- Crypto Saving Expert's Newsletter
- Posts
- Crypto Saving Expert Newsletter - Issue 168
Crypto Saving Expert Newsletter - Issue 168
Gm! Bitcoin is rising from the ashes.
After bottoming just below $81k, BTC has finally shown a real reversal, stronger than any bounce we've seen in weeks. Momentum is shifting, but the real test comes at the yearly open and that $96k–$97k liquidity band overhead.
Sentiment is still stuck in Extreme Fear, yet BTC tapping weekly demand could mark the beginning of a broader recovery if price can stabilise above $90k.
Alt majors are following suit, with names like MSTR and HYPE showing early signs of life after heavy drawdowns.
Let’s dive into what this means for the week ahead 👇
Table of Contents
Sponsored by: BloFin
Why BloFin?
Fair Trading: No internal or sister company market makers; BloFin doesn’t trade against its users.
Independent Liquidity: BloFin’s order books and liquidity is not shared with any large exchanges.
Transparent Leadership: The founder is fully doxxed—check out their Twitter here.
Impressive Volumes & Liquidity: Considering BloFin’s launch in 2023, its performance outshines many competitors like BingX.
Extensive Trading Options: Access 397+ futures pairs and 130+ spot pairs.
Secure Custody: User assets are held with Fireblocks, eliminating risks like hot wallet breaches.
Verified Proof of Reserves: Independently verified on Nansen for maximum security.
Chainalysis Integration: Ensures BloFin doesn’t accept illicit funds.
Instant Trade Execution: One of only four exchanges globally to achieve in-memory trade execution.
User-Friendly Policies: No KYC required, worldwide access via a VPN, and a mobile app for trading on the go.
Outstanding Customer Support and exciting user campaigns to enhance your experience.
Start trading with confidence and take advantage of BloFin’s innovative platform. Sign up now through our exclusive link:
Bitcoin Rises From The Ashes
Bitcoin has thus far put in a strong reversal after bottoming just below $81,000, with much work still to do for the price to reach previous highs.
Bitcoin
Bitcoin has had a stronger response to the local low than the previous attempted recoveries, which ended up as lower highs.
From here, it is possible bitcoin goes on to cement market structure change by putting in a higher low, but it could also do this from higher up.
Above it, there is the crucial yearly open level, which acts as S/R and the $96,000-$97,000 liquidity region.
Bitcoin Weekly
It is clear that bitcoin has come into demand. This reflects the bounce in the price.
From here, the weekly has two defined areas of strong supply & demand. This is down towards $74,000 for demand and $115,000-$125,000 for supply.
Of course, these are wider ranges as it is on the weekly chart. For a more precise region of bullish/bearish momentum, the $108,000 is the key.
MSTR
Strategy has been burned since it topped out. The high in July marked a rejection at resistance and since then MSTR has tumbled aggressively.
However, it has finally re-entered its previous trading range. From here, MSTR could launch a recovery rally, which would have a target of $300.
Still, further lack of demand and/or bitcoin weakness could see a final settlement around the $120 mark, back into previous demand.
HYPE
Hyperliquid suffered a delayed drop compared to the rest of the market. It stayed afloat while everything collapsed, but then it was the final domino for the market.
It has fallen out of its range, which had $36 as support and $50 as resistance.
From here, a reclaim of the range would be the bullish outcome, while the $26 and even $20 zones remain waiting to be tested.
Fear & Greed Index
The Fear and Greed Index remains within Extreme Fear and scores 20. Despite bitcoin’s move off the lows, sentiment has yet to rebound significantly.
The blanket of fear that covered the market last week slammed the Index to its lowest score in some time. A continued recovery of bitcoin should see sentiment lift if the price can get above $90,000 and stay there.
Important Dates
Tuesday 25 November, 13:30 UTC - Producer Price Index (PPI)
The Bureau of Labour Statistics is also responsible for PPI, which measures the average change in commodity prices. Similar to core inflation, PPI removes volatile goods from its findings. The forecast is set at 2.7%, with the previous data at 2.8%.
Tuesday 25 November, 13:30 UTC - US Retail Sales
The retail sales data is published by the Census Bureau and comprises two pieces of data: the month-over-month (MoM) and the control group.
The MoM figure measures the monthly changes in retail sales, demonstrating consumer confidence to spend money in the economy. This figure is forecast at 0.4%, with the previous figure at 0.6%.
The second figure is the control group, which measures the entire industry sales and estimates the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) for goods. The control group data is forecasted at 0.3%, with the previous data at 0.6%.
