capital is mainly a redistribution, affected by the compression of yields and the end of the "honeymoon period" (i.e., the market has accepted that the government will not provide substantive support in the short term). This may not be a temporary phenomenon.
·If tariffs are only a protracted tug-of-war or ultimately resolved, that would be a mitigating factor for BTC.
·The news on Friday was mispriced by the market, and is more likely to be a "nothingburger". The current market is pricing in a probability of about 5-10%, but it should be closer to 25-30%.
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