In 2023 or 2024, you could dismiss a US recession and equity bear market as hypothetical chatter.<\/p>\n
Now,<\/em> it\u2019s the path the US is taking,<\/em> with knock-on effects for the rest of the world. For details, read my January and February monthly\u00a0posts.<\/p>\n January: Crypto 2025: Aliens, Trump, and the Road\u00a0Ahead<\/a>February: Uncle Sam Wants to Pump Your Bags. What Could Go\u00a0Wrong?<\/a><\/p>\n Why should we\u00a0care?<\/p>\n Because crypto is more correlated to the US stock market than ever<\/a>. Also, a larger share of crypto sits with US entities and their custodians than it has in\u00a0years.<\/p>\n As such, if you care about crypto, you need to pay attention. The US economy matters more now than\u00a0ever.<\/p>\n The question for crypto is not whether<\/em> the US economy and stock market will suffer this year. The question is when, how much, for how long, and how will the Fed and foreign governments respond?<\/p>\n Without knowing the answers to those questions, you have a choice to make in 2025. Do you try to make money or get\u00a0rich?<\/p>\n You can do one, but not the other. More on that\u00a0below.<\/p>\n Mark, don\u2019t be so dramatic. The stock market correction is a transitory blip. Don\u2019t fuss about the other stuff. Trump always stirs the pot, like he did the first time\u200a\u2014\u200athe US economy is perfectly fine!<\/em><\/p>\n Trump\u2019s team is very honest and open about their\u00a0plans.<\/p>\n They want to undo the things that drove US economic growth over the past few years: immigration, trade, and government spending.<\/p>\n This will cause pain and hardship. They\u2019ve admitted as\u00a0much.<\/p>\n In their minds, if all goes well, the US will get an outcome like Reagan\u2019s in 1981: a year of economic carnage, then a decade of phenomenal growth.<\/p>\n You can debate whether this move heads off bigger problems down the road or unnecessarily destroys a strong economy, but you can\u2019t deny the headwinds that have gathered for\u00a0years.<\/p>\n You\u2019ve read about \u201cmacro\u201d headwinds since at least November as they\u2019ve gone from \u201csomething to look for\u201d to \u201cwe\u2019re seeing it now.\u201d Here are a few\u00a0more:<\/p>\n JPMorgan says distressed exchanges have accelerated. These agreements swap debt with alternatives that offer worse terms for everybody but prevent default and bankruptcy.<\/p>\n https:\/\/x.com\/will_decotiis\/status\/1895155436946399537<\/a><\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear how much of this activity involves private creditors and hard lenders, neither of whom have access to Fed facilities in the event of a financial crisis or economic downturn.<\/p>\n US new home completions reached its highest level in 20 years. Who will buy these new houses? If people buy the new ones, who will buy the old\u00a0ones?<\/p>\n Are we sure people can afford the houses they\u2019re already in? Last year, homeowners insurance rose 6% and property taxes rose 5% while wages rose 2% and social security rose 3%\u200a\u2014\u200aa big squeeze for homeowners, with no sign it\u2019s getting\u00a0better.<\/p>\n The US always goes into recession within three years after reaching full employment. It reached full employment three years\u00a0ago.<\/p>\n Full employment is a more reliable predictor of recession than yield curve inversions. Yield curves can invert, uninvert, and re-invert between recessions.<\/p>\n In 2023 or 2024, you could dismiss these things because the US economy and stock market had plenty of room to go\u00a0up.<\/p>\n Many so-called recession indicators reached levels you only see before <\/em>growth <\/em><\/strong>and <\/em>recovery<\/em><\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n This made sense because US GDP shrunk in the first half of 2022. The US government would have considered that a recession under the old definition, \u201ctwo consecutive quarters of negative\u00a0growth.\u201d<\/p>\n Fortunately for the US government, they changed the definition in 2020. Under the new definition, there are no fixed, objective criteria<\/a>. The US government can call any downturn a recession (or\u00a0not).<\/p>\n If early 2022 was technically a recession, then 2023 and 2024 were technically recoveries.<\/p>\n Today, many indicators have reached levels you only see before decline and stagnation.<\/p>\n For example, equity markets are already overheated. Look at the Shiller P\/E ratio and Buffett indicator. Insane.<\/p>\n Mark, people have been calling for a recession for years, and it never\u00a0comes!<\/em><\/p>\n Yes. As they say, \u201ca broken clock is right twice a day.\u201d Just because it\u2019s stuck at 12 pm doesn\u2019t mean the afternoon will never\u00a0come.<\/p>\n Mark, if this is the start of a global recession and financial meltdown, crypto\u2019s\u00a0screwed!