Any novice trader will be quickly loaded up with traders’ lore as they sit staring at the jiggling pixel that is all that matters in markets. The short-term trader is sometimes called the short-life trader because all they are trying to do is anticipate the next directional move about to break out and to scalp some profit from it and to successfully keep up this guessing game hour after hour. All you have to do is trade what you see they say, so the saying goes.

Well, what you see from moment to moment is noise, but look at a big enough picture and things start to resolve. Sadly for the short-term trader that picture is too long term to scalp and for most instruments the noise is so blinding that what is happening is covered in a fog no matter what time interval you look at, and this is because their performance is mainly random. It is only when markets start to become non-random that the fog rises, and the speculator is given a peek at the future.

I like to say charts perfectly predict the past, but the classic textbooks on efficient markets say what comes next has no link to that past so a chart like the above is no help or guide whatsoever. I disagree because I interpret the above as the range of the volatility of bitcoin and the extent of the current values both bulls and bears attribute to the king of crypto.

Without a catalyst bitcoin is not going through the base trend it has established since January and only earth-shattering developments will take it past all-time highs. The next catalyst is the next “halvening” and that actually is approaching.

It is due around this time in and the issuance of new bitcoin will drop to . bitcoin. Last time bitcoin moved x before settling back to around x.

History will repeat itself but there is plenty of time and room for bitcoin to slump or moon or both before :

There is still plenty of time for global monetary tightening to deliver the $, entry level but the trend is there for anyone who wants to see it. A bear like me will just see the bottom line as the one that needs to be broken to trigger a move to a pre-next halvening low and bulls will see that level as the next buying opportunity. Super bulls will see $, by autumn.

My money remains on $, but the above chart is all you need to map the market unfurling its way ahead.