We need to talk about exchanges after what happened.
TLDR: They are a necessary evil.
I will ignore "necessary" and focus on the "evil" part in this long post.
Let's begin with people's favorite, Hyperliquid, then move to the other exchanges and also Ethena.
🔥 Evil 1: Exchange solvency above all others.
After last Friday, many HYPE fans probably woke up from their dream. Anyone with a 2x long on most altcoins got liquidated.
Open interest on the exchange was cut by more than half. Billions lost.
During the madness, Hyperliquid prioritized its solvency above all else. That comes at YOUR expense. This was made clear on Friday and users learned a new term: ADL or automated de-leveraging.
Users that had delta neutral positions or multiple positions across altcoins (that means longs and shorts open) were first auto-deleveraged on their short positions.
Those shorts were in profit preventing user liquidations.
After the ADL system closed their shorts, the exchange proceeded to liquidate users on their long positions which were no longer hedged by shorts. The longs were now naked as prices went to zero. RIP.
Basically, the exchange cut users from additional profits and then liquidated them to protect itself. All in the name of solvency.
Auto de-leveraging is a necessary evil that puts the platform above users. It's a measure of last resort to keep system solvency.
But every winner needs a loser in ADL.
Hyperliquid was the most aggressive liquidator of all DEXs at 56% or $8.2 billion wiped in open interest (see image from @Finch_in_flight).
Based on this data, Hyperliquid is the last place you want to trade on because the odds of getting liquidated there are the highest.
Anyone trading altcoins on Friday got hit. This is why celebrating statements like "Hyperliquid worked flawlessly" or that "the HLP vault made $40 million in 30 minutes" loses sight of what actually happened.
Yes, Hyperliquid worked flawlessly to liquidate their users and keep itself solvent at their expense. In the process, it cut open interest by more than half.
If ADL had failed, then the HLP vault would have been drained next. The HLP vault is mostly user money too.
Who survived?
People that traded Bitcoin or Ethereum.
That whale that shorted BTC/ETH before the crash, took its $200M profit and called it a day. That's because there was enough liquidity on such pairs. BTC does not go to zero in 20 minutes like ATOM.
Why did altcoins go to zero? How is that possible?
Because something went wrong at Binance HQ and market makers pulled out from the orderbooks.
The crash also happened exactly during a scheduled update to their margin price source for wBETH and BnSOL. @yq_acc covered this in detail.
It was a technical error at best that cascaded everywhere or intentional at worst.
Time to introduce another evil.
🔥 Evil 2: All exchanges trade against their users.
When you buy or sell on an exchange, those orders are treated as flow. Most of this flow goes to the exchange trading desk first and their partner market makers.
You're literally being farmed.
On most centralized exchanges, the orderbook you see is FAKE. It's not real. Most of those orders are a market marker or the exchange itself trading AGAINST you!
What happens when they pull out their buy orders? ATOM goes to $0.001 like on Binance and you are liquidated in seconds.
Why is this bad?
Because the exchange also knows your LIQUIDATION price. Suddenly, you realize you're playing a loser game. The odds are against you.
The exchange knows the exact price it needs to hit to nuke you, take your money, and thank you for your time. Then the price goes back up.
Worst, they throttle you while their trading desk nukes everyone. That's why the UI does not work on your end. They are busy taking your money. Afterwards, they blame the market volatility.
But it does not end there.
After centralized exchange liquidate you, they under-report their liquidations. For example, Binance or Bybit only report 1 in 20 liquidations and they blame the API limits.
Why?
So that they look good to their users, or their sheep. They can say Hyperliquid had $8 billion in liquidations and they only had $1 or $2 billion.
At least Hyperliquid can't fake their data, it's honest.
The worst part is that this crash was CEX induced and Hyperliquid fell for it.
That's because Hyperliquid sources asset prices via oracles based on centralized exchange prices, among others. Binance has the highest weight in that price oracle formula.
