---
title: 'The Real Reason Crypto Stopped Crashing (And What Happens Next)'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=OhCQK7gUMsA'
video_id: 'OhCQK7gUMsA'
date: 2026-07-31
duration_sec: 1182
---

# The Real Reason Crypto Stopped Crashing (And What Happens Next)

> Source: [The Real Reason Crypto Stopped Crashing (And What Happens Next)](https://youtube.com/watch?v=OhCQK7gUMsA)

## Summary

In this market analysis video, the presenter explains why Bitcoin stopped crashing and started rallying, pointing to tax refund season liquidity, resilient price action during geopolitical fear, and ISM data signaling economic expansion. He also shares a blended AI-generated forecast for Bitcoin's price through 2030, with a projected cycle peak in late 2028.

### Key Points

- **Bitcoin rose despite Iran strike** [02:16] — Bitcoin turned positive above $66,000 after US/Israeli strikes on Iran, later reaching $69,000. This contrasted sharply with the pattern of any negative news causing a price crater.
- **Peak fear didn't cause a crash** [03:09] — Despite 'World War III' FUD and thin, illiquid weekend markets, Bitcoin dropped only about 3% and held well above $60k support. No panic, no cascade, no collapse.
- **Tax refund season is the real driver** [04:29] — Forward Guidance says tax refunds will add half a percent to real GDP in Q1, with $283 billion landing in just 6 weeks. So far, ~$109 billion in refunds have been distributed, injecting liquidity directly into consumers' pockets.
- **April tax payments create a liquidity suction** [05:44] — In early April, people pay taxes, pulling money back into the Treasury General Account (TGA). Some sell crypto to cover tax bills, explaining the historical March pump and April dip.
- **Historical March–April pattern is 50/50** [06:45] — Looking further back across stocks and gold, the March pump/April dip pattern only holds about half the time, making it a weaker predictor than recent cycles suggest.
- **ISM stays above 50 despite slight miss** [09:15] — The latest ISM print came in at 52.4 vs 52.6 last month. Still above 50, it confirms a trend toward economic expansion, which historically lines up with risk-on behavior and crypto bull markets.
- **March strength could push into the high $70s** [10:47] — With more tax refund juice than 2018 or 2022, Bitcoin may rally higher than expected — possibly $77k–$79k — before a seasonal April pullback.
- **Support at $60–62 suggests the bottom is in** [12:25] — Bitcoin held its low through peak geopolitical fear, so the presenter argues a drop to $50K is unlikely unless a true black swan event occurs.
- **Blended AI forecast built for fun** [13:56] — The presenter fed his omni-cycle framework, macro data, and policy inputs into Grok across multiple bullish and bearish chats, then blended the quarterly predictions through 2030.
- **Grok forecast: $144K in Q4 2026, $276K peak in Q3 2028** [18:05] — The blended model predicts Bitcoin at $144K by Q4 2026, a cycle peak of $276K in Q3 2028, then a pullback into the $190s before recovering above $200s by 2030–31.

### Conclusion

The video argues that tax refund liquidity and Bitcoin's resilience at support are stronger signals than the four-year-cycle doomer narrative. The presenter presents an AI-blended forecast peaking near $276K in Q3 2028, but stresses it's speculative and just for fun.

