The order you buy in matters more than the bottom

The Liquidity Map · Crypto report

The order you buy in matters more than the bottom

Everyone asks where the low is. The question that actually pays is a different one: what you buy first, and what you leave for much later. Last cycle gave me the answer in black and white.

August 10, 2026 · 8 min read

Key takeaways

On the monthly chart, momentum reached 97 in 2017 and 92 in 2021. This cycle it stopped at 77, and today it sits at 44. There was no euphoria, so I am not waiting for capitulation either.
The accumulation area is still everything below 67,000 dollars, down toward 51,000. Bitcoin is at 64,910 today, and this year's low was 57,735, on 1 July.
38,000 is not a target. It is the name you give the area where you have no marker left drawn, if the monthly structure breaks.
Since the November 2022 low, Bitcoin is up 311%. Chainlink 42%, and Cardano is still below where it started. Same market, same months.
On XRP it is not the moment. The downtrend has not ended, and the accumulation period has not even begun. The area below 90 cents is the one I watch.

The question I get most right now is where the decline ends.

It is the wrong question.

Even if I handed you the exact day, you could still walk out of this cycle with less money than you put in. I have watched people catch the low and buy precisely the wrong thing.

What matters is the order.

Definition

Deviation

The moment price dips briefly under an important low, catches everyone who was waiting there, then climbs back above it and stays. It is not a break, it is a cleanout. You only see it once it is over, across a few weeks, and it is usually the last thing that happens before real accumulation starts.

Momentum

This cycle never got euphoric

On the monthly chart I have followed for years how strong the move is, not how high the price is.

In every cycle so far this reading has gone above 90. That is euphoria, the moment everyone buys without looking at anything.

In 2017 it hit 97. In 2021, 92.

This cycle it stopped at 77. It never touched the threshold once.

There was no euphoria. That is why I am not waiting for capitulation either. The two come as a pair, always.

This changes what I expect from here entirely.

Capitulation does not appear out of nowhere. It is the price paid for the enthusiasm that came before it, and that enthusiasm never existed.

The reading is at 44 now, which is already where it sat in the previous bear markets.

I hear a lot that Bitcoin has to fall further before the next advance can start. Bitcoin does not have to do anything. The market owes nobody.

How little this cycle resembles the ones before it I wrote about at length on 27 July, and I am not repeating it here.

97 · 92 · 77Where monthly momentum peaked in each cycle: 2017, 2021, and now. The euphoria threshold sits at 90.

Momentum on the monthly chart. The first two cycles cleared the threshold, the third never came close.

If capitulation does not come, the question becomes where you buy.

The area

Below 67,000, down toward 51,000

The area I have repeated since February is everything below 67,000 dollars.

The lower edge, if the market hands it to us, is around 51,000.

Bitcoin is at 64,910 today. This year's low was 57,735, on 1 July.

So we have been inside it for months, and that is the whole job.

An area does not tell you to buy today. It tells you any day inside it is acceptable, and that is far easier to execute.

I hear a lot about 38,000 and 30,000 as targets for the autumn.

They are not targets. If the monthly structure breaks, there is nothing drawn below it.

You have no way of knowing whether it stops 20% lower or 50% lower. That is why the level matters, not the round number underneath it.

My invalidation has been the same from the start: monthly closes below the cluster from 48,000 to 51,000. That is where I drop the thesis, not on an ugly day.

Same logic on Ethereum. Everything below 2,000 dollars is worth accumulating, and today it sits at 1,913.

57,735Bitcoin's low this year, on 1 July. 54% below the October 2025 high and inside the area watched since February.

That was the easy part. The hard part starts with what you buy inside it.

The order

Why I have not touched altcoins yet

I have accumulated very little in altcoins this year. Almost everything I added went into Bitcoin and Ethereum.

The reason is not that I dislike the others. It is that I have already watched how they behave at the start of a cycle.

Look at what happened from the November 2022 low onward.

Bitcoin moved first, then corrected, and still stayed far above. The rest sat still both on the way up and on the way down.

Since that day, Bitcoin is up 311%. Chainlink, a serious project, is up 42%. Cardano is still below where it started.