Since Binance led the charge to zero across most alts, Hyperliquid followed via oracle prices. This is a vector of attack against Hyperliquid which should be mitigated in the future.
We know Binance and others want HL gone. Nuking their users is a good step in that direction. Retail is collateral damage here while exchanges print money fighting each other.
One in two users on Hyperliquid got wiped on Friday, or close to that.
That's why exchanges are not your friends.
🔥 Evil 3: Insiders are always privileged at your expense.
Did you know that Ethena's open positions on Binance or any CEX are not subject to ADL?
While your shorts were closed by the system, the same shorts held by Ethena are excepted. Essentially, users are liquidated first on identical positions!
That's why Ethena's USDe peg did not go to zero, because they were excluded from the liquidation cascade.
Despite this, USDe still lost peg on Binance by 35%. Before this, Ethena boasted that users on most exchanges, including Binance, can use USDe as collateral when trading.
That USDe collateral crashes by 35%, making things worse! You needed even more collateral to cover your longs. Any leverage, including 1.1x, was liquidated once alts crashed 70% on top of 35% from USDe.
DeFi users were mostly spared from USDe related liquidations because on AAVE the USDe peg was hard-coded to the USDT price.
This saved many because only if USDT lost peg, USDe would follow. Another privilege, but this one protected users and Ethena.
🔥 Evil 4: Crypto is a highly extractive industry and exchanges are its biggest promoters.
Want to list a coin on Binance? $1 million please.
Want to market make a coin with Wintermute? 10% of the token supply please.
Want to trade on leverage? Great, looking forward to liquidating you.
The system is designed so that at every stage someone is being farmed. Retail is just the base layer.
Projects and teams are being farmed, VCs are being farmed. Big fish eats smaller fish until the top.
Know the casino you're playing in and exit early to survive.
🎯 How to protect yourself from such evil?
The easiest is to not engage. Nobody can liquidate your Bitcoin stored in a hardware wallet.
Those holding spot positions were not affected, unless they panic sold the bottom. That's just a side event from the liquidation party.
I've been in this space for over 10 years and I can say most of it is just noise. The ultimate alpha is stacking and holding Bitcoin and ignoring most of the other stuff.
Days like Friday prove it.
Who wants to invest in "blue chip" altcoins that crash to zero in minutes? It's all fugazi.
Bitcoin is one of the few real things in crypto and is the reason this industry even exists.
Focus on that.
I began being intentional about it in the last few years. Sold most alts and my portfolio is 90% Bitcoin in a hardware wallet.
This gives me peace of mind and I value that.
Took me a few crashes and bear markets to be here, so if this was your first, keep at it.
It gets better with time.
Like, share, and follow @duonine if you enjoyed this post
JUST IN: MULTIVERSX EGLD IS ENTERING ITS MOST VIBRANT PERIOD 🔥
So, before taking a deep dive into the new economics, what are some of the key highlights from the US Foundry Session?
Can these steps bring the edge back to EGLD ?
Here's an overview and a few sharp insights. 🧵
This needs to be said.
If DEXes like Hyperliquid or Aster allow users to deposit and trade on 100x leverage without smart contracts, what's the point of Ethereum or Solana?
If stablecoin chains like Plasma / XPL can transfer USDT for free anywhere instantly, what's the point of Ethereum, Tron, Cardano, XRP or Solana?
The security offered by Ethereum would be relevant if it was digital gold, but Bitcoin has that role.
Tron is already under threat due to Plasma. Cardano and XRP never found product-market fit anyway.
How can ETH or SOL stay relevant in the future? Vitalik's blogs and Solana's memes won't cut it.
🇨🇳 CHINA BUILT A ROBOT WITH A HUMAN BRAIN
Chinese scientists grew a cerebral organoid — a mini brain made from human stem cells — and connected it to a robot.
Not just for show: the brainlet controls physical movement, dodges obstacles, grabs objects, and even shows signs of synaptic plasticity — meaning it can learn and adapt based on experience.
They embedded it into a brain-on-chip system, combining neural tissue with silicon circuitry — essentially a hybrid bio-digital processor.