<\/em><\/p>\n Not necessarily. We don\u2019t know how things will play out. If history is our guide, markets will go UP<\/em> in the coming\u00a0weeks.<\/p>\n In 2000 and 2008, the market rallied for months before rolling\u00a0over.<\/p>\n If you live outside the US, you may not suffer much. Even those who live in the US may not feel the full brunt of whatever\u00a0comes.<\/p>\n Once the US economy starts to fall, the Fed will intervene. Congress will stimulate. With record household net worth, high corporate cash reserves, and other circumstances to cushion the blow, things may not get that\u00a0bad.<\/p>\n The US has had many recessions. Some wouldn\u2019t even count under today\u2019s definition. Others did not last long or were quite\u00a0mild.<\/p>\n I\u2019m sure we all know somebody who sold everything right before a crash, then never deployed that capital back into financial markets when prices went\u00a0lower.<\/p>\n They\u2019re geniuses for a few months, but you beat them in the long run, simply holding what you had and buying more when prices\u00a0dropped.<\/p>\n Market conditions change all the time. Focus on situational awareness, preparation, and planning.<\/p>\n How do you position your crypto portfolio for that? What will you do if the pump\u2019s weaker or shorter than you expect? Once the market begins to rise, when do you stop buying or start selling? Once the market begins to fall, when do you stop selling or start\u00a0buying?<\/p>\n Instead of trying to time the market or trade your way to a fortune, try my\u00a0plan.<\/p>\n With my plan, you get Buy\/Sell\/HODL alerts with instructions and considerations to inform your decisions. Had you followed those alerts, you would have taken these\u00a0actions:<\/p>\n If you follow my plan, you\u2019re down 8% at worst, up 1,500% at best, and up 150% on\u00a0average.<\/p>\n Where you fall depends on when you started and whether you bought last summer\u2019s drop with new money or money you recycled from selling Bitcoin in March and altcoins at the beginning of April last\u00a0year.<\/p>\n You beat most traders and everybody who follows the dollar-cost averaging strategy, without trading or timing the\u00a0market.<\/p>\n More recently, you set aside cash from the end of October until the end of February and sold a chunk of Bitcoin at the end of\u00a0January.<\/p>\n Today, you\u2019re buying\u00a0more.<\/p>\n Tomorrow?<\/p>\n Nobody knows. We have to see where the market takes\u00a0us.<\/p>\n The gurus still say you can get rich with crypto. Effortless wealth. Huge windfalls.<\/p>\n The time to get rich with crypto has passed. It will come again, but not for a\u00a0while.<\/p>\n Stop Thinking You\u2019ll Get Rich With Bitcoin<\/a><\/p>\n That doesn\u2019t mean you can\u2019t make money! As long as you adjust your expectations, you can do quite\u00a0well.<\/p>\n Would you be upset about doubling your investment every 2\u20133 years with little\u00a0effort?<\/p>\n No other asset class gives you that kind of opportunity, but those results seem lackluster, maybe disappointing, compared to the obscene returns the gurus\u00a0promise.<\/p>\n You won\u2019t turn $1,000 into $100,000 overnight. You won\u2019t put $5,000 into five altcoins and make $5 million. You won\u2019t trade your way to a\u00a0fortune.<\/p>\n Those are hard things to do in any environment. They\u2019re especially hard today when the market has a lot of room to go down but not a lot of room to go\u00a0up.<\/p>\n All you need to do is buy when the opportunities present themselves.<\/p>\n How will you know when those opportunities come?<\/p>\n Follow Bitcoin. Wherever Bitcoin goes, altcoins will\u00a0follow.<\/p>\n Thanks to Bitcoin\u2019s transparency, you can see the changes in HODLing behaviors, money entering and leaving exchanges, gains and losses among Bitcoin wallets, and other information about the movements of tokens across the\u00a0network.<\/p>\n You can quantify stacking, selling, HODLing, and relationships among prices and behaviors.<\/p>\n Most recently, we used this data to figure out that the newest, most enthusiastic buyers and the oldest, most dedicated buyers have bailed out over the past month. We saw this happen in real-time in my market updates, like the one from March 5,\u00a02025.<\/p>\n Market Update – March 5, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n We also saw stress within the mining community, key trading patterns, and the absence of healthy churn, all of which helped us figure out what to do and what to look\u00a0for.<\/p>\n The gurus thrive on intuition and extrapolation. We look at behaviors and study the\u00a0facts.<\/p>\n They told you 2025 will be easy mode. \u201cUp\u00a0only.