Gainers
Losers
Pump.fun Founder Denies $436m Cash-Out Accusations: “Complete Misinformation”
Pump.fun co-founder rejects claims the project cashed out $436m, calling Lookonchain’s report misinformation and saying the funds were treasury movements.
TL;DR
💸 Pump.fun co-founder Sapijiju denies claims the project cashed out $436m in USDC.
📊 Says the funds came from the PUMP ICO and were redistributed to internal wallets for treasury management.
😰 Lookonchain reported that USDC was moved to Kraken, sparking fears of selling pressure.
🏦 Pump.fun wallets still hold over $855m in stablecoins and $211m in SOL.
🕵️♀️ Community reaction is split between scepticism, support and demands for clearer reserve transparency.
Pump.fun CEO Calls $436m Accusation “Complete Misinformation”
Pump.fun co-founder Sapijiju pushed back against claims that the project cashed out more than $436 million in stablecoins, rejecting the allegations as “complete misinformation” from Lookonchain. The analytics firm reported that wallets linked to the Solana-based memecoin launchpad had sent hundreds of millions of USDC to Kraken, a finding that quickly fueled concerns about massive selling.
In an X post, Sapijiju argued that no funds were sold and that the USDC in question came from the PUMP token ICO. He said the transfers were part of routine treasury management, where funds are moved across internal wallets to support operations and reinvestment.
“Pump has never directly worked with Circle,” he said, adding that the movement of ICO proceeds does not indicate liquidations.
What Treasury Management Actually Means
Sapijiju’s explanation hinges on the concept of treasury management, a standard practice for crypto projects with large ICO raises or ongoing revenues. Treasury management can involve:
👉 Reorganising wallets,
👉 Allocating capital for operations or development,
👉 Preparing budgets,
👉 Or diversifying reserves.
Critically, these movements do not automatically imply selling, even if funds touch exchange-associated wallets.
However, with no further disclosures from the team or Lookonchain, both of whom did not respond to requests for comment, the question remains whether these were internal wallet moves or the precursor to broader distribution.
Market Reacts as Funds Move and Revenues Dip
Lookonchain’s report noted that the wallets linked to Pump.fun had transferred $436m in USDC to Kraken since mid-October. The timing alarmed traders because Pump.fun’s monthly revenue dropped to $27.3m in November, falling below $40m for the first time since July, according to DefiLlama.
Despite this, on-chain data shows Pump.fun-linked wallets still control substantial reserves:
💰$855m in stablecoins
💰$211m in SOL
Analysts have offered mixed interpretations.
🤔Nansen’s Nicolai Sondergaard said the flows looked like positioning for further selling.
🤔EmberCN suggested the funds originated from institutional private placements, not dumping.
The lack of consensus has kept speculation alive.
Community Split: Contradictions, Concerns and Calls for Proof
The crypto community was quick to react, and far from unified.
Some users said Sapijiju’s wording was unclear or contradictory. X user Voss argued that the co-founder’s statements conflicted with each other: “He claimed he wasn’t involved, but also said they were managing their treasury.”
Others dismissed the explanation entirely, pointing to longstanding complaints about execution and token performance. User EthSheepwhale accused the team of “price manipulation via airdrops,” noting that the PUMP token trades 32% below its ICO price and nearly 70% down from its September high.
Still, several users defended Pump.fun’s right to move funds internally.
🤔 Matty.Sol said, “Nothing wrong even if it’s true. It’s your own revenue tho.”
🤔 Oga NFT added that post-ICO treasury movements are normal — as long as 🤔 reserves genuinely back the token supply.
The debate highlights the community’s growing demand not just for reassurance, but for auditable transparency.
Conclusion
Pump.fun’s leadership insists that the $436m in USDC transfers were nothing more than internal treasury movements, not a covert sell-off. Yet with revenue dropping, a high-profile Lookonchain report circulating, and scepticism rising across social channels, the pressure is now on the team to provide clearer communication — or risk allowing speculation to shape the narrative.
Bitcoin’s Crash Isn’t About the Shutdown or an AI Bubble; It Was Leverage
Bitcoin’s plunge below $92k wasn’t caused by the US shutdown or fears of an AI bubble, analysts say. On-chain data points instead to excessive leverage, liquidity delays, and the fading relevance of the four-year cycle.
TL;DR
🚫 Analysts reject theories blaming the US shutdown or AI-bubble fears for BTC’s fall.
📉 On-chain data shows excessive futures leverage drove the drawdown from $125k.
🤖 Nvidia’s blockbuster earnings remove AI as a bearish catalyst.
🚗 Remaining drivers: weak global liquidity and a four-year cycle that may be breaking down.
📊 Analysts say BTC has now “reset,” clearing the way for a healthier structure.
