Silent Speculation
Bitcoin is currently in a very interesting spot, where speculative activity is sky-high...and yet the blockchain itself is quiet as a mouse.
G’day Folks,
I started analysing Bitcoin professionally in Feb-2021 when I joined the Glassnode team as their first analyst. Whilst I had studied onchain metrics quite a lot, actually putting this data into practice in a live fire market is a whole different story.
Something I can say with absolute confidence, is that not a single analyst in the world knew a damn thing about what these metrics did in the first half of 2021.
Like most analysts, I was bullish at the April 2021 top, and didn’t see the insane build up of leverage forming in the futures markets. I was reminded of my error when the market absolutely puked from $50k to $29k in May-2021, a sell-off which was so nasty, I believe it destroyed bull market confidence.
I documented my 2021 journey almost a year ago in Expecting Chopsolidation, which may well be worth a skim read, as there are similarities to today’s market.
I made another major mistake in the 2021 cycle, and that was ignoring my own instincts about Bitcoin’s onchain activity data at the ATH in Oct-Nov-2021.
The price was ripping higher, but the blockchain was dead quiet…no fees…no transactions…no volume…
My instinct was, something is wrong, and yet I ignored this feeling, and got swept up in the bullish hype…only to miss the second top.
This morning, I woke up to a Bitcoin blockchain with 115 transactions in the mempool…yes, a measly 115 transactions waiting to be mined.
Today’s piece is going to be an exploration of this topic, because I refuse to make the same mistake thrice (that would be dumb).
📈 Reminder: you can find the charts from our articles on the Checkonchain Charting Website, and a guide in our Charts Tutorial Video.
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