Shaquille Trader

Everyone thinks bear markets are dangerous.

They’re wrong.

Bull markets are where most accounts quietly die.

Sounds strange, right?

When everything is going up, how can people lose?

Simple.

Because green candles make people forget discipline.

In a bull phase:

• You stop using stop loss.
• You increase position size.
• You chase breakouts.
• You believe every dip is temporary.

And for a while… it works.

That’s the trap.

Early bull markets reward bad behavior.
Late bull markets punish it brutally.

The psychology shift is subtle.

At first, you’re cautious.
Then you gain confidence.
Then you feel invincible.

That’s where mistakes multiply.

Another issue? Overexposure.

When portfolio is green, you add more.
When price pulls back slightly, you call it “healthy correction.”
When it pulls back more, you say “strong support.”
When it crashes, you say “manipulation.”

But the market doesn’t care about your narrative.

It only cares about liquidity and positioning.

In strong bull cycles, leverage builds slowly in the background. Funding stays positive for long periods. Open interest rises quietly.

Nobody worries.

Until one sharp move wipes weeks of gains.

And because most traders increased size during the run-up, the damage feels heavier.

I’ve noticed something else.

In bull markets, people focus more on profit targets than risk limits.

They ask: “How high can it go?”

Rarely: “How wrong can I be?”

That imbalance is expensive.

Also, comparison becomes toxic.

You see others posting 5x, 10x, 20x gains.
You feel late.
You enter faster.
You ignore structure.

But the truth?

In every cycle, only a small percentage catch the biggest moves. Most join late and exit emotionally.

Bull markets don’t reward excitement.

They reward control.

If you can stay disciplined when everything feels easy, you survive the inevitable correction.

Because correction always comes.

Not to end the cycle.
But to reset excess.

The traders who survive multiple cycles aren’t the smartest.

They’re the most consistent.

They size properly.
They take partial profits.
They respect invalidation levels.

Even when Twitter screams “to the moon.”

So next time the market feels unstoppable, ask yourself:

Are you trading a plan…
or chasing a feeling?

That difference decides who keeps profits — and who gives them back.

While everyone is staring at price charts, something bigger is happening underneath.

A silent shift.

Not loud.
Not trending.
But important.

Crypto was born on-chain. Transparent. Permissionless. Verifiable.

But over time, more volume moved off-chain.

ETFs.
Custodians.
Centralized exchanges.
Layered financial products.

Convenience won.

Most people today don’t move coins. They move numbers on platforms.

And that changes behavior.

When assets sit on exchanges, reactions are faster.
When assets sit in cold wallets, reactions are slower.

Speed affects volatility.

Recently, exchange balances have been fluctuating more aggressively. Coins move in during uncertainty, then move out during calm periods.

That tells me something.

Participants are less committed than before. They want flexibility.

Another trend: staking participation keeps rising in major networks. That locks supply. But at the same time, derivatives markets keep expanding. That increases synthetic supply.

Real coins get locked.
Paper exposure multiplies.

This tension creates strange price behavior.

Sometimes price drops even when on-chain activity is strong. Sometimes price pumps without meaningful network growth.

Because the battlefield isn’t only on-chain anymore.

It’s layered.

Spot markets.
Futures markets.
ETF flows.
Options positioning.

Each layer influences the others.

Retail usually watches only one.

Professionals watch all of them.

That’s why price sometimes feels disconnected from fundamentals.

It’s not broken.
It’s complex.

Another quiet change: user growth is steady, but speculation cycles are shorter.

People enter for quick gains, not ideology.

The “HODL forever” culture is thinner than in early cycles. Today’s participants are more tactical.

That’s not good or bad.

It just means crypto is evolving from movement → market.

Movements run on belief.
Markets run on capital efficiency.

Right now, we’re somewhere in between.

If you only focus on narrative, you miss structure.
If you only focus on charts, you miss adoption.

The real edge comes from understanding how capital flows across layers.

Because price is no longer driven by one force.

It’s driven by interaction.

And interaction is messy.

That’s why patience matters more now than excitement.

Crypto isn’t dying.
It’s maturing.

And maturity rarely looks dramatic in real time.

Talk soon.

Short answer: maybe. But…

What happened

This week wasn’t about one bad headline. It was about expectations finally meeting reality.

For months, anything with “AI” in the name was moving. Narratives were strong. Funding was easy. Retail loved it. Every dip was a buying opportunity.

But markets don’t move on stories forever.

Macro hasn’t improved.

• Liquidity is still tight.

• Risk appetite is selective.

• Big money is rotating, not expanding.

When capital gets selective, hype sectors feel it first.

What changed this week wasn’t just price. It was structure.

AI-related tokens didn’t just pull back slowly. They lost key levels quickly. No reaction bounces. No strong defense. That kind of move usually tells me one thing:

Positioning was heavy.

Open interest was elevated across multiple AI names. Funding was positive for weeks. That means longs were crowded. When price stalled, leverage became the problem.

Then it happened.

• Funding flipped.

• Long liquidations accelerated.

• Volume spiked on red candles.

That’s not long-term investors calmly exiting. That’s fast money getting forced out.

I’ve seen this before. It’s the same pattern every cycle. A strong narrative builds, leverage piles in, then one structural crack triggers a chain reaction.

This wasn’t about AI failing as a concept. It was about positioning getting ahead of adoption.

At the same time, broader risk assets weren’t helping.

• Tech stocks slowed.

• Bitcoin volatility increased.

• Altcoin dominance stayed weak.

When Bitcoin sneezes, alts catch a cold.

When Bitcoin shakes, narratives break.

By the end of the week, sentiment flipped hard. The same people calling for 10x last month started asking if the trend is over.

That emotional shift is important.

Where we are?

After a leverage flush, markets breathe differently.

• Open interest is lower now.

• Funding has normalized.

• Weak hands are mostly out.

That doesn’t mean bottom. It means reset.

There’s a difference.

If this was pure speculation, we would see activity collapsing. But on-chain data for major AI infrastructure projects still shows development activity steady. GitHub commits haven’t slowed. Partnerships haven’t disappeared.

Builders are still building.

That’s usually invisible in price during correction phases.

The real question isn’t “Is AI dead?”

The better question is:

Was the move too fast for the fundamentals?

In bull phases, price runs ahead. In correction phases, price comes back to meet reality.

Some AI tokens are now sitting near early breakout levels. These zones never feel comfortable. They didn’t in previous cycles either.

They feel boring. Uncertain. Frustrating.

That’s usually where long-term positions start forming quietly.

Let’s be clear.

Price could go lower.

It could range for weeks.

It could fake a breakout and trap both sides.

Markets after hype don’t recover in straight lines.

But what changed is the quality of selling.

It feels less like conviction exit…

and more like exhaustion.

• Fear is rising.

• Influencers are quieter.

• Engagement is dropping.

That’s not a signal. It’s context.

And context matters more than predictions.

I’m not chasing green candles.

I’m not panicking on red ones either.

Narratives don’t die in one week.

They either evolve… or they fade slowly.

We’re about to find out which one this is.

That was the week.

Talk again soon.
Bittensor ( $TAO )
Render ( $RNDR )