After another week of macro escalation, hotter inflation data, and yet another rejection inside Bitcoin’s range, the core question this time was less about whether the market is messy — and more about how that mess resolves.
Do we finally get the flush lower that clears out the range… and sets up a real reversal? Or is crypto still stuck waiting for macro to decide the next move?
TL;DR
In this episode of Trading Spaces:
- Matt’s macro view turned more cautious: inflation is re-accelerating, the market is pricing out cuts, and stagflation whispers are starting to creep in.
- BTC’s recent rejection back into range was sharp, and Den said the structure now looks “a little dicey” on lower timeframes.
- Chase’s preferred BTC setup is not an immediate collapse into the 40s — it’s a sweep of the lows around the high $50Ks, followed by a reversal.
- Den agreed that “doing business in the middle” of the range makes little sense here. The cleaner setups are at extremes.
- Matt’s big concern: there are many downside landmines for risk assets right now, but very few obvious upside catalysts.
- ETH has shown a touch more relative strength during the latest move, but Den still has very little structural conviction in it.
- HYPE remains the standout alt. Chase mapped a constructive dip-buy setup, while Den noted it’s one of the few assets that has genuinely outperformed for weeks.
Macro backdrop: inflation is back in charge
Matt opened with the macro picture, and it was the clearest expression yet of how much the narrative has shifted.
What changed:
- PPI came in hot, with headline inflation at 3.4% vs. 2.9% expected
- Core PPI also printed above expectations
- This was before the Iran conflict began to ripple through markets
- The Fed held rates steady, but inflation has clearly moved back to the center of the conversation
Matt’s key point was that the market was previously operating on a much friendlier assumption set:
- Labor cooling would stay in focus
- Cuts would eventually come
- A new Fed chair later in the year might help ease conditions
- Liquidity could become more supportive for risk
That setup has changed materially
The Fed raised its 2026 inflation forecast, the market is now pricing zero cuts, and Matt noted that even the idea of future hikes is starting to reappear in rate markets — especially outside the US.
His broader concern: if the Iran conflict drags on and oil stays elevated, inflation pressure could broaden further. That creates the classic stagflation problem: rising prices, slowing growth, and central banks with very little room to help.
For crypto — still at the far end of the risk curve — that’s not a great backdrop.
Bitcoin: rejection first, but maybe not full breakdown yet
Den’s chart view was straightforward: the market had a shot to reclaim more ground, but the rejection was too sharp to ignore.
She pointed to the zone around $77K, which she said was the level she really wanted to see tested, but wasn’t.
Instead, BTC rolled over before getting there and moved back into the range. Her read:
- Lower timeframe structure has become messy again
- The rejection was violent
- The move back inside the range looked uncomfortably similar to prior failed break attempts
This is not the kind of tape Den likes to trade aggressively.
As she put it, for a trend trader this is the messy stuff.
Chase’s BTC setup: sweep the lows, then reverse
Chase brought the clearest tactical setup of the episode.
His base case is not that BTC immediately loses everything and nukes into the 40s. Instead, he’s looking for something more surgical:
- A move down into the equal lows / liquidity cluster around the high $50Ks
- A sweep of that area
- Then a reversal back up into overhead inefficiencies and supply
Why that matters:
A lot of market participants are already primed for a repeat of the previous breakdown structure. Chase’s idea is that this time the market may look like it’s about to fully crack — only to run the lows, trap late bears, and turn back up.
That’s a very different outcome from outright trend collapse.
He stressed that if price starts spending real time below the lows — especially with multiple daily closes below and large gaps left behind — then the picture changes. But at the moment, that’s not his preferred read.
In other words: he wants the fakeout first, not the full liquidation event.
Don’t force trades in the middle
This was one of the strongest points of agreement across the episode.
Den said very clearly that the current area is not a compelling place to do much:
- Yes, BTC is around the 2021 ATH again
- But the market has interacted with that zone so many times now that it’s lost some edge as a clean trigger
- The better opportunities are still at the extremes
Chase agreed. His approach is to avoid “diddling in the middle” and instead wait for price to reach the levels where the trade is actually clear.
