With BTC plunging toward $80k on Friday — leaving many U.S. traders waking up to carnage — and then sharply rebounding across the weekend toward $90k, the question on everyone’s mind is simple:
Kraken VP of growth Matt Howells-Barby and pro trader Dentoshi (Den) spent the session digging into the macro catalysts, the key technical levels and what traders should realistically expect in the weeks ahead.
As always, nothing discussed is financial advice — only market commentary and education.
Before diving into charts, Matt unpacked the macro environment behind last week’s huge swings. In short, it’s all about rate cuts and the lack of reliable data.
The result: equities rallied and crypto followed. BTC’s weekend rebound is almost a mirror image of these shifts.
Crypto sits at the furthest end of the risk curve. If money is pulling out of AI equities, it’s pulling out of crypto twice as fast — and when liquidity returns, crypto feels it twice as strongly.
The next major catalysts:
A low PPI print could push rate-cut expectations toward 90%+, and a hot inflation surprise could trigger another wobble across risk assets.
Den made a strong point early: this is the first true structural breakdown of the bull trend.
Specifically, BTC has lost the 3-day 100 EMA — a level that held throughout the entire bull market so far.
Previous pulls back to this EMA had always produced clean bounces. This time, we got a clean break.
According to Den:
“When something that has worked all the way through the cycle suddenly stops working, that’s your signal to start fresh. Clear the charts. Reset the bias.”
The speed and shape of the recent dump also stood out:
This doesn’t mean the cycle is over, but it does mean the market we’re in now is not the same market we were in three weeks ago.
BTC has moved sharply off the lows, but context is key.
Den calls it “super rejection-y.” The first obvious magnet is the cluster of lows below.
Starting fresh, Den mapped BTC into a wide structural range defined by:
BTC is now pushing off support, but according to Den:
“We have a lot of resistance above us. It would be more logical to see a move toward $100k and reject than to expect a straight reclaim — unless risk assets go absolutely wild.”
For the first time since late October, BTC has:
This supports a relief bounce but doesn’t confirm a full recovery.
Four consecutive red weekly candles have people shaken. Den’s advice:
“Zoom into the lower timeframes. Find structure that makes sense. Let it align with your higher timeframe thesis.”
Den joked that looking at ETH “hurts,” but the chart is cleaner than BTC’s.
ETH’s range is extremely well-defined. The mid-range in the $2,800s held — exactly where Den expected a mean-reversion bounce.
She noted that:
All pointed toward oversold conditions.
ETH is now pushing a local trend shift faster than BTC, but:
“It’s a long way to go. The more you dump, the more work you need to get back to the same place.”
The real test for ETH is reclaiming level-to-level resistance looming above us; starting with the Yearly Open, 1D EMA’s, and quarterly range levels (not shown in this stream).
We want to have a conservative approach and not directly aim towards cycle highs; it’s a step-by-step approach. Until then, everything is provisional.
Both Matt and Den agreed something changed in mid-October.
Den’s observations:
That doesn’t confirm a macro top, but it absolutely confirms a behavioral shift.
BTC is acting differently. Alts are acting differently.
Den laid out her criteria carefully.
This is already in motion, and the last time we saw it was during the FTX period.
If BTC tags the yearly open or $100k and gets slammed straight back down, that would be a very bearish signal.
These levels hold enormous structural significance (2021 highs, untested liquidity). A clean break through them would imply:
Importantly, Den does not see an immediate collapse to $60k or $40k happening in one shot.
“If we ever get to the $40ks again, it will be a long bleed-out, not a fast V-reversal.”
There is a lot of liquidity between $60k–$70k that has not been revisited since the 2022–23 base.
Den walked through TOTAL and TOTAL3:
On all charts, the story is the same:
We’re holding for now, but the next move decides everything.
Matt wrapped with a cautiously optimistic outlook.
If December brings a rate cut, even a small one, it may not send BTC to all-time highs immediately, but:
Between a new Fed chair, pent-up economic releases and the renewed correlation between BTC and the Nasdaq 100, the next few inflation prints will decide the fate of the first half of 2025.
The honest answer:
We won’t know this week.
We need to see:
Den summed it up:
“Something has clearly changed. The question is: how different, and for how long?”
The next few weeks will define that. Catch the whole stream here:
We’ll be back to our regular schedule after Thanksgiving with the next full episode on December 5 (or sooner if volatility demands emergency deployment).
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