Two of three take-profit signals fired. The missing one matters more

Our take-profit system sent a warning this morning. Two of three market-wide conditions lined up. The rule requires all three, so full take-profit mode never switched on.

That part is dull arithmetic. The interesting question is why the third condition is missing at all, when the market added more than twenty percent in a week and several readings look hot.

The bounce is overheated, not the cycle

We measure heat on two horizons. The short one looks at days, the long one at weeks. Right now they disagree: four assets sit in the red on the short horizon, and every asset is calm on the long one. That combination describes a sharp bounce inside a decline, not a market top.

The gap between those two horizons is usually what separates people who sell a local high inside a drawdown from people who sell an actual peak.

Where we are in the cycle

Bitcoin trades at $76,139. The high was $126,080 on 6 October 2025. That is 39.7 percent below the top.

We pulled monthly candles from Binance and measured how the previous cycles behaved. December 2017: peak at $19,799, bottom twelve months later at $3,156. November 2021: peak at $69,000, bottom again exactly twelve months later at $15,476.

The timing matches to the month in both cases. Repeat it once more and the bottom lands in October 2026.

Where the analogy breaks

The timing lines up. The depth does not. The previous two cycles gave up 84 and 78 percent from their peaks. This one has given up 54.2 percent at its worst: on 1 July bitcoin traded down to $57,800. It now sits 39.7 percent below the peak, which means it has bounced 31.7 percent off that July low. That bounce is what heated up the short-horizon readings.

Repeat the old depth and bitcoin would be somewhere between twenty and twenty-eight thousand. It has not repeated so far.

There is a second mismatch. The July low arrived 8.8 months after the peak, while both previous cycles found their floor in month twelve. Either this bottom came early, or July was not the bottom and the real one is still ahead. On the calendar of past cycles, that would be October.

Two explanations fit, and both are alive. Either the decline is unfinished. Or this cycle really is shallower because the structure of the market changed: spot ETFs, corporate balance sheets, a different set of buyers.

We do not know which one is right. Nobody does. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you confidence rather than analysis.

What follows from this in practice

One thing. Selling everything while sitting 39.7 percent below the peak is a bet that the bottom is already behind us and the climb continues without pullbacks. Our system does not place that bet. It is short one condition, so it stays quiet.

Our portfolio is up 23 percent over six months. We bought a fixed amount every week and made no attempt to time the entry. When the price fell, we bought then too, which is why our average purchase price ended up well below today's.

Which conditions fired, on which assets, against which thresholds, and what we are doing with the portfolio right now are all open in the cabinet.

This is not investment advice. Everyone decides for themselves.