Sustained loss of market share to competitors or significant protocol exploit.
BTC hit $126K in October 2025 and spent ten months bleeding. The bottom came in July, in the $58-62K zone, exactly where the quant consensus said it would. Then August 19 happened: the largest short squeeze on record, $2.7B in bears wiped in a day, BTC from $65K to $80K in under two weeks. We're now ~36% off the old highs and climbing.
The liquidity thesis finally activated. The US Treasury is doubling long-term debt buybacks to $4B per operation, the government becoming a buyer of its own debt is the tailwind this entire year was waiting for. Stack on it: the Clarity Act moving through the Senate, an SEC crypto framework on the table, ETF inflows resumed, and $2.9B of whale accumulation printed at the lows. The oxygen is flowing again.
Honesty about the near-term: this rally is hot. Daily RSI has been pinned in the low 80s, buying has thinned since the breakout, and the squeeze fuel is spent. A hidden bearish divergence is forming on the weekly. A retest of $72-76K would be normal, healthy, and, for anyone holding dry powder, welcome. The structure only actually breaks on a daily close below ~$73.5K. Until then, dips are for buying, not fearing.
I'm positioned exactly for this shape: trimmed into strength on the way up, 20% stables, zero leverage, zero borrows. DeFi rotation is already firing, that's the tell for what Q4 looks like if dominance rolls over.
The bottom was July. The trend is up until $73K says otherwise.