Crypto traders have been getting bolder and bolder about buying the rumor and selling the news. It seems like they are trying to price in events long before they come (if they ever do). I'll never forget the whole Litepay debacle. The price spiked from $110 to $250 on hopes and dreams, only to crash into the mountain. A lot of people got burned.

In fact, during that time, my friend told me a story about his work as a server at a restaurant. He overheard 2 ranch hands arguing about where they should spend their money. One had put the money into Litecoin because of Litepay. The other said they should buy a horse. "Just watch, Litecoin is going to the moon." LOL, you can't make this shit up. Mind blowing. It's going to be even worse next bubble.

In any case, there are some events that just can't be priced in. Look at the Litecoin halfening event. There was so much hype for it before it had even happened. Litecoin up to $142. By the time the block reward was finally cut in half it would have needed to gain 50% more value to get back to the local peak. Instead, it crashed even further.

Now, at a value of $73, I have to wonder if it is priced in at all. Maybe a little bit but nothing compared to what will happen when liquidity actually dries up from the miners after 5-12 months. If we look at the history of halvenings, it takes actual time for the gains to be fully realized. If big traders try to price it in beforehand they are going to get dumped on.

If Litecoin's halfening had that much hype, just think about what it will be like for Bitcoin. People have been talking about The Big One for quite some time. Don't be surprised if the market tries to price it in (and fail) multiple times before it gets here, and then again right before/after it happens. All these price-ins are going to fail because the market needs actual time to pass before the liquidity draining effects actually alter the fundamentals of the market. Traders keep trying to price it in, but it can't be priced in.

I believe this potentially implies that the hype of the halfening will bleed into the next bull run. In December when the price is often spiking anyway, a lot of traders are going to be pricing in the halving event that arrives mid May.

Ideally this would not happen. Personally I would like to see that price in happen around March, because then it could stifle the crash from the probable December bull run and even it out a bit. I believe this may be what's happening right now with Bakkt.

Bakkt

I am very curious to see what happens when it is launched, because it is another example of an event that many smart people say can't be priced in, but the market is trying to anyway. Bitcoin has very good support at $7500, and I thought it would be well on it's way down to that level by now, but perhaps the market is waiting and being propped up by the Bakkt launch at the moment. Traders want to know if this is a "sell the news" situation or extremely bullish new money that can't be priced in early.

The last crash in the market was so swift and the recovery so violently fishtailed that I can't help but feel that this was to test market support right in front of the launch. If this was the goal, what information was gathered? Support seems to be slowly going up and up from $9100 to $9300 to $9600. The information generated by this move might be one that points to bullish rather than implying a crash to $7500-8000.

I'm really not going to be surprised either way, and I'm not betting on it either way (although I should be). I think it's pretty obvious that Bitcoin is about to make a big move in one direction or another. It would be easy to capitalize on such a move if one was watching the market carefully. Unfortunately a lot of these things happen in the dead of night and I've never set up a trading bot or anything like that.

PTSD

I have a feeling that @louisthomas is correct in assuming that the market does have PTSD from the last Bitcoin futures launch that marked the end of the bull run and a year long grueling bear market (one which many altcoins are still in).

If traders are still extremely salty from the last futures launch, they may be vastly underestimating the rocket fuel being stockpiled via Bakkt.

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The market is in a completely different place than it was during the 2017/2018 crossover. I don't really hear anyone talking about this, but if you look at Bitcoin zoomed out what do we see?

The time that we've spent above $9k is the longest in Bitcoin's history. I find this extremely bullish and no one seems to be talking about it. Longevity matters. Even during the run up to 20k, Bitcoin was only above 9k for 2 months. Now we are at the three month mark with much more support and much less volatility.

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I'm personally not interested in institutional money being pumped into the system. If I could stop it I would. I don't want those people owning more Bitcoin. However, I have no power over such things, and I'm just glad I made it in before things get crazy and those maniacs have the power to spike and crash Bitcoin to levels never seen before.

Conclusion

The market tries to give us signals about what to do time and time again. However, in the heat of the moment it can be very hard to make the right financial decision. Trading anxiety is a real thing, just like any other form of performance or competitive anxiety. The best way to lessen this anxiety is to stop trying to min/max your gains and only use a comfortable amount of money to gamble with. In addition, remember that you only have to be right 60% of the time to make bank.

As events start to get priced in more and more aggressively, I believe it's a good rule of thumb to sell at peak hype and then wait an equal amount of time before you attempt to buy back in. For example, if peak hype for the Litecoin halfing was a month before the actual event, wait another month after the event to buy back in.

I believe this tactic will work much better when events that can't actually be priced in like halfenings and institutional money that is locked out of the system. However, the hype is usually always greater than the actual benefit. I have yet to see traders actually price something in early and not get dumped on in the subsequent months. It's all hype and speculation. Fundamental gains take actual time.

Tread carefully.