Bear Market or Reset? James Check Explains Bitcoin’s Brutal 80K Washout

"My base case for now is I actually don't necessarily think we have to go down to the 56k level. It will depend whether we get a complete and total capitulation and people just completely write this thing off. But also macro conditions can change fairly quickly and I I kind of look at what's going into 2026 and I'm a little bit more positive in terms of the general outlook for liquidity in markets."

"I also think that they they do generally speaking slow down when the correction comes in and we start to hit markets like we are now. Generally speaking, they've done most of their distribution by the time that happens and they then have a whole lot of capital on the side, which generally they're patient and they allow the market to come to them and they'll step back in, right? When the Bitcoin gets to a a certain level, they will step back in with some of that capital because who knows if the market goes down low enough, they can buy back their whole position, still have capital on the side."

"The truth is from most of these DATs they literally didn't get big enough for them to be too much of a concern. the ones that are selling coins like in the Bitcoin space. I actually think in the altcoin space, I don't have a lot of edge in in looking at those stats, but I do know that a lot of them leveled up a lot more than the uh the Bitcoin ones. So, for the Bitcoin ones, they mostly sold stock or they did these things called pipe deals, which are more or less just insiders giving capital. So, for the most part, there's a not that many coins in the Bitcoin DATs, b they just didn't take on that much debt. And honestly, the ones that sell coins to buy back their stock, I think won't be a DAT for very long because I don't see why any investor would want to buy, they're basically buying shares in a hedge fund who buys Bitcoin at the top, sells it at the bottom, and buys back their shares, which are also doing terribly. So, to me, that's just a really, really bad firm to own shares in. So, I don't think they're going to be that significant. We'll see some of them peel back out their um puke out their coins, but honestly, I'm not that concerned. I don't think that's going to be a major thing. I just don't think that they got big enough for anyone to lend them any money, which was honestly why I was actually quite bearish on DATs in the first place because I don't know why anybody would lend them money."

"When we blast through alltime high again, and we will, that whole narrative is going to disappear because Bitcoin's job is just to be a cockroach and just keep going. And I like once it goes back to alltime high, everyone's just going to realize, I mean, that's like the fifth time that it's claimed an all-time high after a significant draw down. People just go, 'It's here to stay.' So honestly, it's just a it's a game of time. It's a a game of time, game of process. But yeah, truly, I think the next all-time high, it's just going to become so undeniable that people won't be able to argue it anymore."

"My base case is I actually think the liquidity conditions start to pick up. I think they've been pretty hairy actually over the last probably at least three, maybe 6 months. So, I think liquidity conditions been much tighter than people probably recognize. But, I think moving forward, you're right. I mean, J Pal is going to be out and Trump's going to put his own guy in there in the Fed. So, that's I mean, all things being equal, that's not going to be more hawkish. So, I think that's one angle to think about. No political group wants to get voted out and they're going to do a bunch of freebies. They're talking about tariff dividends and all sorts of stuff. In many ways, I think the administration in the US right now is just trying to keep the wheels on and they got spot fires all over the place. And at the end of the day, I I think that they're going to have to start balance sheet expansion. There's just not enough buyers for the bonds if stable coins don't just explode in size. And that generally speaking needs Bitcoin to be bigger cuz stable coins generally go flat and they have gone flat in terms of their growth rate since Bitcoin's pulled back. If they don't have a buyer for bonds, I mean, the sovereigns aren't buying it. They got to find it somewhere. The reason that they pass the Genius Act is because they need a buyer of the bonds and stable coins, that's their kind of hail Mary. If Bitcoin's not growing, they're going to have a hard time growing that balance sheet. So, there's just a lot of things at play where elections, stable coins, the whole lot, and nothing stops this train. You let this game run long enough, they're going to have to print the money. At some point, the cracks will show up."

"No, absolutely not. What what we're looking at here is a very wellexecuted marketing plan by Zcash. Ultimately, it's actually a really bearish sign for the altcoin system. What I believe we're seeing, the market can't get an all all rising tide lifts all boats. Alt season where everything just goes up. I just don't think it's coming. So, the market eventually goes, you know what we should do? We should just pick one token and pump that. Surely, we can pump one. And I just think there's been everyone who's looking for a pump has just gone into one asset. So no, I think it's actually just a very clever and wellexecuted marketing plan by by the Zcash Foundation and everyone's just looking for something because nothing else is going up. So truly I think it's that simple. I I think assigning narratives to it is really just trying to find which influencer got paid to shill it."

"you basically the Zcash runup could be cooked at some point totally totally"

"Alt season where everything just goes up. I just don't think it's coming."

"I just don't think the market needs this stuff. And when you run the numbers, the numbers are really ugly. And I I can't I can't find a way to justify it any other way."