State of the Crypto Markets

The Final Countdown to bull market lift off — and some Altcoins to accumulate.

We are now almost three months into the sideways movement and re-accumulation phase of this bull run. Sentiment is in the crapper, PTSD- laden degens are calling for a shortened cycle, no cycle at all, or the end of crypto altogether. The FUD is running hot and thick.

In truth, this early start to the bull run is a signal that we are preparing for a bull run for the history books. This time is most certainly NOT the same.

• BTC ETF approvals have opened the floodgates to institutional and otherwise stranded capital, for which we have only seen the beginning stages of capital inflows.
• ETH ETF approval is on the horizon, and whether it occurs at the upcoming May 23rd deadline, or the Blackrock deadline in early August, it will absolutely ignite a monster ETH and Altcoin bull run.
• New BTC accounting rules allow for corporate Bitcoin strategies a-la MicroStrategy, and companies are already scrambling to build those BTC treasuries.
• Grayscale dumping is all but over.
• Meme coin mania has altered the previously accepted capital inflow dynamics, and many newcomers are skipping BTC and ETH altogether to dive face first into meme coins. The risk appetite is huge, but I believe that risk appetite will shift to more fundamental Altcoins as the advantages of meme coins disappear and they become saturated.
• QE and money printing are only months away, a few at most. This will launch perceived risk assets on a moon mission, BTC and crypto foremost among them.
• US elections are nearing, and the Biden administration needs to spur economic activity asap. Look for substantial economic window dressing in the coming months, including rate reductions, debt forgiveness and stimulus
• Stablecoin minting is off the charts, and all that monetary potential energy is going to push crypto prices into orbit once we are done with this shaking out of the remaining lettuce hands.

Some brief commentary below on the market trajectory and catalysts to come.

Early Start to the Bull Run:

The bull run took off early as compared to previous cycles. The idea of a left shifted shorter cycle is flawed, and not supported by the data. The 2021 Bull run was interrupted in 2020 by the pandemic lockdowns, prior to which there was a very similar run-up in prices as the halving approached.

This time around, there was no interruption, and a confluence of catalysts that has spurred an early influx of capital into Bitcoin, a front-running of the timid masses that are just waiting on sidelines for the crash that will never come.

Ethereum

ETH is dead FUD has reached peak levels, and despite its marked underperformance to date, ETH is setting up almost identically to the 2021 bull market. ETH is at or very near the bottom vs BTC, and should outperform BTC notably for the remainder of the bull market. This is a big asymmetric opportunity, and a solid contrarian bet.

ETH lost ground on Bitcoin from the peak in Jan of 2018 for roughly 18 months until June of 2020, just after the May 2020 halving. In the 2017 bull run, ETH peaked at 0.15 BTC, and bottomed about 18 months later at 0.02 BTC (an 85% drop vs BTC). It then ran up to 0.09 ETH in the 2021 cycle, a 3.5X increase vs BTC.

This cycle, ETH has dropped from 0.09 BTC in the peak of the market in Dec 2021 to just under 0.05 BTC today (a 45% drop vs BTC). This marks a significant improvement over the previous cycle, and sets ETH up for a big runup and a peak I am predicting closer to the 0.1 BTC range by cycle top.

TLDR: Despite the FUD, ETH is performing better than it did last cycle in comparison to BTC, and looks to be bottoming and preparing to outperform BTC for the remainder of the cycle.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin has way outperformed versus the 2017 cycle, and has a confluence of catalysts setting up for a perfect storm as the US election approaches. It is my expectation that we have only seen the bull appetizer to date, and the parabolic portion of the bull run will lift off in June and July right through to fall of 2025, with plenty of pull backs in the interim.

Timelines and Targets:

I still maintain my longstanding predictions of a bull run extending into the fall of next year, peaking around Sept/Oct of 2025. See my predictions article here

• BTC at new ATH: $150K — $225K
• ETH at new ATH: $16.5K — $23.5K
• Total Crypto Market Cap: $7–10T (3x)
• Early Bull Market(warm): Mid 2023 to Spring 2024 (Now)
• Mid Bull Market (hot): May 2024 to Jan 2025
• Late Bull Market (overheated): Feb 2025 to Fall 2025

Meme Coins

Meme coins tell a story about the initial stages of this bull market. Newcomers are looking to make life changing gains, and BTC and ETH will not hit those 50x and 100X targets.

In addition, Meme coins are easy for a newcomer to understand, just as NFTs were in the 2021 cycle. They do not require extensive research and technical knowledge, and have become a sort of middle finger to the VC and TradeFi nincompoops and an on-chain casino for degens.

I fully expect this narrative to shift as the bull run matures, and gains in the meme coin sector are already becoming more difficult to find.

Narratives

Gaming has taken a back seat as Meme coins and other narratives gain attention. I expect a shift back into the gaming narrative as certain games are released. In the event there is a big hit in one of the coming AAA games, ALL games will have a huge speculative run irrespective of their merits and fundamentals. Projects like Shrapnel, Wagmi, Gam3s.gg, and others are at excellent accumulation levels.

AI is also looking at a big comeback, and many solid AI projects are on firesale at the moment. Blendr and AINode (GPU) are dirt cheap, $NEAR is reasonably cheap. This is a great time to accumulate some longer term holds.

Launchpads have taken a beating, and if you are still looking to get into a solid launchpad for pre-sale access, Duck Dao and Nexus Gaming are obscenely cheap. Huge value to be had from memberships on those projects.

Pre-sales

Pre-sales had been worsening for quite some time. Vesting terms, lockupds and fully diluted values (FDVs) were getting absurd in many cases. There has been a noticeable shift in this trend, and it is starting to become a buyers/investors market again.

Altcoins I am Accumulating:

To keep it short and sweet, below is a highlight reel of the Altcoins I have been accumulating over the past couple weeks.

• Fantom $FTM — Rebrand to Sonic ($S), best in class layer 1 tech, resurgence of the Fantom Foundation and Andre Cronje
• Shrapnel $SHRAP — AAA game, soon to be released, big selloff, big backers and KOLs.
• Axelar $AXL — Top interoperability protocol with amazing cross chain messaging, swapping and bridging. Also big new deals for RWAs. Way oversold and undervalued.
• SUI Network ($SUI) — One of the fastest blockchains with fast-growing TVL and adoption. Smooth UI/UX, big developer fund, lots of integrations.
• $CROWN — Solid horse-racing game, ultra realistic, great tokenomics, way oversold.
• BLENDR Network ($BLENDR) — Great AI play that has been hugely oversold. Solid team and backers, big vision, lots of room for mid term price appreciation
• DuckDao ($DD) Excellent launchpad with solid allocations and great deal access and features. Also way oversold.

Conclusion:

There have been a plethora of developments over the last few months of sideways chop. Make no mistake, this bull run is still in its early stages, and is setting up to be one of the most explosive in crypto history.

The coming month or two are your last chance to get on board if you are not already.

Good luck out there, and see you on the next one!

Sovereign Crypto (aka RickyBobby)

I release regular altcoin and crypto updates, subscribe for more info and to keep up to date!

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