## Transcript

over the weekend, crypto didn't break lower, but actually ended up breaking out higher. And lots of people are speculating as to why. Some are saying the market, and because they were dumping price every day at 10:00 a.m.
and now they're gone, uh price can finally rise. Others are saying that Bitcoin always rallies into March, but this is a fake out pump before we dump down to like 50K in April following the typical pattern of the 4-year cycle. But
those things. And the real reason that Bitcoin stopped crashing and is now pumping is something else entirely. Something massive that has been quietly building in the background and is about to take the market by storm over the
next 4 to 8 weeks. Today, I'm going to be showing you exactly what this silent indicator is and what it means. I'm going to dive into the latest ISM print that just got released this morning and ask the question, does it even matter?
happened over the weekend with the World War III FUD breaking out all over X and everywhere else, and Bitcoin's price holding up steady, which I actually think is a pretty huge signal. And finally, I built a blended forecast just
for fun that I've spent way too much time on that basically outlines what Bitcoin's price should do based on the policies coming into place this year or that in some cases went into place last year. And based on the overall macro
picture and how that bleeds into liquidity, uh and it basically outlines the predicted price for Bitcoin from now until 2030 based on the second-order point over the last couple months, anytime we've had any sort of negative
news, whether it's geopolitical, whether it's Trump with tariffs, any sort of negative news, we have seen Bitcoin's price absolutely crater. Now, over this weekend, we had a lot of fear, uncertainty, and doubt around this Iran
conflict uh with some people speculating that this could be the start of World War III and it's going to blow into this huge, you know, ongoing conflict, etc., etc. And a lot of people were wondering how Bitcoin's price would react because
again, anytime there's any sort of negative news, Bitcoin's price craters. And something like this with such huge geopolitical impact has the potential to absolutely obliterate Bitcoin's price sending it to 50k, you know, some people
are speculating sub 50k, 40k, or or whatever. But only did that not happen over the weekend when markets were liquid and in fear was peak, but instead Bitcoin's price actually went higher. And you can see it right here, uh this
"Breaking, Bitcoin officially turns positive on the day rising above 66,000." So, Bitcoin is now trading $1,000 higher than where it was when the US and Israeli strikes launched on Iran last
night. And in fact, since that post, it's gotten even better to where now Bitcoin is trading at $69,000. It's It's actually gone up even higher uh opening on today, Monday. And this post says, "US and Israel went full war
mode against Iran when nobody expected it. Bitcoin drops just 3% on an illiquid weekend. No panic, no cascade, no collapse, well above 60k support. If that's all the bears can do on peak fear, the bottom is likely in." And I
would also say it is kind of insane that we did have this really, really peak fear event over the weekend and Bitcoin did not react in the same way that it has been reacting over the past few months. And a lot of people are
speculating as to to why it didn't react that way. And again, some people are saying, "Hey, look, it Jane Street's out of the market, Bitcoin's price starts rising. We have this conflict break out with Iran, Bitcoin's price doesn't dump,
it actually keeps rising. It must have been Jane Street that was manipulating on the other hand, you have the four-year cyclers saying that actually this is just very typical, normal behavior for Bitcoin. Typically in 20 or
behavior for Bitcoin. Typically in 20 or 2014, 2018, and 2022, you saw the exact same thing. In March going into April, Bitcoin's price rose. But, this is always a fake out pump because later in,
you know, late March, early April, Bitcoin's price ends up dumping lower. price, right? When a price is going down, people try to always assign a And when price is going up, people always try to assign a reason as to why
price is going up. And in this case, I think I have a pretty firm grasp as to why price is currently going up and why it should continue going up into the rest of March and where it goes from there. And that is right now we are
going through tax refund season. And as this post from Forward Guidance spells out, tax refunds are going to add half a percent in real GDP in Q1. 283 billion percent in real GDP in Q1. 283 billion of that lands in just 6 weeks. 2026, we
refunds. And that is liquidity in the system that ends up in some way or another some portion of that flowing into risk assets like Bitcoin, crypto, etc. And so far, we've done around 109 billion dollars worth of these refunds.
perspective, the TGA rebuild that happened at the end of last year that ended up absolutely slaughtering the market from late August into September was around 500 billion. So, in the scale of things, 100 billion dollars is a lot
of liquidity. And this is liquidity that can directly flow into things like risk assets. This isn't stuck in the plumbing somewhere. This isn't liquidity tied up, whatever. This is liquidity directly in the pockets of of spenders, Americans,
citizens who can go spend this money on whatever they want. And the peak of And this is actually probably the most solid explanation for 2014, 2018, and 2022 and why you have typically this run-up in the markets before you have a
dip. And the dip typically comes from the second part of tax season and and that's actually people having to pay taxes. Uh so around early April, you have a lot of people a lot of the think of it as like a mini TGA rebuild cuz a
lot of money gets sucked back into the TGA from people paying taxes. They're might be selling some of their crypto. They might be selling some of their holdings in order to make that tax bill doable for them and so they can send
that money to the government. And so you get this windfall of liquidity in in and around March uh coming from all these refunds and you get this suction of liquidity out in and around April from people actually paying those taxes. And
I actually looked at this trend going back a long time just to kind of see how it holds up. And this trend applies to stocks, gold, etc. on those same years. stocks, gold, etc. on those same years. So 2014, 2018, and 2022. And obviously
