The window that closes on 4 August

The Liquidity Map · Crypto report

The window that closes on 4 August

This year's fourth 60-day window closes on Tuesday. Two of the previous ones were followed by moves of 17% and 19%. The third, by almost nothing. What I do with a cadence that works two times out of three.

August 3, 2026 · 8 min read

Key takeaways

4 August closes this year's fourth 60-day window. After 3 February price fell 17%, after 6 April it rose 19%, and after 5 June very little happened.
Bitcoin is 49% below its October high. The cycle low, on 30 June, was 53% down. In 2018 it gave up 83%, in 2022 nearly 77%.
Q4 of 2025 closed down 26%, after plus 51% in 2023 and plus 54% in 2024. The old rule that the year end always delivers the low is no longer something I lean on.
The indicator I follow on the weekly chart shows the same shape as in 2015, December 2018 and July 2022. Every time a further leg down followed, between 18% and 43%.
I am not looking for the coin that runs hardest. I am looking for a basket's average return, because nobody knows in advance which one leads.

The market has been going sideways for weeks and everyone is hunting for a headline to explain it.

I am looking somewhere else: at the calendar.

Three times this year the range broke, and roughly 60 days passed between each of them. The fourth lands on Tuesday, 4 August.

Definition

Time pivot

A date where the market tends to leave its balance, in either direction. It does not say whether price rises or falls, only that the quiet stretch is likely to end there. It is measured from the spacing of previous turning points, not from the news.

The calendar

This year's fourth window

On 3 February price fell 17% over six weeks. On 6 April, 62 days later, it rose 19% over the same stretch.

On 5 June, another 60 days on, barely anything moved. Under 9% either way.

The next window lands on 4 August.

I have no idea which headline will fill it, and I am not particularly interested.

Two out of three is not a law. It is a reason to pay attention, not to bet.

A time pivot does not hand you the direction, and it does not fire every time. It tells you where to pay attention.

That is the part that throws people. They want a calendar to tell them up or down, and it does not do that.

What it does give you is a date to have both answers ready before.

Rising into the window? Then downside hedges become useful for what follows. Falling into it? Positions get added to.

Both answers get prepared ahead of time. Not on the day, when you are not thinking clearly anyway.

60 daysThe spacing between this year's windows: 3 February, 6 April, 5 June, and now 4 August. The same cadence, but the move came after only two of them.

Bitcoin since last summer. The vertical lines mark the four 60-day windows, the last on 4 August.

To know what to do in the window, you first need to know where the market sits against its own history.

The depth

The mildest cycle so far

Bitcoin topped on 6 October last year, at $124,753.

Today it is 49% lower. The cycle low, on 30 June, was 53% below that high.

For comparison: 2018 gave up 83%, and 2022 nearly 77%.

If this is a bear market, it is the most polite one I have seen.

I do not think we see 70% again this cycle. Maybe 60 at a stretch, but no more.

Which raises an awkward question for anyone comparing automatically with 2018 and 2022: if the depth no longer repeats, why would the calendar?

Q4 of 2025 closed down 26%, after delivering plus 51% in 2023 and plus 54% in 2024.

The highs did not land where they were meant to either.

-49%How far Bitcoin sits below its 6 October 2025 high. At the cycle low on 30 June it was 53% down. 2018 saw 83%, 2022 nearly 77%.

Each cycle measured from its own high, by days elapsed. The current one is visibly shallower.

Once you accept that, the question stops being how low and becomes how much longer.

The shape

What the chart points to into September

On the weekly chart I have spent over a year following an indicator that measures the balance between long-term averages.

When its two lines cross and the band between them starts to thicken, one last sharp move usually follows, then the recovery.

The cross has already happened. The band has been thickening for weeks and is widening noticeably right now.

This shape has appeared three times before. Not once did it mark the low, it announced it.

In January 2015 it showed up, price gave up another 43%, and the cycle low came that same month.

December 2018 was the same. Another 23% over two weeks, then the low.

July 2022 came four months early. Another 18% followed.

So I am neither rushing nor sitting out. I have built the position over months and kept a quarter in cash for exactly the case where one more leg down arrives.

3 of 3How often the same shape has appeared on the weekly chart: January 2015, December 2018, July 2022. Each time a further leg down followed, between 18% and 43%.

That leaves the part where most people get tangled: what you actually buy when the moment comes.

The basket

Why I do not hunt the winner

Everyone wants to know which coin runs hardest.

Nobody can know that, myself included.

What you can do instead is hold several from the same category and track their average.

One will stop early, another will run far higher. The average between them is the only thing you can estimate in advance.

Look at what happened this year. Stellar is down 19% from 1 January, Chainlink 34%, Hedera 40%, XRP 43%.

Same market, same months, more than 20 points between them.

Anyone who put everything on one name either got lucky or got a problem.

The order they move in changes from cycle to cycle. What does not change is that when liquidity arrives, nearly all of them move.

19% vs 43%The gap between the best and worst in the basket, from 1 January. Same market, same window, completely different outcomes.

A few altcoins against Bitcoin, all indexed to 1 January 2026.

Above all of it sits something the chart is not showing yet.

The backdrop

Liquidity arrives before price

The liquidity measures I follow have already started to turn.

Price is showing none of it yet.

That is how it goes every time. Money enters the system first, and speculative assets reflect it last.

Liquidity moved first. Price confirms it later, once it is no longer cheap.

On rates, nothing changed last week. The Federal Reserve held again, and yields are not coming down.

For the market, that is neutral news.

And the yield curve everyone was writing recession headlines about two years ago has normalised since, without that recession showing up.

I am staying with the underlying thesis. We are inside a long cycle that runs well past this year, and 2026 is the boring stretch within it.

-28% vs -37%Bitcoin and Ethereum from 1 January. A year in which liquidity moved and price has not yet answered.

That leaves the part that matters for you: what you actually do with this.

How we are positioned

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

Most of the portfolio sits in Bitcoin and Ethereum, around 70%. The rest is in altcoins, spread across categories rather than concentrated in one name.

I have kept a quarter in cash. Not because I expect a collapse, but because three identical precedents each brought one final leg down, and I want to be able to buy into it.

We do not buy all at once and we do not chase a single day's low. It gets built in steps, on the average price.

And when the good part comes, profits get taken early and gradually rather than rolled straight back in. That is the mistake that cost me most last cycle.

Conclusions

4 August closes this year's fourth time window. Two of the previous ones brought moves of 17% and 19%, the third almost nothing.

This cycle is the mildest so far: 53% at the low, against 83% in 2018 and 77% in 2022.

The shape on the weekly chart matches 2015, 2018 and 2022, and all three saw a further leg down, between 18% and 43%.

The goal is not the winning coin but a basket's average return, because the spread between them is enormous and unpredictable.

Liquidity has already turned. Price will show it later, as it always does.

What to watch this week

The week after 4 August: does price leave the range it has held for a month, or stay inside it? That is where you see whether the window mattered.
As the band on the weekly chart widens into late August: does the extra leg down arrive, as it did in all three precedents, or not?

The Window That Closes on August 4

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