📉 Shutdown? AI Bubble? Analysts Say Neither Caused Bitcoin’s Slide
Bitcoin dipped to its lowest level in nearly eight months this week, sinking toward $91k, but analysts say the usual macro narratives don’t explain the drop.
Despite speculation that the 43-day US government shutdown had left crypto markets rattled, on-chain analyst Rational Root rejects that idea outright.
“I wouldn’t contribute the drawdown in Bitcoin all to the shutdown of the government.”Rational Root
He argues instead that Bitcoin’s plunge from its $125,100 high in October is largely due to overheated futures markets and excessive leverage unwinding.
❌ Not the AI Bubble Either
Others blamed Bitcoin’s slump on investors de-risking over fears of an AI bubble. That theory died instantly when Nvidia smashed earnings:
💰Revenue: $57bn (+62% YoY)
💸Profit: $31.9bn (+65% YoY)
📈Forward guidance: Higher than expected
Bitcoin analyst PlanB summed it up:
“We can remove the AI Bubble thesis… the list of reasons is getting smaller.”
With AI fears resolved and the shutdown now behind us, the spotlight turns to the remaining culprits.
🫙 Only Two Real Factors Left, Analysts Say
According to PlanB and several macro analysts, only two explanations still make sense:
1️⃣ Delayed Global Liquidity
Bitcoin is “the most sensitive asset in the world to liquidity,” as Strike CEO Jack Mallers puts it.
Global liquidity, often tracked through M2 money supply, has softened since mid-year. When liquidity stalls, Bitcoin tends to pull back before equities.
2️⃣ A Four-Year Cycle That May Be Breaking
The halving cycle is losing influence as institutional adoption grows.
Swan Bitcoin CEO Cory Klippsten recently argued:
“There is a very good chance Bitcoin’s famous four-year cycles are over.”
ETF flows, corporate treasuries, and macro liquidity now dwarf halving-based supply changes.
🔄 A Much-Needed Reset, Not a Breakdown
According to Rational Root, this isn’t a structural failure, it’s a healthy reset:
“Three times in the last three years we’ve seen resets comparable to bear markets. Each one allowed us to move higher.”
He says Bitcoin now has a clean slate and can resume a gradual upward structure, rather than the blow-off volatility that characterised 2021 or early 2025.
🔭 What Comes Next? ETF Wave Incoming
With the shutdown over, analysts expect the SEC to re-engage in 2026:
👉 Several stalled ETF applications
👉 Potential altcoin ETF wave
👉 Renewed institutional inflows once liquidity normalises
Bitcoin may still chop in the short term, but analysts agree the long-term thesis remains intact.
Cloudflare Outage Exposes Crypto’s Hidden Centralisation Problem: Should the Whole Stack be Decentralised
The Cloudflare outage showed that blockchains aren’t enough, crypto’s frontends, RPCs, APIs, DNS and storage remain centralised points of failure. Infrastructure teams say true resilience requires “end-to-end decentralisation.”
TL;DR
⛔ The Cloudflare outage knocked major crypto services offline, revealing heavy reliance on centralised Web2 infrastructure.
💥EthStorage and Filecoin warn that true decentralisation requires decentralising every layer, not just blockchains.
⚡️Major protocols still use centralised RPCs, DNS, APIs and cloud-hosted frontends due to convenience and speed.
🎤Vitalik Buterin urges builders to never sacrifice decentralisation, saying even a single hosted node creates a chokepoint.
✅Teams say decentralisation can be rolled out gradually, but must be intentional, not an optional “later step.”
🌐 Cloudflare Outage Shows Blockchains Alone Aren’t Enough
Tuesday’s Cloudflare outage, which disrupted roughly 20% of global internet traffic, took down a long list of crypto platforms, from Blockchain.com and Coinbase to Toncoin, Arbiscan and DeFiLlama.
According to infrastructure teams, this wasn’t a blockchain failure. It was a Web2 failure, and crypto still depends heavily on it.
An EthStorage spokesperson stated:
“Decentralising blockchains is essential, but it’s only one side of the equation. True resilience requires rethinking the entire stack.”
They argue that decentralisation must extend beyond validators and smart contracts to include:
✅ RPC endpoints
✅ DNS and frontends
✅ Indexing and APIs
✅ Storage and data availability
Otherwise, even the most decentralised blockchain can still be disrupted by a single cloud provider.
🧱 Why the Stack Is Still Centralised
Despite crypto’s decentralisation ethos, many major protocols still rely on:
👉Cloudflare
AWS
Google Cloud
Hosted RPCs
Centralised API gateways
Cloud-hosted frontend UI layers
Yesterday’s shutdown followed another major incident a month ago: an Amazon Web Services outage that also crippled multiple crypto services.
