Good evening, crypto degens. Or actually, good afternoon from not-so-sunny Spain. It’s been raining nonstop, and honestly, the crypto markets match the weather perfectly right now. The market looks dicey. Super dicey. XRP is down around 14%. Bitcoin is down almost 9%. And what really caught my attention is something unusual: Bitcoin and altcoins are dropping at almost the same rate. Normally, Bitcoin drops 2% and altcoins get absolutely wrecked—down 10–15% or more. But right now, some altcoins are actually dropping less than Bitcoin. Solana, for example, was down around 7% while Bitcoin was down closer to 9%. Earlier it was even less. That’s not normal. My take? A lot of altcoins are already so beaten down that there’s not much left to dump. People might finally be thinking, “These things are already cheap.” And honestly, I agree.

So What Do You Do in a Market Like This?

There are basically two schools of thought right now.

School of Thought #1: Hold and Accumulate

Let’s start with Raoul Pal. His thesis is simple: you’re playing the wrong game. The game isn’t day trading, timing every move, panicking, setting stop losses, chasing pumps, or following every trade on X. According to him, that approach actively destroys your P&L. Instead, he argues that crypto is a secularly rising asset class. The total crypto market (excluding stablecoins) has been trending upward since 2015. If the market cap grows from $3 trillion to $100 trillion over the next 8–10 years, then constantly trading every dip and bounce is pointless. His core argument: The people who make the most money don’t trade. They hold and add on weakness. He says he’s never seen anyone outperform simply holding a rising asset by trading it. Holding removes stress, removes mistakes, and compounds returns over time. Now, this assumes you’re holding good coins. You don’t want your portfolio spread across random microcaps with no adoption. Long term, most coins disappear. The safer approach is to keep most of your capital in large, well-established projects, and maybe allocate a smaller portion to higher-risk plays. And right now? We’re clearly in a moment of weakness. Bitcoin is back near its previous 2021 all-time high. Altcoins are extremely low. Some never really recovered from the last bear market—Cardano is a good example. It recovered a bit, but never fully, and now it’s back to being crushed. This is exactly the type of environment where long-term accumulation historically works.

School of Thought #2: Trade Everything, Trust Nothing

The second camp is represented by Alex Wy. His view is much more pessimistic about altcoins. He argues that the 2021 playbook no longer works. Back then, the strategy was simple:

• Accumulate in the bear market
• Hold through volatility
• Sell near all-time highs
• Buy back lower

According to him, that strategy worked beautifully in the past—but not anymore. Why? Because he believes most altcoins will never reach their previous highs. His arguments:

• Narratives die faster
• Recovery isn’t guaranteed
• The old strategy destroys portfolios

Instead, he says you should trade catalysts only. Buy news, sell pumps, take profits immediately, and rotate into something else. No long-term conviction. If you hold waiting for recovery, you become exit liquidity for faster traders. Adapt or die.

Why I Disagree With the “Trade Everything” Approach

I don’t agree with this narrative at all. Yes, there are more altcoins than ever. Yes, many will disappear. But that doesn’t mean none of them will survive. The good projects—the ones with real adoption, real developers, and real use cases—are not all going to zero. Trying to trade constantly is, in my opinion, a terrible strategy for most people. You’ll get chopped to pieces. Fees, bad timing, emotional decisions—it adds up fast. That said, taking some profit is healthy. If you buy something cheap and it runs hard, it’s smart to take some money off the table. Otherwise, what’s the point? You’re not investing to never realize gains.

All the Bullish Catalysts… and the Market Still Dumps

This is what really messes with people’s heads. Look at what we have right now:

• Pro-crypto politicians
• Strategic Bitcoin reserves being discussed
• Spot ETFs
• Institutional adoption
• Big players like Tether, Coinbase, El Salvador, and others

Every bullish catalyst you could dream of. And yet, this feels like the most depressed market ever. The conclusion is simple but uncomfortable: The market does not always move based on good news. Cycles matter more than narratives in the short term. Sometimes the market just wants to go down. It feels like Bitcoin needs to reset before it can move higher again. No amount of good news can override that in the short run.

Why Altcoins Aren’t Dumping as Hard as Bitcoin

Another interesting observation: many altcoins are holding up relatively well during this Bitcoin dump. Why? Because a lot of them are already down 90–99%. From 2022 to early 2024, Bitcoin went up while altcoins kept bleeding. Outside of a brief window in 2023 and early 2024, altcoins never really participated. So now, when Bitcoin drops, they simply don’t have as much left to fall.

Do We Need a Purge of Crypto Projects?

Some people argue that the current shakeout is necessary. The idea is that there are too many chains competing for the same liquidity and use cases. Capital is spread too thin. Weak projects need to die so liquidity can concentrate. I partially agree. We don’t need hundreds of layer-1 chains doing the same thing. But crypto has always had a large number of projects. That’s not new. There will always be a top 50, top 100, top 200. The key is focus. Hold the strongest projects. Gamble small on speculative bets if you want, but don’t build your entire portfolio on hope.

A Personal Example: Knowing When to Let Go

I’ll give you a real example. I was accumulating Sonic (formerly Fantom). It was successful in DeFi during 2021–2022. Great tech, respected founder, solid reputation. But years passed, usage declined, and adoption didn’t come back. I kept buying lower and lower… until I didn’t. Eventually, I sold and rotated into something I believed had better recovery potential. That’s not trading every candle. That’s reassessing fundamentals.

Exchange Risk Is Real

This needs to be said clearly. Do not keep your funds on centralized exchanges. Not Binance. Not KuCoin. Not MEXC. Not any exchange. Only keep funds there temporarily for buying and selling. Move everything else to cold storage. And don’t leave serious money on browser wallets either. If your computer gets compromised, your funds are gone. Cold wallets exist for a reason.

Bitcoin Under $70,000: Panic or Opportunity?

Bitcoin briefly dropped below $70,000—below its 2021 all-time high. That’s painful, but it’s also historically normal. Markets reset. They overshoot on the way up and overshoot on the way down. I don’t know how much lower it goes. Nobody does. But I do know this: Money is made when things are cheap, not when they’re pumping. I’ll probably wait a bit before buying again because I’ve already been buying dips. And that brings me to one of the most important rules.

Always Keep Cash on the Side

Never go all-in when markets are falling. Always keep dry powder. You buy crashes with sidelined cash. When markets are going up? That’s when you stop buying.

The Big Lesson From This Crash

This is the takeaway. No matter how many things are going right for crypto—adoption, regulation, institutions—it does not guarantee short-term price appreciation. The cycle matters more. Bitcoin goes up and down. Always has. Probably always will. Unless this is pure manipulation (which is possible), the market is simply doing what markets do: resetting. And resets are where long-term opportunities are born.