Halfcoin season was just the beginning

The Liquidity Map · Crypto report

Halfcoin season was just the beginning

In 2023 I said the major altcoins wouldn't hit their old highs again.

Just half the distance, a partial retrace, not a new ATH.

The data backs me up. And that tells me something about what's coming.

September 21, 2026 · 8 min read

Key takeaways

In 2023 I said the major altcoins in this cycle wouldn't hit their old highs again, only a partial retrace.
I sold half of my Chainlink, back then my second-biggest position, right at those levels.
Chainlink hit both Fibonacci levels only in December 2024, just ten days apart.
Out of five coins I accumulated from October 2023, four did over 3x by the halving.
I think this unusually long accumulation is setting up a more aggressive expansion, not a weaker one.
CRV and CVX have already pumped over 100% from their 2026 low, and now they're correcting.
Shmita, my seven-year macro clock, starts in September 2028. Almost two years out, not around the corner.
Bitcoin toward 400,000 dollars stays my long-term thesis, not a target I'm handing out as certain.

Let me go back in time for a second.

In 2023 I wrote a theory I called half coin season.

The idea: the major altcoins in the next cycle wouldn't hit their old all-time highs again.

They'd only go halfway, a partial retrace, not a new ATH.

I picked this back up last week, where I said the bottom is already in. Today I want to show why I think this long accumulation matters for what's next.

The data backs up the old theory. Let me show you exactly how.

Definition

Fibonacci retrace

A tool that measures how much of a prior drop a price recovers, at standard levels: 0.618 and 0.786 of the move. A price that hits 0.786 but never clears the old high recovered a lot, but not everything. Exactly the pattern I predicted for the major altcoins.

The theory

What I said in 2023, and what I meant by it

Half coin season doesn't mean altcoins stop moving.

It means they only go halfway.

A partial retrace of the prior drop, not a new all-time high.

I wasn't saying altcoins would die. I was saying they'd stop halfway back to their old highs.

The levels that matter are 0.618 and 0.786, standard Fibonacci levels on any retracement.

A coin that hits 0.786 of the old drop has recovered a lot.

But it still hasn't broken the old high.

It wasn't just a theory on paper.

I sold half of my Chainlink, back then my second-biggest position, right at one of those levels.

since 2023How long I've held this theory, well before this cycle even started.

Chainlink is the cleanest example I have of it.

Chainlink

Halfway there, almost all the way

Chainlink fell from nearly 53 dollars in 2021 to just above 5 dollars in 2022, on the candle wicks.

It hit the first level, at 21.5 dollars, in March 2024.

The second, at 31.9 dollars, it never hit. The closest it got was December 2024, just above 30.

It climbed close to the second level, but never broke it. Exactly the 2023 pattern, halfway there, not a full move.

At the first level I sold half the position, at a partial retrace, not a new high.

I kept the other half.

My underlying thesis was still intact.

Not every major altcoin confirmed the theory this cleanly.

I accumulated a few others in the same wave.

$21.5 → $30Chainlink hit the first Fibonacci level in March 2024, then got close to the second without breaking it, in December.

Chainlink, daily price on candle wicks. It hit the 0.618 Fibonacci level in March 2024. It never broke the 0.786 level, getting closest in December 2024.

Beyond Chainlink, the whole group I accumulated back then tells the same story.

2023

Five coins, one entry window

I waited out the first half of 2023 in Bitcoin only, to make sure the bottom was in.

It was only in Q3 2023 that I started adding altcoins, and by October I was fully allocated in: Chainlink, EGLD, VELO, JASMY, ZCX.

Four out of five did over 3x by the halving in April 2024.

They didn't all move the same way. EGLD kept falling to new lows while the other four took off.

That's exactly what I mean by half coin season being selective, not universal.

Picking the coins mattered as much as timing the entry.

I don't force the pattern onto the ones that didn't confirm it.

I leave them exactly as they were.

4 out of 5How many of the coins accumulated from October 2023 did over 3x by the halving. EGLD lagged behind.

Chainlink, EGLD, VELO, JASMY, ZCX, indexed to 100 from their October 2023 low, to the peak before the halving. Four out of five cleared 3x.

Because if the accumulation ran longer than usual, I think it means something for the expansion.

This year

It caught me off guard, in the good way

I've had two other cases where I expected a year-end outperformance and it didn't show up right away.