This could revolutionize neuroscience, drug testing, and AI development.
But it also drags us straight into Blade Runner territory: machines that don’t simulate thought, but actually have it.
The ethical red flags are everywhere:
What counts as consciousness?
Where’s the line between tool and entity?
Are we growing minds to serve machines?
Cool? Yes.
Chilling? Also yes.
Source: FutureNowShow
Klaus Schwab promises you a cyberattack, and Iam telling you its a cyberattack on Banks
An attack that will take out the old system, and finalise the plans of the fourth Industrial revolution. The establishment of digital currencies (CBDC)
The new world order starts in 2030, big changes started already and will intensify in the coming years. The fourth industrial rev. is going on, we are in the process. A huge crash is part of the process and is needed to destroy the old system, to replace it with a new system. So what’s the new system ?
WEF - Klaus Schwab, warning of the next ‘pandemic’, a cyber attack so vast it disconnects the internet.
All of this boosts his digital ID and CBDC agenda. Vaccine will be your CBDC, otherwise your bank account will be hacked. Screenshot this
They will set an example to make it happen. They might hack a world bank or they will create threats that will become that serious in order to establish new laws regarding banks and digital currencies.
Reality is, the US economy is being eaten alive by the inflation and its debt. There is no way they can survive it, they need to crash everything and send all to zero to sound innocent once it happens.
Let me tell you the easiest way to do so:
World Wide Cyber attacks —> Targeting Banks —>
Banks collapsing —>
People losing all —>
Market crashes —>
System restarts ♻️
Gov. will be happy and tell you that they have no fault on the collapse of the world economy, they will tell you that CBDCs are good for you, because they can’t be hacked. They will suggest you to use CBDC instead, otherwise you risk being hacked again. The same strategy of causing fear, during COVID, will be used again.
They will introduce you their main blockchain for the US CBDC (Strong possibility to be ERC20 ETH) They will suggest you a reputation payment to get CBDCs for free, just to win your trust back, after losing all in the ‚Bank attack‘
They will tell you its good to use, because its not hackable like bank money. Experts will suddenly appear in the media and tell you how cool the "New Tech" blockchain actually is, and CBDCs are perfect for the people. Because it’s environmental friendly, cheaper in transaction, can be tracked anytime, no fake circulation, transparent and safe from hacks because of the ‚Blockchain technology‘
The best way to look innocent, so people wont start riots and getting angry is to launch operation Inside_Job_Cyberattack.exe.
It will crash one bank after the other and the entire world will speak about the cyber attacks, it will be bigger than corona, bloodier than all crashes in human history. It will also hide all the mistakes banks and politicans did in the past 50 years since Gold standard stopped and money printers printed out of the air.
They will make it look like "Its not our fault, its the Cyber attack that took out out our entire economy, thats why we need Blockchain".
People will lose all and everything, and when the worst happened, they will give you the CBDC. All in all, we are currently within the fourth industrial revolution. We are experiencing the overthrow from the old system to the new system. Be safe, use the centralised bank Digital currencies to avoid being hacked. This is what they will tell you in future
You can feel free to screenshot this. It’s the most likely scenario that is going to happen from this day till 2030
🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨
IT’S CLEAR THERE’S NOT GOING TO BE AN ALT SEASON.
#SOLANA, without memecoins (the world is finally realizing memecoins are useless and worthless), is heading to zero.
#ETH pumped in 2021 thanks to the NFT mania. That hype is dead. There’s no more demand for ETH, and that’s why the price isn’t going anywhere.
#XRP is massively overpriced. They tried to manipulate it yet again after Trump’s election, but let’s be honest — it’s clear the token is useless. The foundation #ripple dumps 1 BILLION XRP on retail investors every single month. It’s a never-ending cash grab.
Even solid projects with good tech and ideas, like #Chainlink and #Ondo, are being exposed. People are realizing that the tokens for these projects are worthless — they exist only to make the foundations richer. That’s it.