\u201d<\/p>\n In the January 23, 2025 update, we saw the fear and greed index match the same patterns from February to May 2024, along with other behaviors that we don\u2019t see when the market is about to go \u201cup\u00a0only.\u201d<\/p>\n Combined with on-chain data and \u201cmacro\u201d analysis, we realized it made sense to sell, for the reasons I described in my Buy\/Sell\/HODL alert from January 29,\u00a02025.<\/p>\n Buy\/Sell\/HODL Alert – January 29, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n We use the same approach to navigate the shorter-term volatility, make the best of the good times, and use the bad times to our advantage.<\/p>\n You\u2019re probably worried about\u00a0selling.<\/p>\n I would worry more about\u00a0buying.<\/p>\n Whenever you sell any Bitcoin, you\u2019re taking wealth from your future self. You need to make sure it\u2019s worth the\u00a0risk.<\/p>\n Sometimes, it\u00a0is.<\/p>\n You know Bitcoin\u2018s price will go up, but not straight up and not all at once. Some altcoins will do amazing things, but that will take\u00a0time.<\/p>\n If you have<\/em> to sell, do it when the market is overheated and due for a pullback, rather than at the bottom of a dip, after a dump, or because you need to take\u00a0profits.<\/p>\n We are trained to measure our success in terms of our government\u2019s money. Dollars, euros, pounds, rupees,\u00a0etc.<\/p>\n But we don\u2019t just invest money. We invest time, energy, and emotions.<\/p>\n How much are those worth? Do you chase after a 1,000% investment opportunity at the cost of your mental and emotional well-being?<\/p>\n There are many ways to do well with crypto. What does that mean to you? It\u2019s different for everybody.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s say your goal is a $1 million portfolio. Once you hit $1 million, you plan to cash out, buy your dream home, retire your bloodline, and buy a\u00a0Lambo.<\/p>\n What will you do when your portfolio reaches $900,000, altseason\u2019s in full swing, the gurus tell you the market will go up forever, and I tell you to sell in case they\u2019re wrong? Do you risk missing your life-long goal to catch that extra 11%\u00a0upside?<\/p>\n What will you do when Bitcoin\u2019s price drops to $66,000, altcoins are getting crushed, the gurus tell you to wait for lower prices, and I tell you you\u2019re getting a good deal, so you might as well take it? Do you risk missing the generational bottom to catch that last drop to\u00a0$48,000?<\/p>\n What about all the other decisions you\u2019ll have to make between those extremes?<\/p>\n Think about that now if you haven\u2019t already. This YouTube short puts things in perspective for\u00a0me.<\/p>\n https:\/\/medium.com\/media\/cf2fda091255f6fa2e4a05979b671f3d\/href<\/a><\/p>\n I\u2019ll give you a clear, realistic perspective on market conditions, opportunities, risks, and expectations. Make sure you know what you want to get out of the market and what you\u2019re willing to risk to achieve\u00a0it.<\/p>\n Crypto wasn\u2019t always so\u00a0hard.<\/p>\n When I started putting real money into the market in 2018, you could trade for fast cash and<\/em> invest in long-term growth. You could grab airdrops, farm yield, and scoop up generous staking\u00a0rewards.<\/p>\n Everybody wanted to make money, but they fell into distinct\u00a0groups:<\/p>\n Builders and their\u00a0backersTraders and\u00a0grifters<\/p>\n With less than 10,000 tokens, the market had enough inflows to satisfy both\u00a0groups.<\/p>\n If you wanted to build and experiment, you had money for that. If you wanted to farm yield, flip NFTs, and hunt for airdrops, you had money for that,\u00a0too.<\/p>\n Speculative capital flowed to good projects and earnest communities. Retail gamblers put their money into altcoins and \u201cshiny new things,\u201d with sometimes spectacular successes.<\/p>\n Today, we have so many NFTs, memecoins, governance tokens, DePIN tokens, and L1s that it\u2019s hard for one project to capture mindshare and\u00a0inflows.<\/p>\n All these projects look the same to people outside the cryptosphere (and many inside it). Anyway, what\u2019s the difference if tokens with \u201cfundamental value\u201d go to zero just as quickly as the shitcoins and\u00a0scams?<\/p>\n In today\u2019s market, you can\u2019t build something durable and sustainable that generates real economic value AND ALSO trade those tokens for more of your government\u2018s money as soon as the price goes\u00a0up.<\/p>\n You can do one or the other: grow long-term wealth OR cash\u00a0out.<\/p>\n After several bull markets, builders and their backers have made a lot of money\u200a\u2014\u200aenough that they don\u2019t have to care\u00a0anymore.<\/p>\n You saw this in the massive outflow from long-time holders and the persistent dumping of unlocked tokens and staking rewards earlier this\u00a0year.