Something Big Happened on Wednesday.
Heading into the FOMC rate decision, everyone (it seemed) was fully expecting a simple 25-basis-point rate cut and a mild reaction by the market.
From Goldman:
“Heading into the day, the SPX implied move was the lowest for an FOMC meeting since 2022 at just 0.6%. We easily realized this as the S&P had its first sell-off greater than 2% in 74 trading sessions.”
The average implied move for the S&P 500 Index was only 0.6% (up or down).
Instead, it dumped -3.20%.
Market leaders—the big caps—had been ripping to all-time highs over the past few weeks. Bitcoin was near $110k. What was up, was up big, with very little structure underneath it.
Let me explain structure in this context.
When a market moves in one direction, it can do so in two ways:
1. A Quiet Trend: This is when small daily up moves occur day after day, followed by occasional pullbacks to test price levels. This creates a market with solid structure because price levels are constantly being retested. Buying dips is highly profitable, and patience is rewarded.
2. A Volatile Thrust: In this case, prices jump higher abruptly—there’s no chance for patient buyers to enter on pullbacks. This type of market rewards aggressiveness but is inherently more volatile and reactive to headlines.
The first type typically happens at the beginning of a trend, while the second occurs toward the end.
We can see this clearly in the current chart of Bitcoin:
- On the left side is that early trend—rising gently with small daily candles.
- Then, a big thrust in the middle signals the shift to the second type—high-volatility thrusts.
Now, don’t get overly bearish on Bitcoin here. This price action doesn’t mean this was the top or that the market is going straight down from here. A market can repeatedly move from low to high to low within a larger bull market. This just gives us context for when a market might be open to reacting like this.
It certainly doesn’t give us the ability to time the market perfectly. These are simply characteristics to watch for to understand where we are in the cycle.
The Crypto Momentum System’s Recent Moves
Starting in September, our system began buying into crypto’s strongest sectors—memes and Bitcoin—which kicked off the recent rally. We were positioned long before the U.S. Presidential election and its immediate reaction.
While everyone else was cutting exposure ahead of the election, we were adding to our positions—getting heavily loaded and capturing all of the move higher.
Check Out Our Crypto Momentum System
Then, to everyone’s delight, the meme coin rally cooled off, and real crypto projects started springing back to life.
Our system rotated into Decentralized Finance (DeFi), Gaming, AI, Real World Assets (RWA), Decentralized Physical Infrastructure (De-Pin), Layer 1s, Layer 2s, and Exchange tokens—basically every crypto project that actually did something was moving—and we were 100% positioned long.
Large-cap MAG7 equities were all moving higher too; everything was ripping!
And then on Sunday night, the Crypto Momentum System started exiting long positions across entire sectors. By Monday, seven out of eight sectors were done—flat, sold, exited.
That doesn’t happen often, especially when everything is in a strong trend.
So we went from 100% long crypto on Sunday to 10% long by Monday afternoon.
The only sector that remained long was Layer 1—the big daddy, Bitcoin—so we were 10% long Bitcoin and 90% in USDC (a stablecoin).
At this point, it became obvious that it was time to tighten risk—not only because our systems were signaling reduced exposure one by one but also because holistically, everything went from “long, long” to “cash, cash” at once.
Coincidentally, this happened right before the FOMC meeting on Wednesday.
How This Connects to Broader Markets
But these are just crypto markets—big deal, right? How does this match up with traditional markets?
Alex recently saw similar late-stage trend behavior and crafted a nice long $VIX trade.
The same momentum system I use for crypto works incredibly well in regular markets too—it’s built on universal principles that apply across all markets. Of course it works; that’s how I designed it! It just happens to work even better in crypto because it’s still a frontier market where wild things can happen—we like that.
On Tuesday, the sell signal fired for $SPY as well.
Since September, we’ve tripled our crypto account value.
And it’s not too late—we’re only about halfway through this bull run, with the second half historically being even more lucrative.
Crypto Trading Without The Lame Stereotypes
The Crypto Momentum System isn’t just for “moonboi” crypto maxis.
There’s no rule saying you have to become a degenerate who tells people they’re “not gonna make it,” slap laser eyes on your profile picture, or drive a Lambo to your yacht party full of nerds and strippers.
You don’t need to study cryptography or get paranoid about cold-storing your Bitcoin while growing a neckbeard.
At its core, trading is about making money—that’s it.
Think about Warren Buffett buying GEICO when Benjamin Graham doubted him in the ‘50s; Market Wizards trading commodities in the ‘70s; Wall Street legends riding internet stocks in the ‘90s; or Jesse Livermore trading railroads and radio stocks a century ago.
Crypto is just another new market where many old traders cling to stale methods while ignoring new opportunities.
But having a system rooted in principles that have worked for hundreds of years—a trend-following system with a proven edge—has allowed us to outperform traditional markets dramatically.
One of my favorite aspects is that you can take a relatively small account and grow it significantly faster than you could in traditional markets.
What You’ll Get When You Join Us
Here’s what’s included with our Crypto Momentum System:
- TradingView templates
- Watchlist/Momentum Filter
- TradingView code
- Step-by-step setup guides (video and written)
- System updates as needed
- Emails/videos about relevant crypto trends and system signals
- Access to a private Slack group where traders share insights and stay updated