There’s only ONE project in this space with real utility — and that’s #ICP.
When you build websites or dApps on the Internet Computer, you NEED ICP. Everything built on it requires ICP. You burn ICP to keep your dapp or website running. That’s what REAL UTILITY looks like.
ICP community, share this post as loud as you can — the world will finally understand what true utility means!
#ICP #InternetComputer #Blockchain #Crypto #RealUtility #icp @dfinity@dominic_w
Bitcoin crash will start next week...
Rising CPI inflation, Binance sold all $BTC, etс.
I spent 24h analysing market data…
Here's when $BTC will drop & ur key to secure money👇🧵
The biggest ALTSEASON will start this week...
$BTC Dominance is down --> alts are rapidly rising!
Last cycle turned $500 into $185,543.94 in month...
Here are 7 best alts for X100 in 2 weeks🧵👇
The Hidden Top: my 2025 market view
Years later, after I've posted my January 2023, 2024 and mid 2024 (see bellow), I can still see top callers everywhere, at every local resistance, at every bearish narrative
So I've decided to atack this particular topic: YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO TIME THE PERFECT TOP
TL;DR of my view: H1 2025 higher highs -> H2 2025, lower highs
As per usual,
1. We're starting with the S&P index
Since 2023, I've projected the potential top (not cycle top, but a mini-cycle, into the 2030+ cycle top) at around 5800-6100$ area (1.618 fib)
2 years later we are here. But what comes next, my base case, is that from this 6k area (we maybe go 2-500$ more, doesn't matter) we start the downtrend into Q2-Q3, and before Q4 everyone will be bullish again, just like in the last 2 years, but everyone will be dissapointed
I think a lower high on the S&P will be the case.
Now, the case with FED's rates, as I was saying for a long time, 3-5 rate cuts are not bearish, but after that we should watch when the CPI creeps back up from the lows (it started) and The FED starts to pause rates again!!
2019: we had 2 FOMCs with rates paused - December and February (we all know what happend in March 2020)
Now: higher rates, maybe a 3-fold pause is due.
IF THIS IS THE CASE, and another global shitstorm happens, everyone will look at the pandemic event, rates, probably some trillions printed, and will say the REAL BULLMARKET starts, into H2 2025, because we dodged the bullet again
And that is when the dissapointments start. Lower high in Q4, going down more into 2026 - everyone rekt (and then the real fun starts!!)
In this part of the cycle, I'm not interested in the DXY or yields anymore, I'm only interested in the stupid euphoria that comes next.
2. So, let's get to Bitcoin
When rates paused in 2019, after 3 cuts, BTC had a 63% rally, during the soft landing narrative - BUT - that was a different part of the cycle, we are now later into the cycle than back then
So if my base case happen, BTC has a little room left, based on fibs (we are now at 1.272), 1.4 is at 127k, 1.618 is at 173k (it can also not touch it like in the last cycle)
If rates are cu 25-50 bps from March, then I would not worry and the cycle could be longer, which means I stay spot for longer a build a bigger cash position.
But contrary to my 2023 and 2024 FULL BEAR HITLER, which you all witnessed, for me, now it's time start building a FULL HITLER CASH POSITION, as euphoria will start kicking in with this "soft landing" and other narratives.
I think that if rates are cut aggressively, like 100-200 bps in one FOMC, you know this comes with something on the side. Something not good - I WILL NEVER BECOME A DOOMSTER EITHER WAY!!
And if a global event is coming along with this, everyone will scream BUY BUY BUY - REAL BULL IN THE WINTER!! LOW RATES LIKE IN 2020 BRO - and they will all be wrong. Let's see.
My focus rn will not be on SPX and BTC, ranges are on the charts, my focus is on ETH and alts, because every cycle ends in euphoria, and all I see is scared little girls on Twitter.
4. The most important chart in crypto
XRP is also a good gauge, but I'm focusing on this one: ETHBTC - some good analysts on Twitter pointed out that range, which is a good confluence with my simple use of fib retracements
This is a good example of how people follow narratives and forget to look on different charts to correlate how liquidity is moving in the whole asset class.