It happened again toward the end of 2025.

It caught me off guard, same as the other two times.

Every time the outperformance was late, the accumulation before it turned out longer, not weaker.

For me that doesn't kill the thesis. It reinforces it.

A longer accumulation usually means a more aggressive expansion once it arrives.

The start of that move is already visible on a couple of specific coins.

third timeHow many times I've seen this pattern, an expected outperformance running late, followed by a longer accumulation.

CRV and CVX are the freshest example.

CRV and CVX

Already pumped over 100%, now correcting

From their low this summer, CRV and CVX both cleared 100% on the way up.

CRV, from 0.18 to 0.38 dollars, up 110%.

CVX, from 1.06 to 2.49 dollars, up 135%.

Chainlink and XRP pumped less, but the same move, a fast climb, then a correction. All four are correcting right now.

This correction doesn't change my thesis. It's a normal part of the move.

I'm not selling because of it. I trim a little into local tops, like I've said before, I don't exit positions.

What matters is where the underlying move takes us, not every zigzag along the way.

+110% / +135%How much CRV and CVX pumped from their 2026 low to their August-September peak.

XRP, Chainlink, CRV, CVX, indexed to 100 from each one's 2026 low. The dots mark each line's peak. All four are correcting now.

And if the core of the portfolio follows the same pattern, the long horizon looks like this.

The horizon

A bigger season, with a clock that isn't at the door

The rest of the market, outside Bitcoin and Ethereum, is now worth close to 800 billion dollars.

That's roughly a third of the entire crypto market.

If the accumulation ran longer than in past cycles, I think the move that follows on that zone is bigger, not smaller.

Bitcoin toward 400,000 dollars isn't a prediction I'm handing out as certain. It's the direction my long-term math points to.

From today's price, that would mean growing more than fourfold.

My underlying macro clock is the seven-year Shmita cycle. The next one starts in September 2028.

It's not at the door. We've got almost two years left, and for me that stretch is the accumulation window, not a time to sit on my hands.

Sept 2028When the next Shmita cycle starts, my underlying seven-year macro clock.

On Chainlink, the same extension logic shows exactly what that means.

The extension

From the same swing, projected further out

A Fibonacci retrace shows how much of a drop a price recovers.

An extension shows where it could go beyond the old high, on the same math.

On Chainlink, the old 2021 high sat around 53 dollars.

Projected on extension, the 1.4 level lands at 132 dollars, and the 1.618 level at 218. My horizon for that is 2027-2028.

These aren't numbers I'm handing out as certain. They're built on the same method that proved right on the retrace.

The path there isn't a straight line. It has ups and downs, like any real move.

Beyond the 2027-2028 window, my underlying clock stays the Shmita cycle, with 2029 inside it.

If this accumulation is running longer than the last cycle, I think the expansion that follows keeps the same proportion.

I apply the same logic to Bitcoin, just at a much bigger scale.

$132 → $218The 1.4 and 1.618 Fibonacci extension levels on Chainlink, projected above the old 2021 high, horizon 2027-2028.

Chainlink, daily price, from the same Fibonacci swing above, with the extension projected above the old 53-dollar high. The 2027-2028 window is marked, the 2029 Shmita year separately, and the dotted path is illustrative, with ups and downs, not a price call.

Concretely, here's how we're positioned with this thesis in mind.

How we're positioned

The base framework stays the one from last week, accumulating Bitcoin and Ethereum, not catching the exact low.

On CRV and CVX, we hold through the current correction without exiting.

We're not adding aggressively to altcoins right now, in the middle of a correction. We wait for a fresh accumulation zone, not buy at the peak.

Invalidation still reads on monthly closes, not on a few-day correction like this one.

Conclusions

The 2023 theory held up, at least on the coins that followed it.

Half the distance, not a new ATH, and different timing from one coin to the next.

The year-end outperformance ran late for the third time, and for me that means longer accumulation, not a broken thesis.

CRV and CVX already show the start of the move, even while they're correcting right now.

The horizon stays higher, with a macro clock that's still almost two years out, not at the door.

What to watch this week

Do other major altcoins confirm the 0.618-0.786 Fibonacci retrace, or do they stay under it?
Do CRV and CVX hold the current correction without breaking this summer's low?
Does the rest of the market, beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum, start growing faster than the two leaders?

Halfcoin season was just the beginning

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