1. Everyone Has Become Smarter Crypto market has now entered the mainstream financial system, and retail investors have easy access to high-quality information. On top of that, the advancement of AI has been remarkable. In short, investors today are far more informed than they were in the past. However, the important point is that it's not just you who has become smarter. Everyone else has as well. The overall level of market participants has risen. That means the tools and knowledge you have are no longer a significant advantage over other investors. So what does this mean for the market makers who drive price? As market participants become more sophisticated, market makers must create even more complex and deceptive price movements to mislead investors. The yellow and orange boxes from the recent April–May price action illustrate this perfectly. In the past, a move like the yellow box alone would have been enough to fool most investors. Today, however, it takes something as extreme as the orange box before retail investors begin to react. In other words, even manipulating a short-term market structure has become much more difficult than before. 2. Bitcoin Has Become an Asset That Too Many People Believe In Bitcoin history is still relatively short, but it has already gone through three halving cycles, and Bitcoin ETF have now been approved. With institutional capital entering the market, retail investors have become much more convinced that Bitcoin will always trend higher over the long term. They have experienced this firsthand, and they know institutions are now participating as well. Ironically, I believe this confidence could become a weakness. Many investors now believe that no matter how far the price falls, Bitcoin will eventually recover. And because investors have become more knowledgeable over time, that belief has only grown stronger. 3. That Is Why Even If Bitcoin Falls Below $60,000, True Fear May Never Arrive If Bitcoin breaks below $60,000, many on-chain indicators will likely describe the market as being in "fear." However, I believe many investors will interpret those same signals as an opportunity. If that happens, it is no longer genuine fear. Real fear is panic caused by something investors never expected. If the majority already believes, "This is the time to buy when everyone else is fearful," then the market is no longer experiencing true fear. That is why I believe even if Bitcoin falls below $60,000, genuine market panic will be much harder to create than many people expect. 4. So How Will the Market Move? If even short-term price movements have become this difficult to manipulate, long-term market cycles are even more challenging because investors now have more historical data and stronger long-term conviction. For that reason, I believe market makers will have little choice but to create even more extreme price movements than they did in previous cycles. If they don't, the alternative is to keep the market moving sideways for an extended period, exhausting investors both mentally and emotionally. The goal is to test people's patience, make them doubt themselves, and only after everything is over allow them to realize: "That was actually the bottom." 5. I Still Don't See Evidence of Accumulation Around the $60,000 Range If someone had been quietly accumulating Bitcoin during the February–May consolidation, and if the data clearly showed smart money treating the weakness as an opportunity, then even a break below $60,000 could reasonably be viewed as a buying opportunity. However, I simply do not see that evidence in the data. That is why I believe it is still far too early to reach that conclusion. When the time comes, I will have no hesitation in becoming strongly bullish again. But in my view, that time has not arrived yet.(mignolet)