Filecoin called the recurring outages a systemic warning:
“Outages show how much traffic flows through a handful of centralised networks.”
And they’re right, even DeFi giants and block explorers depend on centralised Web2 infrastructure.
📦 The New Push: Decentralising Storage, HTTP and Frontends
Projects building decentralised access layers include:
💪EthStorage: decentralised HTTP + storage
🧠IPFS & Filecoin (Protocol Labs): distributed storage and retrieval
🤖Arweave: permanent, decentralised storage
Their shared message: Crypto won’t achieve real resilience until frontends and access layers decentralise.
EthStorage emphasised that many teams avoid decentralised hosting because they assume it’s:
👉slower
more expensive
harder to maintain
less user-friendly
“These assumptions are outdated.”
More importantly, teams tend to prioritise fast launches and smooth UX, pushing decentralisation to “later,” a stage many never reach.
🪜 Full Decentralisation Doesn’t Need to Happen Overnight
EthStorage says the path forward isn’t instant, but intentional:
“Achieving full decentralisation across every layer doesn’t have to happen overnight. What matters is that projects align their roadmap with this direction.”
This means gradually replacing centralised components as projects scale:
✅swap hosted RPCs → decentralised RPC networks
migrate frontends → IPFS/Filecoin/Arweave
shift indexing → decentralised indexers
move storage → decentralised layers
Piece by piece, central points of failure disappear.
🧠 Vitalik Buterin: “Never Sacrifice Decentralisation”
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently published the “Trustless Manifesto”, arguing that the industry has been too willing to trade decentralisation for convenience.
“The moment you integrate a hosted node or centralised relayer, you introduce a chokepoint.”
He warns that every shortcut, hosted RPCs, centralised relayers, cloud frontends, becomes a future vector for censorship, outages or control.
🔍 The Bottom Line
The Cloudflare outage wasn’t just a technical issue but a wake-up call.
Crypto has decentralised consensus, but its access layer is still centralised. As blockchains scale and institutional adoption rises, outages like these become unacceptable.
The next frontier of crypto is clear:
Decentralise the stack, not just the chain.
We’re excited to offer you a massive 35% discount!
What You Unlock:
- Strategies from top crypto experts
- Exclusive access to market insights, guides, and top tips
- Tools to maximise your crypto savings and investments
- A supportive community of like-minded crypto enthusiasts
- Access to our community Discord
Use the code 35OFF at checkout to claim your discount and get full access to our community plan for just a fraction of the price.
Secure your spot in the Crypto Saving Expert Community today.
Sponsored by: Stonksy
Stonksy is a momentum identifier that aims to capture expansive market moves before they happen by highlighting the start of potential price shifts. It can be used across all markets, including crypto, stocks, indices, commodities, and currencies.
Stonksy is growing in users week-on-week, proving why it aims to become one of the most-used indicators in the industry.
You can get 25% off the annual Stonksy plan with code TMG25, taking the price down to just £749.25 for an entire year of full access. Sign up today.
Find examples of Stonksy indications posted to the X every day: @stonksyio and learn how to use Stonksy and how it can benefit your trading system on the YouTube channel, with daily livestreams at 12:00 UTC.
This Newsletter is strictly for informational purposes only; the content is generic and has not been tailored in any way. Crypto Saving Expert UAB (“CSE”) is not providing, and should not be interpreted as providing, any form of offer of any currency, security, financial instrument or digital asset, or investment advice, recommendations or strategy. The content of this Newsletter is not intended to replace your own research with regard to any assets, products or services, and any action taken on the basis of this material is entirely at your own risk. CSE neither accepts nor assumes any liability or responsibility for any loss or damage arising out of, or in any way connected to, the Newsletter content. Cryptocurrencies and digital assets may be unregulated in your jurisdiction, any profits may be subject to tax and the value of any investment could fall.
If you click on a link within this Newsletter to go through to a provider, we may get paid. This usually only happens if you get a product/use a service from it. This is what helps fund CSE and keeps the majority of our content free to use. Two crucial things you should know about this, however: a) this never impacts our editorial recommendations, if something is included, it is because we independently rate it as the best; and b) you will always get as good a deal, or better, than if you went direct. For full details on how CSE is funded, please click here.
CSE collects, processes and stores certain data. Such data may be shared with CSE’s wholly owned subsidiary company, Crypto Saving Expert Limited. Please note that by submitting information about yourself to CSE you are consenting to such use. For full details on our collection, processing and storage of data, together with your rights in relation thereto, please consult our Privacy Statement here.