The crypto market’s up 60% this year but few seem to care—and for a good reason.

The US seems destined to enter a recession at any moment. A too-big-to-fail bank, Credit Suisse, is on life support. China's economy can’t function without stimulus and government intervention. Most western economies continue to raise interest rates, squeezing capital from “risk-on”  assets like cryptocurrency.

Despite that, the crypto market is still behaving exactly as it has at every major market bottom. Remember this graphic from the January issue of the Crypto is Easy newsletter?

Two months later, not much has changed:

Bull market or  . . . ? 

Experts say this is not a bull market. 

That's fine, I don't like using the words “bull” and “bear” to describe crypto markets, anyway. 

The circumstances are crystal clear. We covered this for months in my newsletter, Crypto is Easy, most recently in the March 16, 2023 update.

While bitcoin’s price remains uncomfortably low against historical benchmarks, it’s doing what you’d expect at market bottoms. 

Maybe that’s why the four-year cycle, Stock-to-Flow model, Dave the Wave’s LGC chart, and all of the major on-chain metrics align, despite the dire warnings of global recession and chaos in the financial markets.

So, is the bottom in?

Don’t be silly. The bottom is $0. $14,000 is the most natural price for a technical bottom, for reasons I posted in Is $14k bitcoin the new $100k bitcoin? 

Will bitcoin’s price go that low?

We’ll see. 

A bull market by any other name . . .

As long as its price stays above $15,600, we’ve been in a bull market for months. 

That may sound crazy but it’s the literal truth, even if it doesn’t feel that way. 

If you get wrapped up in bottoms, bulls, and bears, it's too easy to psych yourself into or out of decisions. Bitcoin’s price goes up 100-300% in bear markets and drops 30-50% in bull markets. Altcoins crash 50-80% in the bull markets and go up 100-1,000% in the bear markets. 

Whether you wait for the bull market or not, you’ll still suffer big swings in price. Why fuss over whether the bottom’s in or not?

Consider the money you lose from waiting until you’re sure the bottom’s in.

If you win the bear, you will win the bull

For example, if you bought altcoins in 2019, a true crypto winter, you peaked at a 4,000% gain. If you waited until December 2020, you peaked at an 800% gain.

When you wait, you lose a lot of upside to avoid a temporary drop in prices—but you get the same risk and volatility!

On top of that, the market gets much harder, more expensive, and more stressful during the bull runs. Especially if you wait for altseason! Fees will go up, prices will zoom, and you’ll feel like you missed out. 

You may feel that way now, especially if you sold or sat out of the market at any time in the past ten months.

You’ll have another chance to buy into the market whenever it crashes again. Especially if the bottom really is in. Most of the biggest crashes come during bull markets. See below.

If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it might be a platypus

In May 2022, we saw the first signs of behavioral capitulation. In June 2022, we saw all of those signs. 

For the past ten months, the market has acted like a perfect combination of 2011, 2015, and 2018-2019 rolled into one, despite the continuous deterioration in macroeconomic conditions, a collapse of global liquidity, and a dismal investment environment.

Funny enough, if you bought bitcoin at the May 2022 crash, you’re sitting on a 7% gain. Not bad for a ten-month punt.

You may decide now’s the time to play day trader, investment allocator, and macro-tactician. 

For me, good enough is good enough. If you’re following my plan, you’re up as much as 400%, down as much as 48%, and probably ahead about 10% on your investment.

Technically, my plan says not to buy now, as of this post, but that’s ok—you would’ve bought a lot of crypto at lower prices from May until January. You should have a decent allocation. You can set aside money for the next opportunity, which may come by the time you read this post. 

No worries if you’re sitting in cash. A 30-50% crash is inevitable. We get a few of those in every bull market. 

When? From what price?

We’ll see. $14,000 is still realistic. If that happens, you’ll have a chance to double your return on investment if you get your timing just right. 

Even if your timing’s off, it’s likely your patience will be rewarded. 

But . . .

What will you do if it’s not?

Mark Helfman publishes the Crypto is Easy newsletter. He is also the author of three books and a top bitcoin writer on Medium and Hacker Noon. Learn more about him in his bio and connect with him on Superpeer or Tealfeed.