Same market, same months, hundreds of points between them.

And right now Cardano is 84% below its high. It lost its 2022 lows and printed a new one four years later.

That is the argument, and it is the only one that counts: when Bitcoin pumped 100% and then gave back 60%, the altcoins went to new lows.

So I have them in the plan, just not now. I would rather make 40% on Bitcoin and reallocate from there than sit two years in a coin that is waiting.

Which one leads in the end is something nobody can know in advance. What you can know is that when the liquidity arrives, nearly all of them move, and about the channel it arrives through I wrote on 20 July.

311% vs -36%Bitcoin and Cardano, from the 21 November 2022 low to today. Same window, same market.

From the November 2022 low, all starting from the same point. Bitcoin on top, the rest far behind.

The clearest example of what that means in practice is the very coin everyone talked about this week.

The example

XRP, and what still has to happen

I was against XRP for years, and I said so publicly. I changed my mind in 2023 and explained why.

I want to own it this time around, but I am in no hurry.

The price is 1.03 dollars. The downtrend on the chart has not ended, and the accumulation period has not even begun.

Wanting to own something does not mean it is time to buy it. Between the two there are usually a few months.

What I watch is the area below 90 cents, down toward 70. That is where price stopped every time before the big expansions.

The concrete signal is not a price, it is a shape. A deviation under the low, then a move back above it, then a few weeks where price drifts without falling further.

Only then does accumulation start, and only then do I add.

Maybe it happens this month. Maybe in seven months. I am in no hurry, because Bitcoin is doing its job in the meantime.

And yes, I think XRP reaches new highs in the next cycle. But between conviction and the button sits exactly what I am writing about here.

0.70 - 0.90The area on XRP I watch for accumulation. Price is at 1.03 now, above it.

XRP since 2017. The shaded band is the area watched, and the red dot is today's price.

Over all of it sits a calendar worth keeping in your head.

The calendar

What lands in September

In the United States they have spent a year on the law that would clarify what each digital asset actually is.

Last week there was no vote. The Senate left for recess without putting it on the table.

But the procedure did start: the formal step was filed on 8 August, and the first vote is scheduled for 15 September.

It was not rejected. It was postponed with the clock running, which is an entirely different thing.

In Europe the rules have been in force since 1 July. They change what the exchanges have to do, not what you pay.

Tax is due when you take money out into your own currency, as before. What changed is that not every platform got its licence, so check where you keep your money.

On the stock market I expect somewhat more serious corrections starting in September. It is not a collapse, it is the season.

And if it comes, it is exactly the kind of moment where you add to positions rather than run from them.

15 SeptemberThe first date the US Senate votes on the clarity bill. The procedure was filed on 8 August, right before recess.

That leaves the part that matters for you: what we do, concretely.

How we are positioned

That was the diagnosis. The part that matters for you is what we do with it.

Most of the portfolio sits in Bitcoin and Ethereum. Roughly a quarter is cash, and a fifth sits in the stock market, separately.

The rest, the older altcoins, is a small slice. The largest position among them does not go above 3%.

We add in steps, inside the area, not on a single day. The average is what counts, the low is not something you catch.

The cash is not sitting there out of fear. It sits there in case one more leg down arrives, so there is something to buy it with.

And when the good part comes, profits get taken early and in stages. What a plan with an invalidation looks like I explained on 6 July.

Conclusions

This cycle never reached the euphoria threshold: 97 in 2017, 92 in 2021, only 77 now. Without euphoria I am not waiting for capitulation.

The accumulation area stays below 67,000, down toward 51,000, and the invalidation is a monthly close below 48,000.

The order matters more than the timing. Bitcoin and Ethereum first, the rest much later.

On XRP I am waiting for a deviation and a few quiet weeks above it. Until then, nothing.

On 15 September the US Senate votes. Until then the calendar is empty, and that is good news.

What to watch this week

Does Bitcoin hold the 57,000 area on a monthly close at the end of August? That is where you see whether the 1 July low survives.
Does XRP print a dip below 90 cents followed by a move back above it? That is the shape I am waiting for, not the price itself.

The order you buy in matters more than the bottom

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