history and be like, oh, you know, how did it react cuz, you know, it didn't exist back then. But I can look at stocks. I can look at gold, etc. and see if it still plays out over time. And what I found is if you go back further
in time, it's about 50/50. So about half the time you do see kind of this pattern half the time you don't. Basically meaning like historically, it's actually not a very strong pattern. It's not like this has been happening all the time.
the time is because often it gets offset by things. There are things that happen. be maybe bigger tax refund seasons. It could be a range of different reasons that will offset this same kind of
effect making it basically noise in the longer term scale of things. Basically saying that yes, this pattern has played out in 2014, 2018, and 2022. But that doesn't necessarily mean it'll play out in 2026 or 2030 or 2034, etc. And
supportive evidence that points to this year being different than say 2022 or 2018. You can see in this post, Felix, one of the hosts of Forward Guidance, says, "The most stimulative portions of the big beautiful bill are about to hit
adding some juice to consumer spending over the next few months. Meaning, not only do we have much bigger tax refunds this year. So, that that means more juice than we had in 2018 and 2022 coming into the market this year. But,
portions of the big beautiful bill about to hit also over the next couple months, which will as well be adding more liquidity etc. to the market. But, what does all this actually mean for how price plays out in March through April?
Are Are we still going to see it rise up and then topple? You know, how is that answer that question, I want to take a look at something else, which is the ISM Purchasing Managers Index. Last month, we finally broke above the 50 mark. I
reading this wrong. They were reading it as like charting like, you know, if this goes up, then Bitcoin's price is going to go up. That's not actually how it works. The way that it works is if this All this is is a survey of
manufacturers, and it doesn't really matter unless it's behind it is real economic activity that the economy heating up. You know, you're getting froth in the economy where people are feeling wealthy. That's when they move
out on the risk curve. And so, all you're looking for here is a sustained upward movement. You want to see this continue higher and higher and higher. likely we're heading into economic expansion territory, which is extremely
this month, a lot of people were predicting that it was going to blow, They were going to see the ISM go to 56 or 55 or or something crazy. But, what actually ended up happening was the ISM came in slightly lower than it did last
152.6. This month, it was 152.4. Not a major difference. Not huge in terms of Not higher, but also still well
above the 50 mark, which shows that there is somewhat of a trend here, which scheme of things, I actually think this month's reading doesn't really matter. month's reading matters is because what we really want to see is a trend higher.
This month is positive and it does show us that this is more than just a fluke, you know, move above the 50 mark and that there's something real behind this. economic expansion territory and we still have a long ways to go until we
like, you know, rapidly accelerate Bitcoin's price or anything like that. I just expect this to be an early warning sign that hey, it does kind of look like we might be heading for something like this which typically does line up with
an insane crypto bull market, but it's it's still a little bit too soon to what should we expect between now and April? My personal take is what we should see going into about early April is strength in Bitcoin's price. This
should line up exactly as you did see in 2014, 2018, and 2022, but with more fundamentally, the numbers show we're going to get more juice this time around. Now, that is kind of offset by the extreme fear that we've just had in
the market. The market has been breaking records for for like the highest fear you know, the lowest fear and greed in in history. And so um maybe that kind of tempers and offsets it. But from a pure number standpoint, we should have more
juice to more strength going into March. And so that that could translate into higher prices uh than people expect. You know, maybe we go into the maybe the 77, 79 or something like that. Maybe even higher. I I don't know. That could
translate into a little bit longer of uh kind of how it plays out. So maybe it kind of bleeds into a little bit early April. That could translate into a little bit more of a neutral um TGA rebuild process at the end of this. When
government's bank account, maybe that's a little bit offset by by the strength we show here. I don't know 100%, but I can say that the market has been playing into the fear and the fear has been really heightened over the last few
months. And so it seems most likely that we kind of have like a muted attempt up 70s or something like that before we do see some sort of replacement in April. Now what the bears are saying is they're saying hey this
replacement in April it's going to send us down to the 50s somewhere you know 55 saying. What I actually think is more likely to happen is maybe we trace up to 75 or whatever and then we go and we come back down and we retest this bottom
area around 62 you know maybe all the way down it to 60 somewhere around this bottom we come back we retest that before we then climb back higher into before we then climb back higher into let's say late April May etc as as pals
little bit more bullish heading into the end of the year stimulative parts from the big beautiful bill etc really start to permeate in the market. So higher in the short term likely a retrace back down to the bottom
going to head down to this 50 mark and the reason I don't agree is is what happened over this weekend. You had thin illiquid markets you had a huge negative illiquid markets you had a huge negative catalyst and even with all of that you
were not able to break price down back below the low which I think is extremely telling. Why didn't price break down below the low? We have this extreme fear that was like the the cream of the crop in in terms of fears like I feel like
World War 3 can't really get any worse can't really get any worse than that one. And even with all that Bitcoin held this support area that that's like a that's a really really strong signal to the market. So my question is if people
