This is a subjective interpretation of the volume on log scale from 2013 till now based on the 3D chart. I highlighted the buy/sell volume, height and width indicate the consistency of the spree and aswell the peaks of a single bar in such a serie. >White = neutral, no clear consitency in buying/selling, lots of mixed bars. >Green= Lots of buying, relatively few red volume bars >Red= Lots of selling, relatively few green volume bars
What I notice from this is accumulation, you see huge buying sprees, followed up by few selling sprees and a few massive red candles presumably profit taking. >buying spree in 2013-2014 >buying spree in Q4 2015 till ~2017 >Huge spike of selling in 2014 after which there hasn't been such selling volume ever since. >No clear selling sprees as opposed to multi-year buying/accumulation sprees
>My subjective interpretation (possibly biased): Whats also notable is that there hasn't been any sell volume like 2014 yet. Analyzing volume like this to me appears as accumulation and first sell-off. Because of the illiquidity in the market the size of the price shift is immense. A highly illiquid retail market, retailers are often inexperienced and emotional, which suggests that if institutional money doesn't come in in 2018 this market will eventually bubble again anyway because of the retailers trading fear/greed. It seems natural that this market will experience a rush of liquidty provided by more interest from different parties to trade these assets.
Thanks for making this OP, very informative. So you're saying that you expect another multi-year buying spree? If the pattern continues we'd be due for a selling spree like 2014 at some point, no?
Matthew Morales
did you add tethers? i bet you didnt
Zachary Bell
So 2014 was a black swan, 2017-2018 is a correction after 20xing
Jason Bailey
yeah basically, though this analysis doesn't account for OTC buying/selling which has been huge the past months. If this was the peak, you'd expect to see volume dwarfing 2014 as smart money exits (which also control most of the coins). Instead you see massive accumulation over multiple years with profit taking in between. As the accumulation phase ends and the market stays illiquid the price fluctations become larger.
Though I'm not experienced with bubbles and I haven't been able to anaylze volume of other bubbles. This seems more or less like a logical explenation. usually bear markets in stocks last 1.5-3 years where an absolute bottom is found. And bull markets last for 8-10 years where an absolute peak is found. This chart shows 5 years of data, 2013-2018. With the start of 2014 into Q4 2015 being bear and Q42015-Q42017 being bull (from what we can see).
So that is about 1.75 years of bear and 2 years of bull. I find these proportions a little odd, so I'd expect atleast another 1-2 years of bull (possibly even more if it adheres the same cycles of stocks). The rise is always slower than the fall.
If BTC does do 8years of bull and 2 years of bear, then the market cycles would be comparitive of that of the stock market, which suggests that volatility does not imply cycles. So what people say about crypto being highly volatile and cycles closing up sooner doesn't work. It's the liquidity of the market that should in that case explain the quick rises and falls. Which makes sense.
In other words, we can only speculate for now but it's highly probable may I say so myself that this isn't the end, and that we'd see a turn of trend rather soon than late.
Eli Wright
About liquidity, cycles and volatility, what I mean to say by that its been a bull market the whole time, it never became bearish its just that the volatility gives the appearance of a bear market, whilst its just a correction in a larger bull market cycle.
Aiden Bell
Is the tether thing going to start the bull run now?
Ian Jones
volume is like fuckin non existent the ladt 4months, I remember days the last years of 500,000BTC tarded across all exchanges within 12 hours.
even as prices where >10.000 we saw volume up to 200,000 per Day.
as long as this volume didnt ramp up by a 100 fold, no trend change in sight.
Noah Roberts
Well it's always been liquidity, hasn't it? The crypto market as a whole is highly illiquid which causes the manipulation and volatility seen constantly.
This, my only concern is that volume has dried up as of late. The major selloff may have already occurred but it's increasingly apparent that the only people trading bitcoin are bots. For some reason there is significantly less interest. It seems like more than just an average selloff