This means ETH betas will go ballistic - if you also watch the SOLETH chart (which I also posted a long time ago) you will see that it outperformed for 2 years straight - next phase of the cycle, DOWN!
Cycle targets for ETH - dunno man, put some fibs up and see - I do not own it, I jumped directly to betas, de-fi shit, gaming, AI, memes, because I've already made most of my money with BTC since the bottom
Also check out my cycle post on BTC.D:
https://t.co/7Kbg3LNMzz
4. Total 3 chart - what most fail to understand is that BTC.D looks toppish, but they don't look at total crypto market cap without BTC and ETH, and watch some big caps like: DOT AVAX FIL SAND LTC UNI LINK HBAR etc.
Big players that are not even at the last bull market top, with the TOTAL3 at it. The only thing that pumped in crypto was vaporware tokens, full speculation, rotation from other protocols, and that's it
So my base case for alts, in the next phase, liquidity from outside is coming for eth, de-fi, utility, big players etc. - just watch the XRP chart and you will understand!
Moreover, I think total3 will catch up BTCs moves:
So maybe, just maybe, because everyone is a BTC maxi rn, it's time to focus on strong alts! BTC is doing this pa at a new ATH, while Total3 lags. Now we have trad-fi catalysts for coins (ETFs requests everywhere)
Also maybe, just maybe, if a lower high is on the table for H2 2025, perhaps Total3 makes a higher high - will see
And actually the liquidity is coming for trusted protocols, not from degens, but from institutional investors - the flood gates are already set (ETH ETF)
As always, my charts will not happen with 100% accuracy, some things will be different, but for me, all that matters is positioning: now out 40% from BTC, rotated to alts, 10% cash position which will increase gradually this year (btw I had almost 0% cash positions in 2023 and 2024, with all the money I made, I just reaccumulated more and more).
My posts are public, never deleted a tweet - maybe you should revisit my last market views and see how things developed, to understand that I'm adapting my play as time goes by.
Time > price
I will update my view in the summer maybe, but some of you guys were asking me why don't I do something in English, to go deeper into monthly and weekly updates
So I did.
For 2 years I've been posting all my views, no charge, no paid groups, no VIP class, no course etc.
So for those who want to stay close to my daily/monthly adjustments on charts, here it is:
https://t.co/lxXweLVmqg
What it’s not:
- a paid group
- the end of me posting free on X
- a day trading course
- a get rich quick scheme
- a pump and dump discord scheme
What it is:
- a monthly breakdown from my part, into the charts, to see where we are in the cycle
- 3-5 monthly analyses to cover deep dives into: SPX, BTC, alts, other stocks, DXY, yields, rates, other indicators
Basically I don’t do lessons or courses on how markets work, or ‘how to find the next 100x’, or how to ‘forever solve your money problem’ - these things work for a while, then they don’t - because the market is forward looking - nothing is set into stone! - market adapts - I will too
We also have a discord channel where we talk daily, help each other learn and adapt, chart together. I also hired 4 other people to help with the website, discord, research, so I could stay on my lane and focus on charts
I will keep posting free on X as usual and I don’t recommend this to anyone that hasn’t made money with my free content! If you ask “why should you pay x$ a month for this?” my answer will always be “you shouldn’t”
God bless you! Be a winner, with or without me!
Nobody scammed retail more than Solana.
SOL’s market cap almost doubled, yet its price still did not make an ATH.
This is the definition of inflation. A hidden tax every Solana fanboy pays.
Years ago, I used to work long corporate hours. Left work late, burnouts too.
Then I quit.
I sometimes think of my colleagues still there today. Here’s what I did different. A thread 🧵
🚨 What if I told you this bull market didn't even start yet?
Intrigued? I'll show you two data points proving Bitcoin did not make an ATH in 2024.
This changes EVERYTHING. A thread (1/6) 🧵