<\/p>\n Traders and grifters remain, but even they<\/em> can barely make money\u00a0anymore.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t say we<\/em> can\u2019t make money. I said they<\/em> can\u2019t. You\u00a0can!<\/p>\n The gurus have it all wrong. Crypto no longer offers the key to outrageous wealth. It\u2019s a hedge and escape from the legacy financial system. It\u2019s an alternative way to grow and secure your\u00a0wealth.<\/p>\n That wealth needs to come\u00a0first.<\/p>\n Now is a great time to focus on that part of the equation. Crypto isn\u2019t going anywhere. We may get a rally before things get really bad. That rally could be substantial. Conditions are rife for that\u00a0outcome.<\/p>\n The biggest gains will come some other\u00a0time.<\/p>\n We won\u2019t know when that time will come until it\u2019s staring us in the\u00a0face.<\/p>\n The real juice won\u2019t come from squeezing altcoins for 100x moonshots. Crypto has too many tokens. Speculative capital has dried up. Once US regulations take hold, insiders and institutions will front-run you on every new project and capture the lion\u2019s share of the rewards. They will have the information advantage and won\u2019t have to compete with scammers and pump-and-dumps.<\/p>\n Cryptocurrency: It\u2019s a New Game<\/a><\/p>\n While this is another reason to hold plenty of cash for the next bear market, it will also force you to focus on crypto\u2019s use cases. There are only a\u00a0few:<\/p>\n Decentralized financeDigital exchange of real-world assets\u00a0(RWAs)Remittances and payments, including AI-to-AI transactions.FundraisingIncentivizing human and AI behavior across distributed networks and\u00a0systems.<\/p>\n That\u2019s it.<\/p>\n Global supercomputers are great, but AI and databases can do that better than any smart contract platform, likely with an AI agent token as the medium of exchange.<\/p>\n NFTs will play a key role in many apps and platforms, but you won\u2019t buy an NFT to make money. You will buy RWAs, rights, privileges, and benefits secured by <\/em>NFTs (though NFT collections and artwork will always have their\u00a0fans).<\/p>\n Politicians, celebrities, and businesses will use memecoins to raise money, build communities, and reward contributors and\u00a0fans.<\/p>\n The most valuable parts of crypto will get abstracted away, tucked behind better interfaces and hidden from the user. Immense value will flow to the tokens that power these products and services.<\/p>\n If you find those tokens, you will never have to worry about timing the market, finding the peak, or catching the\u00a0bottom.<\/p>\n First, we need to make it through whatever is left of this bull market (if anything). Crypto is Easy<\/em> newsletter subscribers know what to look for and what to\u00a0do.<\/p>\n Crypto Is Easy<\/a><\/p>\n If you\u2019re not reading my newsletter, what are you waiting for? The gurus have let you down for long enough. It\u2019s time to try a different approach.<\/p>\n Relax and enjoy the\u00a0ride!<\/p>\n For the first time, you can listen to two AI bots discuss this post on their podcast, Crypto is Easy\u00a0AI!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n https:\/\/medium.com\/media\/9636e5a5475ca29327579671de653c24\/href<\/a><\/p>\n This post is available as an NFT on <\/strong>Mirror.xyz<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n The Setup is Obvious. The Choice is Clear. The Outcome Isn’t.<\/a><\/p>\n Mark Helfman publishes the Crypto is Easy<\/em><\/a> newsletter. He is also the author of three books and a top Bitcoin writer on Medium<\/em><\/a> and Hacker Noon<\/em><\/a>. Learn more about him in his bio<\/a> and connect with him on Tealfeed<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Setup is Obvious. The Choice is Clear. The Outcome Isn\u2019t.<\/a> was originally published in Coinmonks<\/a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 2023 or 2024, you could dismiss a US recession and equity bear market as hypothetical chatter. Now, it\u2019s the path the US is taking, with knock-on effects for the rest of the world. For details, read my January and February monthly\u00a0posts. January: Crypto 2025: Aliens, Trump, and the Road\u00a0AheadFebruary: Uncle Sam Wants to Pump […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54275"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54275\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Some things are not debatable<\/h3>\n
Stark reality<\/h3>\n
In one ear, out the\u00a0next<\/h3>\n
Plan<\/h3>\n
Chasing after the\u00a0wind<\/h3>\n
Easy market, if you want it to\u00a0be<\/h3>\n
Hakuna matada<\/h3>\n
Mind on your money or money on your\u00a0mind?<\/h3>\n
Nostalgia reels you\u00a0in<\/h3>\n
Mark, what\u2019s the point if we can\u2019t make\u00a0money?<\/h3>\n