aren't willing to sell here based on that what would cause them to sell you know going into April May that rate cuts and you have all these other positive catalysts going to the end of
the year. We talked about the ESLR that goes into effect April 1st it's not slow catalyst that builds you know into the end of the year and and past that. real people that hold Bitcoin, that hold crypto, they chose not to sell under
this extreme situation. So, what is it that's going to cause them to sell in the future? And And that's you could have a huge black swan crisis. had some huge financial crisis or something like that, I'm sure that could
break through 60. So, there I'm sure there are things out there. I'm not saying that there isn't. I'm just saying like your casual, you know, bad news is your casual trend of like we're going to go higher and then this, you know, all
government's bank accounts going to send us below 50k or below 60k, uh down to 50k, doesn't seem very realistic given how well we held up here. Okay, I that just for fun, I've been working on this blended forecast basically set off
policy. Okay, so like things like the SLR and a lot of these other policies coming into effect, how do those typically translate into price and the price of Bitcoin at? And to come up with this prediction, I poured my
omni-cycle framework and a lot of macro data, a lot of policy data into Grok heavy. Basically asking it not to just like willy-nilly come up with a look at the way these policies would play out and the speed at which these
going to impact liquidity and how that typically translates into Bitcoin's price. And I actually did this quite a few times over. So, it wasn't just in, multiple chats. Some of them I I went really, really bearish uh trying to
strongest bear thesis. Another one was just like my framework, my omni-cycle, Others were a mix and I took all of them and I had them spit out predictions for the price of Bitcoin by quarter. So, Q1,
Q2, Q3, Q4, all the way between now and 2030. And the reason I use Grok, I pay for GBD Pro, I pay pay for Gemini Deepmind, I have Claude Max, I I pay for them all, okay? Uh but I used Grok because not only has it proven that it's
like really good at investing. Versus the the of the models, like it beats the benchmarks across the board. Uh but also, it's shown that it's actually see this post from X freeze where it says Grok predict the future accurately
on February 28th, the exact date uh Grok predicted Israel and US struck Iran. to predict, Grok analyzed geopolitical signals, talked outcomes and real-time data to pinpoint the day. Grok knows what the world thinks. And if you take
trading, being good at predicting things, uh and and having a lot of really good real-time information, I took all those things together and had it put out this these predictions across these various chats. And then I took all
those predictions and I blended them all together. So, I said, "Hey, let's take get like one finalized prediction." And I did a prediction last video where I Bitcoin without any like context or whatever. And it gave some wildly
bullish predictions, okay? Uh This one's a lot more informed and it's a lot less trying to get an AI to just make a wild prediction and a lot more based on, you know, the second-order effects of how these policies play out. And you can see
right here, it predicts Q1 2026 Bitcoin should average be around 72,000. It predicts Q2 2026 Bitcoin's average should be around 95,000. And this is from ESLR relief in April, uh bank lending boot, which is bank lending
boost, clarity act progress sustained, financial consumer impulse, liquidity overdrive, and first risk-on recovery leg. Q3 2026 expects 122K Bitcoin price. And this says this is from midterm positioning, stablecoin momentum, China
impulse, equal weight broadening participation accelerates. Q4 2026 it predicts a a new all-time high, 144,000. And this is because of post-midterm liquidity push, TGA drawdown. Okay, so we expect with the tax refunds uh TGA
That's a lot of liquidity to drawdown. So, what from time to time what you'll see is the the TGA gets drawn down TGA rebuilds is cuz they spend it all. They they draw it all the way down. And
that's liquidity getting uh pushed into the economy. And so they'll have like a trillion dollars of liquidity that is is sitting there able to get pushed into the economy. Um and then full fiscal dominance in effect. And then Q1 2027 it
says 139,000. So it actually sees it going lower before it starts heading going lower before it starts heading higher again all the way into 2028 where Grok actually predicts the cycle peak to be Q3 2028, which is weird, which is a a
ones of this actually predicted the cycle peak. Uh one of the ones that got blended into this one uh predicted cycle peak Q1 2029. Uh and so blended all together it actually ends up in Q3 2028 a cycle peak of $276,000.
Uh that's where it sees maximum froth. Uh election plus policy plus AI tailwinds converge here and this is what sent it higher. And then from there it actually sees it going lower to 142 to 28, 191, 193, 196, and kind of bouncing
around there and then going back into the 200s into 2030 and 2031. Obviously prediction. Don't give it too much weight. This is just something I did for fun. I do stuff like this all the time. And it's just
see kind of where it thinks things will go. And um as I pointed out, I did an OC post on with my original one of it of these which actually had the peak at Q uh 1 2029. And what I pointed out there was just how different this prediction
if you look at this prediction, it doesn't line up with what people that doesn't line up with what the bulls uh who don't follow the four-year cycle what anyone believes. This is just a weird It's like a freak prediction,
okay? Grok's over here kind of just doing its own thing uh with a pretty wild prediction. And that's kind of where policy expectations kind of center where policy expectations kind of center it, which is Q3 2028, 276,000. That's
the cycle peak. So, take it or leave it. And if you're or you want to see every time I buy and sell various tokens, as well as different weekly video market updates, uh currently the Obsidian Council is
up for the wait list in the description of this video. As always, none of this telling you to do anything with your money. I'm obviously not your financial own research. If this video is helpful, make sure to hit that like button. And
button and the little bell next to it to be notified each time I release new video. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you next week.