That means:
- Sweep lower into support/liquidity → maybe a long
- Rally into untested supply → maybe a short
- Random movement in the center of the range → probably nothing
- Discipline was a big theme of this episode
The macro problem: lots of downside catalysts, not many upside ones
Matt’s broader argument was that risk markets are now in an awkward regime where the list of things that can go wrong is long:
- Iran conflict escalation
- Higher oil price
- Inflation persistence
- Hawkish repricing
- AI capex doubts
- Earnings volatility
- Broader risk appetite deterioration
But when he looks the other way — what could actually push risk strongly higher from here? — the list is much shorter.
In his view, the cleanest upside catalyst would probably be a fast resolution to the Iran conflict. Without that, markets are likely to keep cycling through one concern after another.
That matters because crypto has repeatedly shown it can’t fully ignore macro for long. Even when it looks like it’s decoupling, it tends to get pulled back into the broader risk conversation.
S&P setup: could BTC bottom before equities?
One of the more interesting discussions came from Chase’s cross-market view.
His ideal scenario:
- Equities crack lower first or continue drifting down
- BTC makes a sharp, fast move into the high $50Ks
- BTC then shows relative strength off that sweep
- S&P continues a little lower afterward
- Then broader markets stabilize and reverse
That would fit the idea that crypto often bottoms faster than traditional risk assets.
Den noted that ETH already looks vulnerable, with room lower if the current structure continues to unwind. And she emphasized that whatever BTC does at its support levels has to be read in the context of where equities are at the same time.
That’s another reason she pushed back against trying to predict too far out. The setup will depend not just on BTC’s level, but on the broader market conditions when it gets there.
Ethereum: slightly stronger, still unloved
ETH got a smaller section this week, but the tone was familiar.
Den noted that during this latest rally-and-rejection sequence, ETH actually showed slightly more strength than BTC in one specific sense: it didn’t immediately break structure the way BTC did.
But that was more of an observation than a bullish thesis.
Her actual sentiment on ETH remains poor. She joked about it like a bad breakup — painful to watch, hard to trust, and offering very little conviction.
So while ETH may have held together a bit better in the very short term, nobody on the panel was pitching it as a clean leadership chart.
HYPE: still the alt outlier
Once again, HYPE was the one alt that got serious attention.
Matt admitted he still doesn’t always know how much of the move is “real” versus structurally supported by mechanics like buybacks — but even with that caveat, everyone agreed the chart has traded far better than most of the market.
Den’s view:
- HYPE has behaved impressively
- it broke previous highs while broader markets remained shaky
- it has sustained outperformance for weeks, not just days
Chase added the most detailed tactical plan:
He walked through the earlier long he took from the high $20s into the upper $30s, and said the next setup he’d want is a pullback into built-up liquidity around the mid-$30s / low-$35s, where an untested demand area sits underneath.
Why he likes that kind of structure:
- Lows build up without being swept
- Price moves away cleanly
- Then eventually pulls back and takes all that liquidity at once
- The reaction from that zone often creates a strong entry
He was also careful to clarify that wanting to long a dip is not the same as wanting to short the chart. In his view, HYPE is still one of the strongest assets on the board — he just wants it at a level that offers real edge.
A note on trade selection: “first test, best test”
One of Chase’s clearest principles was simple:
First test, best test.
His framework is built around untested supply and demand levels:
- First touch tends to offer the best reaction
- Second and third tests are less reliable
- Repeated testing increases the odds of a break
That tied neatly into the broader discussion on BTC too. If the market rallies back into the $77K-$78K area, Chase said he’d still be interested in that short setup specifically because it remains relatively untested. But once a level has been touched repeatedly, the edge starts to deteriorate.
Want the full story and a deeper dive? Catch the full episode of Trading Spaces:
Final read
This episode felt like a very clear message to traders suffering from range fatigue:
The market may be close to a meaningful move — but that doesn’t mean the right trade is here, right now.
The shared view was something like this:
- Macro is getting more hostile
- BTC structure is still fragile
- A flush lower remains very possible
- But the cleaner idea is still a sweep-and-reverse, not an immediate collapse into deep bear targets
- And until price reaches those better levels, patience matters
Or, put more simply:
There may be a real setup coming. But it probably isn’t in the middle of the range.
Stay close to @krakenfx, @krakenpro, @Dentoshi, @matthewbarby and @Crypto_Chase for clips and the next session.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of Kraken or its management.
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